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News 1/20/23

January 19, 2023 News 3 Comments

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Bayer acquires Scotland-based Blackford Analysis, which offers radiology and imaging AI tools.

The companies worked together previously in developing Bayer’s Calantic medical imaging AI platform.


Reader Comments

From Jobber: “Re: position seekers. Would you consider sharing a link to the LinkedIn profile of health IT people who are looking for jobs?” I might be willing to do that in a weekly roundup or something, but only for people who explicitly ask me to share their names, previous job, and sought-after position in the briefest of tables along with a link to their LinkedIn that contains all their other information. But first, a question – would this provide value to those who are listed and to readers, or would I just be creating another pointless task for myself?

From Oracular Degeneration: “Re: Oracle Cerner. Mike Sicilia assured the Senate in late July 2022 that the company would move the VA’s implementation to the cloud and rewrite its pharmacy module within six to nine months. We are at six months now, so is it just about done?” I haven’t heard anything about the self-imposed April 2023 deadline.

From Epic TS: “Re: HIMSS. All Verona-based Epic employees will have the opportunity to attend HIMSS this year, so it might have quite the large population of 22-24 year olds.” Interesting, if this report is accurate. It would seem hard to justify opening up conference attendance to 10,000+ vendor employees.

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From RunFromThis: “Re: vendor exec pleads guilty. See attached court record.” [Name redacted], senior partner of [health IT consulting company name redacted], was arrested on March 4, 2022 (at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami at the start of ViVE-CHIME) and charged with being captured on surveillance video punching the company’s EVP of sales in the nose at 2:00 in the morning at the hotel bar. The information is public record, but I’m still not entirely comfortable running his name and that of his company over a misdemeanor battery charge. However, should you want to read more, enter citation # 202200018175 on this page. The executive-slash-puncher was 6’2” and 300 pounds, according to his arrest report, and the punchee reports on LinkedIn that the blow required emergency surgery that was followed by a quick exit from the company.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The biggest challenge in system implementations or upgrades, at least in some hospitals, is working up the nerve to actually pull the trigger to bring the change live knowing that while some things won’t work right, at some point you have to stop maintaining two systems. That feeling arose with my recent HIStalk server upgrade, where I fully expected issues after dozens of applications and endless custom coding so it would work with new server and database software (the term “deprecated function” comes up a lot). Most everything has been upgraded and/or fixed; web scripts and programming have been modified to work with new versions of PHP, MySQL, and server OS; the virtual firewall is finally working properly; and the new server is faster with more capacity.


Webinars

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health lays off 300 employees, 6% of its headcount, as part of a cost-saving restructuring. TDOC shares have lost two-thirds of their value in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 26% loss.

Real-time benefits tools vendor Arrive Health (formerly RxRevu) acquires medication adherence tools from UPMC Enterprises and has received an investment from UPMC.


Sales

  • Highland Rivers Behavioral Health chooses Findhelp to help its clients to connect with local social care resources.
  • Eudora Medical Center implements EClinicalWorks Cloud EHR.
  • MultiCare Health system acquires Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital and will spend $100 million to replace its Cerner system with Epic.
  • Cleveland Clinic will implement Palantir’s Virtual Command Center.

People

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Hicuity Health hires Young Ahn, MD (Jiahui Health) as chief medical officer.

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Clarus Care hires Rick Stevens (SoftServe) as vice chair and head of strategic accounts.


Announcements and Implementations

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St. Bernards Healthcare (AR) upgrades to Meditech Expanse, assisted by the company’s professional services team. It replaces Meditech’s legacy system, three ambulatory systems, and a patient portal. (Questioning: since the health system is named after St. Bernard Tolomei, why does it incorrectly omit the apostrophe from its name?)

Fortified Health Security publishes its healthcare cybersecurity report for 2023.

Socially Determined partners with Datavant to offer patient-level social risk data to life sciences companies.

