News 8/28/20

Top News

Amazon introduces Halo, a health and wellness wearable, app, and membership program.

Cerner simultaneously announced that it has integrated its systems with Halo, which will allow consumers to share their connected health values with their care team. Sharp HealthCare is the first to implement Halo in a healthcare setting.

The screen-free Amazon Halo measures body composition from selfies, activity duration and intensity, sleep quality and quantity, and mood as evidenced by voice tone. It will also offer health improvement ideas, such as specific exercises.

The device is swim-proof and will run seven days on a 90-minute charge if its tones are disabled.

Scientists will be interested to study the types of sensors that Amazon is using and to learn if Amazon will publish results from their use.

Amazon Halo is available via an early access program for $65 and a $4 per month subscription after the first six months. The regular price will be $100.

Reader Comments

From Down Underwear: “Re: HIMSS. Good thing they didn’t go ahead with HIMSS20.” Researchers say the 175-attendee conference of drug company Biogen at Boston Marriott Long Wharf in February has led to at least 20,000 COVID-19 cases, based on tracking the virus’s genetic makeup over four Boston-area counties. HIMSS20 would have involved 50,000 attendees from all over the world, many of them working in patient care, so that would have been a disaster. Unrestricted travel as we have in the US makes it hard to contain and track the virus, as public health agencies are discovering in wondering how many of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the recent Sturgis Motorcycle Rally brought coronavirus home with them.

From Hermit: “Re: Allscripts. Layoffs continue, with almost all of the Paragon development and product management team gone as jobs continue to move to India.” Unverified.

From GrBuckeye: “Re: Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. Outsourcing its revenue cycle operations to Ensemble Health Partners as of 11/1. Only patient-facing employees, such as in patient access and registration, will remain VCUHS employees, while the other 300 to 600 will become Ensemble employees. I assume that a press release will come out soon with more details.” Unverified.

Webinars

September 3 (Thursday) 2 ET. “How Does A Global Pandemic Reshape Health IT? A Panel Discussion.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Rob Wallace, chief product officer, IMO; Andrew S. Kanter, MD, MPH, chief medical officer, IMO; Lori Kevin, VP of enterprise IT and security, IMO; Sahas Subramanian, MCA, enterprise architect, IMO. As COVID-19 continues to spread, regulation changes, code system updates, and an increased reliance on technology are making it hard to stay on top of the many ways the pandemic is altering health IT. What’s more, we’re confronting challenges that rely heavily on technological solutions – like accurate reporting tools or telehealth adaptations – and we need those solutions now. The panel of subject matter experts across the enterprise will share insights on how the global pandemic is reshaping the health IT world.

September 17 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2021 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.“ Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, VP of global clinical services, IMO; Theresa Rihanek, MHA, RHIA, mapping manager, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, clinical terminologist, IMO. IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the 2020 ICD-10-CM code set that will be critical in coding accurately for proper reimbursement.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

SeamlessMD raises $3 million in a Series A funding round. The Toronto-based company’s app helps patients before, during, and after hospital stays. The company plans to expand its use of machine learning and expand into home and oncology care.

Research and advisory nonprofit Altarum sells its Prometheus Analytics software to Change Healthcare.

Employer-focused, prescription-savings startup Prescryptive Health raises $26 million in a Series A funding round. Co-founders Chris Blackley and Kevin Young started the company in 2017 after long stints at Microsoft.

Sales

• Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Health selects Proficient Health’s PH Connect referral and health data exchange software.
• Wellstar Health System (GA) will implement telestroke and teleneurology technology from VeeMed at nine of its hospitals.
• The Missouri Hospital Association’s Hospital Industry Data Institute will upgrade its statewide care coordination platform with predictive alerts and analytics from Collective Medical.

People

Sean Slovenski, former head of Walmart Health, joins diagnostic testing company BioIQ as CEO.

Best Buy names former IBM Watson Health executive Deborah DiSanzo (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) as president of Best Buy Health.

Ambulatory surgery network operator ValueHealth hires John Gresham (Cerner) as COO.

Announcements and Implementations

Carrus Health (TX) implements Medhost’s Enterprise EHR and RCM software at its new Behavioral Hospital.

Nova Southeastern University (FL) goes live on InteliChart’s Healthy Outcomes patient engagement software across its 20 multi-specialty health centers.

CentraState Medical Center (NJ) implements tele-ICU services from Advanced ICU Care.

The University of Kansas Health System goes live on Epic at its locations in Great Bend.

