News 5/11/22

Top News

Harris rebrands the hospital and large physician practice software business it acquired from Allscripts to Altera Digital Health.

The business’s president will be Marcus Perez, MS, MBA, senior EVP of Harris Healthcare.

The $700 million acquisition, which closed May 2, included Sunrise, Paragon, TouchWorks, Opal, Star, HealthQuest, and DbMotion.

Allscripts has not removed the divested products from its website or announced how its developer program and App Expo will work post-acquisition.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Pondering: is intelligence deficit disorder, as evidenced by Facebook postings, a pandemic? Or, does Facebook attract a disproportionate number of users who can’t express a cohesive thought, use the Internet without help, or resist adding opinions even when they are irrelevant or poorly considered?

Webinars

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

RCM solutions vendor Med-Metrix acquires PatientPal, which offers patient engagement and front-end RCM software.

Mental health EHR and research startup Osmind raises $40 million in a Series B round that brings its total funding to $57 million.

Sales

• Novant Health (NC) will implement Infor’s cloud-based healthcare ERP software with consulting help from Grant Thornton.
• ScionHealth selects R1 RCM’s software and services for its 61 long-term acute care hospitals.
• In the UK, NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria will implement Citadel Health’s laboratory information management system in $12 million project.
• Cleveland Clinic chooses Medically Home Group to develop a program to care for acute and post-acute patients at home via a virtual command center.

People

Martin Spence (Fujifilm Medical Systems) joins Clearwater as virtual CISO and principal consultant.

Telstra hires Monica Trujillo, MBBS, MPH (Cerner) as chief health officer.

Instamed, a J.P. Morgan Company hires Steve Sewell (Optum) as executive director of product management.

Brett MacLaren, MBA (Providence) joins Kaiser Permanente as SVP of data and analytics.

B.well Connected Health hires Nathan Weems, MBA (VitalConnect) as CFO.

Announcements and Implementations

Patient engagement software vendor PatientTrak announces GA of digital patient intake forms for outpatient facilities.

IatricSystems launches DetectRx drug diversion and automated evidence-based response software. Iatric was acquired by Harris in 2018.

Interbit Data launches Beacon, an enterprise care continuity solution that addresses downtime, including cybersecurity incidents.

Advance care planning organization Five Wishes creates a lifetime digital version of its advance directive, which will be stored on Vynca’s advance care planning platform.

Government and Politics

A survey of 701 DoD providers finds that 58% have identified inaccurate or incomplete data in the agency’s Cerner-powered MHS Genesis system, leading to inaccurate, delayed, or incomplete diagnoses; multiple patient visits to complete care; and longer patient visit times. Medical device integration with MHS Genesis was also found to be problematic, with respondents noting that “…eye care devices are not connected to the system and this creates significant delays and repeat imaging,” and “the process to get medical devices connected is CONTRARY to 21st century healthcare delivery. We just choose to ignore that equipment isn’t connected.”

Government-run psychiatric treatment provider directories — such as SAMHSA’s FindTreatment.gov that was intended to give patients a better option than having their Google searches exposed to marketers — contain outdated and incorrect provider information. Patients report reaching disconnected numbers, contacting facilities that aren’t accepting new patients, or finding that clinicians have retired or moved. The directory does not vet submissions beyond verifying licensure and does not include quality indicators.

Other

Apple retires my once-beloved IPod Touch, marking the end of the 20-year-old IPod line. Other IPod models along the that have been largely forgotten – I think I’ve had and/or gifted them all multiple times — were the Mini, Nano, and Shuffle. The Touch, ownership of which I bragged on starting in 2010, was basically an inexpensive IPhone without the “phone” part and free of ongoing cost, capable of just about anything as long as a WiFi connection was available.

Sponsor Updates

• AGS Health leaders work with United Way to create handmade educational kits for underprivileged students.
• Agfa HealthCare profiles a new customer success story, “Enterprise Imaging supports successful major transformation at Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg (ZOL), Belgium.”
• The First Coast Worksite Wellness Council recognizes Availity with its Healthiest Companies Platinum Level Award for the eighth year in a row. 
• Baker Tilly releases a new episode of its Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Key factors and trends impacting M&A activity in the healthcare industry.”
• Delaware documents 100,000 referrals in the third year of its use of Bamboo Health’s OpenBeds referral network.
• CareMesh names Martin Armitage (NaviHealth) director of strategic accounts.
• CHIME and more than 100 additional healthcare organizations sign a letter urging Congress to removal the ban on funding for a national patient health identifier standard.
• Interbit Data launches the next generation of its Beacon Platform, designed to help hospitals with communications and care continuity during downtimes.
• Ellkay will exhibit at the NEHIMSS Spring Conference May 12 in Norwood, MA.
• PerfectServe honors over 130 exceptional nurses in its second annual Nurses of Note Awards program.
• Wolters Kluwer Health adds diversity, equity, and inclusion content to its Ovid medical research platform.
• WebPT adds PVerify’s Advanced Eligibility solution to its EHR for physical therapists.

Blog Posts

• From Risky Business to Data-Backed Decision (Arcadia)
• Celebrating National Nurses Week with Bamboo Health’s Alycia Sepe, BSN, RN (Bamboo Health)
• 5 ways to improve patient satisfaction scores to prepare for OAS CAHPS reimbursements (Bravado Health)
• Meditech Expanse: Customizable Features that Improve Clinician Satisfaction (CereCore)
• How do you balance understaffing during the pandemic? By turning data into knowledge (Cerner)
• Did Your IT Project Fail? Here are 4 Ways Change Management Could Change the Outcome (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• 5 Key Questions You Should Ask Your IT Provider Annually (ChartLogic)
• The Evolution of Chronic Care Management (ChartSpan)
• Introducing A New Category of Technology for Innovation in Healthcare: the Healthtech Operating System. (Commure)
• Asembia 2022: Specialty Patient Access, Centricity, and Adherence (CoverMyMeds)
• How EClinicalWorks RCM Service Boosts Efficiency (EClinicalWorks)
• No Surprises Act Part 1: A Surprise for Providers (Enlace Health)

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