News 5/24/24

Top News

HHS/NIH’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) offers up to $50 million to fund development of technology that can secure hospital IT environments.

The system, which it calls UPGRADE, will scan hospital computer systems for vulnerabilities and weaknesses and automatically apply patches as needed.

ARPA-H says that achieving its goals will likely require the formation of teams with different kinds of technical expertise. A virtual Proposers’ Day webcast will be held on June 20.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor RLDatix. Every day around the world, thousands of patients are harmed by care delivery errors, many of which are preventable. We want to change that. RLDatix is on a mission to improve healthcare by enabling a world where patients receive the best and safest care possible. Trusted by thousands of clients around the world, our connected healthcare operations platform combines software and trusted services to empower organizations with critical data insights across risk, safety, compliance, provider lifecycle, and workforce management. Our user-centric approach provides a holistic, real-time view of healthcare operations, connecting disparate information across the enterprise, thus giving organizational leadership the contextualized data they need to make better-informed decisions. Thanks to RLDatix for supporting HIStalk.

It’s Summer Doldrums ‘round these parts, where the industry takes a collective hammock nap until Labor Day and we do a PBS-like sponsor pledge drive. Do you need website traffic, exposure to potential business or M&A partners, or to stay top of mind with prospects? You read HIStalk and so do many of the industry’s decision-makers. Contact Lorre, Jenn, or me about sponsorship spiffs for:

• Former sponsors who return to the fold.
• Startups.
• Webinar promotion (Lorre does BOGO in the slow months).
• Email promotion.

Today I learned that the nine-question PHQ-9 paper form that primary care doctors use to screen patients for depression was developed by a drug company to increase sales of its antidepressants. The marketing team of drug maker Pfizer designed the form to overcome the reluctance of PCPs to prescribe antidepressants such as Pfizer’s own Zoloft. Such drugs were previously ordered almost entirely by psychiatrists who weren’t likely to generate big sales volumes. The form was never intended to be anything more than a conversation-starter between doctor and patient, but overloaded PCPs often use it as a standalone tool.

Check out what some HIStalk sponsors have in store for the 2024 Muse Inspire Conference next week in the Denver area.

I was amused that EHR vendor Fusion Health announced a sale to Illinois Department of Corrections, a target market that the company calls “movement-restricted communities.” They might have made up that term since I don’t see it used elsewhere.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Vancouver-based  technology-based workplace health solution provider CloudMD will be taken private by a private equity firm as it struggles with liquidity following several acquisitions and its failure to file a Q4 earnings report. DOC.V shares are at $0.045, valuing the company at $14 million.

Twin Health, which uses a digital twin AI platform to help members achieve remission from type 2 diabetes, expands into the obesity market with a program that focuses on sustainable weight loss that complements the use of GLP-1 drugs.

Real-world data and evidence platform vendor Atropos Health raises $33 million in a Series B funding round. The company was founded in 2019 by three Stanford University PhDs as the Green Button research project.

People

Ellkay hires Nicholas Szymanski, MBA (Signature Healthcare) as COO.

Industry long-timer Terri Steinberg, MD, MBA (Medecision) retires.

Cynthia Porter, MBA retires after 34 years as CEO of Porter Research.

Announcements and Implementations

Ontario-based Halton Healthcare joins Project AMPLIFI, care coordination program that connects long-term care facilities and Meditech hospitals to allow sharing patient medical histories.

Microsoft announces GigaPath, a whole-slide foundation model for digital pathology that it developed with Providence and University of Washington.

Redox will partner with Snowflake to facilitate data exchange between legacy healthcare systems and Snowflake’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Cloud.

Government and Politics

The Irish government publishes “Digital for Care: A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-203.”

ONC reports that 70% of hospitals engaged in all four domains of interoperability (send, receive, find, and integrate) in 2023, up from 46% in 2018. Other tidbits:

• The percentage of hospitals that routinely engage in that exchange rose from 28% to 43%, with a much higher percentage among system-affiliated hospitals.
• While 71% of hospitals have electronic access to clinical data from other providers, only 42% of clinicians regularly use that information.
• Most hospitals aren’t sending summary of care documents to external hospitals or ambulatory care providers.
• While 17% of hospitals send information to long-term, post-acute care providers, only 8% receive information back from them.
• ONC concludes that the interoperability bar needs to be raised to focus on routine exchange of information.

Sponsor Updates

• In Kansas, Blue Valley School District honors Netsmart COO Tom Herzog with its Friends of Education Award.
• DrFirst announces the winners of its 2024 Healthiverse Heroes Awards.
• Meditech’s Traverse Exchange Canada connects its first pilot organization, Champlain Association of Meditech Partners, to Oracle’s e-Hub.
• The Association for Community Affiliated Plans names First Databank a preferred vendor.
• FinThrive releases a new Healthcare Rethink Podcast, “Got a Healthcare IT Renovation Project? We have a DIY Book for you!”
• Five9 will present at three upcoming investor conferences.
• MRO launches a new podcast, “The MRO Exchange: Connecting Healthcare Executives,” with healthcare quality reporting as its first topic.
• Fortified Health Security welcomes Alex Callahan as its summer accounting intern.
• Healthcare Growth Partners releases the May edition of “HGP Observations.”
• Konza National Network announces that Family Health Center (MS) has joined its QHIN.
• MRO launches a podcast, “The MRO Exchange: Connecting Healthcare Executives.”
• NeuroFlow develops a suicide risk calculator to help healthcare leaders understand the risk in their patient populations.

The following HIStalk sponsors will exhibit at the MUSE Inspire Conference May 28-31 in Denver – CereCore, CloudWave, Consensus Cloud Solutions, Dimensional Insight, DrFirst, Ellkay, Elsevier, FinThrive, First Databank, Meditech, Nuance, Tegria, TruBridge, Vyne Medical, and Waystar.

Blog Posts

• Navigating the HTI-1 Final Rule with Transparent and Reliable Clinical Decision Support (Medicomp Systems)
• Navigating CMS Updates: Adapting to Evolving Healthcare Machine-Readable File Regulations (FinThrive)
• Support Maternal Health by Addressing Social Determinants of Health (Findhelp)
• Hospital Staffing in Summertime (Impact Advisors)
• Gene Scheurer: Beyond the Buzzword: Practical Digital Transformation Strategies For Health Systems (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• AAPACN 2024: Hot Topics for Skilled Nursing Facilities (Inovalon)
• AFib Management: The Latest Innovations in Screening, Treatment, and Stroke Prevention (Lucem Health)
• 3 Ways to Get Quick Returns from Your Hospital Revenue Cycle (Medhost)
• Southern Ohio Medical Center battles the opioid crisis and drives change in their community (Meditech)
• Is Physical Therapy Necessary After Hip Replacement? (Net Health)

Contacts

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