Monday Morning Update 1/26/26

Top News

Epic and 63 health systems ask The Sequoia Project to centralize vetting and ongoing monitoring of organizations that exchange medical records via Carequality and TEFCA. The letter recommends the following changes:

• Replace applicants’ self-attested business descriptions with validation using public records, NPIs, and criminal history checks.
• Require organizations to formally attest to their business purpose and exchange use cases and submit those attestations to HHS, creating potential federal liability for false representations.
• Implement active monitoring to detect potentially fraudulent exchange behavior.
• Shift responsibility for TEFCA dispute resolution and monitoring to the federal government, with federal consequences for misstatements or omissions.
• Create a public directory of all data exchange participants, including their business description and stated exchange purpose.
• Publicly report the number of records each participant contributes and receives, along with the stated purpose of exchange.
• Require intermediaries to disclose their data retention policies and publish them on a public website.
• Establish a joint federal and state task force, including federal agencies and state attorneys general, to target false documentation, identity impersonation, and high-volume data harvesting.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents say that Kaiser Permanente’s affiliates, like many health systems, were playing the Medicare Advantage game within the rules as designed.

New poll to your right or here: How has your use of AI improved your job performance? You’ll see a “comments” link after voting, which you can click to tell us more about your answer. I’m especially curious about AI use that has increased your effectiveness by 50% or more, which is likely a unicorn but still worth asking.

If you are socked in by snow or ice, cheer yourself up with a photo of Ms. O’s kindergarten class in Hayward, CA working with the STEM magnetic building sets that were fully funded by reader donations to Donors Choose, along with matching funds from my Anonymous Vendor Executive and outside groups. She reports, “This project has been so important because giving students a strong foundation in math and literacy in their first year of school makes a big difference by giving them a good start in their academic careers.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: February 18 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “From Blind Spots to Insights: Gaining Real-Time Visibility into Healthcare Risk.” Sponsor: CloudWave. Presenters: Jacob Wheeler, MBA, director of sales engineering, CloudWave; Mike Donahue, chief operating officer, CloudWave. Resilience starts with the ability to see clearly, across every endpoint, cloud workload, user, and clinical system. Join CloudWave’s cybersecurity leaders for an in-depth session on how real-time visibility transforms your ability to detect threats early, respond decisively, and strengthen resilience across the care ecosystem. Attendees will learn the practical steps that hospitals can take to move from reactive defense to resilient action.

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Medical records and coding vendor Rapid Care acquires DeepDoc, whose AI-driven system summarizes unstructured medical records for law firms and insurers.

Healthcare technology services vendor Healthcare Triangle will acquire Spain-based Teyame AI, which offers AI-powered contact center solutions, for a reported $50 million. HCTI shares have lost 99.9% over the past 12 months, valuing the company at $3 million.

People

CTG promotes Tom Niehaus to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

State-owned UNC Health will acquire independently operated UNC Campus Health Services, likely moving Campus Health from EClinicalWorks to Epic.

A Wolters Kluwer Health survey finds that use of “shadow” AI is widespread in health systems, mostly by users who want to speed up workflows. Half of the respondents say they frequently use AI tools or rely on them for their work.

Other

Mark Cuban warns that insurers will find new ways to make money as their pharmacy benefit management companies, the top three of which fill 80% of US prescriptions, come under increasing scrutiny.

Sponsor Updates

• Netsmart staff donate 500 books to their local libraries in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a case study titled “How Celerate Developed a Secure, Clinician-Ready AI Chatbot for Neurologists.”
• Judi Health launches The Judi Group, a healthcare benefits advisory firm.
• PerfectServe announces that it has been recognized as both highest in execution and furthest in vision in the “2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Clinical Communication and Collaboration.”
• Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust in England goes live on Altera Digital Health’s EPrescribing and Medicine Administration technology.
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Anita Vanka, MD and Robert Stern, MD.
• “The Achieve Podcast” features Switchboard Health co-founder and CEO Derek Baird.
• Tegria publishes a new case study titled “Integrated Meditech Implementation, Hosting, and Application Support Transform Operations.”
• WellSky releases a new report titled “Addressing today’s healthcare workforce challenges: Results from a national study.”
• Zen Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper titled “The CMS ACCESS Model: What Health Technology Leaders Need to Know.”

Blog Posts

• CIO Forum Focus Group Recap: Overcome Healthcare IT Resource Gaps with Meaningful Managed Services (Med Tech Solutions)
• Governing the Digital Front Door: Why Hospital Boards Must Lead Digital Governance and Organizational Alignment in the Next 5 Years (Impact Advisors)
• Shadow AI: Providers are using unapproved tools to improve workflow (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• We measure everything in healthcare… except what matters (Nordic)
• 3 Steps to Autonomous Coding Success: Assessing Your Organizational Challenges (Before You Talk to Vendors!) (Nym)
• From Friction to Orchestration: How Top Health Systems Are Reimagining the Consumer Experience (Praia Health)
• Epic Space Bridge™ – An HL7 Interface Message Transformation Solution (CereCore)

Contacts

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