Thanks, appreciate these insights. I've been contemplating VA's Oracle / Cerner implementation and wondered if implementing the same systems across…
News 8/28/24
Top News
An ASTP/ONC study finds that 60% of people who were recently diagnosed with cancer accessed their online medical records in 2020-2022, which is a big jump from 2017-2018.
Of those who were recently diagnosed, 40% accessed their records six or more times in the previous year.
Nearly all recently diagnosed cancer patients accessed their test results through a patient portal or online system, with half of them needing to use multiple platforms.
Reader Comments
From Epic Fail: “Re: Cerner. I saw some online chatter about Oracle / Cerner employees wanting to move to Epic. I don’t think that’s actually a thing.” Unless something has changed, Epic generally doesn’t hire people with industry experience. In Judy’s mind (and I love this), they would rather take a bright, high-potential new college graduate, pay them a decent salary given their lack of experience, teach them to do things the Epic way, and then move them up if it’s a good fit or out if not. They aren’t big on paying more to hire experienced people whose knowledge and habits need to be “unlearned.” Folks with recent time working for Epic, is this still generally accurate? As I’ve said many times, Epic’s most shockingly successful accomplishment is building a huge, successful company with an army of fresh-from-college industry newcomers to whom C-level hospital executives listen.
From Chaat GPT: “Re: patients using AI as an initial or second medical opinion. How does this work its way into the workflow of physicians who are already have all appointment slots booked for many months?” Doctors could face challenges as patients use AI tools like ChatGPT to get second opinions or conflicting advice. The healthcare system isn’t equipped to treat patients as equal partners within a 15-minute appointment. If just 10% of patients question their diagnosis or treatment based on their AI findings, it could overwhelm doctors. Enterprising physicians might create a second-opinion practice, gathering full patient information (thanks, interoperability), and thoughtfully reviewing it with the help of AI to explain the options or recommend new ones. Alternatively, a patient’s subjective data could be analyzed by AI before their appointment to create more informed care plans up front. I’m pretty sure that healthcare processes would look a lot different if you could ignore incremental profit motives, insurers, and malpractice attorneys (direct primary care addresses the first two).
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Lorre accidentally uncovered a fun statistic today. HIStalk has served up more than 1 billion ad impressions in just part of its lifespan.
Webinars
September 10 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Overcoming Hurdles in Specialty Med Access Under Medical Benefits.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Drew Hunsinger, VP of corporate business development, DrFirst; Tyler Wince, MEd, VP of product and technology specialty solutions, DrFirst. More specialty medications, which made up 80% of FDA’s new drug approvals last year, are falling under medical benefits, which challenges the patient care processes and efficiency of providers. Medication access experts will discuss how automation and unified medication management solutions can ensure better outcomes for patients and providers by addressing patient access hurdles and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of EHRs. They will also provide insights into how regulatory changes such as interoperability and prior authorization mandates will affect healthcare stakeholders.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
McKesson will acquire business and administrative services company Core Ventures from Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute for $2.5 billion. FCS launched Core Ventures in January to house its IT, finance, managed care, and procurement divisions. FCS, which employs over 500 clinicians across 100 locations, will retain its independence and become a member of The US Oncology Network, McKesson’s practice management business for cancer care practices.
Pfizer launches PfizerForAll, a direct-to-consumer online healthcare business that offers virtual consults for select conditions, prescription and test delivery to the home, and local appointment scheduling for vaccines.
Sales
- Intermountain Health (UT) will implement Volpara Health’s AI-powered breast cancer screening software.
- Sanford Health (SD) selects Infor’s healthcare-focused finance and supply chain technologies.
- Norfolk and Waveney Acute Hospital Collaborative will implement Meditech Expanse across its three hospitals in England.
People
Divurgent hires Steve Aspling (CorroHealth) as VP of client service.
Cordea Consulting names Kaitlin Traft (Healthlink Advisors) VP of sales.
Vik Krishnan, MBA (TeleVox Healthcare) joins Instem as CEO.
