News 10/26/22

Top News

Philips reports lower revenue and a loss of $1.28 billion in Q3 due to supply chain issues and the recall of several million of its CPAP devices.

Newly appointed CEO Roy Jakobs says the company will immediately lay off 4,000 employees.

Philips hopes that remediation of 4 million CPAP and ventilator devices – which were found to contain foam whose degradation can cause serious injury or death — will be completed for 90% of users by the end of the year.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

HealthStream announces Q3 results: revenue up 5%, EPS $0.12 versus $0.05. HSTM shares are down 23% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 27% loss, valuing the company at $666 million.

Point-of-care digital patient education company CheckedUp acquires competitor Health Media Network.

Virtual mental health provider Cerebral lays off 20% of its staff, reportedly affecting 400 employees in primarily clinical and care counselor roles. A round of layoffs earlier this year impacted support and operations teams. The news comes less than a month after fairly new CEO David Mou, MD renewed the online mental healthcare company’s commitments to clinical safeguards and patient identification verification protocols and software, areas in which it has come under federal and consumer scrutiny. He also vowed to conduct a comprehensive review of internal operations and performance.

Sales

• Arizona HIE Contexture selects technology from Unite Us to power its CommunityCares social determinants of health referral system.
• OSF Healthcare (IL) will use CareSignal’s deviceless remote patient monitoring technology as part of its OnCall Connect digital care management service.
• Sinai Medical Group (IL) will implement physician RCM services from Conifer Health Solutions.

People

Walmart Health hires Claude Pirtle, MD, MS, MBA (West Tennessee Healthcare) as CMIO.

Brian Graves (RelayOne) joins Resolv Healthcare as VP of sales and marketing.

CVS Health hires Amar Desai, MD, MPH (Optum) as president of its newly formed healthcare delivery organization.

Commure hires Chris Kuhns, MBA (Iris Telehealth) as CFO.

Jamie Hall (Transcarent) joins virtual primary care vendor CirrusMD as president and CEO.

Health Recovery Solutions names Jaydeo Kinikar, MBA (Best Buy Health) chief product officer.

Laizer Kornwasser, MBA (CareCentrix) joins Teladoc Health as president of enterprise growth and global markets.

RevenueWell promotes Julie Coviello to chief customer officer.

Medical device data platform vendor Canary Medical hires Lisa Suennen (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP) as president of digital and data solutions.

Mark Burgess (NextGen Healthcare) joins Agfa HealthCare as president, North America.

Health Care District of Palm Beach County hires Daniel Scott (Good Samaritan) as AVP/CIO.

Denis Tanguay, MSHA (Huntzinger) joins Sturdy Memorial Hospital as VP/CIO.

Tim Johnson (247/ai) joins Nuance Communications as head of UK sales, healthcare.

Talon hires Elif Eracar, MS (Redox) as COO.

Atlas Health hires David Franklin (Ontario Systems) as president; Christopher Parks (Avaneer Health) as chief client officer; Nicole Nye, MBA (Finvi) as VP of product management; Nicole Hess, MBA (Olive) as SVP of marketing; and Todd Helmink (PatientBond) as head of strategic partnerships.

Announcements and Implementations

Penn State Health’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center goes live on Oracle Cerner.

ACO MultiCare Connected Care implements prior authorization automation technology developed with MCG Health using the HL7 Da Vinci Project FHIR standard.

Lake Region Healthcare (MN) will go live on Epic November 1 through a Community Connect partnership with Sanford Health.

Healthcare concierge program Renee adds a flat-fee prescription drug program that covers 500 commonly prescribed generic medications for $25 per month. The company was founded by the husband-and-wife team of Nick Desai, MS and Renee Dua, MD, who founded doctor house call company Heal in 2014.

Hospital for Special Surgery announces plans to launch for-profit virtual musculoskeletal physical therapy provider RightMove, which is backed by a $21 million Series A funding round.

