News 4/14/23

Top News

Carlyle Group abandons its interest in acquiring a 50% stake in payments integrity technology vendor Cotiviti from Veritas Capital.

Veritas reportedly rejected Carlyle’s offer that had been lowered due to market conditions.

Reuters reported in February that Carlyle was interested in acquiring part of Cotiviti at a $15 billion valuation.

Veritas took Cotiviti private in 2018 for around $5 billion and merged it into its Verscend Technologies payer analytics business.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

HIMSS23 weather goes from near-record high in the upper 70s through Saturday – which only early-arriving exhibitor personnel will get to see – with a big cool-off with 50-ish highs and the possibility of snow showers on Monday.

I’ve noticed that Oracle seems to be retiring the Oracle Cerner name that was used interchangeably with Oracle Health following the acquisition. Press releases after mid-February don’t include the Cerner name other than one reference to Cerner Millennium.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Interoperability platform vendor 1upHealth raises $40 million in a Series C funding round, increasing its total to $76 million. The company says it will use the proceeds to develop products to support CMS regulations, enhance its data cloud infrastructure, and expand its customer and services teams.

Release of information vendor Verisma acquires competitor ScanStat.

Verato’s identity management solutions will be offered with the interoperability products of Redox to provide a 360-degree view of patients, members, providers, and communities.

Sales

• Saint Joseph’s Medical Center will extend its deployment of Oracle Health’s EHR and RevElate patient accounting solution to all locations.
• The Princess Alexandra NHS Trust will implement Oracle Health’s EHR.

People

Ashish Sant, MTech (Bracco) joins Merative as general manager of its Merge imaging solutions.

Aspirion hires Amy Amick, MBA (SPH Analytics) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Google will offer limited access to its Med-PaLM 2 medical large language model to a select group of Google Cloud customers for testing and use case development.

Carnegie Mellon researchers develop an Internet-connected OpenAI tool that correctly developed a plan to synthesize ibuprofen, aspirin, and aspartame and to control the lab technology required to manufacture them. They also had the system develop a new cancer drug that was not tested. The authors warn that such a system is promising, but could be used to create illegal drugs or bioweapons. Not surprisingly, they also credit ChatGPT for creating the first draft of the article. 

Google Cloud announces an AI-enabled Claims Acceleration Suite for prior authorization review and claims processing. One module is Claims Data Activator, which allows searching patient records to create FHIR-formatted structured data to speed decision-making. The company is also recommended solutions from Myndshft (real-time prior authorization and benefits) and Pega (expedited manual review of prior authorization requests) that run on Google Cloud.

Walgreens expands its year-old clinical trials business by recruiting participants for an Alzheimer’s drug trial. Walgreens launched the business in June 2022, saying that its nationwide footprint and enterprise-wide data capabilities allow it to make clinical trials more accessible, convenient, and equitable, particularly in the nearly half of its locations that are in socially vulnerable areas.

Remote diagnostics and telehealth vendor Medaica will provide free, FDA-cleared digital stethoscopes for in-home use by rural and underserved patients who are undergoing telehealth exams.

Glooko, which offers a home diabetes management system, will integrate Hedia’s bolus insulin dosing advice that can integrate with connected insulin pens.

Microsoft lists new Teams healthcare capabilities and other products that it will demonstrate at HIMSS23:

• Launch Teams virtual visits directly from Epic and Cerner via its EHR connector, which also supports joint and group visits.
• The ability to schedule, brand, and send patient reminders for virtual visits.
• Track virtual visit no-shows, appointment durations, wait times, and number of appointments.
• Integration of Teams with Teladoc Health Solo.
• A new pre-configured home experience for frontline care workers.
• A Walkie Talkie Teams app.
• Support for shared use of Android phones.
• A unified member view and care journey template for payers.
• Previews of new Azure AI Services for Health that include SDoH and ethnicity support from unstructured data, clinical trials matching, and Health Bot integration.

Roche announces Navify Algorithm Suite, which allows clinicians to order certified algorithms from Roche and other companies from within their EHR and laboratory systems.

