Going to ask again about HealWell - they are on an acquisition tear and seem to be very AI-focused. Has…
News 1/3/24
Top News
Veradigm acquires Koha Health, a full-service revenue cycle management company for orthopedic practices and ambulatory surgery centers.
Koha Health, which was known until mid-2022 as Physicians Resources Ltd, is a 40-year-old family business with headquarters in Merrimack, NH.
Reader Comments
From Ipanema: “Re: AI-powered chatbots and online tools. Will organizations gain strategic advantage by not using them?” They might. Oligopolies such as utility providers, banks, streamers, and Amazon can get away with barricading their knowledgeable and helpful employees behind walls of technology and offshore workers that add little except to prevent their “valued customer” from receiving valued service. Chasing scale unfortunately means removing humans from the process wherever possible, no different than companies of yore that programmed their phone trees to ignore desperate customers who pressed “0” or “#” trying to get out of endless loops and poorly designed options. The high-cost, low-service, tech-heavy business model doesn’t always work when you have competitors and low switching costs. I can call my direct primary care doctor directly on her cell, but otherwise I find the typical medical practice’s telephone and online options frustrating because they are often designed by the same cranky front desk people who post scolding signs about turning off cell phones, filling out forms, and not leaning on their precious glass.
From Todd Castor: “Re: podcasts. It has become so common among self appointed experts that they’re now interviewing each other.” I’ve seen a few recent examples among podcast pontificators who must believe that they’re smarter than the people doing actual frontlines work.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Half of poll respondents received a holiday gift from their employer, although 40% of those say that it wasn’t memorable.
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Webinars
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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Cano Health receives a second de-listing warning from the NYSE, this time pertaining to its inability to sustain a $50 million total market capitalization over a 30-day trading period. The primary care company is in the midst of an overhaul, with plans to sell certain assets and lay off employees in an effort to cut costs by $290 million over the next 12 months.
CIOs say that they will control IT costs in 2024 to find room in flat budgets to work on new technologies such as generative AI. Tactics include reducing cloud usage, consolidating vendors, and negotiating discounts. Projects with high ROI will take priority, and global companies will cut back in their investment in startups unless they are likely to provide immediate benefit.
Sales
- North Memorial Health (MN) will replace 14 business systems with Oracle’s Fusion Cloud Applications Suite.
- RCM vendor Advantum Health selects AI-powered medical coding and billing software from Aidéo Technologies.
- The VA awards Iron Bow Technologies a $1.4 billion contract for connected care technologies and support.
People
Verily Chief Medical Officer and VP of product development Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD says in a LinkedIn post that she will leave the company to start a non-profit that will focus on the collection of health data.
James Crawford, PhD, MA (AMI Expeditionary Healthcare) joins Nordic Consulting as president of Nordic Federal.
Propeller Health co-founder Greg Tracy, MS (ResMed) joins Wondr Health as CTO.
David Stewart (Gerent) joins Divurgent as VP of client services.
Announcements and Implementations
UCHealth’s Sterling Ranch Medical Center (CO) implements Epic.
Trinity Health Grand Rapids (MI) launches virtual nursing care at its Lacks Cancer Center using technology from Teladoc Health. The health system has implemented Virtual Connected Care in 19 hospitals since launching the program in 2022.
An Artera Health survey finds that nearly half of patients experience communications issues with their providers, leading to unpaid bills, the inability to schedule appointments, and the willingness of 60% of them to switch providers because of poor communication. Eighty percent want to be able to initiate text-based conversations with providers on any topic, not just to reply to text messages with “Y” or “N.
Privacy and Security
Anna Jaques Hospital, part of Beth Israel Lahey Health (MA), recovers from a Christmas Day cyberattack that forced it to divert ambulances and revert to downtime procedures.
Liberty Hospital continues to rely on paper charts as it works to get IT systems up and running after a December 19 cyberattack.
