News 4/4/25

April 3, 2025 News No Comments

Top News

Leaders from the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs and Appropriations Committees ask the VA to submit an updated schedule and cost estimate for its Oracle Health EHR Modernization program. by September 30, 2025.

The group’s letter notes that “compliance with these laws, directives, and GAO recommendations is a critical step to ensuring EHRM’s success and accountability.”

Reader Comments

From HS CIO: “Re: Oracle breaches. Our Oracle Health rep said there was a call Monday evening where it was stated that the breach impacted legacy databases that were involved with migrations (I’m guessing Epic or the OCI instance of the EHR). On the cloud breach, the rep said that the message they were given is that no databases were breached, which seems to leave the door open. Wondering if you’ve heard anything similar from Oracle Health customers?” I invite those on the front lines to let me know what’s going on. Oracle has defended its claim that Oracle Cloud wasn’t breached because the incident apparently involved an older platform called Oracle Cloud Classic, although that is also an Oracle-managed cloud service. Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit that seeks class action status was filed against Oracle on Monday that involved both the cloud and Oracle Health breaches, accusing the company of violating Texas breach notification laws by not informing the alleged victims of the breach within the required 60 days.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Business Insider profiles the 29-year-old executives who are leading Palantir’s healthcare business, neither of whom has prior healthcare experience.

People

PeaceHealth hires Julie Eastman, MBA (UCI Health) as SVP/CIO.

Healthcare IT Leaders hires Paul Cannon (5plus2) as CTO.

Trimedx hires Neil de Crescenzo, MBA (Optum Insight) as CEO.

Apree Health, which was formed in the 2022 merger of Castlight Health and Vera Whole Health, promotes Jonathan Porter to CEO and restores the Castlight and Vera brands.

Advocate Health promotes Andy Crowder to SVP/chief digital officer.

Announcements and Implementations

A Stoltenberg Consulting survey of healthcare CIO members of CHIME finds:

The top priorities for 2025 are improving clinical workflows, improving the patient experience, and optimizing EHRs.
The #1 investment area is cybersecurity, privacy, and risk management.
Getting the most out of existing technology reached an all-time high of 62% of votes.
Clinician burnout rates are continuing their steady drop.
The top IT support frustration involves lack of training.
The biggest challenges are staff shortages, inadequate budgets, and EHR optimization.
More than half are exploring or using AI tools in areas such as revenue cycle management, clinical documentation improvement, and predictive analytics.
Health systems will continue to use hybrid or fully remote IT staffing.
IT budgets are flat or declining in 61% of respondent organizations.

Privacy and Security

The Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council Cybersecurity Working Group urges the White House to launch a one-year consultative process with healthcare leaders instead of proceeding with the planned HIPAA Security Rule update.

Other

A class action lawsuit accuses a University of Maryland Medical Center pharmacist of installing webcam-activating software on at least 400 hospital computers over a 10-year period to spy on young female doctors and residents as they undressed or pumped breast milk. The six plaintiffs also allege that he installed keystroke logging software to steal their passwords, then accessed their home computers to watch them via webcam and to steal information from their cloud accounts. They are suing the hospital, who has fired the pharmacist, for negligence.

Sponsor Updates

Medicomp Systems releases a new “Tell Me Where IT Hurts” podcast titled “Live From HIMSS25 in Fabulous Las Vegas!”
AGS Health CEO Patrice Wolfe joins Verisma’s board.
CereCore publishes a new case study titled “Virtual CISOs Bring New Hope to Orgs Without Security Officials.”
A new analysis from Black Book Research identifies top global growth opportunities for OpenEHR adoption in 2025.
Symplr will accept nominations for its new Karlene Kerfoot Nursing Leadership in Technology Education Grant, named in honor of its late CNO, beginning June 1.
Clearwater announces the publication of its “Cyber Risk Benchmark Trend Report for Healthcare Vulnerability Management.”
WellSky announces CarePort Care Transitions Dashboard Suite.
The “Vanguards of Health Care” podcast features Capital Rx in an episode titled “How Capital Rx is Fixing America’s Broken Drug Pricing.”
Inovalon announces that its Safety Management solution is now available on the PointClickCare Marketplace.
Redox joins the CommonWell Health Alliance.
Ellkay will incorporate Dymo’s labeling solutions into its LKOrbit platform.
First Databank names Kelly Marino regional sales manager, and Thomas Pugh and Joseph Kuruvila software engineers.
FinThrive will present at the IPMI Healthcare Financial Institute April 7 in Orlando.
Infinx offers a new case study titled “New York Hospital Solves Prior Authorization & Scheduling Overflow With Tech-Enabled Patient Access Solution.”
WEDI’s “The Collective Voice of Health IT Podcast” features Linus Health Chief Strategy Officer John Showalter, MD.