Watching TV suggests just sitting whatever comes on or channel flipping while suffering from the assault of now-unregulated minutes per…
News 7/3/24
Top News
Heritage Valley Health System (PA) will pay $950,000 to settle potential HIPAA security rule violations related to a 2017 ransomware attack that was caused by malware that spread from Nuance to multiple healthcare organizations.
The health system filed a lawsuit against Nuance in 2019 claiming that the vendor failed to prevent the attack, but the suit was dismissed due to contractual technicalities.
Reader Comments
From Angel of AI: “Re: healthcare fraud. What was the largest fraud by number of US patients impacted? Have any that involved medical devices run unto the tens of thousands of patients?” Zeroing in on documented “fraud” rather than just product-related issues narrows the field quite a bit. I was going to say HCA’s various legal and civil challenges over the years, which I believe included performing unnecessary invasive procedures, but I don’t know the extent of that. Theranos might also make the list since while the fraud involved lab testing machines that gave inaccurate results 10% of the time but with unknown effect on outcomes.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
I’m a new customer, but YouTube Premium is already my most-valued streaming service. Why: it’s ad free, plays in the background, includes YouTube Music, and lets me download videos to play offline. It’s $13.99 for an individual membership and $22.99 per month for families of up to five members with discounts for paying annually. Tips: I play on the big screen through a Roku streaming device, use the Roku app’s remote instead of the physical one so I can type search terms more easily, and turn on good audio like a sound bar. I will acknowledge that 98% of what’s on YouTube is purely intended as time-wasting junk, but the rest is well-made gold and YouTube is better than I expected at suggesting something I’ll like. Mostly I watch videos related to travel destinations, old TV clips, concerts, and how-to fixit help. We still subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and one of the P-ones (I can never remember if its Paramount+ or Peacock), but I would give up YouTube Premium last.
Webinars
None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Chronic pain management technology vendor Upside Health shuts down.
Care enablement technology company Fabric acquires virtual care service provider MeMD from the now-shuttered Walmart Health. Walmart bought the business, which was started in 2010, in 2021 for a reported $6 million. Fabric acquired virtual healthcare assistant startup Gyant and announced a $60 million Series A funding round earlier this year.
Telehealth vendor Amwell announces a reverse stock split in order to avoid delisting on the New York Stock Exchange. AMWL shares have lost 87% of their value in the past 12 months to $0.29, valuing the company at $86 million.
Google and TikTok ban ADHD telehealth provider Done Global from advertising on their platforms amidst a federal investigation that has expanded to include five additional people of interest. Done’s CEO and clinical president were arrested last month on charges of distributing Adderall, healthcare fraud, and obstruction of justice.
Virtual primary care company K Health raises a $50 million funding round.
Sales
- Babson Diagnostics will implement Ellkay’s lab-ordering software and LKCareEvolve clinician portal as a part of its BetterWay blood-testing service.
- Adventist Health (CA) selects The Garage’s population health management software.
- Cleveland Clinic will integrate Masimo’s Hospital Automation Platform with its patient monitoring technologies as part of its TeleCritical Care program.
People
Cordea Consulting promotes Thomas Sjostedt to VP of sales.
Greater Houston Healthconnect promotes Junaid Husain, ALM, MBA to CEO.
Ron Wozny, MBA (HealthSmart) joins MyDirectives as SVP of marketing and business development.
CSI Companies hires Douglas Herr (Healthcare IT Leaders) as SVP of client services and strategy.
Carrie Damon, MHA (CommonSpirit Health) joins KPMG as global chief digital officer of KPMG Delivery Network.
Announcements and Implementations
UT Health East Texas implements virtual nursing from Care.ai across its network.
UCHealth (CO) rolls out prior authorization software co-developed with Arrive Health at three of its clinics. It will implement the software across its network next year. UCHealth invested in Arrive’s (fka RxRevu) Series A funding round in 2019 after working with the company for several years through its Care Innovation Center.
The Headwaters High-Value Network clinically integrated network launches with 19 independent rural Minnesota hospitals as members. HVN will consider shared technology solutions in population health management, analytics, and are management.
Government and Politics
NHS London’s medical director says pathology services across its six boroughs are operating at 46% capacity since its pathology services vendor Synnovis was hit with a ransomware attack on June 3.
