News 2/11/22

Top News

AndHealth — which offers app-based, employer-sponsored treatment, coaching, and medication management for migraine – comes out of stealth mode and raises $57 million in funding.

Investors include Francisco Partners and the AMA’s venture capital arm.

The company will launch a second service line for autoimmune diseases.

AndHealth’s founder and CEO is Matt Scantland, who co-founded and led CoverMyMeds through its $1.4 billion acquisition by McKesson in 2017.

Reader Comments

From Orion Pictures: “Re: HIMSS22. An internal document I saw lists just [unverified number omitted] people attending, which also includes at least some vendors.” I’m hesitant to publish the number that was cited because (a) it’s super low; and (b) my only HIMSS contact who would have verified its accuracy no longer works there. HIMSS claims that nearly 19,000 people – including exhibitor staff – attended HIMSS21 in person, although it sure didn’t look like that many. We’re just a month away and COVID-19 is waning a bit, so I would say everybody has already decided if they are going or not. I’ll be doing my usual daily write-ups, although I expect to be COVID-robbed of my beloved MedData scones.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

HIStalk sponsors – submit your participation information in the ViVE and HIMSS conferences and I’ll include your company in my guide to each.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Owl. Owl gives behavioral health organizations better data, better insights, and better outcomes with its data-driven, evidence-based solutions. Leading organizations — including Main Line Health, Amita Health, Inova Health, Polara Health, and Aurora Mental Health Center — rely on Owl to expand access to care, improve clinical outcomes, and prepare for value-based care. Owl makes measurement-based care easy to engage patients, optimize treatment, improve care, reduce clinician burden, and capture data to optimize business performance. Thanks to Owl for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

HealthX Ventures invests in Ideawake, which offers a platform for healthcare leaders to engage employees and their ideas for saving money and improving care via time-based challenges that are transparently tracked. I interviewed CEO Coby Skonord last fall, who summarized, “It empowers anyone at the front lines of the organization, regardless of role or title, to make their voice heard based upon the quality of their idea versus their job title.”

Nuance announces Q1 results: revenue down 7%, adjusted EPS $0.08 versus $0.20. The company’s acquisition by Microsoft remains on track for the end of the first calendar quarter.

Ascension will turn over operation of its hospital-based laboratories in 10 states to Labcorp, which will also buy the health system’s outreach lab business. Ascension will also offer patients services of pharma contract research organization Labcorp Drug Development, which the company created in 2014 with its acquisition of Covance for nearly $6 billion.

Cloud services company 2nd Watch acquires cloud data and analytics consultancy Aptitive.

Thirty Madison, which runs online businesses for hair loss, migraines, GI problems, and allergies, will acquire Nurx, which offers female-focused online services for contraception, STI testing, HIV prevention, and dermatology. Thirty Madison says its combined businesses will bring in $300 million in revenue in 2022.

Germany-based Ada, which offers AI-based health assessments and care, extends its Series B funding round to $120 million. The company plans to expand aggressively into the US market.

Israel-based Scopio, which offers slide-scanning and AI analysis technology to allow peripheral blood smears to be analyzed by pathologists remotely, raises $50 million.

Sales

• Jupiter Medical Center (FL) will deploy Vocera’s Smartbadge wearable and Edge smartphone app for team communication and collaboration. It will also implement Vocera Ease application to allow care team members to communicate with patient-designated friends and family members.

People

Healthwise names Andy Binder, MS, MBA (HP) as COO.

Pharmacy solutions vendor Transaction Data Systems hires Robert Ven (Intrado) as CTO.

Socially Determined hires Paul Matsui (The Antigrav Group) as chief strategy officer and Mike Considine (TransUnion) as chief product officer.

Sandeep Sabharwal, MBA (Accenture) joins Impact Advisors a managing partner and board member.

Announcements and Implementations

CoverMyMeds publishes its annual Medication Access Report, with these findings:

• 84% of patients had to delay or skip in-person healthcare visits in 2021, with primary care being the most-missed visits.
• The percentage of patients who skipped medications because of cost rose from 36% in 2020 to 51% in 2021.
• 84% of patients had a telehealth visit in 2021, about equally split between PCPs and specialists. Their most commonly stated reasons for choosing telehealth were COVID-19, convenience, and reduced wait time.
• Nearly all respondents say they have electronic access to their medical records and can share it with providers.
• Three-fourths of providers can’t see plan-specific prescription costs, deductibles, and pharmacy-specific pricing  in their EHR. Nearly all can’t see social determinants of health information.
• Pharmacists say that the highest-value task they can’t perform on their computer system is checking prior authorization status. They also note that providers don’t usually submit prior authorization requests until the pharmacy contacts them, which delays treatment.

