News 2/14/24

Top News

ONC and The Sequoia Project designate Kno2 and CommonWell Health Alliance as Qualified Health Information Networks under TEFCA. They join Konza National Network, EHealth Exchange, Epic Nexus, Health Gorilla, and MedAllies, which were designated in December.

Webinars

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

Sales

• Biofourmis signs four contracts with pharmaceutical companies for its digital health and decentralized clinical trial solutions.

People

NRC Health promotes Helen Hrdy to chief customer officer.

ClinicMind promotes Kathleen Casbarro to SVP of its new Institutional Platform as a Service division.

Tomer Levy (Change Healthcare) joins Augmedix as SVP of engineering.

Announcements and Implementations

Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles implements Vital’s ERAdvisor software as a part of its MyVisit app.

MercyOne rolls out its TogetherTeam Virtual Connected Care virtual nursing program at all five of its hospitals in Iowa.

UC Davis Health (CA) launches a remote patient monitoring program for patients who’ve undergone Percutaneous Coronary Interventions using text messaging software from Twilio and RPM technology from Clinii.

Government and Politics

Air Force officials confirm that the switch to MHS Genesis has, as with the Navy and Army, lengthened the amount of time it takes to medically clear recruits due to an increase in initial, potentially disqualifying conditions that require further investigation. DoD representatives told Senate Armed Services Committee members last September that the switch to the Oracle Health-based system had added three more days to the recruitment process, though the Navy reported that up to 60 additional days were sometimes necessary.

An Idaho Department of Health official tells state legislators that the state should withdraw from the Idaho Health Data Exchange, given that it has no legal recourse for management oversight. The HIE, which currently has 190 customers, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last summer after running up $4 million in debt.

Tension escalates between the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Indian Health Service, and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment due to a technological glitch that has, for more than a year, prevented the Southern Ute Health Clinic from sending daily immunization data to the state registry via the IHS Resource and Patient Management System. None of the affected parties has been able to identify the problem, though the tribe has offered to cover the cost of a solution.

Privacy and Security

The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center within HHS alerts organizations to the tactics and targets of the relatively new Akira ransomware group.

Other

Australia’s Northern Territory Health temporarily suspends use of InterSystems TrakCare software at the emergency departments of Palmerston Regional and Royal Darwin hospitals, citing concerns that the software, dubbed Acacia, is slowing down access to patient records. Staffing shortages and other unspecified operational pressures also contributed to suspension of the system, which NT Health has been rolling out across its facilities since 2017.

Black Book Research survey respondents rank Surgical Information Systems as the top vendor for ambulatory surgical center software.

Through word of mouth and dedicated facilities teams, an NHS clinician in London reunites a fellow clinician working 100 miles away with a diamond ring she’d accidentally left in her scrubs five days prior.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Boosting Data Analysis in Healthcare.”
• CereCore releases a new podcast, “Rolling Out EHRs in the Rural Setting: An Expert Guide.”
• Availity adds automation and process mining capabilities from Janus to its Availity Essentials Pro software.
• Arrive Health Senior Software Engineer Edward Kerns joins Code for Good West Michigan’s board as sponsorship coordinator.
• Censinet releases a new Risk Never Sleeps Podcast, “Deepfakes, Identity, and Insider Threats, with Jason Elrod, Chief Information Security Officer at MultiCare Health System.”
• Clearwater and 1stResponder partner to expand cybersecurity incident response within Clearwater’s Managed Security Service Provider portfolio.
• New research from Linus Health determines that its Digital Clock and Recall assessment within its Core Cognitive Evaluation solution outperforms the most commonly used paper-based assessment in detecting early, mild cognitive impairment and dementia, and with less ethnic and racial bias.

Blog Posts

• Rural Health CIO Advice: Things to Prioritize for EHR Implementation (CereCore)
• Confronting Patient Access Challenges (AGS Health)
• Care management software: Key features and top providers (Arcadia)
• GenAI in Healthcare: Transforming the Patient Communications Space (Artera)
• Exchanging Health Plan Member Data May Be Closer Than We Think (Availity)
• Overrepresented and Overlooked: Behavioral Health Challenges for Incarcerated Individuals (Bamboo Health)
• From Athletics to Healthcare: How Academy Medtech Ventures Navigates Cybersecurity, Compliance, and Sustainable Growth in Digital Health (Clearwater)
• Why We’re Best in KLAS – Again! (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.