Other
BayCare SVP/CIO William Walders, MHA – whose healthcare experience includes a 22-year stint in the US Navy through 2018 – posts an insightful comment on LinkedIn:
The soundbite is that the old CIO role is dead. The role of SOLELY keeping the network secure and resilient, applications available and up to date, and support functions consumer centric is dead. However, the responsibility persists and is understood by your peers to be the bulk of the CIO’s role. While it varies by organization, the “new role of the CIO” is now, more than ever, a strategic business leader aiding in decision making on ALL healthcare decisions, many of which aren’t glamorous, innovative, or require digital evangelism. Looking back at 2023, my year was 70% being brilliant at the IT basics, 20% healthcare strategist and thought partner with the C-suite on non-IT specific topics, and 10% innovative.
A USA Today opinion piece by Harvard’s Marie Plaisime, PhD, MPH describes her disappointment at receiving an Apple Watch for Christmas that, like many medical wearables, don’t work for people whose skin is dark. The author notes that soap dispensers, pulse oximeters, and forehead thermometers can’t register darker skin tones. She also bristles that the Apple Watch leaves the consumer to figure out how to use blood oxygen readings since the company has not earned FDA clearance to market the Watch for medical uses.
Mayo Clinic’s new hospital in La Crosse, WI, which will open in September, will feature wireless remote patient monitoring technology across all of its 94 beds. Patient rooms will also feature infotainment systems that offer access to medical records and virtual consultations.
Sponsor Updates
- Skin Solutions Dermatology (TN) reports a significant increase in monthly online appointments after implementing the Healow Open Access online appointment booking solution from EClinicalWorks.
- Wolters Kluwer Health predicts the top four impact-drivers for generative AI in 2024.
- Amenities Health announces that its digital front door platform is now available in the Panda Health Marketplace.
- CereCore releases a new podcast, “Fostering a Culture of Innovation and Growth.”
- Arrive Health sponsors holiday gifts for residents of one of WellPower’s resident treatment locations.
- Clearwater releases a new podcast, “Navigating Information Blocking Regulations in Healthcare Transactions.”
Blog Posts
- How Technology Can Reshape Communication and Efficiency in Healthcare (Vyne Medical)
- Recapping the Best Blog Posts and Resources of 2023 (CereCore)
- The Future of Medical Coding and the Vital Role of Autonomous Coding Technology (AGS Health)
- Tips for success post go-live: Strategic approaches for healthcare data analytics platforms (Arcadia)
- Southern Ohio Medical Center Reduces Unnecessary Urine Culture Orders by 29% With MEDITECH’s Clinical Decision Support (Meditech)
- Back to Basics: Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management 101 (Availity)
- Industry Experts Share Insights on Improving Behavioral Health and Physical Health Integration (Bamboo Health)
- Reflecting on Progress: A Review of the Healthcare Technology Industry in 2023 (Direct Recruiters)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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It’s William Walders and a slight misquote, which appears to change the tone. The actual response to the Linkedin post is here:
Agree with the panel/video in whole, not just the soundbyte that the old CIO role is dead. The role of SOLELY keeping the network secure/resilient, applications available/up to date, and support functions consumer-centric is dead…. However, the responsibility persists and is understood by your peers to be the bulk of the CIO’s role.
While it varies by organization the “new role of the CIO” is now, more than ever, a strategic business leader aiding in decision making on ALL healthcare decisions. Many of which aren’t glamourous, innovative, or require digital evangelism. Looking back at 2023 my year was 70% being brilliant at the IT Basics, 20% healthcare strategist/thought partner with the C-Suite on non-IT specific topics, and 10% “innovative”.
Sorry if meaning was lost in my paraphrasing of your LinkedIn comment. The only change (beyond cosmetic editing) is the first part of the first sentence, which would not have been clear to readers who didn’t see the original post to which you referred.
Looks like there may be two SRMCs in UC Health’s network. Sterling Ranch and Sidney Regional. I think Sidney Regional in Nebraska is the one the story is about.
Re:. Apple Watch medical wearables functions, don’t work on dark skin tones
So the Apple watch works for Macintoshes, but not Gala, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, or Fuji?