You described my weekend with mom.
News 8/9/24
Top News
Health Catalyst reports Q2 results: revenue up 4%, EPS $0.12 versus $0.05, beating analyst expectations.
HCAT shares jumped 38% on the news, but are still down 44% over the past 12 months, valuing the company at $446 million.
Meanwhile, the company closes its acquisition of care orchestration platform vendor Lumeon. SEC filings indicate that the acquisition price was $37.5 million in cash, $2.5 million in HCAT shares, and a potential earn-out of up to $25 million.
Reader Comments
From Mighty Have Fallen: “Re: Avera Health. Ending a long partnership with Meditech. Epic’s monopoly continues to grow.” Verified, at least to the extent that Avera shows up on the UserWeb login and the health system’s job openings include three Epic project managers.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
I was happy to see a new “Hey Judy” story on Epic after a two-month lapse. She says that Epic has three former rocket scientists as employees who agree that health IT is more complex. She gives a pretty fascinating look at how she programmed the first release of what became EpicCare as a computer science graduate student:
At first, I did some easy stuff, like call schedules. Then I was given a much bigger assignment. They wanted me to keep track of patient clinical information, whether the patient was seen once or hundreds of times, wherever the patient was, inpatient or outpatient. And they wanted the users to be able to define the data elements and design the screens, rather than hiring a programmer to do that … When I wrote the code for the underlying infrastructure of the clinical system that became known as EpicCare, I put the patient at the center and all the data around the patient. That philosophy has stayed with Epic over the years
A couple of nostalgic readers sent Internet photos of the Cerner logo being removed from the former Innovations campus, apparently to be replaced with that of Oracle.
Webinars
None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
CVS reports Q2 results: revenue up 2%, adjusted EPS $1.83 versus $2.21, beating earnings expectations and falling just short on revenue. CVS shares have dropped 24% in the past 12 months. From the earnings call:
- The company lowered guidance because it expects Aetna’s Medicare Advantage medical utilization to accelerate.
- CEO Karen Lynch will take over day-to-day management of the company’s Aetna business, which is performing poorly. Aetna President Brian Kane has been let go.
- The company will cut costs by $2 billion over several years.
- It will further integrate its Signify home care and Oak Street Health Medicare primary care businesses to Aetna, MinuteClinic, and CVS Pharmacy. CVS Health acquired those businesses in 2023 for a combined $19 billion.
Roche is reportedly considering a sale of its Flatiron Health cancer data business, which it acquired for $1.9 billion in 2018. Analysts speculate that Flatiron’s sales have been constrained due to the reluctance of Roche’s pharma competitors to use its services.
Texas Children’s Hospital will lay off 5% of its 20,000 employees. The hospital did not provide specifics, but some IT employees have said on LinkedIn that they were affected.
23andMe reports Q results: revenue down 34%, EPS –$0.14 versus –$0.23, beating revenue expectations but falling short on earnings. ME shares are down 79% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $189 million. 23andMe went public via a SPAC merger in 2021, when its valuation reached $6 billion.
Sales
- Nebraska Methodist Health System will implement QGenda ProviderCloud for scheduling and time and attendance for all employees in all locations.
- Reid Health choses Abridge for ambient documentation.
- Brattleboro Retreat will implement Meditech Expanse under the Meditech as a Service cloud-hosted model.
- LSU Athletics will use smart stethoscopes and AI algorithms from Eko Health and assessment from Our Lady of the Lake Health for physical exams.
People
Michael Campana (Healthcare Triangle) joins Amitech Solutions as VP of marketing.
Announcements and Implementations
In England, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust goes live on Meditech Expanse.
Seattle Children’s has rolled out EConsults for 11 service lines, where a community provider uses EpicCare Link to request care guidance from a specialist. The hospital has completed 234 requests.
Meditech launches Traverse Exchange, an advanced, FHIR-first HIE network for its US customers.
Privacy and Security
The system disruption at McLaren Health Care was caused by a ransomware attack, according to a ransom note that was shared by an employee. The health system was also attacked by ransomware in October 2023, with the ALPHV/BlackCat group claiming responsibility. That attack exposed the information of 2.2 million patients.
England’s computer watchdog will fine IT provider Advanced Computer Software Group $8 million for failing to prevent a 2022 ransomware attack. Hackers used a stolen password and systems were not secured using multi-factor authentication.
Sponsor Updates
- Inovalon launches Converged Stars Health Equity Analytics to help Medicare Advantage plans address healthcare disparities and improve performance.
- Revuud reports strong growth in the first half of 2024 with a 100% increase in engagement revenue and a 40% year-over-year growth in customers.
- Wolters Kluwer Health publishes a new whitepaper, “Bridging the value gap: Aligning medical and drug benefits for health insurers.”
- Healthcare Growth Partners publishes a new whitepaper, “Prepare and Prevent Common Due Diligence Issues in Health IT Transactions.”
- Laudio publishes a new case study, “MemorialCare Enhances Support for Nurse Managers, Boosts Nurse Engagement and Retention.”
- Medhost publishes a new case study, “Blue Ridge Revival: Transitioning to Rural Emergency Hospital Designation.”
- Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new ebook titled “Securing LLMs: Essential Guide for Safe AI Integration and Implementation.”
- Medicomp Systems releases a new Tell Me Where It Hurts Podcast featuring Kat McDavitt, president and founding partner of Innsena, and CEO and founder of Zorya Foundation.
- NeuroFlow publishes a new case study, “The Villages Health Expands Access to Innovative Behavioral Health Programs Using NeuroFlow.”
Blog Posts
- ECW Users Excited to Implement AI at Their Practices (EClinicalWorks)
- Third-Party Risk Management: A Guide to More Secure Partnerships (Fortified Health Security)
- Information Blocking Disincentives for Providers: The Final Rule (HealthMark Group)
- Understanding the Medical Billing Process and How Claims Submission Works (Inovalon)
- Early Disease Detection to Supercharge Clinical Screening: An Insightful Conversation with Michelle Fortune (Lucem Health)
- International healthcare organizations embrace digital solutions and bring transformative technology to global communities (Meditech)
- What is the MDS Medical Abbreviation? (Net Health)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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It would be nice for Aetna to get its EDI act together- and especially Aetna Medicare Advantage, which seems to run on a different system with different software.