News 7/31/24

Top News

England-based period and fertility app vendor Flo Health raises a $200 million investment from General Atlantic that values the company at $1 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Yes, I monitor odd things. Epic has run its “Hey Judy” column like clockwork each month since August 2021, but hasn’t posted one for June or July.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Acute virtual care company AvaSure will acquire Ouva’s AI-enhanced care automation technology, which it has already been using as a part of its Intelligent Virtual Care Platform. Ouva will continue to operate its pediatric and wayfinding business.

Health data management and research insights company OneMedNet announces $4.6 million in new funding.

Mercy will open three primary care clinics in former Walmart Health locations in Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered, later this summer.

Kansas City tax authorities say that Oracle Health has met the requirements for incentives that are related to the former Cerner Innovations Campus, although the company has 6,400 Missouri-based employees versus the 16,000 new jobs that were promised by Cerner before Oracle acquired the company.

Sales

• MedStar Health (MD) will use risk management solutions from RLDatix to enhance analysis of patient safety events.
• Loma Linda University Health (CA) selects specialty pharmacy-focused analytics and market access services from Loopback Analytics.
• Multi-state Sound Physicians will implement AmplifyMD’s virtual specialty care software for its tele-hospitalist services.

People

Ben Shahshahani, PhD (SiriusXM) joins Cleveland Clinic as VP/chief AI officer.

Alpha II hires Jon Danielson, MBA (Biscom) as CFO.

Erik Moore, MS (Optum) joins Bamboo Health as CTO.

Announcements and Implementations

Artera announces that a dozen FQHCs — including Livingston Community Health (CA), Moses Lake Community Health Center (WA), and Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Health Center (NY) — have implemented its patient communications software.

North Arkansas Regional Medical Center implements Sunoh.ai’s ambient listening and clinical documentation technology.

UAB Medicine describes how it is using remote patient monitoring to collect data from patients at home and alert clinicians of negative trends. Cellphone-connected blood pressure cuffs, glucose monitors, and weight scales from Withings Health are issued to patients who agree to take their measurements at least 16 times per month. 

Researchers find that 25 to 40% of people who use wearables to monitor their atrial fibrillation experience life-affecting stress and anxiety as a result.

Government and Politics

A federal judge grants analytics firm Real Time Medical Systems a preliminary injunction against EHR vendor PointClickCare for implementing CAPTCHA-controlled system access, ruling that the company violated 21st Century Cures. PCC says it implemented the requirement to prevent web scraping by bots, noting that Real Time is the only one of its 1,900 partners that objected. Real Time says that PCC threatened its access to skilled nursing data because it was launching a competing service, also complaining that Real Time is HITRUST certified and should not be required to complete CAPTCHA challenges. 

MultiPlan CEO Travis Dalton has been meeting with Senate staffers to defend the company’s use of analytics to advise payers how much they should reduce billed charges from out-of-network providers, for which MultiPlan gets a cut of the savings and the patient sometimes receives a bill for the difference.

Privacy and Security

CrowdStrike customers complain that they receive error messages when they try to use the $10 Uber Eats gift card that the company offered following its global outage on July 19. Uber’s system apparently canceled the vouchers due to what it deemed to be suspiciously high usage rates.

Penn Medicine SVP for Data and Technology Solutions Mitchell Schnall, MD, PhD (who likely didn’t receive an Uber Eats gift card) recounts some of the steps his team took once they became aware of CrowdStrike’s outage, including the nearly immediate decisions to revert to downtime procedures and cancel or reschedule elective surgeries and appointments: “Imaging was interesting because we could take a CT scan on the scanner but it couldn’t go anywhere else, so we had to take the radiologist to the CT scanner to be able to read the images.”

A former organ transplant coordinator faces 22 years in prison for accessing the records of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while she was being treated for cancer at George Washington University Hospital in 2019, then posting them to conspiracy theory and anti-semitic message boards on 4chan. Trent James Russell explained to authorities that his cat must have run across his keyboard.

Sponsor Updates

• Arrive Health employees take part in Community Give Back Week by harvesting crops at Ohio City Farm to provide healthy food to CLE’s underserved residents.
• The Sequoia Project launches a new Pharmacy Workgroup as part of its flagship Interoperability Matters program, through funding and collaboration with Surescripts.
• Arcadia publishes a new guide, “Quality management tools to balance care and rising costs.”
• Health plan XO Health selects Capital Rx as its pharmacy benefit administrator.
• Clearwater announces growing adoption of its Managed Cloud Services, which help healthcare organizations maintain data and applications in the Azure cloud with reduced security and compliance risk.
• UMethod Health incorporates Linus Health’s digital cognitive impairment detection software into its cognitive care planning solutions.
• Alpha II appoints former OmniSys CEO John King and former Availity CEO Julie Klapstein to its Board of Directors.

Blog Posts

• How to Plan for Meditech Expanse: Tips from 40+ Hospital Implementations (CereCore)
• Newborn Facility Coding: 7 Tips for Accurate Medical Coding and Documentation (AGS Health)
• Clearwater Managed Cloud Services Help Healthcare Organizations Leverage the Power of Microsoft Azure with Reduced Risk (Clearwater)
• Demystifying AI in Healthcare: The Top Seven Questions to Ask Your AI Vendor (Availity)
• Beyond Data Protection: Putting Patients First in Healthcare Cybersecurity (CloudWave)

Contacts

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