News 5/2/25

Top News

KLAS publishes its annual acute care EHR market share report, with these highlights:

• Vendor partnership strength has become a key differentiator.
• Oracle Health declined to provide new contract data, so KLAS used public sources.
• Oracle Health lost a net 74 hospitals and 17,000 beds in 2024, with customers citing broken promises and weak relationships. Loyalty and relationship scores have dropped 10 points since Oracle acquired Cerner.
• Epic posted its biggest net gain ever, adding 176 hospitals and 29,000 beds in 2024. It dominated small-hospital deals via Community Connect and won 70% of competitive decisions overall.
• Market share: Epic 48%, Oracle Health 27%, Meditech 15%.
• Nearly half of Meditech’s customers still run its legacy systems. Of those making a move, two-thirds chose Expanse, often citing the value of Meditech as a Service.

Reader Comments

From Creole: “Re: Oracle Health. Losing a customer also means losing access to its data, which was Larry’s big thing in buying Cerner.” Defecting Cerner customers take their data to Epic, undermining Ellison’s vision of a national health records platform and research repository. Oracle likely viewed Cerner as a valuable data asset, but outside of the DoD (and perhaps eventually the VA), that value diminishes with every lost client. As a tech company, Oracle seems to have underestimated the importance of Cerner’s domain experts, many of whom it has driven away, which has eroded trust and limits future business development. Not to mention that technical whiz-bangery doesn’t change the reality that Oracle Health will need to take business away from Epic to grow unless Epic collapses post-Judy. We healthcare lifers have reason to be wary, having lived through the loud arrivals and quiet exits of outsiders like GE Healthcare, Siemens, McKesson, Misys, and IBM.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I checked some of my past Temu orders and found that prices have tripled or more in the trade war environment. It’s probably no accident that I can’t compare further because everything in my order history now shows as discontinued or sold out, making the new, higher prices harder to track, although items that feature the same photo can be ordered for a lot more money.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health acquires UpLift, which offers virtual services for mental health and medication management, for $30 million in cash and $15 million in potential earnout. UpLift’s 2024 revenue was $15 million. 

Healthcare AI workflow automation platform vendor Plenful raises $50 million in a Series B funding round.

Ascend Learning acquires TIPreport, which offers medical education feedback and competency tracking.

Amwell posts Q1 results: revenue up 12%, EPS –$.19 versus –$4.94. AMWL shares dropped 17% before the market’s close on Thursday and have lost 40% in the past 12 months.

Sales

• In UAE, Al Zahra Hospital Dubai chooses InterSystems TrakCare EHR and its fully managed hosting service.
• Silver Hill Hospital (CT) will implement Meditech Expanse under the Meditech as a Service subscription model.

People

Craig Richardville, MBA (Intermountain Health) joins Guidehouse as a partner in its health practice.

Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital hires Kevin Shorten (Alameda Health System) as VP/CITO.

Matt Madden, MBA (EverCommerce) joins Net Health as VP of product and business development.

Advocate Health promotes Matthew Anderson, MD, MHA to SVP of clinical transformation.

Announcements and Implementations

Zocdoc launches Zo, an AI phone assistant that manages incoming patient scheduling calls.

An AdvancedMD survey of the owners of private medical practices finds that 44% plan to renegotiate payment rates and two-thirds will hire new employees.

Government and Politics

New York’s fire department issues a directive that requires ambulances to take patients to the nearest hospital as assigned by a computer system, regardless of patient preference or existing provider relationship. An FDNY commissioner dismissed complaints as mostly coming from hospitals that worry about losing volume, explaining, “We’re not the Uber or Lyft business to take people where they want to go.”

Privacy and Security

Politico reports that the White House has shifted HHS OCR’s focus from HIPAA, patient privacy, and cybersecurity to enforcing the federal bans on DEI programs and transgender care. An HHS spokesperson said that the agency is “restoring its tradition of upholding rigorous, evidence-based science” while rejecting “woke DEI policies.” Most regional investigators have reportedly been dismissed, leaving just 18 of the original 100.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare IT Leaders staff works with The Sandwich Project to make 700 sandwiches to help combat food inequity in Atlanta.
• The “Provider’s Edge” podcast features Consensus Cloud Solutions EVP Bevey Minder in an episode titled “Tech Equity is the Missing Link in Health Equity.”
• Black Book Research publishes a new report titled “Women’s Health Information Technology and Software innovations.”
• Netsmart’s MyUnity EHR achieves Community Health Accreditation Partner verification for hospice care.
• WellSky announces enhanced capabilities to help healthcare organizations succeed in value-based care models, including the new CMS Transforming Episode Accountability Model.
• Infinx announces its Patient Access Plus solution listing in Epic’s Connection Hub on Showroom.
• The new season of the Surescripts award-winning podcast, “There’s a Better Way,” will premiere May 20.
• Elsevier offers its complimentary, accredited Gen AI Academy for Health to help clinicians utilize generative AI responsibly and effectively in their practice.
• FinThrive publishes a new case study titled “How Eskenazi Health Transformed Claims Processing.”
• Artera, Ellkay, HealthMark Group, Inbox Health, Infinx, MRO, and TruBridge will exhibit at the AAOE Annual Conference May 2-5 in Atlanta.
• InterSystems joins the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium as a founding member.

Blog Posts

• Why healthcare still relies on faxing—and why it’s a problem (Altera Digital Health)
• 6 Proven Ways to Improve Agent Productivity and Efficiency (Five9)
• What primary care providers must know about billing, compliance, and MIPS MVPs in 2025 (Healthmonix)
• Workforce Analytics Software for Aged Care: Data-Driven Staffing That Works (Inovalon)

Contacts

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