Monday Morning Update 11/6/23

Top News

Ransomware hackers claim to have taken Henry Schein down again, two weeks after the medical supply distributor’s systems went offline from a similar attack that it reported on October 15. The company is again directing customers to place orders by telephone.

The BlackCat ransomware group says it has re-encrypted 35 terabytes of the company’s just-restored data. It posted company data publicly but later deleted it, hinting that Schein is either actively negotiating with the hacker group or has already paid its demanded ransom.

New SEC rules require publicly traded companies to disclose cyberattacks that could have a material impact, which the company has not done. However, it has asked the SEC for more time in filing its quarterly report due to the malware-caused shutdown of some operations.

The same ransomware group was behind the May 2021 shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline that caused gas shortages until the company paid a $5 million ransom. It claims that its actions have already cost Schein $150 million, adding that its other attacks cost Clorox $500 million and Dole $200 million.

Reader Comments

From Enigmass: “Re: mission versus money. Anyone else hearing that this is a hotter and hotter topic at hospitals? Hearing lots of stories about hospital / systems closing money losing birthing centers, satellite offices, mobile health vans, etc. to help the bottom line. Also hearing when local residents find out about it the public backlash is extreme.” This seems to be a daily occurrence, except possibly for the “public backlash” part since the facilities or services that are being shut down are nearly always located in areas that have low political clout. I’ll run a poll below. I suppose one could argue that businesses in general have the right to close unprofitable locations, but hospitals get huge tax breaks for the limited charity care they provide and are seemingly becoming less worried about public reaction to pruning their portfolio, just as they are no longer shamed to be paying their executives multi-million dollar salaries.

From Kvetcher: “Re: anonymous comments about companies. I’d like to see an example.” Here’s a recent one from “Don Draper” that I have heavily redacted. I’ll explain below why it is problematic to run it unedited even though I appreciate receiving it:

Next up [after Olive] is [company name] and their sponsored [events] while they’re laying off people left and right. CEO [x] is out, CRO [x] is out, supposed data genius [x] is now a “consultant,” and they’re laying off many more. They’re no longer selling a platform that never existed, they’re just doing data archival. Word is they lost their biggest account due to issues similar to what Olive’s clients experienced. No delivery. Then they pump out an announcement that they landed [big health system] which is just a data archiving project. Big secret is, the CIO at [big health system] has a son that sells for [the company]. How do these hospitals not see that they’re getting fleeced by their own people making decisions that enrich themselves and not the hospitals. But no news about this stuff. Everybody just keeps it under wraps because nobody wants to be outed as the fool.

Notes:

• LinkedIn and the company’s executive page do not show any job changes for the three people named. 
• It shows that someone with the CIO’s last name sells for the company, so I’m sure that’s true, but not necessarily indicative of misconduct.
• No layoffs have been announced, but since just about every company has laid people off, that is almost certainly true to unknown degree.
• The company still markets a platform, so I’m not sure if the comment means that they retired it or that customers are buying services instead.
• My takeaway is that this comment is probably mostly or completely accurate, at least from the unstated vantage point of the commenter. I haven’t heard customer complaints, but those are usually communicated via reference site inquiries.
• Bottom line: companies nearly always overstate their capabilities and successes – which isn’t necessarily a scam — and it’s the prospect’s job to perform due diligence by contacting existing customers, which is easily done without waiting for breaking news.
• It’s my job to look for and responsibly report red flags in hopes of generating non-anonymous verification. The Axios report on Olive was paywalled, so my recap may have been news to many.
• Olive claimed to have 900 hospital customers, so now that the company is defunct, I would appreciate hearing performance details and/or seeing what their signed agreements promised. I would also like to see what KLAS had to say about the company after talking to its customers. 
• One last point. Sometimes reference sites are compensated for touting a vendor’s product. Talk to the people who actually work with it or who should benefit from its results, not C-level folks whose next job could hinge on not burning vendor bridges.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

LinkedIn is the only social media tool that poll respondents are using significantly more for work-related purposes than two years ago.

