News 5/3/23

Top News

The trade secrets lawsuit that medical technology vendor Masimo brought against Apple ends in a mistrial.

Masimo claims that Apple had expressed interest in working with the company on pulse oximeter technology, then instead started poaching Masimo’s employees, including its chief medical officer, to develop competing technology.

Apple later sued Masimo, accusing the company of copying the design of the Apple Watch.

Masimo says that even though six of the seven jurors believe that Apple did not steal its trade secrets, it will file for a retrial.

The US International Trade Commission will rule later this month on Masimo’s demand that Apple Watch imports be banned because they infringe on its patents.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The JAMA Internal Medicine article that found that reviewers preferred the answers of ChatGPT over those of clinicians in response to patient questions has been widely reported, leading me to offer these points about the methodology:

• The 195 randomly chosen questions and the clinician answers were extracted from a Reddit forum rather than real-life examples, due to HIPAA concerns.
• The Subreddit moderators are responsible for verifying the credentials of participants who claim to be healthcare professionals.
• The longer answers generated by ChatGPT likely provided the illusion of empathy.
• The authors had no way to determine if the publicly posted messages are similar to real-life patient questions. Most of the example questions that they posted are of the “do I need to see a doctor” variety.
• The publicly responding physicians did not know the patients they responded to, did not have their medical history, and haven’t treated them. They were voluntarily responding on their own time as strangers, among responses by multiple users, and thus had no incentive to spend more time on message quality and empathy.
• The reviewers used measures of empathy and quality that had not been tested or validated. They did not assess ChatGPT’s responses for accuracy. The “which response is better” evaluation is subjective.
• Some of the lower-scoring physician answers from examples provided were more logistical than clinical and were thus less likely to exhibit or require empathy (you are considering an ED visit but that wouldn’t accomplish much, you’ll be fine without intervention, you should contact your PCP or urgent care).
• Actual patients did not review the responses, obviously including the person who actually asked the question.
• The five reviewers, all of whom were co-authors, included one nurse practitioner and four MDs who primarily work in research and/or informatics. Three of the five reviewed each response.
• The influence of perceived message quality or empathy on eventual patient outcomes or satisfaction is not known.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CVS Health closes its all-cash, $10.6 billion acquisition of Medicare primary care chain Oak Street Health.

Clubhouse, the live chat social media platform that was wildly popular for about 15 minutes during the pandemic’s early days when people first got bored sitting at home and were still fawning over every word spoken by technology executives in a soaring stock market, lays off half its employees as people tire of the novelty of listening to real-time audio conversations. I could never understand the appeal, so I was not on the waitlist of 10 million people. 

Sales

• Good Samaritan Hospital (CA) will implement Nest Collaborative’s virtual breastfeeding support services.
• Virginia Hospital Center will use Unite Us care coordination and social services referral capabilities via the Unite Virginia network.

People

Kyruus names Peter Boumenot (B.well) as chief product officer.

Das Health promotes Michelle Jaeger to president and CEO.

Retired US Navy commander William Walders, MHA (Health First) joins BayCare (FL) as CIO.

Brad Wensel, MBA (AWS) joins Iodine Software as chief customer officer.

Brian Parrish (Craneware) joins CVS Health’s ActiveHealth and Health Data & Management Solutions as chief marketing officer.

Tenet Healthcare promotes Christopher Waldren, RN, MHA to VP of information technology.

Jason Aranda, RN, MBA joins Providence as VP of clinical IT solution delivery, south division.

Blue Shield of California promotes Krishna Ramachandran, MS, MBA to SVP of health transformation and provider adoption. He spent several years in technical roles at Epic through 2010 and was chief information and transformation officer at Duly Health and Care for three years.

Announcements and Implementations

St. Joseph’s Health (NJ) rolls out clinical communications software from CareMesh, including Connect messaging and Search provider directory services.

Litchfield Hills Orthopedic Associates (CT) implements EClinicalWorks across its surgery center and offices.

Government and Politics

NPR’s “All Things Considered” runs a story on the VA’s struggles to implement Oracle Cerner, interviewing veterans who were negatively impacted by the rollout. It concludes that “many in Congress are suggesting the VA should walk away,” although it does not quantify the number, whose those members are, or what they propose as an alternative. It gives a good bit of airtime to Ed Meagher, a former VA IT executive (he left 17 years ago and has been a contractor consultant for most of the time since), who says that patients at the five VA sites that are live on Oracle Cerner are “guinea pigs” and advocates updating the VA’s 45-year-old VistA system.

Privacy and Security

Ottawa’s Queensway Carleton Hospital notifies 100,000 patients that their data was exposed when a test server of Aetonix Systems, the hospital’s cloud-based communication platform vendor, was breached.

Sponsor Updates

• Ascom Americas Senior Product Quality Technician Ronald Bullock rappels down 17 floors of the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, NC as part of a fundraiser to support Duke Children’s Hospital.
• Agfa HealthCare earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2023 Customer Value Leadership Award for its customer-first approach and innovative leadership.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “The senior housing and care sector – challenges and opportunities.”
• WellSky adds new predictive analytics capabilities to its CarePort Connect solution to help providers reduce SNF readmissions and optimize end-of-life care transitions.
• Essentia Health launches a medical financial assistance enrollment program using CenterX’s EHR-integrated system.
• Consensus Cloud Solutions joins the AWS ISV Accelerate Program.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its In Network podcast, “Making Rounds: Leveraging analytics to create efficiencies.”
• Divurgent releases a new episode of it’s The Vurge Podcast, “Translating Business Needs Into Software Solutions, featuring Simple Interact founder and CEO Ravi Kalidindi.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast episode, “Enhanced Telehealth Experience with Healow Solutions.”
• Surescripts publishes a new data brief, “How Are Care Teams Evolving to Fill Primary Care Gaps?”

Blog Posts

• CEOs: Now is the Time for Bold Actions (AGS Health)
• Belong Health leans into complex populations with healthcare analytics (Arcadia)
• Patient No-Shows Are Costing Your Organization More Than You Think. Here’s How to Effectively Reduce Them. (Artera)
• How to Modernize Your EDI Platform (Availity)
• Care at home: How remote programs benefit patient outcomes, access, and reduce costs (Biofourmis)
• Clinical Surveillance – unlock actionable insights and amplify clinical experience to empower acute care teams (Philips Capsule)
• Public Health, Disease Surveillance, and the Opportunity for Master Data Management (CareMesh)
• A Clinical Service Desk for Epic Users: Emphasis on Clinical (CereCore)
• EHR Optimization vs. Replacement: Which Side Is Your Healthcare Facility On? (HealthTECH Resources)
• Why Do So Many Providers Fail to Capture Annual Wellness Visits? (ChartSpan)
• Role of Digital Transformation in Health Equity (CHIME)
• What Happens at Asembia 2023 Will Get Reported On Here (CoverMyMeds)
• Using Amazon Connect to Streamline Your Contact Center Operations (CTG)
• Study: US Military Sees Facility-Level Cost Savings in the First Year of Virtual Care Program (Current Health)
• Key Takeaways from HIMSS23 (Dimensional Insight)
• Methods for Improving Healthcare Quality (Vyne Medical)

Contacts

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