A Deloitte survey of 30 US health system leaders looks at digital health tools:

• Three-fourths of respondents say their organizations are rethinking their business models from delivering treatments to maintaining health, with most of them supporting the change with digital technologies but conceding that much work remains.
• Health systems are successfully meeting consumer and care needs within their four walls, but fall short in preventive and continuing care. Adoption remains low for integrating wearables data, care plans, and clinician messaging.
• The executives say that integrating digital technologies also requires addressing revenue, fragmented ownership of digital projects, changing workflows. and lack of skilled workers.
• One interviewee noted that technology could help bridge the gap between what consumers do for their own health and wellness versus the entirely separate activities that they do for healthcare

Government and Politics

HHS OCR issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would extend HIPAA to prohibit the use of disclosure of PHI for identifying, investigating, suing, or prosecuting someone for seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive healthcare. The unpublished document is here.

Other

Bay Area Hospital (OR) is threatened with closure after losing $61 million in its most recent fiscal year, which auditors blame on several problems that include a problematic implementation of Epic that resulted in $18 million of lost billings. Auditors also noted that the hospital spent $15 million more in contract labor in 2022 than in 2021, some of that due to Epic go-live support needs, and also spent $3.6 million to help local medical practices with their Epic installation.

The University of Virginia newspaper profiles 2016 graduate Aajash Shah, who with his ENT surgeon cousin started home allergy treatment company Wyndly in 2021. The company sells a $249 home finger-stick allergy test whose results are reviewed by a doctor to prescribe under-the-tongue tablets as an alternative to allergy shots. The service, which includes unlimited doctor time and treatments, costs $99 per month.

KFF Health News profiles Horizon Therapeutics, which is about to be acquired by Amgen for $27.8 billion even though it has never developed a drug that has reached the market. The Shkreli-like company buys old drugs, raises their prices, markets them aggressively to physicians who sometimes are paid honoraria, offers concierge-like services to patients to whom it markets directly, and makes sure that insurers rather than patients bear the financial burden via its patient assistance programs. It spent $120 million to acquire a last-resort gout drug that has many cheap alternatives, then marketed it aggressively to drive sales to $1 billion annually after increasing its price tenfold. The company, which saved a fortune in US taxes by moving its headquarters to Ireland, paid $93.4 million in 2015 to its CEO, who will reap a reported $135 million from the acquisition.

In India, authorities raid an unlicensed hospital that was being run by a high school dropout who was posing as a doctor, following reports that the illegal 16-bed Mediversal Hospital included a lab, ICU, emergency room, and surgery suite.

Sponsor Updates

• Women’s Health Associates realizes a 40% increase in revenue cycle payment processing with Healow Payment Services from EClinicalWorks.
• Surescripts launches the second season of its There’s a Better Way: Smart Talk on Healthcare and Technology Podcast.
• BayCare Health System expands its use of Oracle Health technologies to include its RevElate patient accounting software.
• Vyne Medical will sponsor and present at NAHAM’s annual conference May 2-5 in Orlando.
• Fortified Health Security names Matthew Prater service desk technician.
• Health Data Movers publishes a new case study, “Data Conversion for a Growing Health System.)
• Net Health publishes a new e-book, “10 Practical Tips for Taking Your Physical Therapy Clinic Management to the Next Level.”

Blog Posts

• How Predictive Data Improves Outcomes, Cuts Costs (Enlace Health)
• Five9 Knows Healthcare: Improving Patient Care in Times of Calm and Crisis (Five9)
• Increase Margins and Eliminate Access Barriers with Meaningful Automation (Impact Advisors)
• How Well Do You Track Your Provider ‘Inventory?’ (InterSystems)
• Clearsense at HIMSS 2023 (Clearsense)
• How to buy back your clinical informaticists’ time (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Marble’s Data Connections – Kaiser Permanente (Marble)
• Everything You Need to Know About Rural Emergency Hospitals (REH) (Medhost)
• ViVE: The Trending Health Conference for Healthcare Tech Professionals (Healthjump)
• Seizing the moment at Meditech’s 2023 Home Care Symposium (Meditech)
• Quick Wins: 5 Service Lines that Make the Most Sense for Prior Authorization Software (Myndshft)
• How Brightside Health Supports At-Risk Populations Who Would Otherwise Fall Through the Cracks (NeuroFlow)
• The impact of technological advancements in healthcare (Nuance)

Contacts

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