Monday Morning Update 10/3/22

Top News

Federal prosecutors indict US Army Major Jamie Lee Henry and his wife, Anna Gabrielian, for conspiracy and disclosing the health information of military personnel to assist Russia with its war against Ukraine.

Henry was a staff internist stationed at Fort Bragg, and Gabrielian an anesthesiologist working at Johns Hopkins during the time of the alleged conspiracy. They met several times with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian Embassy employee to stress their level of dedication to aiding Russia, eventually handing over the health information of a number of patients at Fort Bragg and Johns Hopkins to demonstrate their ability to access data they believed Russia could then exploit.

They both face up to 15 years in prison.

Reader Comments

From Jaffer Traish: “Re: The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, & Health. Many announcements listed on the White House fact sheet of commitments. There is an important interop commitment outlined here.” The White House introduced a national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health at a conference last week, incorporating five pillars that include ensuring public and private healthcare systems address the nutritional needs of all people. To do this, the government recommends screening for food insecurity, incentivizing providers and payers to conduct screenings for food insecurity and other social determinants of health, and supporting the data infrastructure necessary to do so. Traish refers to HL7’s Sync for Social Initiative, which aims to help healthcare stakeholders “better integrate nutrition information within a patient’s electronic health record by accelerating a standards-based approach to implementing universal social needs screening.” Committed participants include Oracle-Cerner, Meditech, Epic, and a number of health systems, payers, and other vendors.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents are in favor of creating a SWIFT-like network for healthcare similar to that of banking, although a significant number aren’t sure what all that involves.

New poll to your right or here: What should HHS do with the October 6 deadline for information sharing?

Webinars

October 12 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “In Praise of the Problem-Oriented Medical Record (POMR).” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Amanda Heidemann, MD, CMIO, KeyCare; Amber Sieja, MD, senior medical director of informatics, UCHealth and Ambulatory Services; Jim Thompson, MD, physician informaticist, IMO. The problem-oriented medical record – initially developed in the 1960s by Lawrence Weed, MD – brought important structure to paper charting, and in particular, the problem list. Yet, today, the tool that was once the gold standard for organizing and making sense of patient history is often cluttered and unmanageable. Fortunately, tools and strategies exist to help make the problem list more meaningful, helping to synthesize patient data, highlight insights, and support patient care. The expert panel will share their experiences with POMR, including documentation practices and tools to improve workflows and efficiency, the impact of POMR and charting on the overall health of a patient, and the challenges and obstacles clinicians face when practicing POMR and charting and how they can be overcome.

October 18 (Tuesday) 2 ET. “Patient Payment Trends 2022: Learn All The Secrets.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, co-founder and CEO, Mend. Many industries offer frictionless payments, but healthcare still sends paper bills to patients who are demanding modern conveniences. This webinar will review consumer sentiment on healthcare payments, recent changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that create opportunities for new patient financial engagement, and new tactics to collect more payments faster from patients.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Frustrated with Talkspace’s declining share price, lack of frontline leadership, and opaque business plans, investor Firstime Ventures calls for the therapy app vendor to appoint a permanent CEO, share its long-term plan, and address rumors of a potential sale. The company has reportedly received acquisition offers from Amwell and MindPath. It went public via a $1.4 billion SPAC in June 2021, but quickly lost stock market momentum. Its co-founder and CEO and head of clinical services both stepped down towards the end of 2021 due to lackluster Q3 results. Talkspace is likely still in the midst of a class-action lawsuit, filed earlier this year, that alleges it misled investors about its financials ahead of its IPO.

Sales

• Memorial Hermann Health System (TX) will switch from Oracle Cerner to Epic beginning early next year.
• EMedical Practice selects Sphere’s TrustCommerce payment processing software.
• Campbell County Health (WY) will go live on Epic next year.

People

Andrea Facini (Active Network) joins WebPT as chief product, marketing, and growth officer.

