Weekender 8/20/21

Weekly News Recap

• Cerner announces that Google Health VP David Feinberg, MD, MBA will be its next president and CEO.
• Verily announces that it will acquire SignalPath.
• CDC announces creation of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
• Inovalon announces that it will be taken private by an equity group at a valuation of $7.3 billion.
• Commure acquires PatientKeeper.
• QGenda acquires CredentialGenie.
• Unite Us acquires Carrot Health.
• Streamline Health Solutions acquires Avelead.
• A report says a health system shut down a diabetes management app in which it had invested $12 million because its success would have threatened the hospital’s fee-for-service revenue.
• Optum offers virtual care and prescriptions direct to consumers, offerings that will compete with investor-funded storefronts like Ro and Hims.
• Labcorp acquires Ovia Health.
• CMS announces that hospitals will be required to self-attest their compliance with the SAFER Guides for EHR safety starting next year.

Best Reader Comments

As a customer of Cerner, this appointment [of David Feinberg as president and CEO] is massively disappointing. (Justa CIO)

As for Feinberg, he made this move for the compensation. Shafer was at Cerner for a little under three years and made more than $30M in total compensation. He got the company right-sized for the financial folks. Feinberg is 59 and this is his chance to create dynastic wealth for his family. I’d bet his compensation will be even more lucrative than Shafer’s because Cerner will be sold during Feinberg’s tenure which should drive the stock option he gets higher as well as the executive parachute he’ll get as a part of any M&A. Work 3-5 years and bank $30-$50M. (Lazlo Hollyfeld)

Today Google Health head left and Apple scaled back its app. A few months back Amazon’s joint venture imploded. The only reason we are discussing such failures is because certain reporters hype tech’s every step in healthcare. (Chinmay A. Singh)

I think Feinberg has decided that getting anything done at Google is impossible and that if he gets out now he can combine the Geisinger & Google pixie dust / reality distortion field, and parlay that into a public company CEO job. Who knows, Cerner may hit an upswing, and if not, I don’t think anyone is expecting too much. (Matthew Holt)

A bit strange that Kareo sold its managed billing service a year ago and now acquired a startup that promises to … manage its customers’ billing? (IANAL)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

Readers funded the Donors Choose teacher grant request of Ms. S in Texas, who asked for math materials for her bilingual pre-K classroom. She reported in December, “Our class is made up of in-person as well as remote learners, but we have gone through one class quarantine and three full class remote learning weeks. Every single time we are learning from home, all our students have been able to use their materials for counting, making sets, creating patterns, and sorting colors and sizes. Thank you for making sure every student in my class has access to hands on materials.”

A Chicago pharmacist who worked for a COVID-19 vaccine distributor is arrested for selling 125 authentic CDC vaccination cards for $10 each on EBay. He has been charged with 12 counts of theft of government property and faces 10 years in prison for each count.

Sandro Platzgummer, a 24-year-old student of a medical school in Austria who never played college football and is trying to earn a running back spot with the New York Giants, breaks out an explosive 48-yard run from his own one-yard line against the Jets.

An obese patient who has been hospitalized at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital (NH) since May hopes to lose enough weight to be discharged in September. The hospital is suing to try to get him to free up his bed, where he was admitted despite needing no acute care because EMS wouldn’t allow him to try to get back to his second-floor apartment and he refuses to live elsewhere. He wants to stay until he loses enough weight to undergo bariatric surgery. Jack Bocchino hasn’t walked for four years and still weighs 450 pounds after losing 114 pounds. He will not accept the hospital’s offer to find him a first-floor apartment or one with an elevator.

Texas bans in-state nurses and travel nurses who were recently assigned to a state hospital from taking in-state jobs with federally funded COVID-19 disaster management programs. Texas is hoping to fill 6,500 positions with out-of-state or retired in-state nurses. In a related item, Arizona reports nursing shortages as in-state nurses take travel jobs paying four times their hospital salary plus housing and food.

A 37-year-old Boston NICU nurse leaves her job at a hospital that ordered her to stop posting racy photos on pay sites such as OnlyFans. Her co-workers bought a subscription, then sent screenshots to her boss, who demanded that she close her online accounts. She says she doesn’t need nurse money anyway since she’s making $200,000 per month from OnlyFans. She’s also a Navy veteran, gets help with her online work from her husband, and has the support of their children, aged 12, 17, and 18.

This press person’s email subject misspelling at least got my attention.

TikTok videos of a former New Jersey gang member turned hospital phlebotomist singing for ICU patients go viral. Enrique Rodriguez started in housekeeping at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in 2012 and taught himself to play guitar and piano by practicing with patients. 

In Case You Missed It

• News 8/20/21
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 8/19/21
• News 8/18/21
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 8/16/21
• Readers Write: When Hospitals Leave Patients in the Wild West, They Turn to Dr. Google
• Readers Write: Creating Resiliency Among the Newest Generation of Clinicians
• Readers Write: Why Healthcare Organizations Can’t Afford A Data Breach Caused by Human Error
• Monday Morning Update 8/16/21

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