Monday Morning Update 2/13/23

Top News

Terry Admirim, MD, MPH, MBA, program executive director of the VA’s EHR Modernization Integration Office, will leave the VA to pursue unstated other opportunities.

Serving as interim after her February 25 departure will be Neil Evans, MD, senior advisor to the assistant secretary for information and technology and CIO and head of the VA’s Connected Care program.

Reader Comments

From Tempus Fugit: “Re: Olive. I heard endlessly about their unicorn status and huge customer count, which sounded like BS and probably means they are counting some rando clinic that is using a tiny solution as a customer. I know a sales guy there and he said the company paid them a ton to sell consulting engagements, but with nothing meaningful deployed, they went back to selling small patient access solutions. He said customers were unhappy that they were promised a 5x ROI that hasn’t happened anywhere.” Unverified. Axios reviewed LinkedIn records in May 2022 to determine that among the 20 Olive employee departures in the previous month were its EVP/GM, senior director of partner programs. director of data engineering, chief marketing officer, and VP of product. Axios also reported in April 2022 that Olive overpromises, under-delivers, and doesn’t actually use AI/ML. The company told the reporter at that time that it had 1,000 hospitals in 200 enterprise customers using its products and services, although an Axios review of internal documents shows 80 customers. The company has raised $856 million in funding through a Series H round, with its last investment being in July 2021.

From Domainatrix: “Re: company layoffs. A positive aspect is that young workers will now know that their employer isn’t their friend, co-workers aren’t their families, and employers as well as employers are free to end their bargain for any reason.” Long-timers who have been negatively affected at some point by company decisions rolled eyes at the unquestioning willingness of fresh go-getters to work ridiculous hours or grind away at crappy jobs, convinced that they would be rewarded by their benevolent bosses. Fast-forward to the end of boom times that has put employers back in control with little fear of mass resignations. The result is a scaling back of work-from home programs and an insistence that “valued associates” work harder or longer because the company has found itself in a jam, often of its own making. Bosses aren’t friends, the job of the chief people officer is mostly to work against the interest of employees, and you would be replaced and turned into a break room trivia question within three months of your departure.

From Purported Victim: “Re: hospitals ending some services or closing in poor areas. So much for being a charitable non-profit.” You will always be disappointed if you expect any person or organization to take any action that isn’t the one that is most beneficial to them.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Patient portal, telephone, and online forms are the most common ways poll respondents have recently sent medical information to a clinician.

New poll to your right or here: Did your most recent clinician encounter, in whatever form, make you feel “cared for?”I voted yes because when I recently texted my direct primary care doctor about refill, she asked me how I was doing and mentioned that I hadn’t seen her for a while and might want to drop by for routine lab work and a health review, none of which increase her income.

Webinars

February 28 (Tuesday) 1 ET. “Words Matter: Simplifying Clinical Terms for Patients.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Whitney Mannion, RN, MSN, senior terminologist, IMO; David Bocanegra, RN, nurse informaticist, IMO. The language of medicine can be confusing and contradictory to patients, challenging their ability to prepare for a procedure or pay their bills. This webinar will explore how the words that are used to communicate – online, in print, and in person – must be chosen carefully to allow patients to comprehend their diagnoses, treatments, and care plans. The presenters will also describe how the ONC Final Rule for the 21st Century Cures Act will make clinical and technical language more directly accessible through patient portals.

March 7 (Tuesday) noon ET.  “Prescribe RPA 2.0 to Treat Healthcare Worker Burnout.” Sponsor: Keysight Technologies. Presenters: Anne Foster, MS, technical consultant manager, Eggplant; Emily Yan, MPA, product marketing manager, Keysight Technologies. Half of US health systems plan to invest in robotic process automation by the end of this year, per Gartner. The concept is evolving to help with staff burnout and physician productivity. The presenters will introduce RPA 2.0, explain how to maximize its value, demonstrate how to quickly start on RPA 2.0 and test automation in one platform, and answer questions about healthcare automation.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Business Insider looks at the “fleet of secret workers” who aren’t visible to customers but who perform much of the work that is attributed to sexy technology or who are required to keep that technology running. The author concludes that robots, automation technology, and AI chatbots won’t replace employees, but they may allow companies to shift less-visible offshore to lower their costs. I would say that we are in the early days of companies overstating their use of AI and other tools in failing to mention that behind-the-scenes humans are doing a lot of the actual work, the “10,000 diligent Indians” concept a vendor CEO once told me about. It’s kind of a sad state when companies brag on their tools rather than their humans, but investors love employee-lite scalability and companies yearn to be viewed as a technology high-flyer instead of a low-tech sweatshop.

NPR notes that hospitals are outsourcing their EDs to staffing companies that are owned by private equity investors, with a result being that doctors are being replaced by nurse practitioners and physician assistants to boost margins. The change is motivating some ED doctors to change their work setting because they went into medicine to see patients, not supervise lesser-trained employees.

Sales

• Norman Regional Health System selects VisiQuate Denials Management Analytics, Revenue Management Analytics, and PayFlo.
• Onsite Women’s Health will use Volpara Health’s analytics software to improve mammography quality by assessing positioning, compression, and radiation dose.
• Complete Care implements the EClinicalWorks EHR.

People

Health Catalyst promotes Cathy Menkiena, RN, MBA to GM/SVP Northeast.

Industry long-timer and former CHIME VP Tim Stettheimer, PhD died February 9 of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). He was 56.

Announcements and Implementations

Stick around until the Friday morning keynote of HIMSS23 (which is asking a lot) and you can hear just-announced speaker and NFL player Damar Hamlin, who was saved by CPR and AED after suffering cardiac arrest in a game on January 2. He will speak on “Winning the Game of Life.”

A new KLAS report covers IT advisory services.

Sponsor Updates

• CloudWave launches its Cybersecurity Insider Program to offer members access to information about the latest cybersecurity trends and threats, as well as ongoing education.
• Nordic releases a new Designing for Health Podcast featuring UCHealth CMIO Dr. CT Lin.
• PeriGen partners with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, and the Malawi Ministry of Health to assist with successful newborn in Malawi using PeriGen’s AI-augmented continuous electronic fetal monitoring.
• PerfectServe publishes a new case study, “How Savannah Neurology Specialists Reinvented Their Medical Answering Service Workflows.”
• Sphere releases a new e-book, “Unaffordable Medical Bills: A New Social Determinant of Health.”
• Spok receives ISO 13485:2016 certification from Dekra Certification.
• Talkdesk has been recognized as a Customers’ Choice in the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” for contact center as a service.

Blog Posts

• OpenAI and ChatGPT: A Primer for Healthcare Leaders (Orbita)
• The PINC AI Applied Sciences Team Partners with NWCF to Advance Health Equity and Expand Education (Premier)
• ChatGPT is coming to your contact center (Talkdesk)
• MIPS Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Policy Update (WebPT)
• As Emergency Department Clinicians Struggle with Burnout, Clinical Decision Support Emerges as a Potential Lifeline (Zynx Health)

Contacts

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