Monday Morning Update 8/29/22

Top News

An August 5 ransomware attack on software vendor Advanced that took down England’s 111 service along with mental health and community systems may not be resolved for several weeks, hospital employees are told.

Hospitals say that updating patient information after the systems are restored usually requires two weeks for each day of downtime, meaning that it could take up to a year before clinicians have access to full patient records online.

People who call 111 are waiting on hold for an average of 6.5 minutes versus the target of 20 seconds. Public health campaigns are urging people to call 111 instead of visiting hospital emergency departments in anticipation of backups this winter that are caused by “fuel poverty,” with gas and electricity bills expected to double in October.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents would not post a “looking for work” item on LinkedIn. Some say that strategy might work for a new grad or someone who needs a job, any job quickly, but basically LinkedIn is just another resume that will be ignored, especially with the “Facebook-ization” of the platform. I concur with DrShowoff’s advice: clean up your profile, add quantifiable numbers that illustrate your performance, use words that will help Linkedin searchers find you, and make sure your headshot is current and of high quality. To which I would add:

• Don’t refer to yourself in the third person as though an unseen, admiring biographer penned your profile.
• Write like you talk.
• Make your “About” summary the story you would want to tell a potential hirer first.
• Be concise in your “Experience” items and don’t waste space describing the business that each employer was in (anyone likely to hire you knows that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a hospital, for instance).
• The objective is brevity, so omit anything that won’t impact your being hired – your GPA, your one-month try at consulting between jobs, and the membership groups that anyone can join by writing a check.
• Consider writing posts that show what you know, including videos if that’s a strength.
• Use the platform for messaging specific contacts instead of passively hoping that someone finds your profile.
• I usually pay no attention to bottom part of the profile (Skills, Interests, Honors and Awards, Organizations, etc.) although I’ll sometimes glance at “Recommendations.”

Speaking of LinkedIn advice, I’m spending my morning removing connections or unfollowing folks who hopefully understand that their repeated likes and comments are pushed into my newsfeed. I can grit my teeth through “humbled” self-promotion, company pitches, topics unrelated to healthcare IT, and vapid “inspiration” posts written as one-sentence paragraphs, but I’m not here (or anywhere else) for individual insights about politics, sports, or just about any topic that starts with “I don’t usually share personal posts on LinkedIn” and ends with doing exactly that. Surely we all know that potential employers or customers look people up on LinkedIn and make decisions accordingly, and that social media platforms power their most annoying and evil activities via newsfeeds that intentionally push content that you didn’t ask for.

New poll to your right or here: What is the #1 reason you think Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Care primary care business? I couldn’t list every possible answer, so feel free to add a poll comment with yours.

I’m feeling the need to learn. Who outside of the vendor world would make a good interview? Should I review a book or other creative work? I’m most interested in the less-represented folks rather than those who are amply promoted by themselves or others, although it’s often a challenge for the rank-and-file people to get employer permission to be interviewed.

Webinars

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

Sales

• SAP-owned marketing technology vendor Emarsys contracts for cybersecurity and HIPAA compliance managed services from Clearwater.

People

Net Health hires Gabe Hesse (Arrive Health) as CTO and promotes Kevin Keenahan, MSE to chief product officer.

Kidney care company Somatus hires Joe Kimura, MD, MPH (Atrius Health) as chief medical officer.

Gene Sawyer (Optum) joins Evergreen Nephrology as CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

A eight-customer KLAS review of Microsoft cloud technologies in healthcare is favorable, with clients reporting stable cloud solutions that aren’t oversold. However, they are less enthused about the company’s delivery of new technology and its track record of keeping promises, noting specifically that Teams needs work and the company’s licensing and cost issues are concerning. Amazon Web Services rates stronger in technology and keeping promises, while Microsoft performs better in executive involvement and partnership. Common uses of Azure are virtual desktops, virtual data centers, digital pathology image storage, AI/ML computing, and EHR hosting. More than half of customers say Microsoft’s cloud technologies reduced specific costs and shortened project timelines.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Can OpenNotes be too open? (Nordic)
• Medicare Mythbusters: 5 Medicare Advantage Insights to Know for Open Enrollment (PatientBond)
• How Better Clinical Communication Can Reduce Sentinel Events (PerfectServe)
• Three Key Policies to Advance At-Home Care (Premier)
• 6 things to consider with inpatient virtual care (Sonifi Health)
• How Medical Systems Solve Clinical Workflow Challenges with TigerConnect Roles and Teams (TigerConnect)
• To help retain nurses, fix communication: NASA TLX survey (Vocera)

Contacts

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