This is very timely for me - my brother and I just built an AI telephone help desk for our…
News 2/14/25
Top News
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, JD, LLM is sworn in as HHS secretary.
He will manage a $2 trillion budget and will oversee CMS, CDC, FDA, NIH, the Public Health Service, HHS OIG, AHRQ, Office for Civil Rights, and ASTP.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Inbox Health. Inbox Health directly addresses one of the fastest-growing problems in healthcare — the challenge of patient A/R. Built for healthcare revenue cycle leaders, Inbox Health automates patient billing and patient payments and modernizes the patient support experience. Inbox Health improves patient engagement by providing clear medical bills immediately after service; choice of payment methods and communication channels; and fast, empathetic support through the phone and live chat. By improving the patient experience, practices see an increase in profitability, cash flow, and collection speeds. With Inbox Health, customers report a 60% increase in collection speeds in the first 60 days. Inbox Health provides an automated, streamlined platform that increases revenue, saves time, and reduces costs. Inbox Health serves over 3,000 healthcare practices and more than 2 million patients a year. Headquartered in New Haven, CT, Inbox Health was recently named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America. Thanks to Inbox Health for supporting HIStalk.
Sponsored Events and Resources
Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints. The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.
Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
CVS Health reports Q4 results: revenue up 4%, EPS $1.30 versus $1.58, beating expectations for both and sending battered shares up 15%. Executives emphasized plans to boost margins in its Aetna insurance unit, which was hit by high utilization costs, and refine drug pricing models.
Revenue cycle automation vendor Candid Health raises $52.5 million in a Series C funding round.
No-code healthcare workflow automation and integration platform vendor Keragon raises $7.5 million in seed funding.
Vitalchat, which offers an AI-powered inpatient virtual nursing and procedural telehealth platform, raises $6 million in a Series A funding round. CEO Michael Raymer, Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Haas, and board member Peter Neupert spent time at Sentillion / Microsoft and the executive team has deep health tech experience in general.
Half-year results of Pro Medicus, Visage Imaging’s Australia-based parent, report a 35% jump in revenue from North America.
Oracle EVP and lobbyist Ken Glueck fires off another unhinged rant against Epic and CEO Judy Faulkner after his initial diatribe last spring. Snips:
- “We set on a path to build a modern EHR Cloud, focused on innovation while Epic built a yellow brick road to nowhere. At Epic, product demos were replaced by campus tour.”
- He spends most of his 21 paragraphs accusing Epic of favorably editing its own Wikipedia page, although he (a) admitted that it’s possible that nobody associated with Epic actually did this; and (b) didn’t elaborate on why Epic would find Wikipedia pages important enough to justify “a more sophisticated, coordinated, and sustained effort.”
- Glueck says that Epic has run a smear campaign against Oracle EVP/GM Seema Verma, who he says riled Judy by pushing interoperability in her former role as CMS administrator. (note: Verma’s Wikipedia page is certainly an interesting read without any Epic embellishment).
Oracle Health employees reacted negatively on Reddit:
- “Childish and stupid. Truly embarrassing.”
- “Who the hell is Ken Glueck and is this external for clients to read? That’s totally embarrassing. Also, Feinberg said Epic isn’t our competitor anyway, so what’s the problem?”
- “I am not sure I have witnessed a more profound ass kissing. How the hell does a professional organization let a piece like that out the door?”
- “To paraphrase Steve Jobs, real wizards ship.”
Sales
- Cordea Consulting brings Jupiter Medical Center (FL) live on Epic on Amazon Web Services.
People
RWJBarnabas Health hires Roshan Hussain, MBA, MPH (UK HealthCare) as SVP/chief data and analytics officer.
Mark Amey, MBA (Alameda Health System) joins Ellit Groups as COO.
CloudWave promotes Tina Brown, MBA to VP of cloud operations; Tony Rienzo to VP of service delivery; and John Duffy to VP of cloud infrastructure.
