News 8/14/24

Top News

Global conglomerate Hearst will acquire healthcare workforce management software vendor QGenda in a deal that is valued at up to $3 billion.

Insiders say the deal gives seller Francisco Partners a 15x return on its eight-year investment.

QGenda will become part of Hearst Health, a network of businesses that includes First Databank, Zynx Health, and Homecare Homebase, among others.

Reader Comments

From Ephemeron: “Re: acquisitions. Your sponsors seem to get acquired frequently, often by another sponsor. Have you analyzed those transactions to determine why that might be?” I haven’t, because only insiders know the genesis of the M&A, although I generally assume that the seller has come to profitable terms with the buyer in what would be consider a successful exit. As far as correlation, I like to think (having no proof whatsoever) that companies who are mentioned on HIStalk, whether sponsor or not, draw attention from potential acquirers or might be more aggressively seeking it. I suppose a third possibility is that I have enough sponsors that it’s likely that the industry consolidation dart will eventually hit a given company’s bullseye. 

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Medical device and equipment manufacturing company Stryker will acquire Care.ai, which specializes in smart healthcare facility and virtual care technologies. Stryker acquired healthcare communications technology vendor Vocera in 2022 for $3 billion. Care.ai co-founder and CEO Chakri Toleti sold his previous venture, HealthGrid, to Allscripts in 2018 for $60 million.

The Federal Trade Commission shuts down HeHealth’s Calmara, a sexual health app that offered to help “all penis owners” who suspect they have an STD by letting them scan and submit photos for AI analysis. The $10 service was panned from the beginning for lack of medical evidence, poor AI training, and unconvincing privacy policies.

Augmedix files what is likely its final quarterly report as a public company as it awaits closing of its $139 million acquisition by Commure: revenue up 27%, EPS –$0.16 versus –$0.12, falling short of analysis expectations for both. AUGX shares have lost 48% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $111 million.

CareCloud reports Q2 results: revenue down 4%, EPS $-0.14 versus –$0.37, exceeding estimates for both. CCLD shares are up 23% in the past 12 months, although down 39% from their mid-June high, valuing the company at $36 million.

Insiders report that Veradigm has received bids for a potential sale of the company following its announcement that it is seeking strategic alternatives. MDRX shares are quoted on the over-the-counter market (OTCMKTS) following their February 2024 delisting by Nasdaq for failing to file financial reports due to accounting software problems.

Doximity reports Q1 results: revenue up 17%, EPS $0.22 versus $0.15, beating expectations for both and sending shares up sharply to a 52-week high. DOCS shares are up 49% in the past 12 months, valuing the physician collaboration company at $6.6 billion.

Bankrupt Steward Health Care will sell its Stewardship Health physician group to a private equity-backed firm for a reported $245 million, subject to legal approvals. The acquiring entity, Nashville-based Rural Healthcare Group, was formed in 2022 and operates 17 clinics in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Sales

• Ascension St. Thomas (TN) will make Suki’s AI healthcare assistant software available to its clinicians and second- and third-year internal medicine residents.
• UChicago Medicine selects Loyal’s provider directory listings management software.
• Indonesia-based PT Pertamedika Bali Hospital goes live on InterSystems TrakCare.

People

Hippocratic AI names Amy McCarthy, DNP (Texas Health Resources) chief nursing officer.

Hospital for Special Surgery (NY) will welcome Ashis Barad, MD (Allegheny Health Network) as its first chief digital and technology officer on September 10, when it also will promote Elizabeth Pearlman, MBA, MPH to CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Innovaccer announces GA of AI-powered data and analytics solutions for government health organizations.

Telehealth platform vendor Caregility adds fall risk alerting for patient rooms, powered by AI-analyzed video.

Government and Politics

A UX pilot program reduces the number of clicks needed to send an email between VA and DoD staff at the Lovell Federal Health Care Center from 35-plus to just two, a feat the IT team believes bodes well for overcoming the challenges the facility is facing with its new, joint Oracle Health EHR. Prescription fulfillment, for example, has been hampered by what end users have deemed poor software functionality.

US Air Force Colonel Thomas Cantilina, MD — deputy MHS Genesis functional champion at the Defense Health Agency and former chief health informatics officer — reflects on his time overseeing roll out of the EHR across DoD facilities as he prepares for retirement in October, noting that the entire project was more about change management than technology: “It’s easy to say, ‘If only the system did this,’ and get caught up in trying to achieve the ideal. It’s better to think, ‘How can we make what we have work a little better?’ You run into trouble when you search only for the perfect solution rather than work to improve upon what you have. Perfection is the enemy of getting better.”

Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP explains in a blog post under ONC’s new name of Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP) how HHS’s alignment policy will require the procurement processes that it funds to consider only technology that meets HHS standards in the interest of interoperability. 

Privacy and Security

McLaren Health Care (MI) works to restore IT systems taken offline during last week’s ransomware attack, according to the health system’s August 12 update. While the majority of clinical services are running normally, some facilities are still diverting ambulances. Meanwhile, some McLaren employees (presumably those in non-patient-facing roles), complain that the health system has told them to use PTO or go without pay for their days missed while computers systems have been down.

Other

Researchers find that emergency medicine physicians are sifting through more voluminous patient notes than ever, in some cases with a “War and Peace” length of 500,000 words.

Missouri county commissioner Jason Withington, who spent 15 years as a Cerner system engineer, is not happy about Oracle’s handling of its Cerner acquisition.

Sponsor Updates

• Availity’s Growing Future Leaders group volunteers with The Giving Project at a local back-to-school pop-up shop, donating $680 worth of clothing for students in need.
• Jade-Weser will implement Agfa HealthCare’s Orbis HIS across its hospital group in Germany.
• Arcadia will present at Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference 2024 August 14 in Louisville.
• Artera will exhibit at the NACHC CHI & Expo Conference August 24-26 in Atlanta.
• Ascom launches Telligence 7, the latest version of its nurse-call system for acute care.
• Biofourmis publishes a new whitepaper, “Unlocking Hospital Capacity with Innovative Care at Home Strategies.”
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast, “Plan Sponsors Need a Source of Truth; Get Your Data Now & Find It, with Jeff Hogan.”
• Consensus Cloud Solutions publishes a new whitepaper, “3 Reasons Healthcare Systems Should Invest in AI Technology Now.”

Blog Posts

• More practices are hiring APPs, physician burnout rates are down & nursing salaries are up (AdvancedMD)
• FY25 IPPS Final Rule: 6 Changes You Need to Know (AGS Health)
• Cybersecurity: Learning the Basics (Altera Digital Health)
• EHR Optimization: The New EHR Lifecycle (CereCore)
• Changing the Conversation about Cybersecurity in Healthcare (Clearwater)
• Dissecting the Anatomy of a Healthcare Breach: Lessons Learned (CloudWave)
• GenAI’s Role in Disability Empowerment – and How Healthcare Shows the Way (Divurgent)

Contacts

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