COVID-19

The FDA issues Emergency Use Authorization for Abbott’s rapid test for COVID-19. The company will sell the credit card-sized test, which provides results in 15 minutes using technology much like a pregnancy test, for $5. The test uses a nasal swab and must be administered by a healthcare professional who is operating under a CLIA certificate. Abbott has developed a companion app called Navica, which will display a boarding pass-style, time-limited QR code that employers, schools, and group activity organizers can scan to limit entry to those who have tested negative. Abbott anticipates manufacturing 5 million tests a month starting in October, although the White House is rumored to have brokered a deal to buy 150 million of the tests for $750 million that the federal government will distribute to high-risk schools and nursing homes, which may exhaust the supply for many months.

CMS issues emergency regulations that include requiring hospitals to report COVID-19 patient and testing data daily to HHS or face possible termination of Medicare and Medicaid payments. In addition, nursing homes will be required to test staff and offer testing to residents.

Sources say that HHS and the White House pressured CDC to quietly issue new guidance this week for people who have been exposed to COVID-19 but who are not experiencing systems. CDC now says that those people should not seek COVID-19 testing. Experts are expressing public concern that the goal should be testing more people without symptoms instead of fewer, symptom-free people can be prolific spreaders, more widespread testing is important and especially so as students return to campus, and CDC is again changing its position under apparent White House pressure. CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, responding to criticism, has since walked back the recommendation to say that testing “may be considered” for all close contacts of people who are known or suspected to be infected. However, the changed guidance remains on CDC’s website without such clarification.

The New York Times notes that since the White House no longer allows Anthony Fauci, MD to participate in high-profile interviews and the Sunday news programs, he is instead appearing on celebrity podcasts, academic webinars, and Instagram feeds where such approval is not required. Big-audience reporters are bypassing their lack of access by listening to his niche appearances and reporting his newsworthy comments. He is scheduled to offer a session at AMIA’s virtual symposium in November.

Other

A scenario-based survey of 523 graduating college students finds that nearly half would violate HIPAA for between $1,000 and $10 million. Between 65% and 78% of respondents would illegally share the medical records of a politician or reality show celebrity with media outlets to pay for a friend’s medical expenses.

Non-profit technology access service Human-I-T provides 30 tablets to allow COVID-19 patients of Olive View – UCLA Medical Center who can’t have visitors to connect virtually with their loved ones.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthwise employees and their families volunteer in the Boise, Idaho area by sewing and donating masks, and packing lunches.
• Goliath Technologies partners with Automai for app-performance monitoring.
• Intelligent Medical Objects publishes a new white paper, “The 21^st Century Cures Act in the age of COVID-19.”
• Kyruus Chief Customer Officer will co-present with Jefferson Health SVP Lisa Griffin during the virtual Greystone.Net Contact Experience Conference August 28.
• MDLive CEO and Chairman Charles Jones joins CNBC to discuss telemedicine amid the pandemic and the company’s plans to go public next year.
• 3M Health Information Systems makes its MModal virtual assistant technology compatible with the Hey Epic! Voice Assistant in Epic Hyperspace.
• Spok earns SOC 2 Type II compliance for Spok Go solutions, paging solutions.
• Cedar will integrate Waystar’s pricing estimates, payment options, and eligibility verification capabilities into its patient engagement software.
• Hayes adds revenue optimization insights to its MDaudit Enterprise revenue integrity software.
• SailPoint updates its Predictive Identity software to include integrations with Epic and Microsoft Teams.

Blog Posts

• Advancing telehealth with Amwell (Google Cloud)
• Analytics in the New Normal: The FDA and the Power of Real-Time Data, Collaboration, and Improved Interoperability in the COVID Fight (Health Catalyst)
• HDMLive Presents: The 5 B’s of interviewing (Health Data Movers)
• Lessons Learned While Implementing a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) (Impact Advisors)
• How To Overcome Common Community Connect Hurdles (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Tracking Health Checks with Infor Workforce Management (Infor)
• How little things can make a big difference (Nordic)
• Risk Only Goes So Far: We need a new health outcomes equation (Jvion)
• Healthcare Affordability is More Than a Problem. It’s a Crisis (Loyale Healthcare)
• Plan Now for New Electronic ADT Notification Requirements (Healthcare Triangle)
• Investing In Partnerships Pays Dividends (PMD)
• A Guide to Patient Retention for Physical Therapists (MWTherapy)
• EHR Shortcomings Hinder Patient Matching and Contact Tracing Efforts for COVID-19 (NextGate)

Contacts

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