Monday Morning Update 5/22/23

Top News

The assets of bankrupt digital therapeutics vendor Pear Therapeutics fetch $6 million at auction.

The company had raised $409 million in funding. It went public in a SPAC merger in December 2021 in a deal worth $1.5 billion.

The auction proceeds, which must be approved in a court hearing Monday, won’t cover the $32 million that Pear owes to creditors.

Successful bidders were:

• Click Therapeutics, which offered $70,000 for Pear’s patents. That company offers a variety of digital therapeutics products.
• Harvest Bio, which bid $2 million for Pear’s patent licenses. I couldn’t find any online presence for the company.
• Nox Health, which offered to pay $3.9 million for Somryst, which is Pear’s insomnia treatment app. Nox Health offers sleep health solutions.
• Welt, which will pay $50,000 for Pear’s migraine assets. The Korea-based company offers digital biomarkers and digital therapeutics.

Reader Comments

From Oracular Degeneration: “Re: David Feinberg. Will he leave Oracle Cerner at the one-year mark? It’s coming up.” I’m among many who expect him to leave at the earliest date that won’t jeopardize his $22 million reward for serving as Cerner’s CEO for a few pre-acquisition weeks. The one-year closing date is June 8, and other documents reference a 52-day period that would make it July 30. I don’t know why he would stay or why Oracle would want him to.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents have just two real problems with the behavior of their fellow attendees. I’ll side with the person who opines that Q&A pontification is the one item on the list that is insulting rather than just annoying and thus deservers having attendees emulate UK Members of Parliament and shout them down.

New poll to your right or here: Will the VA eventually complete an enterprise-wide rollout of Oracle Cerner?

I thought the once-respected Forbes couldn’t get any more hilariously irrelevant, but they have topped it by tasking a “content creator” (they deem her an “expert”) to compare Cerner to Epic. She helpfully informs us that neither company offers transparent pricing or a free trial, that both offer the “useful feature” of revenue cycle management, and that Epic does not offer third-party integrations. She concludes that in her expert opinion, Cerner is the better choice for “clinical practices and specialties,” while “Epic is our pick for bigger hospitals and care networks.” Should you wish to drink further from her Forbes fountain, check out “How To Make Business Cards At Home” or “How To Get Clients In Release Estate.”

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

RCM vendor Aspirion acquires Firm Revenue Cycle Management Services.

People

Amwell hires Kathy Weiler, MA (Optum) as EVP / chief commercial and growth officer.

Today I (accidentally) learned that Care.AI founder and CEO Chakri Toleti – who previously co-founded Galvanon (sold to NCR) and HealthGrid (sold to Allscripts) – is a former actor and Bollywood film director. His brother Raj Toleti, who was involved with those companies along with others in health IT, such as Cytura and PatientPoint, is now founder, CEO, and chairman of Andor Health.

Announcements and Implementations

Five pharmacies of the Wegmans grocery chain will pilot ScripTalk, an RFID tag for prescription containers that allows the drug’s name, dose, instructions, and warnings to be read out loud on the accompanying audio device or on the patient’s phone.

Privacy and Security

The Harris County, TX attorney calls for privacy violation action against Texas Children’s Hospital after an unnamed person provided screen shots of the medical records of children to a conservative think tank, which published them in an article about the hospital’s gender-affirming care services.

In England, a judge dismisses a hospital patient’s privacy lawsuit against Google, ruling that Royal Free London NHS Trust’s sharing of patient medical records with Google’s DeepMind Technologies in 2015 did not violate reasonable expectations of privacy.

Other

In Canada, a Price Edward Island review finds that 1,700 patient referrals were missed when clinic staff forgot to fax them as required by the Telus EHR.

I found via a LinkedIn mention the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” that was created by the US’s predecessor to the CIA in 1944 to guide “citizen-saboteurs” of occupied countries as gleaned from European experience. Some that pertain to businesses may still have corporate relevance:

• Insist that everything go through channels and don’t allow shortcuts that could expedite decisions.
• Make long speeches that include anecdotes of personal experience.
• Refer all matters to committees that have at least five members.
• Bring up irrelevant issues.
• Revisit decisions made in previous meetings.
• Recommend caution and emphasize avoiding embarrassment in guiding decision-making.
• Promote employees who don’t deserve it and complain about achievers.
• Add layers of required approval and unneeded paperwork.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore promotes Bob Gronberg to AVP of Meditech professional services and Clay Posey to AVP of technical services.
• Black Book releases the results of its analysis of population health data activation platforms and data management systems, based on the responses of 2,539 survey respondents.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new customer success story featuring Shield Medical Group, “Data-Driven Decisions with Healow Insights.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health releases the results of its second “Pharmacy Next: Consumer Care and Cost Trends” survey.
• Nordic will exhibit at Infor Connect 2023 May 22-25 in St. Paul, MN.
• OmniSys will exhibit at the HCP23 Spring Hospital Pharmacy Conference May 22-24 in Indianapolis.
• Sonifi Health expands its customer engagements with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Essentia Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and Griffin Health.
• Talkdesk earns TrustRadius Awards in the contact center, call center workforce optimization, call recording, and VoIP categories.
• Waystar will exhibit at the EClinicalWorks 2023 Enterprise Summit May 22-24 in Boston.

Blog Posts

• Tired of Missed and Late Appointments? Take These Steps! (Net Health)
• Boost clinician satisfaction and reduce burnout in neurology (Nuance)
• Do your managed services KPIs drive value? (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• With Specialist HCP Engagement, the Devil is in the Details (OptimizeRx)
• The Retail Health Chess Game (Pivot Point Consulting)
• Unlocking the Potential of Your Answering Service: Boosting the Provider Experience (PerfectServe)
• Pinc AI Applied Sciences: Expanding Oncology Research with Real-World Data (Premier)
• How HNI Healthcare Reduced Denials and Achieved a 40% Automation Rate (RCxRules)
• The Hidden Economy: Unraveling the Economic Impact of Caregiving in the US (Trualta)
• 5 Tips for Hybrid PT Clinic Marketing (WebPT)
• Care Plans and Evidence-based Clinical Decision Support (Zynx Health)

Contacts

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