News 6/28/19

Top News

Shares of Change Healthcare began trading on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday under the symbol CHNG. President and CEO Neil de Crescenzo rang the market’s closing bell.

CHNG shares opened at $13 versus the company’s target price of $16-19, but rose to $15 at the market’s close.

Majority owner McKesson congratulated the company in announcement that also included its intention to “exit its investment in Change Healthcare in a tax-efficient manner.”

Reader Comments

From Curious CIO: “Re: gag clauses. I just finished Eric Topol’s book ‘Deep Medicine’ and was struck by his claim that Epic’s contracts prohibit doctors or health systems from criticizing the company. I looked for that clause when we implemented Epic and other systems and found no hint of it in the contract. They are tight with publishing screen shots, but that’s IP protection.” I’ve read a lot of contracts without seeing any that specifically prohibit discussing the vendor’s product or related safety concerns. I’ve asked readers to send me examples and none have. Some contracts may include “non-disparagement” language, but that is likely not enforceable as long as the comments are truthful. My take is that health systems tell their people that their contract contains gag clauses when it really doesn’t, just to keep their vendor relationship harmonious when a discouraging word is about to be heard (I’ve never been muzzled by a vendor, but I have by a health system suit who just didn’t want to deal with any repercussions of telling the truth). I’ll ask again — if you have a contract that contains a gag clause, send it to me anonymously.

From Nailed Acrylically: “Re: NextGen Healthcare. The company is rumored to have cut 17% of the R&D work force in preparing to move those jobs to India as suggested in the quarterly earnings call.” Unverified. President and CEO Rusty Frantz said in the May 29 earnings call that “increased investment in our Bangalore development center will provide the best leverage … not engineered for R&D cost savings, but rather to increase our yield per investment dollar by adding significantly more of the right skill sets.” NXGN shares have dropped 3% in the past year vs. the Nasdaq’s 7% gain.

Webinars

July 18 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Healthcare’s Digital Front Door: Modernizing Medicine’s Mobile-First Strategies That Are Winning Patient Engagement.” Sponsor: Relatient. Presenters: Michele Perry, CEO, Relatient; Michael Rivers, MD, director of EMA Ophthalmology, Modernizing Medicine. Providers are understandably focused on how to make the most of the 5-8 minutes they have on average with a patient during an exam, but what happens between appointments also plays a significant role in the overall health of patients. Modernizing Medicine is driving high patient engagement with best practice, mobile-first strategies. This webinar will describe patient engagement and the challenges in delivering it, how consumerism is changing healthcare, and how to get started and navigate the patient engagement marketplace.

July 25 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Meeting patient needs across the continuum of care.” Sponsor: Philips Population Health Management. Presenters: Cindy Gaines, chief nursing officer, Philips Population Health Management; Cynthia Burghard, research director of value-based healthcare IT transformation strategies, IDC. Traditional care management approaches are not sufficient to deliver value-based healthcare. Supplementing EHRs with advanced PHM technology and a scalable care management approach gives health systems proactive and longitudinal insights that optimize scarce resources in meeting the needs of multiple types of patients. This webinar will address the key characteristics of a digital platform for value-based care management, cover the planning and deployment of a scalable care management strategy, and review patient experience scenarios for CHF and diabetes.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Integration technology vendor Sansoro Health and healthcare cloud and integration vendor Datica will merge under the Datica name, combining their operations at Sansoro’s Minneapolis headquarters. Sansoro co-founder and president Jeremy Pierotti will become president, while Datica co-founder and CEO Travis Good, MD will become CTO of the newly combined organization. Both have roots in Madison, WI, where Datica was formerly headquartered.

Providence St. Joseph Health acquires Epic consulting firm Bluetree Network. The seven-state health system also owns Meditech consulting firm Engage.

Apple announces that Chief Design Officer Sir Jony Ive will leave the company to form his own design firm, with Apple as one of his clients.

Sales

• Georgia Hospital Health Services chooses Audacious Inquiry to power its GA Notify clinician alerts when patients are admitted or seen in the ED.
• The Nebraska Hospital Association’s NHA Services subsidiary will use PatientPing’s real-time care alert software to help its providers monitor patients diagnosed with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae infections.
• The Kentucky Hospital Association uses a $250,000 grant from the Anthem Foundation to equip the emergency departments of member hospitals with Collective Medical’s real-time event notification and care collaboration software.

People

New York’s Healthix HIE promotes Todd Rogow to president and CEO.

PerfectServe subsidiary Lightning Bolt Solutions names Mary Piepenbrink, RN (Pieces Technologies) as VP of sales.

Experity, newly formed by the merger of DocuTap and Practice Velocity, names Steve Riehs as president and COO; Rick Cochran as CTO; Jennifer Wood as chief people officer; and Adam Steinberg as EVP of client experience.

