News 10/29/25

Top News

Google will launch the public preview of its AI-powered personal health coach for its Fitbit Premium subscribers ($80 per year) on Wednesday.

Reader Comments

From Nine Mile: “Re: non-physician use of the Doctor title with patients. Totally agree, and I would also point out the misleading, rampant practice of MA introducing themselves as Doctor X’s ‘nurse’. Patients get the wrong idea and accept some of the things they say as coming from a professional-level person. Also they see them performing only low-level tasks, which skews their view of what nurses bring in terms of assessment and clinical skills.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Back-office AI agent software startup Honey Health raises $7.8 million in seed funding.

UnitedHealth Group announces Q3 results: revenue up 12%, adjusted EPS $2.92 versus $7.15, beating analyst expectations for earnings but falling short on revenue. The company reported quarterly revenue of $113 billion and increased guidance. 

Sales

• In England, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will implement TrakCare EHR software from InterSystems next year.
• WellStar Health (GA) expands its use of Clear’s patient check-in technology to 150 facilities.
• The VA will implement Knowtex’s AI clinical documentation software across its health system.
• Sound Physicians will implement WellStack’s Unified Data Model, RCM Decision Hub, and ACO Decision Hub.

People

Thomas Tsang, MD, MPH (Valera Health) joins Omada Health as chief medical officer.

J. Marc Overhage, MD (TriAxia Health) will become CEO of the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability in January.

Unite Us promotes Taylor Justice, MBA to CEO. He replaces co-founder Dan Brillman, MBA, who has been named CMS deputy administrator for Medicaid and CHIP. 

Announcements and Implementations

Kaleida Health (NY) will use a new state grant to replace its 13 EHRs with Epic, as initially reported here as a reader rumor in November 2024. The health system went live on its $125 million Cerner / Oracle Health system in February 2019.

Cleveland Clinic implements Axuall’s Sync provider data management technology.

Government and Politics

Six VA facilities, all now live on the Oracle Health-based Federal EHR, implement the Oracle Health Community Care offline-capable app to support their home-based primary care teams.

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence, PhD tours the VA Northern Indiana Health Care System as it prepares to transition to the Federal EHR next August. He observed that system leadership is focused on scheduling and training, scheduling fewer meetings, providing more hands-on experience, and sharing best practices.

Other

A conservative group’s report accuses Epic and Oracle Health of configuring their EHRS to promote gender transition discussions with minors by including questions about preferred pronouns, sex assigned at birth, and gender with which they identify. The publication says that clinicians, who they call “predators,” use those responses to steer minors toward puberty blockers, hormone replacement, and surgery. The report also accuses health systems of blocking parental access to the records of their children after age 13. The report concludes that providers should not restrict parental access to the records of their minor children beyond what federal or state law allows because it undermines parental rights and endangers children by concealing information about gender transition care.

Sponsor Updates

• Cardamom employees volunteer at Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens during the company’s annual Giveback Day.
• AdvancedMD publishes a new e-book titled “Bridging the Gap between Primary Care and Behavioral Health.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a white paper titled “4 Strategies To Create a Better Patient Engagement for All.”
• Agfa HealthCare names Jean Barrette, MBA (Christie Innomed) regional VP of sales, Canada.
• Arcadia celebrates customer success, innovation, and new AI-driven solutions at Aggregate 2025.
• Bizmatics publishes a new Prognocis case study titled “Growth Without the Pains: How a Multi-State Clinic Expanded Operations by 178%.”
• Censinet releases a new episode of “The Risk Never Sleeps Podcast” featuring HLTH’s Robbie Dorius.
• Clearwater offers a new Healthcare Regulatory Compliance Crosswalk and Mapping Tool.
• In Canada, Oak Valley Health, Southlake Health, and Stevenson Memorial Hospital upgrade their shared Meditech EHR.

Blog Posts

• Protecting Revenue: How to Prevent Clinical Denials (AGS Health)
• From Host to Site: Unlocking the Secrets of Epic Community Connect (CereCore)
• Healthcare Innovation That Works (Surescripts)
• Does your EHR truly support behavioral health providers? (Altera Digital Health)
• Here’s What You Missed: 4 Takeaways from Aggregate 2025 (Arcadia)
• Why HITRUST r2 Certification Really Matters in Healthcare (Arrive Health)
• Straight-Through Processing for Healthcare: A C-Suite Imperative (Concord Technologies)
• When Public Cloud Stumbles: Lessons from the AWS Outage and What They Mean for Healthcare (CloudWave)
• Choosing the Right Amazon Connect Partner for Your Healthcare Organization (CTG)
• E-Prescribing Nightmares Haunting Your Organization? Banish Them With Integrated Medication Management (DrFirst)

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