New poll to your right or here: has a local hospital or health system closed money-losing businesses or locations in the past year to the community’s detriment?

I hoped to like the new tune that is attributed to the Beatles, but George Harrison was right: it’s a sweet but “rubbish” poor-quality John Lennon demo that he rightfully discarded, reworked by AI into a fake Beatles reunion. About the only positive I can muster is that Yoko didn’t insist on shrieking along and it came with new nostalgia-inducing video showing Paul and Ringo recording their parts. Don’t let “Now and Then” be your final Beatles memory – re-watch “A Hard Day’s Night” or the video of their farewell rooftop concert or listen to “In My Life” or “Here, There and Everywhere” when they actually played together. The Fab Four’s jobs are safe from AI.

Happy end of Daylight Saving Time, with the falling back meaning that (a) driving home from work involves headlights; and (b) the time-challenged among us who incorrectly express times as EST for the full year can enjoy being right for the next four months.

Thanks to the following companies that recently supported HIStalk. Click a logo to learn more about them.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The Wall Street Journal reports that chain drugstore understaffing – exacerbated by reduced front-of-store sales as customers shop online and by investor focus on the newly acquired medical practices of drug chains – has cratered their customer satisfaction, caused medication errors, and created prescription filling delays.

People

Shahzad Safar, MBA (Rx Savings Solutions) joins Trualta as CTO.

Announcements and Implementations

AMIA recognizes Susan Newbold, PhD, RN of Nursing Informatics Boot Camp with its Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award.

Other

A Washington Post review describes how hospitals hastily discharge elderly patients who lack immediate relatives by petitioning to have them assigned to court-appointed guardians. The guardians, who in Florida are required only to complete a 40-hour course, immediately gain control over the patient’s finances and assets. The article recounts a former pilot who was assigned a guardian through a hospital-retained attorney – who also served as the guardian’s counsel at $300 per hour – despite having living relatives. The guardian moved the patient to a nursing home, sold his house at a lowball price with help of a phony valuation report to a buyer who flipped it as-is for a 50% profit, and liquidated his belongings in a cash-only estate sale. The guardian claims that she never saw all the cards and gifts that were mailed to the patient’s home from family members. The state declined to pursue a criminal investigation, but the guardian was reprimanded for filing late reports and ordered to take eight more hours of training.

Sponsor Updates

• Symplr staff raise money for breast cancer research by participating in the Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk.
• NeuroFlow will present at Behavioral Health Tech 2023 November 15-17 in Phoenix, AZ.
• Notable announces the 2023 recipients of the Notable Impact Awards, which recognize health systems and executive champions who are driving tech-led transformation.
• Netsmart will incorporate ReThink Behavioral Health’s practice management software for applied behavioral analysis and pediatric therapy into its CareRecords software.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new case study, “UHealth: Supporting the unique ITSM needs of an Academic Medical Center.”
• PerfectServe’s Lightning Bolt achieves top marks for overall performance, ease of use, quality of support, and proactive service in the 2023 KLAS Physician Scheduling Report.
• Redox releases a new Diagnosing Healthtech Podcast, “Treating veterans and interoperability with former Secretary of the VA, Dr. David Shulkin.”
• Waystar will present at the HFMA Hawaii Chapter 2023 Revenue Cycle Seminar November 9 in Honolulu.
• West Monroe launches Nigel, a generative AI-powered internal chat platform designed to enhance employee productivity and efficiency.

Blog Posts

• The new dawn of senior care: Digital health’s role in aging in place (Nordic)
• Don’t Get Spooked by Cloud Call Center Solutions (PerfectServe)
• The Role of Medical Necessity in Healthcare (RCxRules)
• Through the Lens of Lynne Nowak, MD, Our New Chief Data and Analytics Officer (Surescripts)
• No Surprises Reboot (VisiQuate)

Contacts

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