The Department of Justice recaps the recent sentences of these former Outcome Health executives who were involved in a $1 billion corporate fraud scheme. Three other executives have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. DOJ summarizes, “faking it until you make it is not an acceptable practice for any business.”
- Co-founder and CEO Rishi Shah: seven years and six months in prison.
- Co-founder and President Shradha Agarwal: three years in a halfway house.
- CEO/CFO Brad Purdy: two years and three months in prison.
Other
UTHealth San Antonio previews the technologies its new Multispecialty and Research Hospital will feature when it opens in December, including virtual nursing, smart beds, and three “Rosey” robots that will deliver items to the 144-bed facility’s nursing units.
Sponsor Updates
- Inovalon joins the Meditech Alliance ecosystem of partner organizations.
- AdvancedMD launches new automation and payment capabilities to help private practices increase productivity and drive more revenue.
- Augmedix AI Advisory Council member Lisa Rotenstein publishes new research in JAMA Network Open, “Virtual Scribes and Physician Time Spent on Electronic Health Records.”
- AvaSure publishes a new case study, “How UCHealth used Telehealth Technologies to Slash Code Blues up to 70%.”
- Cordea Consulting promotes Michael Tierney to recruiting supervisor.
Blog Posts
- Enhancing Healthcare Practices Through Effective Benefit Verification (AdvancedMD)
- Agfa Insights: UKIO 2024 Key Takeaways (Agfa HealthCare)
- Leveraging Global Resources to Address HIM and Clinical Labor Shortages (AGS Health)
- Analytics in 2024: Making the most sense out of your data (Altera Digital Health)
- Navigating Governance: Build Your Healthcare Analytics Communication Framework (Artera)
- Inaccurate Provider Directories Create Barriers to Care (Availity)
- New York City FC & Capital Rx – More Than a Sleeve Partnership (Capital Rx)
- 7 Ways to Optimize Meditech Expanse for Provider Satisfaction (CereCore)
- Optimizing RCM for Growth Today and Tomorrow (EClinicalWorks)
- Enhance Patient Experience with Continuous Insurance Coverage Search (FinThrive)
- The 6 Logical Steps to Data Migration (Five9)
- Education on Patient Liability Should Occur Every Step of the Way (Impact Advisors)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.
I also find YouTube Premium to be a life-saver. I signed up back when YouTube Red (their exclusive content) was a thing and was planning to just watch the show I wanted during the trial period and then cancel. Here I am so many years later. LOL The variety of things you can watch is second to none, plus the music. Sometimes I watch reactions and critiques of my favorite music and when the commenter gets ads popping up in their view I am reminded all over again of how glad I am to have premium.
Re: Healthcare Fraud
The biggest, most harmful (economically and medically) healthcare fraud is the anti-vax movement and it’s homeopathic spinoffs and it’s not particularly close IMO. Not just the COVID excess deaths, but also the excess early childhood deaths, the costs to the education and healthcare system for treating MMR, and the billions of dollars of sales annually for products that are in many cases useless, and in other cases straight up deadly.
No one is filing false claims, but I call fraud.
The biggest fraud in healthcare is the overprescribing of pharmaceuticals due to the deadly epidemic of the US food supply. The overabundance and availability of overprocessed “food” and the lack of outrage by US health systems and physicians to drive better regulations of our food supply make the anti-vax issue look like a spec of dust on the super-sized Mt Dew and bag of french fries consumed by many Americans. If the government is going to overreact like they did during CV, it would be nice if it did it for something that actually will have an impact on the health of its constituents.
So wait, just 3 days ago you said “I don’t watch TV”. I mean, if some of the YouTube stuff you’re watching is “old TV clips”, that’s watching TV, no? OK, chopped up, but hamburger is still beef, after all….
Watching TV suggests just sitting whatever comes on or channel flipping while suffering from the assault of now-unregulated minutes per hour of commercials. Watching clips on YouTube means choosing what to see and when to see it, interruption free, with the ability to move on to something else if it’s no good or stream more if I like it. I have never watched more than clips, though. I did watch most episodes of “Suits” on Netflix even though I would not have done that when it was on regular TV, so I’m not sure where that falls.