Weekender 2/5/21

Weekly News Recap

• Netsmart acquires GPM.
• Nordic acquires Bails & Associates.
• HIMSS confirms that HIMSS21 remains on track pending further COVID-19 developments, but with a virtual component added.
• Zyter acquires Casenet.
• KLAS announces Best in KLAS winners.
• Sharecare acquires Doc.ai.

Best Reader Comments

A “dead” language (a proprietary one at that!) put food on my table and a roof over my head for 31 years until I was laid off in 2014. Alhough that effectively ended my coding career, I was able to apply all of the software life cycle best practices to become a Product Analyst in which I design the look, feel, and flow, and have a team of ‘modern’ developers do the magic. (Marshall)

I couldn’t agree more with Dr.Van Vert, but as a patient, I often feel woefully ill equipped to create an informed advance care plan. Besides revive or DNR, yes or no to breathing machine / feeding tube? There may be other decisions to be made, such as pacemaker, surgery, antibiotics for repeated UTI. What about relatives who disagree and fight my wishes? What about if my AD is not avail at time of crisis? IMHO, there is still much work to be done to educate patients and family members so that the conversations, once normalized, can be meaningful. (Kathy Kastner)

Ultimately though, this cannot simply be about end-of-life. You need to open the doors to patient priorities and issues throughout the entire healthcare system. We’ve got one big initiative called person-centered care. When you ask the patient upfront what they expect from the care episode, this sends that message. (Brian Too)

So, if I get this right, you were shown an internal error message as an end user (patient). One that should have gone to the user who selected the document in the first place or someone who could actually do something about the error. To say this is a poor user experience is putting it mildly. (AnInteropGuy)

I work for a CRM vendor and so I have that lens on as I read your story. What I see is that the actual test went just fine, it was your entire experience around the clinical event that caused you frustration. Imagine if through a series of coordinated text, emails, calls, chats you were guided exactly where to go, and were given the results in the appropriate context? Yes, there were some physical plant issues (CRM can’t help with dust bunnies), but aside from that, it was all communication. As one health system leader said recently, “the contact center is the new waiting room,” If your health system had a Digital Front Door, you would have had a better experience. (Brendan Ward)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

Readers funded the Donors Choose teacher grant request of Ms. T from Texas, who asked for a ring light so her students can see her better while she is teaching virtually from home. She reports, “My wonderful students and I would like to thank you for your generous contribution. Teaching virtually has been a great challenge. With the light ring, my students have been able to see me much better on camera.I really, truly appreciate everything that you have done for us.”

A science futurist website questions whether the DNA information of 18 million people that is stored by Ancestry.com is safe in the hands of its private equity owner, Blackstone, which has pledged to find new ways to “package and sell data” as a revenue stream. A finance professor says, “[Blackstone] owns healthcare companies. They own insurance companies. They own retail companies. So they can identify spending behavior, health care expenses, actual health outcomes for individuals.” The article also questions how genetic information will be protected when 23andMe goes public via a SPAC that is owned by Virgin’s Richard Branson.

In the UK, a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist is banned from hospitals – except for emergencies and scheduled appointments – after filming empty hospital hallways to prove that the British government is lying about the pandemic.

A man who made money on last week’s wild ride of GameStop stock spends his profits on gifts for patients at Children’s Hospital of Richmond, where his son receives treatment for neurofibromatosis. John Theobald explains, “If a kid that’s stuck at the Children’s Hospital wants unicorn curtains, I’m going to get them unicorn curtains, as opposed to a slush fund.” Another investor, a 20-year-old student who made $30,000 in profit, donated Nintendo Switch games and consoles to his local children’s hospital.

Mother Jones finds that online nurse groups, including that of the ANA, are filled with COVID-19 vaccine disinformation. Nurses who post that they have been vaccinated are being attacked, threatened, and accused of harming their unborn children. 

A 10-year-old boy and his mom’s friend head out after Monday’s snowstorm to clear the snow off cars of employees at Westerly Hospital (RI) so they could get home to their families faster.

In Canada, International Space Station astronaut and primary care physician David Saint-Jacques, PhD, MD returns to the medical front lines to work on the COVID-positive unit of McGill University Health Centre, where he completed his residency. He says, “In the space between the people who have no symptoms and the people who die from them, there are people who will get through it, but who get very sick, who really go through hell, on oxygen, pumped full of drugs, in the hospital, with an impact on their families. Now is not the time to let our guard down, even though we’ve all had enough.”

In Case You Missed It

• News 2/5/21
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/4/21
• Readers Write: We Need a More Patient-Centric Approach to End-of-Life Decision-Making
• HIStalk Interviews Scott Finfer, CEO, Emerge
• News 2/3/21
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 2/1/21
• Monday Morning Update 2/1/21
• Katie the Intern 1/29/21

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