News 9/1/21

Top News

Sources report for the second time in as many months that Baxter will acquire medical equipment company Hillrom for nearly $10 billion. Last month’s initial offer put Hillrom shares at $144 apiece, while this more recent bid inches closer to $150. The deal may be announced before the holiday weekend.

Hillrom has in the last several years ventured beyond its hospital bed roots into health IT, acquiring cardiac monitoring company Bardy Diagnostics for $375 million, patient monitoring vendor EarlySense for $30 million, and clinical communications vendor Voalte for $180 million.

I interviewed Hillrom SVP Mary Kay Ladone, a nearly 30-year Baxter veteran, in March.

Webinars

September 16 (Thursday) 1 ET. “Patient Acquisition and Retention: The Future of Omnichannel Virtual Assistants.” Sponsor: Orbita. Presenters: Harris Hunt, SVP growth product, Cancer Treatment Centers of America; Patty Riskind, MBA, CEO, Orbita; Nathan Treloar, MSc, co-founder and COO, Orbita. Consumers want the same digital healthcare experience from healthcare that they get in online shopping, banking, and booking reservations, and the pandemic has ramped up the patient and provider need for frictionless access to healthcare resources and services. Health systems can improve patient acquisition and retention with the help of omnichannel virtual assistants that engage and delight. Discover how to open and enhance healthcare’s digital front door to offer care that goes beyond expectations.

September 16 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2022 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, VP 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 discuss the coding changes in the yearly update to allow your organization to prepare for a smooth transition and avoid negative impacts to the bottom line. The presenters will review new, revised, and deleted codes; highlight revisions to ICD-10-CM index and tabular; discuss changes within Official Coding Guidelines, and review modifier changes.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Tele-genetics testing and counseling company Genome Medical raises $60 million and acquires GeneMatters, which offers genetic counseling via video visit, as well as care delivery and patient engagement software.

Summit Healthcare reports that revenue and sales have exceeded expectations for the first half of the year, with 18 health systems recently signing on for the company’s data integration and exchange, automation, and business continuity services.

The tit for tat between NextGen Healthcare’s board members continues, with the company publishing an email from the chair of its nominating committee to board member Lance Rosenzweig to further demonstrate that Rosenzweig and company founder and board member Sheldon “Shelly” Razin are in fact trying to obstruct board operations.

DirectTrust acquires the assets of Safe Identity, an industry consortium and certification body for digital healthcare credentials.

Ellipsis Health raises $26 million in a Series A funding round. The startup has developed AI-based voice recognition technology that detects signs of depression and anxiety.

Appriss Health rebrands to Bamboo Health following its acquisition of PatientPing.

Sales

• Vizient signs a two-year contract with Ascom, giving its members access to pre-negotiated pricing and terms for the Ascom nurse call and monitoring system.
• Lee Health (FL), LifeBridge Health (MD), MedStar Health (MD), MercyOne (IA), Moffitt Cancer Center (FL), and MultiCare (WA) sign on for Avia’s membership-based, digital healthcare transformation consulting services.

People

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Healthcare CEO Josh Schoeller takes on the additional role of Elsevier Clinical Solutions president.

The VA promotes Neil Evans, MD to acting CIO.

Twistle President and COO Matt Revis also joins the Health Catalyst leadership team. Health Catalyst acquired Twistle in June.

Announcements and Implementations

Spok announces GA of its ReadyCall Text waiting room pager, alongside enhancements to its Spok Go clinical communications platform.

Government and Politics

The FBI issues an alert about Hive ransomware, which has attacked nearly 30 healthcare organizations since first detected in June. The alert may have been spurred by the mid-August attack on Memorial Health System (OH), which ended up paying the hackers to regain access to internal systems that include 800 servers and 3,000 personal devices used by physicians.

COVID-19

A pre-print analysis of 24 statewide COVID-19 vaccine incentive programs finds no significant change in vaccination rates within those states, and no significant difference in vaccination trends between states that did and did not offer incentives.

A church youth camp and concurrent (though separately located) men’s conference held by the same organization in June has been linked to 180 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, most of whom were unvaccinated. Those cases ultimately led to 1,000 people in four states being exposed through attendance or close contact. The host organization did not require testing or vaccination for either event.

Other

Southern Louisiana hospitals in the path of Hurricane Ida have reported extensive roof damage, inoperable phone systems, power failures, and the need to enact staffing emergency staffing protocols. Hospital operations teams were especially concerned about the storm’s impact coupled with a surge in COVID-19 patients. More than 2,400 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized across the state as of Sunday.

Jury selection has begun in the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Set to start on September 8, the trial has been postponed several times since she was charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud in 2018. This article offers a quick refresher on what led up to the legal proceedings.

A study published in Contraception looks at the growing trend in at-home IUD removal and the corresponding uptick in DIY videos on Youtube and TikTok. Top motivators for the at-home option include the expense of an in-office procedure, side effects, a desire to get pregnant, and even unwillingness on the part of some providers.

Sponsor Updates

• Ellkay has sponsored the Cerner Foundation’s Westport Bounce, which provides funding for equipment, medicine, surgeries, travel, and wellness screenings to students.
• Spok publishes a new e-book, “The ROI of the Spok Go clinical communication and collaboration platform.”
• CereCore wins ClearlyRated’s 2021 Best of Staffing client and talent awards for service excellence.
• Cerner CIO Bill Graff wins CIO of the Year in the Orbie Awards’ large enterprise category.
• CHIME’s Digital Health Leaders Podcast features Monument Health CIO and CMO Stephanie Lahr.
• Clearwater publishes a new case study, “A Clear Success: Strong Cybersecurity & HIPAA Compliance Program Positions CaringWays for Growth.”
• Clinical Architecture celebrates its 14^th anniversary.
• Dimensional Insight’s Smarter Healthcare Podcast features Mass General Brigham Chief Digital Health Officer Alistair Erskine, MD.
• Cooper University Health Care (NJ) expands its use to Nuance’s Dragon Ambient Experience to 475 physicians and APPs.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Improving Patient Safety by Reducing Uncoded Allergies.”

Blog Posts

• Is the Value-Based Purchasing program on its way out? What SNFs need to know. (Ability Network)
• Interpol’s Latest on COVID-19 Cyberthreats (AdvancedMD)
• Riding for a Cure: Diameter Health’s Pan-Mass Challenge Team (Diameter Health)
• The Infinity Gauntlet of Healthcare Interoperability (EClinicalWorks)
• How data standardization can improve patient outcomes (Experian Health)

Contacts

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