News 9/7/22

Top News

CVS Health will acquire home-based care company Signify Health for $30.50 per share in a deal valued at $8 billion.

Amazon and UnitedHealth had also expressed interest in the company.

Signify Health CEO Kyle Armbrester, MBA, who came to the company in 2018 after seven years with Athenahealth, will continue to lead the business as a part of CVS Health.

The deal is CVS Health’s second largest in recent years, having acquired Aetna in 2018 for $70 billion.

Modern Healthcare notes that the three largest Medicare Advantage insurers will now control the three largest homecare providers.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents are mixed on why Amazon is closing Amazon Care, with the most common speculation being that its pending acquisition of One Medical is more important to the company or that the company is realizing that healthcare is too complicated to disrupt. IANAL says One Medical is a disruptor that has a better business model than Amazon Care’s selling telehealth and low-acuity home to employers, Fail fast ponders just how poorly things were going with Amazon Care if Amazon didn’t even attempt to combine its work with One Medical, and DD says anything short of creating a national, vertically comprehensive solution won’t appeal to big employers.

New poll to your right or here: In the most recent health IT purchase or sale with which you were involved, what initially triggered the buyer’s interest? It’s probably not easy to say with certainty and I couldn’t list every possible answer, but I’m curious what got the buyer’s initial attention.

Webinars

September 22 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2023 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, marketing director, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, marketing manager, IMO. The yearly update to ICD-10-CM is almost here. Prepare your organization for a smooth transition, and avoid any negative impacts to your bottom line, with an in-depth look at the upcoming changes. Listen to IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders discuss the 2023 ICD-10-CM coding changes. This webinar will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the ICD-10-CM code set and how to make sure you get properly reimbursed.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

BJC HealthCare and Washington University School of Medicine will collaborate with CuriMeta, which will provide de-identified, real-world data for research. The organizations also led the company’s $6 million Series A funding round. Founder Davis Walp, MBA previously provided real-world data brokerage services to pharma.

Virtual primary care company 98point6 secures $20 million in new funding, which it will use to scale the licensing of its services to health systems. MultiCare Health System (WA) has implemented 98point6’s technology as part of its Indigo Health ambulatory division, which operates hybrid primary and urgent care clinics.

AESOP Technology, which offers AI-powered medication management and clinical decision support software, raises $3 million. The company, a spinoff of Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, opened an office in San Francisco in 2020.

Business Insider reports that Amazon is internally testing a direct-to-consumer telemedicine and online prescription drug service that will compete with the likes of Hims and Ro.

A New York Times opinion piece says that while Amazon is a Goliath in product sales, its money, technology, and logistics can’t fix the mess that is American healthcare:

Any company claiming its innovation will revolutionize American healthcare by itself is selling a fantasy. There is no technological miracle waiting around the corner that will solve problems caused by decades of neglectful policy decisions and rampant fraud. And a fix aimed at just the upper crust of employer-sponsored health coverage has no hope of making healthcare more accessible to those who are truly being left behind. Amazon Care and One Medical saw the same market opportunity within the crisis-ridden American healthcare system: a paid escape hatch for the better-off … But part of why Amazon Care had difficulties is that not all aspects of primary care are so simple that they can be performed in your home or through a video consultation (which is nevertheless a valuable service that is no doubt here to stay). For anything more complicated, patients would still have to visit a traditional clinic, meaning they would have to contend with all the things that are most tiresome about American healthcare: insurance, phone calls, and drug prices — if they can get the time off to visit the doctor at all.

People

Eric Brill (Hillrom) joins AirStrip as SVP of advanced clinical alarm communications and care coordination.

WellSky promotes Lauren Witlen to VP of marketing, connected networks.

UConn Health names Rick McCarthy, MS (White Plains Hospital) CIO.

George “Buddy” Hickman, MS (Harris Health System) joins First Health Advisory as chief strategy officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Bonita Community Health Center (FL) will transition to Epic as part of its acquisition by Lee Health.