Tarah Bryan, MA (Health Catalyst) joins Notable as head of marketing.
Innovative Consulting Group names Christina Krugh (Baker Tilly US) as SVP of sales.
Greg Burrell, MD (Gravie) joins Homeward as chief medical officer.
Announcements and Implementations
Regional West Medical Center will implement Epic in October through a partnership with UCHealth (CO) and Epic’s Community Connect program. The hospital settled a contract dispute with Oracle Health earlier this year over financial losses and lowered bond ratings that it contends were directly caused by its 2018 implementation of Cerner Millennium.
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center implements Cloud Payments software from TrustCommerce, a Sphere company.
Capital Rx launches Never Move Again, which allows self-funded health plan sponsors to continuously access the best drug prices without needing to re-implement their pharmacy benefit plans or issue new cards, thereby avoiding disruptions for members. It uses the company’s JUDI platform, which centralizes pharmacy benefit workflows and provides full financial transparency.
Privacy and Security
McLaren Health Care (MI) restores its computer systems following an August 5 ransomware attack.
Sponsor Updates
- Digital Health KC honors Bill Miller, CEO of CarePort Health parent company WellSky, as a corporate visionary during its Lumi Awards event.
- Creekside Family Practice (TX) schedules 90% of its monthly appointments online using Healow patient engagement capabilities from EClinicalWorks.
- Vyne Medical publishes a new customer success story, “Building Trust: Why a Major Tennessee Health System Stands Behind Vyne Medical’s Solutions.”
- Meander Medisch Centrum in the Netherlands renews its contract with Agfa HealthCare for enterprise imaging for radiology and vendor neutral archive.
- Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast, “Prescription Rebates: Agreements, Guarantees, and More, with NPC’s John O’Brien, PharmD, MPH, and Julie Patterson, PharmD, PhD.
- Consensus Cloud Solutions will exhibit at the Wyoming Hospital Association Annual Meeting August 27-28 in Casper.
Blog Posts
- How state patient data privacy regulations impact health plans, HIEs and provider organizations (Wolters Kluwer Health)
- Unlocking Missed Revenue Potential with Effective Contract Management (AGS Health)
- How an ACO revolutionized high-risk maternity care with data-driven strategies (Arcadia)
- Tackling the Prior Authorization Problem with Innovative Technologies (Arrive Health)
- Pharmacy Benefits 101: Prior Authorizations (Capital Rx)
- Understanding the Role of Data in Biden’s Cancer Initiative (Dimensional Insight)
- Navigating Executive Transitions: Key Considerations for a Seamless Career Move (Direct Recruiters)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Re: Epic hiring – Yes, your characterization is generally correct (for the main core roles).
Re: Epic hiring. I worked for Epic for about 5 years, that was a little over 6 years ago. Before I started in my current role, a former senior member in my org reached out to see if I was interested in coming back. Note that I would have come back in the same entry level that I started in when I was a fresh grad 11 years ago. I likely would have had a little bit of a pay bump but not nearly enough considering my 11 years in the industry. So your characterization is definitely accurate.
Question: When you say “… I would have come back […] entry level…”
Why would that be? Is that just an artifact of the position being offered, or is that a more general policy of Epic?
If it’s just a detail of the open position, this has no extra layer of meaning. However if Epic routinely does this… that’s interesting.
If there’s additional company policy at work here, then that goes beyond merely Epic not valuing industry experience. Part of your experience was with Epic, and Epic would be actively discounting that! It’s like they think your non-Epic work record was a negative, and a negative so great as to override your Epic work experience.
One can read this as group-think (at best), or cult-like (at worst).
Because I didn’t pursue it I can’t say for sure but it sure felt like the case where additional industry experience was discounted and even treated negatively (when I left I was managing a large team and leading several significant internal and customer projects). For their part they did say folks tend to get promoted quickly in those situations but that wasn’t a great selling point and certainly was no guarantee. I’ll also note that I left the company on good terms and as a high performer (likely why they proactively reached out in the first place).