News 3/21/25

Top News

The VA cancels contracts with at least six companies that support its Oracle Health project, according to Federal News Network.

The VA said on March 3 that it would end 585 contracts. Each would be reviewed by a VA subject matter expert who could override the cancellation if they determined that the action would negatively affect veterans.

The first of the DOGE-initiated cuts came one day after the VA proposed an accelerated rollout plan.

Reader Comments

From Loyd Bittle: “Re: NextGen Healthcare. Has closed the source code for Mirth Connect, impacting thousands of users globally, Bam! I am speechless, as are thousands of Mirth users.” NextGen’s license update moves licensing for Mirth Connect to an enterprise-only model, citing the need for funding to support product development and maintenance. Loyd is founder and CEO of Innovar Healthcare, which offers the free, open-source fork BridgeLink that may interest affected users.

From YooToober: “Re: AI-generated content. I’ve seen some questionable material on other health tech websites and social media posts. Is this where we’re headed?” I think AI will be used to efficiently crank out web clutter that will interest no one, which is how it’s already being used generate social media junk. AI should replace me if it can filter out the 95% of time-wasting non-news, add perspective, and foster industry dialog. Allow me to preen a bit in repeating that 96% of poll respondents say that reading HIStalk helps them do their job better, which is a pretty high bar to reach by pushing the recycled digital thoughts of a glorified autocomplete.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Thanks to the CIOs, CMIOs, and others who have signed up for my Executive Watercooler. I’ll send them an easy-answer question once per month, then compile their de-identified answers into an HIStalk post that will provide a snapshot of executive thought and reaction. You can join them if you work for a provider organization as an IT leader, informaticist, or C-level executive. If you are retired, you are welcome as well — just list your previous job title and put “retired” with or without your previous employer’s name.

My weekly “This Week in Health Tech” carousels are drawing a few thousand impressions on LinkedIn, which reminds me that I should invite people to follow or connect with me or join Dann’s HIStalk fan club. I check all of these if I’m on the fence about a person or company that I don’t know, plus it lets me see job changes to announce.

Listening: Alison Krauss, which I checked out for the first time after reading a New York Times piece. I like bluegrass when I’m toe-tapping outdoors sitting in Walmart camp chair with a PBR in one hand and a smoked turkey leg in the other, but her music is actually remarkable, as evidenced by her 27 Grammys. I figured that her collaborations with Robert Plant pandered to both the bluegrass and rock genres with some annoying fiddle breaks inserted into Zeppelin covers, but it’s a lot better than I expected, with Plant being all-in with the elegant genre bending. Alison Krauss & Union Station will release their first studio album in 14 years next week. They start a huge tour in April, forcing me to ponder whether scratching my newfound itch is worth $150 per ticket.

Thursday was the first day of spring, in case you didn’t know. Or, the first day of autumn if you are reading from the Southern Hemisphere, where the chilly nights in Australia can drop to 70 degrees.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Workflow solutions vendor Forcura and post-acute care analytics company Medalogix merge under majority owner Berkshire Partners. The deal reportedly values the new business at $1 billion.

From the Veradigm earnings call following release of its FY2022 financials:

• The financial impact of the internal control failures was $239 million in asset reduction and $46 million in fees.
• Revenue increased 4% in 2021, 3% in 2023 and was down 1% in 2024, with the latter falling short of estimates. The company expects 2025 revenue to be flat.
• The company doesn’t expect to get current on its financial reporting until 2026.
• Higher net attrition is affecting the core provider business, such as EHR and RCM, and net sales were lower in 2024. Life sciences was also soft outside of the company’s real-world evidence business.
• ScienceIO, which Veradigm bought February 2024 for $140 million, generated no revenue in 2024. Interim CEO Tom Langan spoke vaguely in the call that its AI expertise would be incorporated into its other business lines, but he offered no revenue-generating use cases. The company also used a lot of AI buzzwords and observed that the AI market is moving fast, which might suggest that competitors are moving faster.

Sales

• Huntsville Hospital Health system will expand its use of Oracle Health Foundation EHR and deploy Oracle Health Data Intelligence. The announcement didn’t explain the relationship between the EHR and Oracle Health Foundation, which is the former Cerner charity that supports child health. I haven’t seen its retooled EHR called that until now.

