Thanks, appreciate these insights. I've been contemplating VA's Oracle / Cerner implementation and wondered if implementing the same systems across…
Monday Morning Update 8/19/24
Top News
Epic expects all of its customers to go live on TEFCA by the end of 2025 using its Epic Nexus QHIN.
The company says that all of its hospitals use Carequality, but national participation is 70% and TEFCA “is the nation’s best opportunity to get the remaining 30% of US hospitals off the sidelines.”
Reader Comments
From Anonymouse: “Re: Anthem / Elevance Health. Another huge RIF. Word on the street is 12% of the total workforce, hitting people working on government plans and technology supporting them hardest. Behavioral Health was decimated. This follows one in February and one from September of last year, and there is due to be another one this Thursday (8/22). The hot goss is that per leadership, ‘if you’re not talking AI’ your head is on the block.” Lots of online employee chatter about this. ELV shares are up 18% in the past 12 months, valuing the health benefits company at $126 billion.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Personal connections are pretty important for landing a job. Poll respondents had less success with recruiters, LinkedIn, and social media exposure.
New poll to your right or here: Which factor would be most important in deciding to take a new job?
Webinars
September 10 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Overcoming Hurdles in Specialty Med Access Under Medical Benefits.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Drew Hunsinger, VP of corporate business development, DrFirst; Tyler Wince, MEd, VP of product and technology specialty solutions, DrFirst. More specialty medications, which made up 80% of FDA’s new drug approvals last year, are falling under medical benefits, which challenges the patient care processes and efficiency of providers. Medication access experts will discuss how automation and unified medication management solutions can ensure better outcomes for patients and providers by addressing patient access hurdles and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of EHRs. They will also provide insights into how regulatory changes such as interoperability and prior authorization mandates will affect healthcare stakeholders.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Sales
- Florida Orthopaedic Institute chooses HealthMark Group for release of information.
People
Stephanie Wallace (Huntzinger) joins HealthNet Systems Consulting as VP of sales and marketing.
Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company, hires Nick Patel, MD (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) as physician executive partner.
Announcements and Implementations
Press Ganey expands its PX Connect Suite that includes the ability to collect patient surveys via Epic’s MyChart and NLP-powered summarization of patient comments. Early adopters were Vanderbilt University Medical Center and New York University Langone Health.
Epic posts Volume 2 of its Epic Almanac, which includes articles on the company’s use of AI, a review of its international business, photos of its offices around the world, a behind-the-scenes look at its all-hands monthly staff meetings, and fun pieces on its artwork and culinary team recipes.
Government and Politics
Hard right TV network Newsmax takes issue with Epic’s connectivity to Vot-ER that allows people to register to vote via MyChart, with the host questioning, “Is this setting up a scenario where millions of illegals and non-citizens passing through safety net hospitals who serve lower income and undocumented could be registered to vote?” Guest Katarina Lindley, DO — – a Croatia-educated Texas direct primary care operator — complains that psychiatric hospitals are registering people to vote who are incapable and also seems to veer off into other gripes as she cites an unnamed physician who she claims intentionally misdiagnoses conservative patients. UPDATE: an Epic spokesperson provided this company response:
Software provided by Epic to customers does not collect voter registration information or connect to any voter registration organization or voter registration website. There is no partnership between Epic and any voter registration organization. We are not aware of any customer configuring their instance of Epic to collect voter registration information. If a customer chooses to engage in voter registration efforts or partner with a voter registration organization, it is up to them.
Sponsor Updates
- Symplr employees help Gladiola Elementary School staff in Grand Rapids, MI, prepare for the new school year.
- ZeOmega adds Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate member education solutions to its Jiva member engagement navigator platform.
- Tegria will sponsor and present at Meditech Live September 25-27 in Foxborough, MA.
- Waystar will exhibit at the MedInformatix Summit August 20-22 in New Orleans.
Blog Posts
- Implementing Epic? Don’t Overlook Fundamentals Like Change Management (CereCore)
- Bringing Vitals Records into the Future: The Impact on Your State or County (Netsmart)
- How Christus Health processed significant backlogged revenue with Nordic (Nordic)
- Prominence Gives Back: Chris’s Impact at Horsemanship Bible Camp (Prominence Advisors)
- The Secret Life of Credentialing Specialists: Detectives in Disguise (QGenda)
- How to Boost Cash Flow with Effective AR Recovery Strategies (TruBridge)
- Beyond De-Duplication: Innovative Use Cases for Master Data Management in Healthcare (Verato)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
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NEWSMAX story about Epic using MyChart to push voter registrations. They don’t know that this is one of the April Fool’s things that Epic does every year.
Re the NEWSMAX story: the “intentionally misdiagnoses conservative patients” was also a joke that someone made on Twitter a couple of years ago.
Given that Newsmax seems to love culture war items? And a total disregard for news accuracy (seriously: Have you ever seen Newsmax issue a correction or retraction? Of any type?)
I’m not even sure it matters to them if this was an April Fool’s joke. Maybe they knew and aired it anyway?
They can sell it to their audience and that’s all that matters. The presenters (I won’t call them journalists) simply move on to the next culture war item.
It was a different era, but Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” comes to mind.
One more thought. At what point should some Executive Function type thinking have taken place?
Was it ever plausible that an EMR would allow people to register to vote via the EMR? Even if it was indirect through a connected system?
What is the plausible business reason that an EMR would enable this kind of action?
Where is the Editor saying, “Hold up. This makes no sense! I want a confirmation, and if you think you’ve confirmed it, I want it triple-confirmed. I’m not comfortable with this story as it stands and it won’t go to air until we find out what’s really going on.”
Yes, I know, the news business has changed. Drastically! But at what point do they lose the right to call themselves a “News Business”, because that’s not what they do anymore?
I’ll leave it to the reader to think about what other name would be appropriate for such a business operation.