Weekender 1/14/22

Weekly News Recap

• Report says that a private equity firm is close to acquiring urgent care EHR vendor Experity for $1.2 billion.
• Ambient patient-physician voice scribing solution vendor DeepScribe raises $30 million.
• Data exchange platform vendor Avaneer Health raises $50 million in seed funding.
• Hospital-at-home technology and services vendor Medically Home raises $110 million.
• DexCare raises $50 million.
• HIMSS announces that masks will be required throughout the HIMSS22 campus.
• PerfectServe acquires AnesthesiaGo.
• Transcarent raises $200 million in Series C funding.
• Clinical collaboration platform vendor TigerConnect raises $300 million in funding.
• Aledade acquires care planning solutions vendor Iris Healthcare.
• R1 RCM signs an agreement to acquire competitor Cloudmed for $4.1 billion.
• Qlik files for an IPO six years after being taken private for $3 billion.
• Stryker will acquire Vocera for $3 billion.

Best Reader Comments

Algorithm-assisted decisions will reduce that systemic bias + noise and will lead to higher quality diagnosis (and do it with better predictive capabilities for more upstream care). Of course, nobody is denying that for this to happen at scale, data quality, transparency in algorithm development process, awareness of clinical applicability etc. will all need to improve and the industry will do well to stay clear of AI/ML snake oil peddlers. Thoughtful visionaries will create and own that future – just like they always have. (Vikas Chowdhry)

Thirty years in healthcare IT implementations has taught me that hospital ABC can implement BestEverSystem and have great outcomes and usage, and hospital XYZ installs same system, but is a colossal failure. Other countries have managed [COVID-19] testing quite well, according to family that has experience with it. I’m sad to see the missteps US has taken, but I don’t think it’s intentional, just lack of experience in true public / social health environment. It’s obvious when they say “every health insurer has to provide 8 tests per person per month” that they have no idea what they are doing. Insurers should have zero to do with it, in my opinion. (ABCs)

#America – where there is a need for a service that helps patients who have the audacity to try to not die from cancer a way to declare bankruptcy. (Dales Brian)

The “line of people” and the “something” in this statement are a generalization and assumption of context. The people may not have nor want a technology-based solution that delivers the “something” without participating in a line. If a technology has been applied already and that results in a line, is the line formed because of a new demand for the “something” that would not have otherwise been available without technology? It would be better to restate as a question; Does a physical line of people waiting for something present an opportunity for technology to meet a need? (Paul Klehn)

What gives us common cause? Why do we bond as human beings? Where does the impetus to cooperate come from? As long as the answers to those questions keeps coming back to “you have to,” “your employer says so,” and “your paycheque requires it,” there is an element of compulsion involved. It also encourages a transactional environment. You are now a replaceable (and optional) cog in a machine. Good teamwork is not based upon these elements. The odd bit is that, rationally speaking, almost any corporate life involves being replaceable. You are certainly performing a bunch of activities for money. However if that is all that you are, it’s demoralizing and dehumanizing. Most people perform better if they are not slotted into transactional boxes. (Brian Too)

It’s 2022. “Hallway interaction” happens via Teams, Slack, and other random interactions that didn’t exist even five years ago. Culture is built via action and example, and always has been – not dreary in-person meetings reciting corporate values. If you can’t manage without physically being able to walk to someone’s workspace to check up on your employees, you probably weren’t an effective manager. I may be biased as an under-40 executive, but the atmosphere and culture at a work from home-optional company has been way better than the billion dollar company that preached culture every day that I left a few years back when they couldn’t adapt.(Leonard Shelby)

Slack is a very poor substitute for hallways and water coolers. Social engagement between peers outside of a work context is very hard to nurture in a remote setting … The atmosphere and culture may be better in a remote company, but correlation is not causation. In my personal experience between an billion-dollar company and a remote company, confounding factors were that the remote-first company was younger, smaller, more modern, had a much smaller and easier to change product, and had an executive tier that was more accessible to the average Joe. Being remote may have positive impacts on culture directly also, as well as on equity. It may be harder to forge an old boys club when they can’t rendezvous at the golf course. (MoreNuancedRemoter)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

Readers funded the Donors Choose teacher grant request of Ms. T, whose Buffalo, NY first-grade class of 15 dual-language students is split into eight who are doing in-person learning and seven who are learning remotely. She reports, “This document camera has been a great tool for me to teach my students without having to share books and having students sit next to each other on this difficult time we are living with the pandemic and social distancing. Students have improved drastically because I can show not only one student, but the whole class how to solve math problems, write words, read spelling words, and practice all together by sharing the document.”

A UK doctor loses his license for using a cauterization tool to burn his initials onto livers he had transplanted.

Thirteen people, including two physicians, are arrested for their involvement in a $100 million insurance fraud scam in which 911 operators and hospital employees were bribed to provide information about car accident victims, who were then referred to doctors who ordered unnecessary treatments. The defendants took advantage of New York and New Jersey laws require auto insurance companies to pay all medical bills under their no-fault laws.

In Case You Missed It

• News 1/14/22
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 1/13/22
• HIStalk Interviews Guillaume Castel, CEO, PerfectServe
• News 1/12/22
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 1/10/22
• Readers Write: Five Ways to Increase the Value of Your EMR
• Readers Write: If It’s Not Easy, It’s Wrong: Why Easy Is the Answer for Healthcare
• HIStalk Interviews Lisa Esch, SVP, NTT Data
• Monday Morning Update 1/10/22

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