Evidently hires Kai Romero, MD (By The Bay Health) as head of clinical success.
Jay Volk, JD, LLM, MA (EtherFax) joins Weave Cloud Solutions as CEO.
Announcements and Implementations
Medicomp System announces support for USCDI Version 3 and Version 4 for its Quippe platform, which gives its partners access to SDOH screening tools and export capability to FHIR.
Surescripts announces Touchless Prior Authorization.
Apple adds heart rate monitoring to its new $250 Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds.
Meditech renames its patient portal to MyHealthHub.
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Apple launches the Apple Health Study in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which will use the Research app to explore how data from Apple devices relates to health.
In England, Fordcombe Hospital goes live on Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EPR.
Government and Politics
Politico reports that three HHS / ASTP technology executives who were hired into newly created positions four weeks ago appear to no longer work for the organization – Meghan Dierks, MD (chief AI officer); Alicia Rouault (CTO); and Kristen Honey PhD, MA (chief data officer).
Other
Former Theranos CEO and federal inmate Elizabeth Holmes tells People that she is still filing patents and plans to re-enter healthcare technology after her scheduled release in 2032. Critics say that the article might indicate that she is angling for a sentence reduction or possibly a White House pardon by creating sympathy for her children, ages 2 and 3, who were born during her fraud trial. She says that her newfound passion is to become an advocate for reforming the US criminal justice system.
Sponsor Updates
- Digital Health New York inducts Capital Rx into its inaugural Hall of Fame as part of a cohort of companies that have built the foundation of New York’s Digital Health ecosystem.
- Black Book Research publishes its first comprehensive industry review of AI applications in revenue cycle management.
- TruBridge names Jerry Canada and Dris Upitis to its board as a part of cooperation agreements with Pinetree Capital and Ocho Investments.
- Clearsense announces a strategic rebrand, the relocation of its headquarters to Nashville, and the addition of new features to its 1Clearsense data-enablement platform.
- Jack Squires (WellSky) joins Healthmonix as sales executive.
- Riverside University Health System – Behavioral Health (CA) adds Netsmart’s CareRouter mobile dispatch tool to improve the efficiency of its Mobile Crisis Response Program.
- WellSky launches a new patient panel, available in the WellSky CarePort Connect solution, that will equip providers with critical and holistic knowledge of their patient population.
- Health Data Movers hires Andrew O’Hara as a health IT recruiter.
- Inovalon releases an eight-episode podcast, “INOvators 2025 Forecast.”
Blog Posts
- 5 Tips for Achieving 2025 Readiness in the IDD Industry (Netsmart)
- 211 Day: Celebrating Innovation Meeting Impact (Findhelp)
- Healthcare Insurance Discovery: How It Works and Why Providers Need It (FinThrive)
- Riding the Wave Into 2025: Top 5 Highlights From Five9 SKO (Five9)
- The Importance of Migrating from Your Legacy ERP to a Modern Cloud-Based Solution: Doing Nothing is Not a Strategy (Impact Advisors)
- How MyHealthHub elevates the patient experience (Meditech)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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I’m always amused by those white collar criminals who suddenly discover how unfair the criminal justice and prison system is when they’re in it. I’m sure it wasn’t on Elizabeth Holmes’ mind when she was flying around on her private jet. Add Martha Stewart and Frank Quattrone to that list
Much more impressed by Kim Kardashian and John Grisham who support the Innocence project and pardons for drug war cases when they’re nowhere near that system themselves
Given the current pace over the past month, you should prepare yourself to be near constantly amused, then.
Oracle snippy email: reminds me of Neal’s famous pizza email.
