Monday Morning Update 12/4/23

Top News

Intermountain Health spinoff Culmination Bio, which offers drug companies a clinical study recruitment platform that contains 40 years’ worth of de-identified EHR and biospecimen data, raises a $10 million investment from two drug company investment funds.

Reader Comments

From Spangler: “Re: physicians in rural areas. It’s concerning that we are facing a shortage even if telemedicine and AI try to help.” The real issue is that the dismal conditions of working as a corporate physician are driving many away from patient care or out of medicine. This exodus is tempered only by the need to repay massive school loans. It’s worth reconsidering the necessity of an eight-year education plus internships and residencies for primary care physicians (PCPs) that push their career entry into their late 20s or early 30s. Alternatives could include expanding the roles of nurse practitioners, physician assistant, and pharmacists. Additionally, integrating AI into medical training could accelerate training, especially given the rapid obsolescence of classroom work, and could be used to provide support as needed for more unusual cases. Meanwhile, the profit-obsessed US healthcare system is increasingly strained as major physician employers compete for the essential yet limited clinical workforce.

From Poppy: “Re: ChatGPT 4 Plus or Pro. You can now add any file type and it will analyze and even visualize the data for you. I’ve used it to sort DEI survey responses as either friendly or antagonistic and it works like a charm.” ChatGPT keeps adding features to the point I can’t keep up. I use custom instructions to ask it to include source links as well as its numeric confidence rating of its response, both of which are helpful. I’ve also upload images and files and asked it to perform simple functions, although I’m still using it mostly to analyze writing or to generate ideas, and while I wouldn’t call it mission-critical to my work, it’s getting there. I would like to hear from readers – what are some less-than-obvious ChatGPT capabilities that you are using to get work done? I’m still anxiously awaiting an easily installed, inexpensive chat/search function that would provide a front-end for searching HIStalk, which contains everything important that has happened in health IT since 2007.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The biggest PCP frustration among poll respondents by far is trying to book an appointment.

New poll to your right or here: How would you grade health IT conferences on their level of presenter diversity? An additional question that is more for commentary than polling – should conferences be held accountable for offering a diverse roster of presenters and panelists when the underlying cohort mostly involves white males? 

Generous donations from Karen, Bill, another Bill, and Mike, with matching funds from third parties and my Anonymous Vendor Executive, fully and anonymously funded these Donors Choose grant requests from teachers who are working in historically underfunded schools:

• A math book series for Ms. K’s middle school class in Fort Stockton, TX.
• STEM station materials for Mr. G’s middle school class in Greenacres, FL.
• STEM activity kits for Ms. G’s elementary school class in Baltimore, MD.
• A lectern for Mr. P’s high school class in Pharr, TX.
• Headphones and math manipulatives for Mr. W’s elementary school class in North Las Vegas, NV.
• Math games for Ms. C’s elementary school class in Jamaica, NY.
• A coding robot and math manipulatives for Ms. K’s elementary school class in Orlando, FL.
• Headphones for Ms. M’s middle school class in Glendale, AZ.
• Home health aide training books for Ms. W’s high school class in La Jara, CO.
• A bilingual STEM center for Ms. R’s elementary school class in Las Cruces, NM.
• Headphones for Mr. S’s elementary school class in Yonkers, NY.
• Headphones for Ms. K’s elementary school class in Tyler, TX.
• Science books for Ms. S’s elementary school class in Natchez, MS.
• STEM books for Ms. P, a librarian at a middle school in Coffeyville, KS.
• An achievement button making machine for Ms. E’s high school class in Goodyear, AZ.
• Books for Ms. K’s high school class in Bronx, NY.
• STEM development activities for Ms. F’s elementary school class in Indian Orchard, MA.
• STEM model building kits for Ms. W’s elementasry school class in South Ozone Park, NY.
• Programmable robots for Ms. J’s elementary school class in San Diego, CA.
• Headphones for Mrs. H’s elementary school class in Kinston, NC.
• Classroom supplies for Ms. G’s elementary school class in Mission, TX.
• Accelerated reading and anti-racism books for Ms. H’s elementary school class in Shreveport, LA.

