News 3/25/22

Top News

VA Deputy Secretary Donald Remy says the agency is ready to launch a new Cerner system at the VA medical center in Walla Walla, WA this weekend.

Several lawmakers have called for a halt to future deployments after the VA OIG issued several reports citing patient safety issues at the initial go-live site in Spokane, WA.

Reader Comments

From Killer Clown: “Re: ViVE and HIMSS. I attended both. I had more fun at ViVe and more meetings at HIMSS. In general, HIMSS was more valuable to my revenue stream. ViVE was for socializing. Relationship building was had at both and a necessity to business.”

From Canasta Disasta: “Re: [vendor name omitted]. Executive [name omitted] was arrested in Miami during ViVE for battery. Drunk, uncooperative, and no motive upon arrest.” I’ve removed identifying information since I don’t usually report on job-unrelated arrests of individuals who haven’t yet been convicted and whose details are skimpy or unconfirmed. The executive bonded out for $1,500 after pleading not guilty. His battery misdemeanor trial is set for April 14.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor CareMesh in Reston, VA. CareMesh is a healthcare communications platform that connects the care continuum so that any provider working with any electronic health record can instantly communicate and collaborate with any other. CareMesh cloud-based services allow hospitals and health systems, public health agencies, physician groups, and others to communicate about patients, maintain complete control over when and where information is shared, and rapidly reduce reliance on outdated tools such as fax and phone calls. Thanks to CareMesh for supporting HIStalk.

I found this recent YouTube video that shows how CareMesh Navigate works within a clinical program or specialty group to manage inbound referrals, monitor patients through treatment, and provide regular updates to referring providers.

Webinars

April 6 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “19 Massive Best Practices We’ve Learned from 4 Million Telehealth Visits.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, founder, president, and CEO, Mend. Virtual visits have graduated from a quickly implemented technical novelty to a key healthcare strategy. The challenge now is to define how telehealth can work seamlessly with in-person visits. This webinar will address patient satisfaction, reducing no-show rates to single digits, and using technology to make telehealth easy to use and accessible for all patients. The presenter will share best practices that have been gleaned from millions of telehealth visits and how they have been incorporated into a leading telemedicine and AI-powered patient engagement platform.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual reality-based surgical training and assessment company Osso VR raises $66 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $109 million.

Kaiser Permanente is reportedly selling its $1.5 billion stake in several private equity funds, which includes investments in Ginger.io, Ingenious Med, Nordic, Rock Health, and Validic.

Sales

• Mount Sinai Health System (NY) selects post-quantum cryptography technology from Sandbox AQ to enhance its cybersecurity.

People

Nordic Consulting names Shae Crawford (Berkeley Research Group) SVP and head of HR.

Cota promotes Miruna Sasu, PhD, MBA to president and CEO.

Summer Brown (Feedtrail) joins Cipher Health as chief customer officer.

Centene hires its vice chair Sarah London, MBA as CEO. She previously served as the company’s SVP of technology innovation and modernization and held roles in Optum that included oversight of its data and analytics solutions as former VP of Optum-acquired Humedica. She replaces Michael Neidorff, who is retiring after taking medical leave.

Michael Donovan (ROI Healthcare Solutions) rejoins Helix Health Solutions as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

The non-profit EHealth Exchange will award up to $550,000 in grants and other incentives to organizations that are pursuing innovative ways to increase exchange of electronic health information or establish new technical advancements in connectivity.

MercyOne pilots patient-provider matching software from PatientBond. The Iowa-based health system will roll the software out to all of its facilities later this month.

Government and Politics

Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital at Fort Polk (LA) goes live on Cerner as part of the DoD’s Wave Hood MHS Genesis deployment. Col. Aristotle Vaseliades, hospital commander, said the information management department did an amazing job, rolling out nearly 3,000 pieces of equipment, conducting 176 training sessions, and running countless miles of computer cable. He didn’t mention which department handled embroidering MHS Genesis baby onesies.

The VA awards General Dynamics Information Technology a $45 million contract to support its business and IT modernization initiatives, including integrating new cybersecurity technologies, and ensuring connected devices and telehealth services are protected. The VA is also using GDIT’s cloud-based, AI-powered image classifier, which provides real-time assessments of potentially cancerous skin lesions.

Other

The annual patient payments report from InstaMed – acquired by JP Morgan for $500 million in mid-2019 – finds that 87% of consumers were surprised by a medical bill in 2021 even as providers show little interest in price transparency; 70% of people are sent medical bills by mail even though nearly none of them prefer paying by check; and 74% of millennials say they would change providers to gain a better payment experience.

HIMSS says that total HIMSS22 attendance – combining in-person and digital – was nearly 29,000 and 1,000 exhibitors were present in the hall. My perception on the ground was that HIMSS22 was pretty much back to normal with a slight scaling back that I was not unhappy about. Interest in the digital version seemed modest at best, even though HIMSS sent (to me, anyway) a last-minute code for anyone to register for free.

Sponsor Updates

• Everbridge Senior Engagement Manager Radu Cioata has collected and delivered five vans’ worth of goods to Ukrainian refugees.
• Medicomp Systems releases a new episode of its Tell Me Where It Hurts Podcast featuring Janae Sharp of The Sharp Index.
• EVisit will increase access to telehealth services in underserved communities using cloud computing credits from the AWS global health equity program.
• First Databank opens up its new Vela e-prescribing network to veterinarians.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advises employee wellbeing software vendor MoveSpring in its sale to Reward Gateway.
• Healthcare IT Leaders congratulates customer Kootenai Health on its Epic go-live.
• Meditech discusses FHIR and the future of interoperability on CommonWell TV.
• NextGate adds Verify to its EMPI tool, giving patients the ability to review records and flag inaccuracies.
• The St. Louis County Department of Public Health in Missouri expands its use of Bamboo Health’s technologies and services to include delivery of ifs PDMP.

Blog Posts

• How will rising inflation affect the healthcare revenue cycle? (Experian Health)
• Return to Growth: Patient Activation (Get Well)
• Stepping Up Security of Sensitive Data: 3 Questions Health IT Leaders Should Consider (Healthcare Triangle)
• Enterprise Data Warehouse Implementation: A Cybernetic-Boydian Approach (Health Data Movers)
• 3 Strategies for Sourcing Patient Health Education (Healthwise)
• The Designated Record Set (DRS): Straightforward Questions & Answers (Impact Advisors)
• Filling in gaps in the medical problem list (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Loyal’s partnership with UCLA Health Brings Answers and Reassurance to Los Angeles Community (Loyal Health)
• HIMSS22 kicks off with KLAS celebration, merger news, and good ol’ fashioned facetime with friends (Lyniate)
• Support ISMP’s Newest Medication Best Practices with MedAware (MedAware)
• Reducing Medical Errors with Physician-Centric EHR Integrations (Medhost)
• Adapting to the new realities of physician practices (Meditech)
• 10 Physical Therapy Specialties to Amplify Your Career (MWTherapy)
• Unlocking the future of patient care with ambient clinical intelligence (Nuance)
• Houston, we have a data problem (Nordic)

Contacts

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