Ascom forms new professional services and customer success organizations to support its healthcare collaboration and communication solutions business.

Government and Politics

US Senators Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) form a commission that will make recommendations to Congress about updating HIPAA.

NBC News covers ONC’s December 31 deadline for certified EHR developers to provide FHIR APIs, also noting the progress that has been made in the industry’s implementation of EHRs. .

A GAO report reviews the military’s expansion of telehealth for mental health services during the pandemic, with these lessons learned:

• March 2020 guidance allowed providers to use consumer videoconferencing technologies such as FaceTime and to offer services using their personal devices.
• Use of telehealth reduced the stigma of seeking mental health care since in-person services required sitting in a clinic waiting room in full uniform that includes service member name.
• Group sessions were problematic because of confidentiality concerns, the need to train providers on how to lock the virtual room to uninvited participants, and the level of computer equipment and web camera required.
• Providers need to obtain the location and contact information of patients at high risk or with suicidal thoughts so that local authorities can be contacted to perform a wellness check if contact is lost.
• Providers were given training on the technology, the administrative process, and the privacy requirements of conducting virtual visits.

A new report finds that 14% of 1,000 randomly selected hospitals are complying with the HHS requirement that they post their real prices online. HCA Healthcare, Ascension, and CommonSpirit Health – whose combined revenue is $120 billion — had just two compliant hospitals of their 361.

Other

KLAS reports that some Cerner customers are forming contingency plans in reacting to company changes that include hiring a new CEO, a revenue cycle management pivot, executive turnover, and an announced acquisition by Oracle. Notes:

• Cerner’s overall KLAS performance scores haven’t changed over five years and under three CEOs, while confidence in the company’s ability to deliver has declined.
• Some customers attribute their success to their own efforts rather than those of Cerner.
• CEO David Feinberg will need to improve overall customer success, break the company’s history of broken promises and nickel-and-diming, and establish its new revenue cycle product.
• Many customers question Cerner’s choice of the old Soarian platform to develop RevElate, noting that the product is rated only in the 60s and sometimes takes customers years to use effectively. They also question how the lack of native integration will work in an industry that has mostly moved away from standalone applications.
• Company acquisitions tend to work out well about half the time, and when they don’t, customers are twice as likely to abandon the vendor.

The Wall Street Journal notes the sudden proliferation of mashed-up CIO titles to reflect wider responsibilities beyond infrastructure and experience that becomes more customer-focused and operational. Examples: chief technology, operations, and transformation officer (CTOTO) and chief information, data, and digital officer.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare Growth Partners advises NThrive in its acquisition of Pelitas.
• Impact Advisors celebrates its 15th anniversary.
• Symplr completes its acquisition of Midas Health Analytics solutions from Conduent.
• Lumeon names Brittany Jones (Memora Health) senior director of business development.
• NTT has been selected by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to provide Medicaid Enterprise Systems Roadmap consulting services for Arizona and Hawaii.

Blog Posts

• Social Determinants of Health: Closing the Gap (Get Well)
• Leveraging Everyday Technology to Improve Diabetes Outcomes for Patients Battling Social Determinants of Health (Glytec)
• A 4-Step Approach to Medical Device Security (The HCI Group)
• 2022 Outlook: Health Insurers Face Tech Challenges (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• We Need to Talk: Why Vital Conversations Are So Important in Healthcare (Healthwise)
• Clinical Data is a Resource Waiting To Be Tapped (Diameter Health)
• 20 Heart-Healthy Ways to Fit Exercise into Your Workday (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Biden administration’s new cybersecurity directive champions Zero Trust (Imprivata)
• Browsing the Future of Healthcare (InterSystems)
• The role of clinical terminology in pharmacogenomics (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Leveraging Patient Access APIs to Optimize Risk Adjustment Efforts (LexisNexis Risk Solutions)
• Caring for the Caregivers Through Better Service (Medhost)
• 5 Stories of Success with Meditech Solutions (Meditech)
• A Banner Year for Integrated Behavioral Health (NeuroFlow)
• What is patient engagement to a Patient Access Center Manager? A CEO’s primer (Nuance)

Contacts

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