You can do these things to support HIStalk:

• Join my spam-free mailing list.
• Connect on LinkedIn and join Dann’s HIStalk Fan Club, which tells me when you change jobs and gives you Swiftie-level influence points for favors asked.
• Tell my sponsors, or potential ones, that you value their support of what I do.
• Share news, rumors, and intriguing insights.
• Consider being interviewed if you are full of brash, eminently quotable expertise.
• Companies, consider booking my Top Spot Ad that lords over the entire HIStalk page and earns a commensurate number of reader clicks.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Hippocratic AI launches a development partnership program that includes OhioHealth, Roper St. Francis Healthcare, Evernow, HarmonyCares, and Guidehealth.

Potrero Medical, which offers medical devices and analytics for monitoring acute kidney injury, files Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Announcements and Implementations

Black Book posts results from its healthcare cybersecurity satisfaction analysis, with the overall KPI leader being CrowdStrike. The report concludes that cybersecurity solutions that were purchased before the beginning of 2023 may already be outdated in their ability to protect against hacks and breaches, with remote patient access systems and telehealth offering new entry points for cyberattacks. 

Sponsor Updates

• Netsmart takes first and third place among 115 teams that competed in the AWS re:Invent Jam.
• Nordic expands its partnership with Fortified Health Security to strengthen security operations and deploy global response capabilities for customers.
• Wolters Kluwer Health expands its Sentri7 clinical surveillance suite to include the Sentri7 Drug Diversion solution, formerly Flowlytics from Invistics.
• Gartner names NTT Data a Leader in its 2023 Magic Quadrant Managed Network Services and a Leader in its 2023 Magic Quadrant Network Services, Global.
• Nuance shares success stories from early adopters using its PowerScribe Smart Impression generative AI solution for radiology reporting.
• Nym names Hen Sinai junior backend engineer, Adi Sivan software engineer, Yuval Shtechman medical data analyst, Barbi Elmore director of product, Zack Hechtman customer success associate, and Yuval Tov junior backend engineer.
• Rhapsody announces a long-term partnership with Blackford Analysis to enhance Blackford’s medical AI solutions platform by providing deeper clinical workflow integrations.
• RxLightning names Christopher Hemminger cloud data architect and Karen Outlaw project manager.

A Black Book Market Research survey of top cybersecurity customers ranks solutions according to highest user satisfaction. HIStalk sponsors include:

• Clearwater – cybersecurity advisors and consultants / compliance and risk management solution.
• Fortified Health Security – cybersecurity awareness training and education.
• CloudWave – outsourcing and security networked managed services.
• PerfectServe – secure communications platforms: physician practices
• Spok – secure communications platforms: hospitals and health systems.

Blog Posts

• How Technology Can Help Providers Get Paid and Common Challenges (CereCore)
• Two years later – what one hospital on Cerner learned from automating intake, registration, authorizations and more (Notable)
• How University of Michigan Health-West improved clinician wellbeing (Nuance)
• The Growth Equation – Boosting Your Operations to Scale for Growth (Netsmart)
• Before implementation, think about prehabilitation (Nordic)
• How Patient Journey Mapping Improves the Patient Experience (PerfectServe)
• Up in the Cloud: Future-Proofing Healthcare Data with Productive Edge and Redox (Redox)
• How Healthcare Organizations Can Offset the Labor Shortage with Sensing-as-a-Service (SmartSense by Digi)
• Supply Chain Experts Explore Top Priorities for Healthcare in 2024 (Symplr)
• Navigating SupportCaregiving.org: Insights and Federal Strategies on Caregiving (Trualta)
• Waystar Advisory Board: 5 takeaways from our inaugural True North conference (Waystar)

Contacts

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