News 10/12/22

Top News

Medicaid virtual mental health provider Brave Health raises $40 million in a Series C funding round.

The round was led by Town Hall Ventures, of which former acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt is a general partner.

The company serves patients in 10 states.

Brave Health’s two co-founders came from General Assembly, which offers technology courses to executives. It was acquired by a workforce development company for $413 million in cash in 2018.

Reader Comments

From Salient Point: “Re: Medicare. The Urban Institute says that the Medicare Part A trust fund will be exhausted by 2028. That’s especially interesting because it’s a presidential election year, meaning we will see a lot of political posturing and paralysis.” US debt is at $31 trillion, which was a big enough time bomb even before interest rates started to rise, so Medicare is another problem that will defy resolution with the near-certain lack political compromise and the voting power of seniors who don’t want to pay more or receive less.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

If your company isn’t an HIStalk sponsor, you have a few weeks to get on board for 2023 at 2022 rates (the same benefit existing sponsors enjoy, in other words). Beat the price increase and maybe use some leftover 2022 marketing money by contacting Lorre ASAP.

Companies or their PR firms have asked / demanded a few times that I remove my summary of a legitimate news source’s unflattering investigative report. They always say they are seeking to have the original article corrected, although I don’t recall that ever actually happening given that journalists and their editors are pretty careful to fact-check before publishing. My policy is this — if the source updates their article, I’ll update my reference to it, but otherwise I won’t bury or sugarcoat a story just because the company doesn’t like it. They are welcome to state their rebuttal in a comment and let the reader decide.

Thanks to Jenn for covering my recent several days off. It’s a testament to her abilities that you probably didn’t even notice my absence. I traveled only with my $99 Chromebook and it worked flawlessly — it was the lack of decent connectivity (and maybe a lack of personal motivation) that kept me mostly offline.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor KONZA. The Topeka, KS-based company’s next-generation KONZA National Network supports the delivery of unequaled actionable intelligence, including clinical information at the point of care, while supporting value-based payment models, care management, and analytics. As a member of the EHealth Exchange, it allows health systems to share data internally and with their external partners such as the VA, MHS, CVS, and DaVita. The Azure-powered system, which is available to any organization and does not require participation in a local or state HIE, allows health systems to query aggregated data to monitor care gaps, ED use, opioid use, and readmissions. It can also be queried to match patients with rare conditions with clinical trials and to identify health disparities and provides ADT alerts, submission of quality metrics to CMS, payer analytics, and updating the personal health records of patients when new data arrives. Thanks to KONZA for supporting HIStalk.

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

Insurer risk assessment technology vendor Milliman IntelliScript acquires API-based EHR records retrieval system vendor OneRecord.

The merged Beaumont Health and Spectrum Health system, which is Michigan’s largest employer, names itself Corewell Health.

People

Former Allscripts CEO Paul Black joins Thomas H. Lee Partners as a consultant for its healthcare investment group.

St. Clair Health hires Jim Kohler (Allscripts) as VP/CIO.

Hutchinson Clinic hires its recently retired CMIO Verlin Janzen, MD as interim CEO.

Mark Burgess (NextGen Healthcare) joins Agfa HealthCare as chief revenue officer for North America. 

Announcements and Implementations

Aspen Valley Hospital (CO) goes live on Epic.

Ascom works with Oracle Cerner to give nurses access to a patient’s EHR on Ascom’s Myco 3 VoWiFi smartphone.

In England, County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust goes live on Cerner.

UCHealth (CO) implements Eon’s patient management software.

The Sequoia Project seeks feedback on its “Draft TEFCA Facilitated FHIR Implementation Guide.”

Government and Politics

A Forbes report says that North Carolina chose Unite Us as its technology contractor for the federal Healthy Opportunities Pilot for Medicaid beneficiaries in a sole-source contract that did not undergo state IT review. Emails suggest that former state HHS Secretary Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH — now CEO of Aledade Care Solutions — intervened to win Unite Us the business over an unnamed competitor (reportedly Findhelp, formerly called Aunt Bertha), which was the preferred choice of the state’s health systems.

Privacy and Security

In New Zealand, hackers notify Pinnacle Midlands Health Network that they’ve uploaded the stolen data of 450,000 patients to the dark web. The cyberattack on one of the primary care network’s IT systems took place September 28 and Pinnacle issued a statement within a week.

