Monday Morning Update 3/10/25

Top News

The VA will expand its 2026 Oracle Health rollout from four sites to 13.

The VA has faced recent criticism from both Congress and Oracle Health for its slow go-live pace, which it acknowledges will prevent full implementation by the contract’s expiration in May 2028. The EHR won’t be completely deployed until 2031 even with the accelerated schedule.

The announcement’s timing was not optimal as the VA was just coming off a nationwide Oracle Health outage. They are also determining how to lay off 80,000 employees per White House orders.

The VA’s most recent go-live, other than at jointly operated Lovell FHCC, was in June 2022. Further go-lives were paused as the VA addressed system and operational issues that impacted patient safety and staff productivity.

Reader Comments

From Omnibusboy: “Re: Oracle Health. I think Madison VAMC is one of the sites the VA added to its accelerated deployment schedule. Right in Ms. Faulkner’s back yard. It used to be a very well-run hospital, but with few patients. We’d joke the secretaries were MBAs because of all the educated people in Madison competing for jobs. It’s a pretty aggressive move by VA leadership and a huge risk to accelerate deployment with a system so disliked by VA docs, not to mention pushback from a RIF-rattled workforce.” I haven’t seen an announcement of which nine VA sites are being added for 2026 go-lives. I wouldn’t expect Madison VAMC’s location to intersect with anything specific to Epic, but a lot of clinicians there use Epic almost entirely.

From Rucksack: “Re: HIMSS25. Attendance was down again, even after it was sold to Informa. Is it in a long decline?” HIMSS25 drew 28,000 attendees, down from 30,000 in 2024, 35,000 in 2023, and 43,000 pre-COVID in 2019. As Spinal Tap’s manager might optimistically say, “Their appeal is becoming more selective.” Some of the decline likely stems from the HIMSS20 refund fiasco and the infamous no-carpet exhibit hall of 2023, but I would bet that the bigger culprits are ViVE’s steady presence (they’re stingy with numbers, but attendance seemed flat from 2024 to 2025), tighter provider budgets, lackluster keynotes, Las Vegas fatigue, and the lack of federal participation this year. The AI boom probably softened the blow. HIMSS initially reacted to ViVE’s competition by copying its strengths (hosted buyer program, expanded networking), but it probably realized that differentiation is the smarter strategy, especially being the bigger and more broadly focused player that is attached to a membership non-profit. HIMSS has a stronger international presence, deeper coverage and participation of interoperability and health system IT management, and a history of drawing attendees who have buying authority.

From Bebop: “Re: Epic. Deep in its HIMSS press release was a note that they are developing an ERP system, with full integration as a talking point. What do health system readers think of this?” I invite readers to tell me. Building an industry-specific ERP system must be a huge project that, if successful, would expand Epic’s orbit. It would also create new competition with Oracle.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Attention over 35ers – your best option to enhance your health tech career is to earn a master’s degree if you don’t already have one. So say poll respondents, who also credited earning vendor-specific and general certifications for supporting their success. 

New poll to your right or here: How are your employer’s 2025 business prospects looking compared to 2024? You earn bonus karma for leaving a poll comment that explains further.

Please join my democracy of dysfunction by spending maybe two minutes on my reader survey. Your anonymous wisdom helps me understand who’s out there. Nearly every improvement I’ve made over the years came from a good citizen who took the time to weigh in. You won’t get an “I Voted” sticker, but you will have earned my appreciation and the right to complain later.

Reminder: “EST” is hibernating until November – it’s “EDT” because we have all agreed to fool ourselves into thinking that clock tampering creates more hours of daylight. Folks in Arizona and Hawaii saw through the nonsense and will continue to enjoy their sunny days on standard time. Spring officially kicks in the morning of March 20, although meteorologists make it easy by proclaiming that March, April, and May are spring months because of weather rather than astronomy. Meanwhile, those who are south of the equator are about to officially hit autumn.

Readers funded the DonorsChoose teach grant request of Mr. P in Brooklyn, who asked for help with a project for his Brooklyn, NY high school physics and robotics classes. He said when he received the materials in November, “It’s hard to put into words how grateful I am for your donation to my project. I am committed to providing students with a relevant STEM curriculum that develops lifelong skills, and it is inspiring to see so many others that share my vision for education. The tools that you have funded will enable students to engage in engineering process and see their CAD designs come to life. Students are incredibly excited to begin the project.“ Which they did, as the above note from a student reports.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Mednition. KATE is an EHR-integrated AI solution that provides 24/7 real-time clinical risk guidance, starting at triage in the emergency room. KATE significantly improves capacity, which reduces wait times, saves lives, and supports a strong 10x ROI, while empowering emergency nurses to optimize patient flow from the point of entry without adding to their workload. KATE Triage serves as a second set of eyes at triage by automatically identifying, prioritizing, and notifying on high-risk patients, with zero workflow changes. KATE Sepsis identifies more patients with sepsis at your front door (up to 2x greater than current standards and before ordering labs), making an immediate and meaningful impact on patient outcomes. Clinical Data Engine provides real-time analytics and research platform for clinicians to search millions of EHR records in seconds, including dynamic free text search. Thanks to Mednition for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Axios investigates last December’s sale of patient navigation company Memora Health to Commure. It concludes that Memora unloaded at a $30 million fire sale price versus a claimed $430 million valuation, likely because CEO Manav Sevak reportedly had inflated annual revenue of less than $2 million to $20 million. He started the company in 2018 at 21 years old, so he’s still in his late 20s. 

Announcements and Implementations

Researchers warn that large language models will readily generate clinical decision support that resembles the output of a medical device even though they don’t have FDA approval. They also found that the output was clinically appropriate. Click the graphic for FDA’s guidance on when clinical decision support software is functioning as a medical device that requires FDA review.

Government and Politics

Oregon Health & Science University will pay a $200,000 HHS OCR penalty for taking 16 months to fulfill a patient’s medical records request. OHSU was previously non-compliant with an OCR “technical assistance” warning and tried to blame a business associate, Diversified Business Services, Inc.

Sponsor Updates

• Elsevier Health launches the HESI Clinical Practice Readiness Assessment, the first standardized, objective, and reliable assessment for faculty to assess the clinical judgment and practice readiness of nursing students.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Stefanie Simmons, MD.
• Nym publishes a new case study, “Health System Reduces Costs, Improves Revenue Capture, and Stabilizes DNFB with Autonomous Coding.”
• Redox releases a new episode of its “Shut the Backdoor” podcast titled “A Hacker’s Welcome – Benefiting from the Bug Bounty.”
• RLDatix will present at the ACHE Congress March 25 in Houston.

Blog Posts

• The Challenges of Strategy Development and Execution (Impact Advisors)
• The State of Healthcare: How Automation, AI, and Digital Tools Are Shaping Patient Sentiment (Vyne Medical)
• Why AI documentation has the potential to humanize healthcare (Nordic)
• Enhancing Healthcare Quality Insights with Snowflake – A Recap from HIMSS (Prominence Advisors)
• A Clinically Integrated Supply Chain & Value Analysis Maturity Model (Symplr)
• Beyond Technology: Change Management as a Business Imperative in Healthcare (Tegria)
• New telehealth regulations for behavioral health: 3 opportunities for providers in 2025 (WellSky)

Contacts

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