A Harvard study of an academic medical center’s orthopedic surgery patients finds that patient-reported outcomes are completed less often by patients who are black, covered by Medicare, aren’t married, don’t speak English, or who haven’t activated their patient portal account, which could create bias in clinical outcomes research. The authors speculate that patients who activate a portal account are self-selected for technology fluency, access to technology, and willingness to engage and manage their health.

CHIME’s Fall Forum will be held November 7-10 in San Antonio. The opening keynote speaker is humanoid celebrity Sophia, while the closing keynote will be offered by the US Navy’s first F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot Carey Lohrenz.

Government and Politics

The VA awards Oracle Cerner $956 million worth of task orders to continue its rollout.

North Carolina’s state treasurer says that the non-profit “hospital cartel” always puts profits ahead of patients in providing vague and sometimes conflicting data about the benefit they provide taxpayers in return for billions of dollars worth of tax exemptions. The report cites Atrium Health, which claimed that it lost $640 million in Medicare patients, but whose financial reports show a $120 million profit on those patients. National analysis shows that nearly all health systems spend less on charity care than they receive in tax breaks.

Privacy and Security

The US Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency advises the healthcare and public health sector of ransomware attacks and data extortion schemes conducted by the Daixin Team. The group has been especially active over the last five months, with Oakbend Medical Center being one of its more high-profile victims. It stole 3.5 GB of data from the center in September, after which it published a sample of 2,000 OMC patient records on its data leak site.

Other

A fascinating article describes how, in the late 1960s, two pathology residents at Englewood Hospital (NJ) used their hands-on experience with newly developed lab test processing machines to later form what became Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp. The companies used that automation to scale, reducing per-test cost and weeks-long  turnaround times to the point that smaller labs either went out of business or sold out to the companies. One expert says that they are no longer lab companies, but rather “M&A companies in the lab space.” Competitors can’t crack the exclusive contracts that insurers sign with Quest and LabCorp and can’t compete with their armies of salespeople, so their only options are to focus on a low-profit niche like allergy testing, locate in low-density population areas that are unattractive to the big players, or agree to be purchased. The article goes off track a few paragraphs in, ranting off topic on electronic medical records except pointing out that EHRs don’t make it easy for doctors to choose competing labs.

Sponsor Updates

• Clearsense sponsors Banner Health’s Pulse of the City Soiree.
• Kyruus publishes its sixth annual patient access journey report, “The Many Digital Doors of Patient Access and Engagement.”
• The Who Would Have Thought: Digital Health Innovation Podcast features Arrive Health CEO Kyle Kiser.
• Azara Healthcare achieves HITRUST risk-based, two-year certification.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Implementing an effective hospital-at-home care delivery model.”
• Bamboo Health affixes new signage to the top of its office building.
• Clearwater announces that the National Association of Corporate Directors has recognized founder and Executive Chairman Bob Chaput as NACD Directorship Certified.
• Diameter Health will exhibit at the NCQA Health Innovation Summit October 31-November 3 in Washington, DC.
• EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story showcasing how its AI-based Scribe dictation technology has helped Open Door Family Medical Center combat pandemic challenges and reduce physician burnout.

Blog Posts

• Drive Demand While Combatting Workforce Challenges and Improving Care Team Interactions (About Healthcare)
• Building a Tool Together to Comply with the “No Surprises Act” (AGS Health)
• Measuring Care Management (Arcadia)
• Readers Write: The Clinical Dilemma at the Tipping Point – How We All Can Drive Transformation in Healthcare (Ascom)
• Care across the continuum: Finding the right post-acute and community-based services for patients (CarePort)
• A Ransomware Readiness Checklist: Ways to Amp Up Detection and Response Plans (CereCore)
• Where FHIR Currently Stands and the Future Outlook for Interoperability (HealthTECH Resources)
• OCHC highlight: Seamless Exchange, a game changer in interoperability (Oracle Cerner)
• Why Invest in a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program? (ChartLogic)
• Cash or Bust: Why Discount Cards Could Be Key to Medication Adherence (CoverMyMeds)
• 5 Key Points for Optimizing Your IoT Testing Strategy (CTG)
• High Time to Get to the Cloud (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

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