News 5/5/23

Top News

The Drug Enforcement Administration, reacting to the record 38,000 comments it received about its intention to reinstate pre-COVID telehealth prescribing limitations for controlled drugs with the end of the public health emergency, will leave the flexibilities intact as it reexamines the issue.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A reader previously asked me for financial highlights from HIMSS. The organization hasn’t filed a federal Form 990 since May 2021, after which it changed its fiscal year-end to December 31, so records are current only through June 2020. That wasn’t a good year for HIMSS, when it had to cancel its cash cow annual conference. I’ve reported the numbers previously (they are two years old, after all), but here again are the highlights:

• Total revenue dropped 74% to $29 million.
• Profit slid from $21 million to a loss of $54 million, which swung net assets from $33 million to negative $24 million.
• Top-earning executives were President and CEO Hal Wolf ($1.4 million), former EVP Carla Smith ($1.3 million, of which $375,000 was severance), and 11 others who earned from $250,000 to $666,000.
• HIMSS reported a revenue breakout of $12 million from membership, $10 million from advertising, $1.9 million from conferences, $1.9 million from its maturity model business, and $1.6 million from corporate sponsors. Recall however that this is in a year when the conference was cancelled and revenue dropped by $83 million compared to the year before.

Happy Cinco de Cuatro to my fellow Cornballers (iykyk).

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor Keysight Technologies. The Santa Rosa, CA-based company’s Keysight Eggplant is recognized by Forrester as a leader in software test automation. Healthcare providers and medical device manufacturers can experience enhanced healthcare software testing in three areas: (1) non-invasive EMR testing at DevOps speed; (2) streamlined medical device software testing; and (3) test automation and RPA in one toolset. Keysight’s Eggplant Test Automation Software helps healthcare providers design, schedule, and execute test cases that improve their user’s experience. Its solutions are tailored to simplify the complexities of continuous integration, deployment, and testing, enabling healthcare providers to analyze high-fidelity models of complex systems and ensure the best possible outcomes for patients. Thanks to Keysight Technologies for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Centene will sell healthcare analytics vendor Apixio, which it acquired in December 2020, to private equity firm New Mountain Capital. The private equity firm’s active holdings include Datavant, EMIDS, Cloudmed, and Signify Health.

Virtual youth and family mental health provider Brightline lays off 20% of its employees on top of the 20% that it let go in November 2022.

Home diagnostics vendor Cue Health will lay off 325 employees, or 26% of its workforce. The company, which was best known for its over-the-counter COVID-19 test that was used by the NBA, went public in 2021 at a $3 billion valuation. HLTH shares have since lost 97%, valuing the company at $105 million. CEO Ayub Khattak said in the March earnings call that the company sold $1 billion worth of tests in the last two years and has added a virtual care delivery solution. The company was awarded a $481 million Department of Defense contract in October 2020 for its rapid COVID-19 test, which uses swabs and a cartridge-based reader that delivers results to smartphones.

People

DataLink hires Eric Hedrick (Advantmed) as VP of clinical transformation.

Remote patient monitoring platform vendor Health Recovery Solutions hires Alan Bugos, MS (Medminder) as CTO.

Wi-fi sensing solution provider Origin AI hires Joseph Gwin, PhD (Best Buy Health) as chief innovation officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Apree Health, created in September 2022 by the merger of Vera Whole Health and Castlight Health, launches a cloud-based member analytics platform for health plans and large employers. Former Cerner President Don Trigg is CEO.

UCSD Health demonstrates scannable health insurance cards that use the SMART Health Code QR standard.

Government and Politics

The VA chooses four companies to submit task orders under an eight-year, $1 billion contract for home telehealth for remote patient monitoring: Cognosante, DrKumo, Medtronic Care Management Services, and Valor Healthcare.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns consumers that high-interest medical credit cards and financing – often advertised in the waiting rooms of physicians, dentists, and hospitals that previously offered their patients no-interest payment plans – can inflate medical bills by up to 25%.

Privacy and Security

A lawsuit that was filed by a woman against Lehigh Valley Health Network, in an attempt to force the health system to pay ransomware hackers to remove her nude patient examination photos from the dark web, has been dropped. The federal judge questioned whether the court has the authority to force a party to comply with an illegal act, leading the plaintiff to drop her proposed class action lawsuit. 

NationBenefits says that the information of three million of its members was exposed in an April mass ransomware attack that exploited a flaw in cybersecurity vendor Fortra’s file transfer system. The attack involved other healthcare organizations such as hospital operator Community Health Systems, which said in February that the Fortra-vector attack exposed the information of at least one million of its patients. Fortra has determined that a zero-day flaw in its software allowed a ransomware group to steal data from at least 100 companies starting in January 2023.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare Triangle will exhibit at the 2023 MUSE Inspire Conference June 7-10 in Denver.
• EClinicalWorks kicks off its summit for FQHCs, rural health clinics, Indian health centers, and community health centers.
• Volpara Health wil donate 5% of sales of its breast density assessment software to educational website DenseBreast-info.org.
• Health Data Movers will sponsor a breakfast at the UNOS Transplant Management Forum on May 18 in Denver.
• Meditech congratulates HCA Healthcare for its top ranking in Fortune’s list of 2023 Most Admired Companies in the medical facility category.
• Five9 publishes a new case study, “Healthcare Technology Provider Delivers Personalized Member Services.”
• NTT Data announces it has been named a Leader in all four quadrants of the ISG Provider Lens 2022 – Healthcare Digital Services report.

Blog Posts

• Creating the Triple-Win of Healthcare (Enlace Health)
• Cures Act Moves Certification Goal Posts for Health IT (First Databank)
• Take control of your healthcare security with threat hunting (Fortified Health Security)
• Is Your Healthcare Organization Ready to Make the Move to Epic Hyperdrive? (HealthTECH Resources)
• Helping Healthcare Supply Chain Adapt for a Modern World (GHX)
• 10 Healthcare IT Leaders You Should Know: Recap of HIMSS23 (Healthjump)
• Hospitals Suffer Financially Post-COVID: What That Could Mean for the Future (HealthTech Resources)
• HIMSS23 Reflections: It Comes Down to Patient Experience (Healthwise)
• Determining the Value-on-Investment of Provider-to-Provider Virtual Consultation for Cancer Care (Impact Advisors)
• How specialized terminologies improve clinical documentation (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Wrapping Up Medical Laboratory Professionals Week 2023 (JTG Consulting Group)
• Staying Ahead of Healthcare Tech Trends: Managed IT Services (Medhost)
• Connecting with My Physical Therapist Between Visits Helped Me Finish My Treatment Plan (Net Health)
• How Midtown Medical Imaging demonstrates the value of high-quality imaging (Nuance)

The following HIStalk Sponsors win 2023 MedTech Breakthrough Awards:

• Loyal – best patient registration and scheduling solution
• Kyruus – best online search and scheduling solution
• Elsevier Clinical Path – best computerized decision support solution
• Nym Health – best overall health administration software
• Availity – health administration innovation award
• Lumeon – best care orchestration platform
• Bamboo Health – best care management solution provider
• ConnectiveRx – best overall patient engagement service
• Experity – best EHR solution
• Arrive Health – best EHR service

Contacts

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