News 12/15/21

Top News

Shannon Medical Center (TX) reverts to downtime payroll procedures after payroll and workforce management software vendor Kronos experiences a ransomware attack Saturday.

Kronos said in an announcement that it expects the outage to last several weeks. It suggests using “alternate business continuity protocols,” which will no doubt put Christmas payrolls at risk.

Kronos says the attack affects Kronos Private Cloud, which includes UKG Workforce Central, UKG TeleStaff, Healthcare Extensions, and Banking Scheduling Solutions. Applications outside Kronos Private Cloud are unaffected.

Reader Comments

From Morty: “Re: Edifecs. Purchased Health Fidelity on the heels of its acquisition of Talix. Interesting moves being made in the risk adjustment space.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I set up a short survey that covers expected turnover at your company, what your employer is doing about it, and your own job changes. I appreciate your taking a couple of minutes to complete the form. A reader expressed alarm at the high amount of turnover that was reported in my most recent poll and hopes to learn more.

Webinars

December 15 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “Improve Efficiency, Reduce Burnout: Leveraging Smart Clinical Communications.” Sponsor: Spok. Presenters: Matt Mesnik, MD, chief medical officer, Spok; Kiley Black, MSN, APRN, director of clinical innovation, Spok. The presenters will identify the technologies that most often contribute to clinician burnout, then explain how improving common clinical workflows can help care teams collaborate better and focus on what they do best—taking care of patients. They will describe how a clinical communication and collaboration platform can automate clinical consults and code calls to alleviate burnout.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cloud, managed services, and analytics company Healthcare Triangle acquires EHR and managed services company DevCool. Healthcare Triangle went public in October, raising $13 million at $4 per share.

Centauri Health Solutions, a Medicare and Medicaid technology vendor, has acquired health data exchange software company Secure Exchange Solutions.

Patient intake technology company Phreesia acquires Insignia Health, co-developer of the Patient Activation Measure program. Results from a PAM assessment, co-developed by researchers at former Insignia Health stakeholder the University of Oregon, are used to improve risk identification, better support patients, and evaluate impact as a patient-reported outcome measure.

Health IT and RCM vendor Xifin acquires retail pharmacy software company OmniSys for an undisclosed amount. OmniSys CEO John King will become president of the new OmniSys division.

Workforce management software vendor Prolucent Health raises $11.5 million in new funding.

People

Gil Kaminski (DaVita Kidney Care) joins Laguna Health as VP of clinical product.

Care Continuity names Steven Mason, Jr. (Iodine Software) CEO.

David Mulligan (PhyzData Healthcare Solutions) joins Carenet Health as EVP of technology.

OneOncology hires Andy Corts (SignalPath) as CTO.

Tissue and implant tracking software vendor TrackCore names John Weller (University of Michigan Health – West) as CISO.

Sales

• Virtua Health (NJ) chooses Kyruus for provider directory, website provider search, and online scheduling.

Announcements and Implementations

Scarborough Health Network implements Epic across its three campuses in Ontario.

Healthcare IT Leaders will enable multilingual support for its COVID-19 contract tracing services in partnership with Voyce.

Other

Announced as a HIMSS22 keynote presenter is Ben Sherwood, which HIMSS describes as “one of Disney’s greatest innovators” who will talk about leading and succeeding during disruption. He left Disney-ABC three years ago after a short three years on the job as president, passed over in favor of executives of Disney-acquired 21st Century Fox. He was the subject of a scathingly funny 1988 article that ridiculed the then-Rhodes Scholar (like his sister) as “the ultimate in a long line of centerless resume featherers” who was raised rich and shallowly ambitious and deemed by his Harvard classmates as “one of the most hated people alive.” Finally they get someone interesting.

Sponsor Updates

• Bamboo Health publishes a new e-book, “CMS’ E-Notifications CoP: The Route to Compliance: Part 4.”
• Change Healthcare releases a new podcast, “Let’s Talk Interop: Moving Toward Electronic HEDIS Measures.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a case study titled “Optimum CareerPath Accelerates Cutting Edge Software Company Clearsense.”

Blog Posts

• With cloud, the sky’s the limit for image management (Agfa HealthCare)
• Help! One Year of the New Improved DRVS Help Section Part 2: Details & Data (Azara Healthcare)
• Most Read Posts for Epic EHR Optimization (CereCore)
• 2030 Interoperability Projections – EHR Software, Physicians & Patients (ChartLogic)
• Securing Healthcare’s Digital Transformation for Providers, Vendors, and Patients (Clearwater)
• Impact of technology on the future of healthcare post COVID-19 (OBIX Perinatal Data System, developed by Clinical Computer Systems)
• (Part 3) Reaching Patients Along the Specialty Medication Journey: Persistent Patients (ConnectiveRx)
• ‘Ask Your Doctor If:’ How to Talk to Patients About Popular Drug Ads (CoverMyMeds)
• Let’s Celebrate National Influenza Vaccination Week #fightflu (EClinicalWorks)
• Streamlining prior authorizations for faster patient collections (Experian Health)

Contacts

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