Monday Morning Update 6/24/24

Top News

A Texas federal court sides with the AHA, Texas Hospital Association, and two health systems in ruling that HHS does not have the authority to invoke HIPAA to ban the use of web tracking tools by providers.

The plaintiffs said in their lawsuit that HHS had issued an unlawful rule that masqueraded as guidance.

The judge specifically rejected HHS’s argument that website tracking data – which doesn’t identify an individual and can’t easily be used to do so – is individually identifiable health information that is protected by HIPAA.

Reader Comments

From Fact Checker: “Re: value of digital health. I see that the survey was done by a ‘creative market research agency, and their methodology was equally creative – they used an online survey of 56 health insurance executives who are involved with digital health. Of course they are going to say that customers of the company are pleased with the newfound strengths of digital health, or otherwise, they would be out of a high-paying job. They should spend more time fixing or eliminating the prior auth process rather than contracting for self-congratulatory surveys.” Industry executive surveys that ask about what they are using or how users / customers like it are prone to bias, given that the people who authorized or oversee the software they bought would be ill-advised to say anything negative and thus implicate themselves in faulty decision-making. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by spouting off gripes, even ones where they aren’t named as a source. There’s not much value in warning people to avoid making the same mistake you did.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents don’t see the threat of government penalties as a way to improve healthcare cybersecurity. Reader National Geographic posted an analogy involving gazelles running from cheetahs and then finished with an even stronger one related to pirates:

Did you know that maritime piracy peaked in 2010 with 445 attacks? In 2022, there were 115 attacks. Many factors have contributed to the steep decline, including navy involvement, increased security, and targeting of originating countries. Oddly, no one suggested shooting holes in the hulls of the victims as an effective deterrence.

New poll to your right or here: should state or federal government require review and/or approval of provider-related private equity transactions? We allowed for-profit companies to by whatever healthcare assets they want, so do we let the status quo ride, draw the line at PE firms, or tighten laws on any for-profit company buying a hospital or practice?

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Augmedix. Augmedix (Nasdaq: AUGX) empowers clinicians to connect with patients by liberating them from administrative burden through the power of ambient AI, data, and trust. The platform transforms natural conversations into organized medical notes, structured data, and point-of-care notifications that enhance efficiency and clinical decision support. Incorporating data from millions of interactions across all care settings, Augmedix collaborates with hospitals and health systems to improve clinical, operational, and financial outcomes. Thanks to Augmedix for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s an intro video for Augmedix.

Webinars

June 26 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Population Risk Management in Action: Automating Clinical Workflows to Improve Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst; Weston Blakeslee, PhD, VP of population health, DrFirst. What if you could measure and manage medication adherence in a way that would eliminate the burdens of medication history collection, patient identification, and prioritization? The presenters will describe how to use MedHx PRM’s new capabilities to harness the most complete medication history data on the market, benefit from near real-time medication data delivered within 24 hours, automatically build rosters of eligible patients, and identify gaps of care in seconds.

June 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Snackable Summer Series, Session 1: The Intelligent Health Record.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. This webinar will describe how HealthVision, HDAI’s Intelligent Health Management System, is transforming care across health systems and value-based care organizations. This 30-minute session will answer the question: what if you could see critical information from hundreds of EHR pages in a one-page patient chart and risk summary that serves the entire care team? We will tour the Spotlight, an easy-to-digest health profile and risk prediction tool. Session 2 will describe HDAI’s Intelligent Analytics solution, while Session 3 will tour HDAI’s Intelligent Workflow solution.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Sharecare, which went public via a SPAC merger in July 2021 at a $4 billion valuation, will be acquired and taken private by investment firm Altaris at a price of around $500 million.

Kaiser-created value-based care organization Risant Health will acquire North Carolina-based Cone Health as its second health system after Geisinger. Cone Health will retain its brand, board, and leadership team.

Philips Respironics will cut 300 manufacturing jobs in western Pennsylvania and relocate 500 workers at its Pittsburgh headquarters to nearby plants, two months after the company was hit with an FDA consent decree for selling sleep apnea machines and ventilators that contained toxic foam. The Department of Justice is continuing its investigation into whether the company knew about the problem years before its massive recall, which would subject it to criminal charges. Philips bought Respironics, which invented the modern CPAP device, in 2008. 

Change Healthcare will begin notifying individuals who were affected by its ransomware attack in late July. Andrew Witty, CEO of parent company UnitedHealh Group, previously estimated that up to one-third of Americans may have had their data compromised.

The Russian hacker group that launched a ransomware attack on UK-based pathology provider Synnovis – which disrupted operations at several London hospitals – publishes 400 GB of stolen data after its $50 million ransom demand was not met.

Sponsor Updates

• Health Data Movers releases a new “Quick Hits” podcast, “Transforming Healthcare IT with Crystal Broj.”
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast, “Interview with Joshua Reischer, MD.”
• Waystar will exhibit at the EClinicalWorks Dallas Day Show June 26.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a video titled “How Top Health Systems Are Using GenAI to Wow Employees.”

Black Book Research publishes the results of its 2024 RCM user survey. The following HIStalk Sponsors have achieved top rankings:

• Waystar – Inpatient hospital claims management solutions / End-to-end RCM software, large hospital chains, systems, and IDNs / End-to-end RCM software, large inpatient facilities and academic medical centers / Physician clearinghouse services, five to 10 practitioners.
• MRO – Release of information and secure provider data exchange.
• Inovalon – Provider RCM intelligence and analytics solutions.
• FinThrive – Chargemaster and price transparency solutions / Provider revenue/charge integrity and billing compliance solutions / End-to-end RCM outsourcing, community hospitals 101-250 beds.
• TruBridge – End-to-end RCM software, small/rural/critical access hospital chains, systems, and IDNs / Patient accounting systems, community hospitals.
• Availity – Physician clearinghouse services, 26+ practitioners.
• Symplr – Spend management solutions.
• QGenda – Nurse/clinician staff scheduling solutions.
• RLDatix – Financial governance and risk management solutions.
• CereCore – RCM IT infrastructure and tech support services.

Blog Posts

• How healthcare leaders can turn the burnout problem into an opportunity (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Four EVV Challenges and How Addressing Them Can Improve Care and Operations (Netsmart)
• Best practices in enterprise care management for patient-centered care excellence (Nordic)
• Top Challenges for CNIOs: Governance, Priorities, and More (PerfectServe)
• From Aspiration to Achievement: Stacia Fredericks’ Educational Journey with the Assistance of the QGenda/AACN Nursing Scholarship (QGenda)
• Key takeaways from Snowflake’s 2024 Data Cloud Summit (Redox)
• How to Know It’s Time for a Security Best Practices Risk Assessment (CereCore)
• The List of Therapeutic Alternatives Makes Everyone Happy (Surescripts)
• Top Metrics for a Healthcare Quality Management Dashboard (Symplr)

Contacts

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