Verisma names GE Healthcare veteran Michael Fritts (Forced Physics DCT) COO, and promotes Julia Applegate to chief client officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Advata announces GA of Advata Smart AR, automated accounts receivable technology. The company was formed in June through the merging of six of Providence-owned Tegria legacy companies.

Verato develops Universal Identity technology, comprising patient data from EHRs, consumer data from CRMs and other demographic data sources, and provider data from national databases.

Allen County Regional Hospital (KS) goes live on Epic.

Meditech adds patient transport workflows, including an app for transport staff, to its Expanse EHR.

Government and Politics

Madigan Army Medical Center (WA) hosts a decommissioning ceremony for its Composite Health Care System. Science Applications International, now Leidos, was contracted to develop, design, and implement the system for the DoD in 1988. It rolled out across all military treatment facilities between 1992 and 1996, eventually running at 104 host sites with more than 100 interfaces with internal and external systems across the DoD and VA. It went live at Madigan in 1996, and experienced downtime only once, according to Col. (Dr.) David Owshalimpur, chief of nephrology at Madigan: “I always had it open during clinic days. If you knew the correct ‘cheat codes,’ you could fly through CHCS. It was also a much faster way to order labs, medications, and rads [radiological imaging] than AHLTA. So, CHCS was a nice backbone for both Essentris and AHTLA.” The medical center went live on MHS Genesis in 2017.

Other

Researchers at Houston Methodist develop analytics that predict hospitalization outcomes for geriatric patients with dementia on the first or second day of hospital admission with 95.6% accuracy. They hope to develop a corresponding mobile app for ICU and other hospital staff that will alert them to a patient’s likelihood of hospitalization and suggest interventions.

A survey of 115 healthcare executives finds that 55% believe integrating their disparate patient engagement capabilities will be a high priority in the coming year, though 84% believe it will be tough to accomplish with existing technology.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe customer Bon Secours Mercy Health leverages the company’s Clinical Collaboration solution as part of its new Care Mobility project for nurse communication.
• Premier’s PINC AI Applied Sciences and partners AstraZeneca and Clinithink win a BWB Award for their use of technology-enabled healthcare solutions in the Digital Medicine category.
• RCxRules hosts a successful 2022 National User Conference.
• Surescripts releases a new There’s a Better Way: Smart Talk on Healthcare and Technology Podcast, “More is Not Always Better: Making Interoperability Work for Patients & Clinicians.”
• Upfront Healthcare achieves HITRUST risk-based, two-year certification to manage risk, improve security posture, and meet compliance requirements.
• Volpara Health wins a Gold Good Design Award for its Volpara Analytics mammography reporting and quality software.
• WebPT names Marcus Osborne (Walmart Health) to its Board of Directors.
• Wolters Kluwer Health acquires UK-based IJS Publishing Group, which offers peer-reviewed medical journals supporting scientists and authors.
• Vyne Medical will present at the MGMA Medical Practice Excellence: Leaders Conference October 9-12 in Boston.

Blog Posts

• Freezing the squeeze: The three A’s of efficiency (Nordic)
• Address Physician Burnout with Real-Time Prescription Benefit Tools (Arrive Health)
• How to Improve Patient Experiences and Reduce Healthcare Costs (PerfectServe)
• How Caregiving Has Changed Over the Years (Quil)
• Why you should attend Redox Connect Conference 2022 (Redox)
• Empower agents with AI call center capabilities (Talkdesk)
• Delivering on Denials: Novant’s Culture Creates Wins for Physicians, Patients, and Staff (Tegria)
• How to Create Better Physician Schedules: Integrating Technology and Data (TigerConnect)
• The Coming of Age of Cash-Based Practices (WebPT)
• How to enhance your experience when migrating to Epic (Verato)
• Zen Healthcare IT’s Guide to Understanding the Trusted Exchange Frameworks (Zen Healthcare IT)
• The Importance of Providing Meaningful Educational Resources to Your Patients (Zynx Health)

Contacts

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