Other

Health IT consulting contracts are on the upswing, according to Black Book Market Research’s latest market analysis. Seventy percent of surveyed providers say they’ll seek out consulting help for RCM optimization projects within the next 15 months. Low-priority projects, according to providers, include those related to EHR optimization, support, and training; and physician burnout. The Chartis Group was noted as the top enterprise health IT consulting firm.

Pediatric cardiologist and CMIO C. Becket Mahnke, MD compares paper charts to EHRs based on his annual cardiology volunteer work in Palau:

• Information retrieval isn’t too bad with paper charts, but is incomplete compared to accessing patient information via HIEs and Epic’s Care Everywhere.
• Lack of filters and search means flipping through paper pages.
• Documentation is faster using pen and paper instead of an EHR, allowing visits of 12 minutes per patient, including ECG time. However, legibility issues are a problem.
• Ordering is faster on paper, but again legibility issues cause problems with the receiving department and there’s no way to track ordering patterns over time.
• Lack of in-basket capability saves time with paper charts, but there’s no easy way to send information to colleagues or to receive result notifications.
• Paper charts aren’t readily analyzable for monitoring, quality improvement, and hypothesis generation.

The New York Times profiles Myron Rolle, MD, MSc, a former Florida State University football star, Rhodes Scholar in medical anthropology, and NFL player whose fizzled pro football career led him to a Mass General medical residency as a neurosurgeon, where he is in his sixth year of the seven-year program. Asked for advice for people who feel stuck, he said, “One: It’s never too late. Two: You’re needed. You’re still needed in this life. Your lane can be yours and it’s for you. What God has for you is going to be for you. Perfect it. Hone it. Be a master of it. Love it. Do it well. Impact people when you do it and help bring somebody up with you.”

Sponsor Updates

• Clearsense supports the George Landess Memorial/NEFL Scottish Games Golf Tournament, benefitting Challenges Enterprises.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces that 10 of its healthcare publications from its Lippincott portfolio have been honored with 13 awards in the 2022 Folio: Eddie and Ozzie Awards.
• Agfa HealthCare supports The Royal College of Radiologists’ first Global Congress in Dubai.
• Tegria and Microsoft Azure services firm 3Cloud partner to offer EHR clients advance their AI/ML capabilities.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “New markets tax credits for healthcare providers.”
• Relatient publishes an e-book titled “2022 Patient Engagement Report: Provider Perspectives on Optimizing Patient Scheduling and Communication.”
• Cordea Consulting will exhibit at the Delaware Valley / New Jersey HIMSS Fall Conference October 12-14 in Atlantic City, NJ.
• Tegria will offer its customers a healthcare-optimized ServiceNow solution to deliver ITSM and CSM solutions.

Blog Posts

• Cybersecurity Tips for Healthcare IT Consultants (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Five Ways to Optimize Practice Resources While Driving Higher Quality Care (AdvancedMD)
• In-House Medical Coding Post-Pandemic: Is It Worth the Effort? (AGS Health)
• Insights from the RCxRules 2022 National User Conference: Staffing Shortages and Remote Work are Still Top of Mind (RCx Rules)
• Five phrases to grow and nourish a care management program (Arcadia)
• Best Practices for Referral Management (CarePort)
• HFMA Poll: CFO and CIO Synergy is Crucial to Successful Initiatives (CereCore)
• Increase Patient Trust and Retention Using EHR Policies and HIPAA Compliance Safeguards (ChartLogic)
• The Exponential Savings Potential for ACO Participants (ChartSpan)
• A Look at Emerging Healthcare Technology & Associated Security Risks (Clearwater)
• How Leaders and Team Members Can Prioritize Mental Health (Divurgent)
• ‘Value Over Volume, Patients Like Family’ (EClinicalWorks)

Oracle Cerner will host its Health Conference October 17-19 in Kansas City, MO. Exhibiting HIStalk Sponsors include:

• Arrive Health
• Ascom
• Ellkay
• First Databank
• Fortified Health Security
• Get Well
• Healthwise
• Intelligent Medical Objects
• Impact Advisors
• Kyruus
• Loyal
• Medicomp Systems
• Net Health
• Nuance
• Relatient
• Surescripts
• Wolters Kluwer Health

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.