Announcements and Implementations

Livongo integrates its mobile disease management app with smartwatches to offer real-time alerts and healthy behaviors prompts.

Apple will sell the IOS-integrated One Drop glucometer, which it has offered only online, in its physical stores. The monthly cost of the device, enough test strips and lancets for three tests per day, and help from a Certified Diabetes Coach is $49. Jeff Dachis founded the company in 2015 after starting several marketing companies.

Hyland Healthcare announces GA of ImageNext vendor-neutral imaging workflow optimization software.

Lehigh Valley Health Network (PA) implements FDB’s Targeted Medication Warnings for high-risk clinical scenarios including hyperkalemia, QT prolongation, opioid use, and pharmacogenomics.

Reliance EHealth Collaborative, an HIE serving providers in the Pacific Northwest, goes live on Virtual Health Record technology from Imat Solutions.

Government and Politics

In Health Affairs, Dell Medical School professor and former national coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD and Center for Digital Health Information Director of Policy Mark Savage outline four use cases for determining how much progress has been made five years into the federal government’s 10-year plan for interoperability, which calls for a nationwide learning health system by 2024:

• Consumer and patient access to electronic health information. Standardized APIs should be implemented before the proposed January 2020 deadline.
• Shared care planning and coordination. Simply collecting comments on the maturity of standards undermines the sense of urgency needed to ensure longitudinal care plans are available and active by 2024.
• Person-generated health data. ONC needs to specify that new APIs offer both read and write access to ensure roadmap milestones are met. DeSalvo and Page also recommend that ONC prohibit API developers from charging patients read and write access fees and require them to conduct real-world testing.
• Social and environmental determinants of health. ONC should move forward now with incorporating SDOH as new elements in the US Core Data for Interoperability.

Privacy and Security

A former patient at University of Chicago Medical Center files a class-action lawsuit against the medical center and Google, alleging that the organizations violated HIPAA when they did not properly de-identify PHI that was used in a joint research project. UCMC began providing patient health data to Google in 2017 as part of a machine learning research project that involved several other health systems. The lawsuit claims the data was de-identified, but a timestamp was left on each file, allowing Google the ability to re-identify patients.

A small Spok survey of CHIME members finds that data breaches are the top concern when contemplating SaaS deployments, followed by compliance / data migration and internal attacks / user errors.

Other

Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia develop an algorithm that can match pediatric oncology patients with clinical trials.

ProPublica dives into the collections practices of non-profit hospitals such as Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis, TN. The hospital, which has its own collections agency, has filed more than 8,300 lawsuits for unpaid medical bills over the last five years, even targeting its own employees. The lawsuit often involve low-income patients without insurance, after which their wages are often garnished. High hospital interest rates have left many patients with bills that have doubled since services were rendered.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the 2019 CASCA Rocky Mountain ASC Conference & Trade Show June 27-28 in Denver.
• EPSi partners with HFMA on an ongoing research and content series focused on analytics to help healthcare finance leaders guide their organizations in executing value-enhancing strategies.
• Greenway Health will exhibit at the New York MGMA 2019 Medical Practice Leaders Conference June 27-28 in Verona.
• HealthCrowd will exhibit at the ACAP CEO Summit June 28 in Washington, DC.
• BostInno profiles Ivenix and its smart infusion system.
• Life Image integrates NextGate’s Enterprise Master Patient Index with its Interoperability Suite.
• Recondo Technology issues a statement on the Trump Administration’s Executive Order to promote healthcare price transparency.
• OptimizeRx will join the Russell Microcap and 3000 Indexes on July 1.
• DrFirst promotes Catherine Armstrong to senior director of marketing operations.
• Dale Nellis joins Hayes Management as VP of business development.

Blog Posts

• A little extra help during pregnancy for moms-to-be (EClinicalWorks)
• Case Management in the ED: Why It’s More Important Than Ever (Ensocare)
• 5 can’t-miss moments at Nordic’s annual Open House (Nordic)
• How to improve revenue cycle in healthcare (Greenway Health)
• ERP Shared Services Success Factors – Part 2 (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• The Critical Importance of Engaging the Right Resources for EHR Implementation (The HCI Group)
• Overcoming remote image reading challenges (Hyland)
• Anthem Enhances Health Access and Behavioral Health Management (Imat Solutions)
• A Skeptic’s Perspective on Data and Analytics in Digital Transformation (Information Builders)
• 5 Reasons to Attend ATLAS 2019! (Kyruus)
• Takeaways from the 2019 MEDITECH Nurse Forum (Meditech)
• How Healthcare Deploys Software as a Service (SaaS) (Spok)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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