Monday Morning Update 10/14/24

Top News

Ambient documentation vendor Abridge is reportedly raising a $250 million investment that values the company at $2.5 billion.

Reader Comments

From Snarkopotamus: “Re: Particle Health and Epic. Which one comes across as the protector of patient privacy?” Clearly Epic, considering that Particle got caught and admitted selling access to patient data to companies that had no business obtaining it. However, that misses the point – Particle’s customers are not necessarily motivated by patient privacy and instead are paying a middleman to give them perhaps their first unfettered access to patient data. Therefore, as a business model, I wouldn’t expect Carequality’s dispute findings to hurt venture capital-funded Particle. As a health system, I might be appalled that Particle signed up a malpractice law firm to trawl my patient data and be glad that Epic caught them. Then I would wonder whether companies other than Epic would have been equally zealous, if this incident will give data-sharing a black eye, whether legal or HHS OCR action might result, or how the nebulous definition of “treatment” could be sharpened. Meanwhile, Particle Health CEO Jason Prestinario posted this on LinkedIn following the Carequality dispute resolution:

While the resolution sets the stage for more transparent health information exchange, it does not change our conviction in our antitrust complaint against Epic, and in fact strengthens it.  Everything we’ve seen shows that Epic’s actions during the course of this dispute served their own monopolistic business goals over the needs of customers and patients.

From Mayonnaise: “Re: [health system name omitted]. CIO to retire effective November 1 with no interim named yet. Most staff caught completely by surprise. He’s largely already done.” Unverified, so I expunged the organization’s name until I can dig further. I am dismayed that Internet Archive is down from a cyberattack and Google has removed the ability to view cached versions of a webpage, so I can’t see if the leadership page has changed.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents aren’t buying the argument of Oracle Health EVP Seema Verma that her company is better positioned than Epic to solve the biggest problems of health systems.

New poll to your right or here: What apps do you sneak a look at >3 times per one-hour live or virtual meeting? I ran this awhile back and e-mail was the winner by far, suggesting that the respondents found it to be more interesting than the meeting.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Goliath Technologies. Goliath is the only purpose-built health IT observability solution providing complete provider experience visibly so health IT can proactively manage a high-quality EHR experience for providers and their corresponding patient interactions. We allow health IT professionals to anticipate EHR speed and reliability issues before they impact users, troubleshoot them quickly when they do with AI-enhanced contextual data, and document the root cause of issues so they can be fixed permanently. Only Goliath provides a common set of facts so clinical and HIT teams can have productive conversations around improving EHR speed and reliability for providers. Now, both clinical and HIT can know which providers are impacted, the frequency and duration, and root cause so issues can be resolved. Goliath is a member of the KLAS Arch Collaborative and the only health IT solution with purpose-built modules for the largest EHR applications, an exclusive partnership with Oracle Cerner, and is featured in the Epic Showroom Connection Hub. Thanks to Goliath for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s a well-done explainer video for Goliath titled “Provider EHR Experience Observability.”

Webinars

October 15 (Tuesday) noon ET. “AI in Practice: How Privia Health Empowers Doctors to Win at Value-Based Care.” Sponsors: Navina and Athenahealth. Presenters: Dana McCalley, MBA, VP of value-based care, Navina; Michael McDonnell, strategic account executive, Navina; Francheska Feliciano, director of risk adjustment, Privia Health. The panelists will share practical insight from Privia Health’s experience that are applicable for users of any EHR, focusing on strategies to improve collaboration between clinical teams and coders, reduce administrative burden, and ensure accurate HCC capture at the point of care. The presenters will offer strategies for streamlining value-based workflows across clinical and coding teams, reducing friction and administrative burden, and improving value-based performance and risk adjustment accuracy by empowering clinicians with AI at the point of care.

October 24 (Thursday) noon ET. “Preparing for HTI-2 Compliance: What EHR and Health IT Vendors Need to Know.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Nick Barger, PharmD, VP of product, DrFirst; Tyler Higgins, senior director of product management, DrFirst. Failure to meet ASTP’s mandatory HTI-2 certification  and compliance standards could impose financial consequences on clients. The presenters will discuss the content and timelines of this key policy update, which includes NCPDP Script upgrades, mandatory support for electronic prior authorization, and real-time prescription benefit. They will offer insight into the impact on “Base EHR” qualifications and provide practical advice on aligning development roadmaps with these changes.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare advisory firm VMG Health acquires Carnahan Group, which offers provider advisory and technology services. 

Sales

• Riverside Health (VA) will implement Abridge.

People

Matthew Smith (Medhost) joins Health Systems Informatics as VP of business development.

Sheri Stoltenberg, who founded Stoltenberg Consulting and served as its CEO since 1995, retires.

Announcements and Implementations

Abridge will include links to relevant evidence from Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate clinical decision support reference in Abridge-created ambient documentation notes.

Government and Politics

A federal jury finds that consulting firm Cognizant discriminated against US IT workers by exploiting H-1B visa loopholes to favor Indian employees in hiring, promotions, and terminations. The 11-year-old original complaint noted that 12% of the US IT industry employees are from Southeast Asia versus Cognizant’s 75%. Punitive damages will be imposed later. Cognizant says it will appeal.

Bloomberg reports that a federal magistrate judge has struck down as unconstitutional the 100-year-old Texas statute that has allowed Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate businesses and non-profits, including out-of-state hospitals that provide gender-affirming care.

The Drug Enforcement Administration suggests that it will again extend rules that allow prescribing controlled substances from telehealth encounters.

Privacy and Security

A ransomware group threatens to publish patient data from Colorado-based behavioral and long-term care provider Axis Health System unless it pays $1.5 million.  

Sponsor Updates

• Redox adopts Google Cloud as part of a multi-cloud strategy.
• RLDatix sponsors the American Society for Health Care Risk Management 2024 Innovation Award presented to Advent Health.
• Sectra will exhibit at Pathology Visions 2024 November 3-5 in Orlando.
• Waystar will exhibit at the AMBA Annual Conference October 17-18 in Las Vegas.
• WellSky will exhibit at the ACMA regional conference October 12 in Richmond, VA.
• Altera Digital Health, Care.ai, CereCore, Clearsense, Clearwater, CliniComp, Divurgent, Ellkay, InterSystems, Meditech, Nordic, Optimum Healthcare IT, and Rhapsody will sponsor the CHIME Fall Forum November 4-8 in San Diego.

Blog Posts

• Best Practices, Automation, and Acceleration: 3 Key Takeaways from Noteworthy 2024 (Notable Health)
• Meaningful Automation Strategies for Empowering Clinical Staff (Netsmart)
• Beyond the Chart: EHR-Induced Burnout (and What to Do About it) (Nordic)
• Manage Your Data as a Strategic Asset (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Maximizing Efficiency with Part-Time IT Resources (Revuud)
• How Sophia Genetics Leverages Rhapsody to Revolutionize Genomic Data Interpretation (Rhapsody)
• 6 Ways TruBridge Encoder Beats the Competition (TruBridge)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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