1. RFK. JFC.
2. Holmes can pound sand – delusional as she ever was. And I would know – it’s the fabric of my username!
3. I have many critiques of Epic, but Oracle, as you stated, is absolutely UNHINGED. I would be embarrassed to be one of their customers. The interoperability rule fight was such a ridiculous farce – I commented on this page about it many times when Seema was in government. Epic raised many legitimate questions and concerns with the proposed rule. The final rule ended up adopting many of Epic’s proposed remedies. If Epic had such a bad take on interoperability, why did Seema Verma adopt their position? You know what is conspicuously absent from Mr. Glueck’s 20 paragraph rant? Evidence, facts, details…backing up any of his claims. Wikipedia edits? From a Washington DC airport? I wonder why someone in DC would have a bone to pick with Verma…Could you be more pathetic?
Per RFK Jr., I predict the following.
Very soon, one of his entities (the NIH perhaps) will discover that severed whale heads, or baby bears, or some such, have Very Interesting Medical Properties. You know, that One Weird Trick that normalizes cholesterol levels!!! Or maybe, it prevents Alzheimer’s, or gives men erections that last for days.
The medical community will be directed to spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars on these exciting medical breakthroughs. Perhaps Elizabeth Holmes (the incarcerated Liz) could be recruited to lead the effort?
Nah, he will just make sure ivermectin is OTC, and we will all be able to see what areas it helps.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11008553/
Very disappointing for the AI /CTO/digital employees at HHS. They could have quintupled their salaries in the private sector and chose public service, and now are axed in the name of ???
FDA exodus will also mean longer or less safe drug approval process.
Healthier food wont make up for the losses of institutional expertise.
Not thinking that any rational person is going to pass up 4x salary to work in govt. That is, unless there is some backdoor cash-cow to be milked, which we are seeing it commonly the case with a lot of govt work.
I realize this is hard for some people to believe, but there are folks who walk among us who are civic minded and choose a career path because they want to help people and make this country a good place where everyone can thrive, even though they could make more money doing something useless instead.
RFK Jr does hold any rational beliefs regarding the American food system, and he certainly does not have a vision that would improve the American diet since that would involve farming techniques, soil composition, industrial and agricultural runoff in irrigation water, reliance on undocumented labor to harvest in extreme conditions for low pay, sanitation for those workers in the field, transport and storage infrastructure to get food from the places it grows to the people who consume it, regular inspections of meat processing facilities and meaningful punishment for companies that fail them, subsidies for low-income families to be able to afford good food to begin with, mitigation of climate change to blunt the impact of flooding and drought (which precludes emptying the reservoirs in central CA so that there’s no water for the drought season — eat your veggies now because there won’t be any in September), among other things.
He does think that pesticides make children gay and trans though, so who can say. Both sides, etc. etc.
If I were Oracle, I would not want to drive more traffic to Seema’s Wikipedia. That’s embarrassing!
Not saying I agree with all of RFK Jr.’s past comments or positions, but 70% of America is overweight or obese. Rates of colorectal cancer are increasing over time. Our brains are full of plastic. We have ingredients in our food that have been banned for a long time in other industrialized countries. Our health system is incentivized to perform interventions, not necessarily prevent those from occurring. I think it’s worth having someone who thinks very differently in a leadership position to help initiate change.
While I agree that we need to resource public health efforts, regulation, and research to reduce the burden of chronic disease, the proposals from RFK 1) aren’t evidence based and 2) suggest abandoning efforts to combat infectious diseases.
The relationship between heart disease and tuberculosis is worth noting. The statistics on deaths due to heart attacks versus TB during, before, and after the Nazi occupation on Norway offers a grim window into that relationship.
Some portion of people who don’t die of infectious disease live long enough to develop chronic illnesses. Preventing and treating chronic illness is a key part of public health, but doing so at the expense of existing evidence based measures against infectious disease is counter productive.
RFK2 said that Black children should be removed from their parents’ custody and placed in residential homes (a la Native American children in the US and Canada) so they can be “re-parented” because – in his words: “Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, on SSRIs, on benzos”. He said this last June.
This same guy — who took up heroin to manage his undiagnosed ADHD — also says that people on psychoactive medication should be put into work camps.