News 12/18/24

Top News

ASTP publishes the HTI-3 final rule, which addresses information blocking.

The rule adds a definition of “reproductive health care” and protects patients from legal action where an actor limits the sharing of their electronic health information that may relate to reproductive healthcare.

HTI-3 will likely require review by the new administration, which may have motivated the publication of the HTI-2 rule and its reproductive healthcare section separately to avoid delaying HCI-2’s USCDI standard version, certification program standards, and TEFCA standards. ASTP said that HTI-2, whose draft version was slimmed down by 85% for the final version, will be spread over several separate rules.

Reader Comments

From Bexley: “Re: charges for insurance appeals. See this BCBS notice to clients in which the company has decided to charge $205 for second-level appeals. I have never seen anything like this and am frankly appalled that insurance would put such an onerous demand on rural and CAH markets. My fear is that there will be more to come that will tilt the deck against financially struggling facilities. My suspicion is that they are doing this because automated appeals have broken their revenue models, which depend on a majority of claims never been appealed by hospitals and other providers.”

From Elucidate: “Re: conferences. HLTH was always for-profit and investor-backed, and now the HIMSS conference is, too. Is that the new standard?” Apparently. Member non-profits have done a good job in creating and managing their conferences, but it takes a lot of expertise and focus to scale them up and to extract the maximum all-important revenue from corporate supporters. For member groups, conferences are the core revenue generator but not the core business. One might speculate that the Big Daddy of healthcare conferences, RSNA and its 40,000 attendees, has had options for its future extended. Here’s a fun fact to know and tell: with the HIMSS conference and HLTH/ViVE acquired in just over 12 months, both conferences are now operated by London-based companies, where the sun never sets on the British conference empire.

This item made me think of my previous areas of uncertainty about HIMSS:

• IRS Form 990 — still hasn’t filed one since FY2021 that I’ve seen. I’m still wondering if they converted to for-profit since IRS requires yearly reporting for non-profits.
• Listed as a non-profit on the IRS website — no.
• HIMSS Accelerate — seems to have been finally shut down as the previous link now redirects to the HIMSS membership page and former Accelerate Managing Director Dennis Upah’s LinkedIn says that “much of the functionality was ultimately reorganized within HIMSS itself” as he gave up his Accelerate managing director role in September.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Navina. Navina is the market-leading clinical intelligence platform, leveraging AI to transform fragmented patient data into a concise patient profile with actionable clinical insights. Designed for and loved by physicians, Navina enables proactive and empathic patient care, increasing clinician satisfaction, reducing burden, and improving value-based care outcomes. Privia Health, Agilon Health, and Millennium Physician Group are among some of the leading value-based care organizations leveraging Navina’s AI platform to transform clinical workflows and improve quality performance. The company won recognition in the 2024 MedTech Breakthrough Awards, KLAS Emerging Solutions Top 20 report, and the CB Insights Digital Health 50 list. Founded in 2019, Navina is used daily by over 7,000 clinicians across the United States, impacting the lives of more than two million patients. Thanks to Navina for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Toronto-based Healwell AI will acquire global healthcare technology company Orion Health, based in New Zealand, for $116 million. Healwell acquired a majority stake in Mutuo Health Solutions earlier this month, and acquired Canadian healthcare data software vendor VeroSource for $24.5 million in June.

Tuva Health, an open-source healthcare data and analytics startup, raises $5 million in seed funding. Co-founders Aaron Neiderhiser and Jorge Zuloaga spent time in executive roles at Health Catalyst and Strive Health, respectively, before launching Tuva in 2021.

Enterprise identity security company SailPoint Technologies acquires Imprivata’s identity governance and administration business.

Kahuna Workforce Solutions, which offers skills and competency management solutions, receives an unspecified investment from Memorial Hermann Health System.

Sales

• Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust and Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust in England will implement Oracle Health in 2026-27.
• Rural healthcare cooperative Cibolo Health selects population health management software from The Garage.

People

Mari Spung, MBA (Clinical Computer Systems) joins Medhost as SVP of research and development.

Adele Merritt, PhD (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), joins the National Institutes of Health as CIO.

HealthEdge hires Julie Coviello (E4health) as VP of professional services – delivery executive.

Aptarro, formerly Alpha II, hires Lori Jones (Agiliti) as chief growth officer and promotes Dave Douglas, MBA to COO.

Announcements and Implementations

MultiPlan announces GA of CompleteVue healthcare pricing analytics.

Black Book Research offers free access to the 2025 edition of “The Black Book of Global Healthcare Information Technology,” a 540-page guide to healthcare IT adoption worldwide. The company also releases its ratings of 175 EHR vendors across 110 countries, based on 18 critical performance indicators. 

Epic announces that its Nexus QHIN has connected 625 hospitals since it joined the framework in December 2023.

Government and Politics

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers sues Change Healthcare, UnitedHealth Group, and Optum for allegedly violating the state’s consumer protection and data security laws during and after the ransomware attack on Change in February 2024 that exposed the information of 575,000 residents. Hilgers says that while Nebraska is the first state to file such a lawsuit, it likely won’t be the last.

Privacy and Security

An unidentified ransomware group threatens via fax to publish data stolen from PIH Health (CA) during a December 1 ransomware attack that continues to impact the provider’s IT systems. PIH staff are “scrambling,” according to one employee. “It’s a day-to-day thing. The majority of locations have not used paper in 15 years. It’s a stark awakening.”

Watsonville Community Hospital (CA) restores its EHR after a ransomware attack the day after Thanksgiving forced its staff to move to paper-based documentation.

A new federal breach report from Phreesia indicates that 900,000 people that their personal health data was exposed in a May breach of its ConnectOnCall telehealth and on-call answering platform, which it acquired in October 2023.

Other

Houston Methodist and Rice University establish the Digital Health Institute to develop new AI-enhanced solutions for telehealth, patient self-management, medical devices and wearables, predictive analytics, and early detection and diagnosis of conditions.

Nebraska Medicine opens the 17-room Innovation Design Unit at University of Nebraska Medical Center. The patient care unit will allow clinical staff and researchers to design, test, and validate advanced care models, new technologies, and facility designs.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore releases a new podcast, “Physician CIO on the Value of Clinical IT Support.”
• Linus Health announces that its Core Cognitive Evaluation solution has earned European Union Medical Device Regulation Class IIa certification. 
• Artera offers a new customer success story, “Jane Pauley Community Health Center Increases Access to Care Across Community-Based Populations in Central Indiana with Artera.”
• Ascom launches the Myco 4 DECT-WiFi smartphone, combining DECT and WiFi capabilities.
• AvaSure becomes a founding sponsor of the American Telemedicine Association’s new Center of Digital Excellence.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare podcast, “What Project 2025, RFK Jr., and Dr. Oz Could Mean for the Business of Healthcare Under Trump.”
• DrFirst offers a new whitepaper, “The Perils and the Promise of AI in Healthcare.”

Blog Posts

• How Outside Partners are Changing Epic Implementations for the Better (CereCore)
• Agfa Insights: RSNA 2024 Key Takeaways (Agfa HealthCare)
• State of Patient Access: Survey Results and Insights Centralization, Analytics, and Automation (AGS Health)
• Extending your reach: How outsourcing your revenue cycle drives better financials (Altera Digital Health)
• Risk adjustment in healthcare: The ultimate guide for payers (Arcadia)
• Embracing Diversity and Inclusion in Recruitment: Building a More Inclusive Workforce (Direct Recruiters)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Contact us.