Biotech company Freenome launches a study of cancer risk factors using Oracle Cerner’s Learning Health Network and study enrollment technology from Elligo Health Research, in which Oracle Cerner is an investor.

Government and Politics

The Federal Trade Commission launches an anti-trust investigation into Amazon’s plan to acquire One Medical as part of the deal’s regulatory approval process.

Moncrief Army Health Clinic at Fort Jackson (SC) will go live on MHS Genesis later this month.

Privacy and Security

The Ottawa Hospital in Canada recovers from an unspecified hardware issue that took its Epic, Cerner, PACs, Rhapsody, and Spok systems offline over the weekend.

Other

The Verona paper reports that 5,500 Epic customers attended UGM, double the number that came to last year’s COVID-compromised conference.

Regional Medical Center (SC) is working with its auditors to adjust its financial reporting model following its year-ago conversion to Cerner CommunityWorks, which it says “is still not functioning as originally expected” as gross accounts receivable increased by 70% and bill submission slowed.

A study of 175,000 Medicare beneficiaries with opioid use disorders finds that those who were offered expanded access to telehealth services remained in treatment longer and experienced reduced risk of overdose.

In Finland, 619 doctors file a complaint with the National Supervisory Authority for Health and Welfare about Epic’s patient record software that was installed at Helsinki University Hospital District last year. The doctors say the system has caused problems with patient data exchange and medication management, has lost information, and offers poor user experience.

Sponsor Updates

• PMD launches a new website reflecting its shift to end-to-end healthcare solutions.
• Microsoft publishes a case study featuring EClinicalWorks, “EClinicalWorks thrives in the cloud with Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Disk Storage.”
• Premier’s Pinc AI Applied Sciences division will use Datavant Switchboard and Privacy Hub to connect, certify, and license or provide research services on linked tokenized datasets for life sciences and health system partners.
• Nuance reports that customers like RWJBarnabas Health, University of Michigan Health-West, and others average 47% cost savings with 40% call containment and 30% patient self-service rates with its patient engagement solutions.
• Surescripts reports that providers used its Record Locator & Exchange service to access the health records of more than 62 million patients and exchange more than 622 million clinical documents in the first half of 2022.
• Clearwater completes its acquisition of CynergisTek, bringing together cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance leaders.
• Bamboo Health and CarePort will exhibit at the National Association of ACOs Fall 2022 Conference September 8-9 in Washington, DC.
• Biofourmis will present at the Mobile Tech in Clinical Trials Conference September 12 in Boston.
• Oracle Cerner publishes a new client achievement, “HHSC Kauai Region implements a clinically driven revenue cycle for a healthier bottom line.”
• CloudWave will exhibit at the TORCH Fall Conference September 12-15 in Round Rock, TX.

Blog Posts

• Nurse retention strategies: 3 practical ways to reduce nurse turnover (Ability Network)
• 3 ways AI-enabled RPM is improving care delivery (AdvancedMD)
• Understanding Hospital KPIs: The Role of Technology in Improving Performance (AGS Health)
• How to steer clear of healthcare data blind spots (Arcadia)
• Quitting Time Part 2: DRVS Tools to Support Tobacco Cessation Programs (Azara Healthcare)
• 5 ways to prioritize patients and profitability (Bravado Health)
• IT Service Desk Performance Resources for Continuous Improvement (CereCore)
• The Issue of Persisting Clinical Communication Gaps (ChartLogic)
• It’s Hard to Improve Cyber Resiliency When Reactive Security Prevails (Clearwater)
• Highlights from the 2022 Hub and Specialty Pharmacy Models East Conference (ConnectiveRx)
• The Complex Spiral of Oncology Medication Prior Authorization (CoverMyMeds)
• How Digital Twins Can Accelerate Healthcare Transformation (CTG)
• Why Usability is So Critical to Healthcare IT (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

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