People

AdvancedMD promotes Amanda Sharp to CEO, as announced with the company’s acquisition by Francisco Partners in November 2024, and hires Bryan Hunt (Health Catalyst) as CFO.

Alan Weiss, MD, MBA (BayCare Health System) joins Banner Health as SVP of clinical advancement.

Cherodeep Goswami (University of Wisconsin Health System) joins Providence as chief information and digital officer.

Rod Nicholls (Knowtion Health) joins Loyal as chief growth officer.

Announcements and Implementations

John Snow Lab announces Medical LLM Reasoner, which it says is the first commercially available healthcare-specific reasoning LLM. It was trained using DeepSeek-like methods that give it “self-reflection capabilities through reinforcement learning.” It runs on the customer’s own infrastructure with no third-party API calls. It offers online demos of models for summarizing medical information, answering questions, and generating text.

Linus Health launches Anywhere for Health Systems, an FDA-listed, EHR-integrated AI cognitive assessment tool that PCPs can ask their patients and their care partners to administer. The remote assessment has been found to be more than 90% accurate in detecting mild cognitive impairment or early dementia.

The recently formed policy arm of venture capital firm General Catalyst — which now has its own health system in Summa Health – releases a buzzword-stuffed, Washington-targeted manifesto that anoints AI as the cure for all of America’s healthcare woes. Conveniently absent from the discussion: healthcare costs, insurance, and the entrenched dominance of for-profit corporations (who just might find it useful to mask their dollar-driven ulterior motives as “healthcare reform.”) The report places blind faith in private-sector innovation, which of course means General Catalyst’s own portfolio companies that have become forward-thinking AI pioneers overnight. Among its short-term recommendations:

• Launch regional innovation sandboxes.
• Establish a fast-track AI approval process.
• Create a patient-controlled health data infrastructure.
• Implement AI-powered fraud detection.
• Accelerate provider ability.

Government and Politics

Authorities in Hong Kong threaten to fine doctors up to $6,400 if they don’t upload patient data into its electronic medical record system.

Other

This is sure to raise Dr. Jayne’s ire. Function Health—backed by celebrity investors Matt Damon, Kevin Hart, and Zac Efron—offers a $500 annual subscription for access to 100 lab tests . The company, whose tagline is “100 healthy years,” promotes a user’s “health strategy,” their health support “stack,” and its own ambition of reaching a $2 billion valuation. Members are left to interpret their results on their own, potentially overreacting to out-of-range values —tests that regular doctors don’t order in bulk for good reason — only to end up consulting their PCP anyway.

Sponsor Updates

• Clearwater joins CancerX as the organization’s first member company and accelerator champion focused on advancing strong cybersecurity and data privacy practices in the fight against cancer.
• Surescripts co-sponsors the Sequoia Project’s new Pharmacy Workgroup.
• Five9 introduces Spotlight for AI Insights and expands its reporting and analytics suite.
• Impact Advisors releases a new episode of the “Impactful AI” podcast titled “Taming the AI Bias Hydra.”
• Med Tech Solutions achieves HITRUST r2 certification for the third consecutive time.
• Navina will present and exhibit at AMGA 2025 March 26-29 in Grapevine, TX.
• Meditech shares the ways in which Meditech as a Service continues to grow with new customers and enhanced services.

Blog Posts

• Medical Revenue Recovery Services: Turn Lost Dollars Into Financial Success (FinThrive)
• What AR in Medical Billing Means and How It Affects Cash Flow (Inovalon)
• Top benefits of Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) (Nordic)
• Healthcare interoperability: The key to seamless data, better care, and lower costs (Arcadia)
• 12 New Judi Features Innovating Pharmacy Benefit Administration (Capital Rx)
• People, Policy, & Technology: The 2025 Connect Summit (Findhelp)
• Inspect, Adjust, Excel: How Top Brands Use CX Analytics for Transformation (Five9)
• 7 HIPAA Compliance Tips for HIM Staff (HealthMark Group)
• Planning Epic Conversions: 8 Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• How Automation and AI Agents Are Transforming Prior Authorizations (Infinx)
• Empowering Healthcare with Reliable Data: KONZA’s Commitment to Quality (Konza National Network)
• Watch how Meditech customers are unleashing the power of data analytics with Meditech Expanse (Meditech)

Contacts

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