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My favorite health IT market review is from Healthcare Growth Partners, which just released its annual report, whose masterfully concise and authoritative writing style always makes me a little bit jealous. Tidbits:

  • Market sentiment is showing a glimmer of rebound as the Fed attempts to steer the economy to a soft landing with a resilient labor market. Health IT market activity has been falling, but remains at a healthy level historically.
  • The rising cost of capital and concerns about a recession have reduced the risk tolerance and thus acquisitive interest in investors, but seller interest remains strong and an economic uptick could create significant deal flow.
  • Investor pullback in health IT is not being driven by company or sector fundamentals, but rather hospital financial pressure (which is easing) that elongated sales cycles.
  • High-quality growth companies continue to command premium valuations, while buyers will find relative bargains in acquiring sound companies and those with strong bookings and recurring profits.
  • Health IT sectors with the strongest valuations, as reported publicly, are analytics, revenue cycle management technology, and telemedicine. 
  • Companies have three valuation inflection points – proof of concept, growth scalability, and mature scalability.
  • Notable take-private transactions as public market valuations plummeted include Cerner, Change Healthcare, Vocera, Tivity Health, Convey Health Solutions, Castlight, and SOC Telemed.

ECRI lists its “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2023”:

  1. Communication challenges when medical device manufacturers notify users of recalls.
  2. A concerning number of defective single-use medical devices.
  3. Inappropriate use of automated dispensing cabinet overrides.
  4. Undetected dislodging of hemodialysis venous connections.
  5. Failing to manage the cybersecurity risks of cloud-based clinical systems.
  6. Inflatable pressure infusers for IV bags delivering air emboli.
  7. Cross-contamination in cleaning ventilators.
  8. Improper use of electrosurgical units.
  9. Overuse of cardiac telemetry on non-cardiac patients, which causes alarm fatigue, clinician cognitive overload, and unrecognized critical events.
  10. Underreporting of device-related issues.

Government and Politics

The State of Georgia’s proposed budget calls for $105 million for Medical College of Georgia to implement Epic. The college is part of Augusta University, which is negotiating the transfer of its assets to Epic customer Wellstar. I think the August University Health hospitals are using Cerner. The top reason given by the health systems for partnering was to expand digital health offerings to improve access to care and care personalization.


Privacy and Security

A ProPublica investigation finds that online pharmacies that sell abortion pills are sending potentially identifiable website user data to Google’s tracking tools, potentially exposing customers to prosecution in some states.


Other

A case study describes how Brigham and Women’s Hospital uses an electronic handoff tool when transferring patients from ED to inpatient, yielding high clinician utilization and a reduction in clarifying calls to ED clinicians from 51% of admissions to 10%.


Sponsor Updates

  • PeriGen supports a Virtual Learning Day for perinatal and neonatal nurses titled “Partners in Practice: Uncovering Solutions and Strategies for Staffing and Reproductive Justice” on January 26.
  • Netsmart achieves ONC Health IT Cures update certification for its human services EHR solutions.
  • Ascom Americas expands its partnership with reseller Newtech Systems so that its clinical workflow solutions are available to hospitals in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
  • EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story, “Brookhaven Heart & MD365: Streamlining Patient Engagement and Intervention with RPM.”
  • The Authentically Successful Podcast features Get Well CEO Michael O’Neil.
  • Censinet publishes a research report titled “The Impact of Ransomware on Patient Safety and the Value of Cybersecurity Benchmarking.”
  • GHX will present at the Contract Administration Conference February 6 in Cape Coral, FL.
  • Healthjump earns NCQA’s Validated Data Stream Designation.

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Currently there are "3 comments" on this Article:

  1. The Epic report is likely accurate. They bussed basically anyone down to Chicago in 2008 who wanted to attend, and I would assume they’ll do it again.







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RECENT COMMENTS

  1. I think Disingenuous is confused (or simply not aware of how it has been architected). How control of Epic is…

  2. It seems that every innovation in the past 50 years has claimed that it would save money and lives. There…

  3. Well, this is predicting the future, and my crystal ball is cloudy and cracked. But my basic thesis about Meditech?…

  4. RE Judy Faulkner's foundation wishes: Different area, but read up on the Barnes Foundation to see how things work out…

  5. Meditech certainly benefited from Cerner and Allscripts stumbles and before that the failures of ECW and Athena’s inpatient expansions. I…

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