Monday Morning Update 6/16/25

Top News

UCSF professor and University of California Health System chief data scientist Atul Butte, MD, PhD died Friday. He was 55.

Butte held the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professorship of pediatrics, bioengineering and therapeutic sciences, and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. He was director of UCSF’s Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and chief data scientist of UC Health.

The above UCTV video is from 2019, when Butte presciently described AI as “what’s old is new again” and discussed its potential in healthcare.

Reader Comments

From Efficient Hospital: “Re: AI. Everyone and their grandmothers have ideas on how to regulate it (CHAI, Joint Commission, AMA, AHA, CMS, FDA). Meanwhile, every AI company is learning that the only way to make money is to become an RCM vendor. All these regulations will end up applying to prior auth, denial management, and RCM workflows because nobody is willing to scale up deployment of clinical AI beyond itsy bitsy pilots.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

We clearly need to work out how to integrate and label AI-generated (or proposed) content into what clinicians generate manually.

New poll to your right or here: How has your perception of the former Cerner changed since its acquisition by Oracle? We’re now three years in, so comparisons are justified.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Amazon restructures its healthcare business after several executive departures. Amazon Health Services will be focused on six groups:

• One Medical Clinical Care Delivery.
• One Medical Clinical Operations and Performance
• AHS Strategic Growth and Network Development.
• AHS Store, Tech, and Marketing.
• AHS Compliance.
• AHS Pharmacy Services.

Health data platform vendor Datavant acquires Ontellus, which offers records retrieval technology for self-insured companies and law firms.

Autonomize AI, which offers AI copilots for healthcare enterprises, raises $28 million in a Series A funding round.

Oracle names Mike Sicilia, who oversees the company’s vertical businesses including Oracle Health, as co-president alongside another executive in new SEC filings. Oracle has previously elevated executives to the role of president as part of CEO succession planning.

23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki regains control of the bankrupt company as her newly formed non-profit acquires its assets for $305 million, outbidding Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a court-ordered final round.

China-based health tech company Ping An Good Doctor relaunches its health services platform with updates for proactive family doctor support, direct access to medical specialists, and full-cycle care coordination. The platform has 400 million registered users who can access 50,000 physicians, 105,000 health service partners, 235,000 pharmacies, and 4,000 hospitals. The company also announced AI tools for chronic disease monitoring, case triage, post-treatment care, and workplace health management.

People

Lee Health hires Chris Akeroyd (Children’s Health) as CIO.

Government and Politics

Draft legislation would increase Congressional control over the VA’s Oracle Health project by mandating regular reporting of project status.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research offers comprehensive managed care industry studies and reports ahead of AHIP 2025, where it will recognize industry leaders.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Karen Joswick.
• Optimum Healthcare IT achieves Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop Advanced Specialization distinction.
• RLDatix will exhibit at the AAMI EXchange June 20-23 in New Orleans.
• Symplr receives the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Well-Being Excellence credential, and achieves Gold Tier status credentialing.

Blog Posts

• The power of analytics on your bottom line (Altera Digital Health)
• Reducing claims denials: Healthcare leaders weigh in on the future of revenue cycle management (Meditech)
• What You Need to Know About Interoperability and How it Affects You: Part 4 (Netsmart)
• Application portfolio management: What healthcare leaders should think about before M&A activity begins (Nordic)
• How AI Powers Explainable and Auditable Medical Coding (Nym)
• CMS Cracks Down on Medicare Advantage Audits: $43 Billion in Estimated Overpayments Leads to Increased Oversight (ReferWell)
• Data & Analytics Spotlight: Converting Bytes of Data into Cents of Value with Manik Gupta (Surescripts)
• 4 innovations in healthcare RCM from the Waystar Innovation Showcase (Waystar)
• Systems thinking can help redefine chronic care approaches (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• From Chaos to Clarity: Rethinking Knowledge Management in Healthcare (VisiQuate)

Contacts

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