News 4/21/17

Top News

Alphabet’s life sciences business, Verily, launches its Project Baseline initiative, a project aimed at creating a database that will be used to look for early warning indicators for a variety of illnesses. The project will sequence the genomes of 10,000 volunteers, and then use an activity tracker to monitor a participant’s sleep, activity, heart rate, and other health metrics over the next four years.

Reader Comments

From Not Surprised: “Re: HIMSS buys Health 2.0. HIMSS continues to gobble up industry trade shows, this time opting for one that it hopes will ‘make it possible for HIMSS to have a greater influence on the cutting edge of health IT.’ While I’ve never been to a Health 2.0 event, I always got the impression that it was a far more energetic, grassroots affair than the typically straitlaced HIMSS events. Healthcare IT is already filled to the brim with boring suit-and-tie shindigs that, instead of moving the industry forward, serve only to line the pockets of organizers. I can only hope that this deal won’t result in Health 2.0 losing its edge.” HIMSS has indeed acquired the Health 2.0 conferences, which now span five continents. Health 2.0 CEO Indu Subayia, MD will join HIMSS as an EVP, while co-chairman Matthew Holt will move into a consultant role.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

This week on HIStalk Practice: Providence Medical Group plans roll out of Chiron Health telemedicine services. GAO report outlines challenges, benefits to Medicare telemedicine programs. CMS proposes MU reporting changes, exceptions, and exemptions. Evans offers ambulatory providers emergency preparedness protocols. Michigan goes live with new PDMP. Practice EHR, Sequel Systems announce e-prescribing capabilities. Grand Rounds opens its first East Coast office. MDLive faces class-action lawsuit for alleged patient privacy violations. Thanks for reading!

Webinars

April 26 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “SSM Integrated Health Technologies Clinical Data Migration: Functional and Technical Considerations.” Sponsored by Galen Healthcare Solutions. Presenters: Sandy Winklemann, MHA, RHIA, project manager, SSM Integration Health Technologies; Tyler Mawyer, MHA, managing consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions; Kavon Kaboli, MPH, senior consultant, Galen Healthcare Solutions. GE Centricity and Meditech to Epic EHR transition. Join us for a complimentary webinar as present the decisions that are important to consider when performing a clinical data migration from the point of view of  the healthcare organization program manager, the clinical analyst, and the technical implementation team. Our expert panel will survey data migration considerations, best practices, and lessons learned. The webinar will present a unique client perspective, offering insight into considerations surrounding staffing, clinical mapping, legacy application support, and validation and testing.

April 28 (Friday) 1:00 ET. “3 Secrets to Leadership Success for Women in Health IT.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Nancy Ham, CEO, WebPT; Liz Johnson, MS, FAAN, FCHIME, FHIMSS, CHCIO, RN-BC CIO, Acute Care Hospitals & Applied Clinical Informatics – Tenet Healthcare. Join long-time C-level executives Liz Johnson and Nancy Ham as they share insights from nearly three decades of navigating successful healthcare careers, share strategies for empowering colleagues to pursue leadership opportunities, and discuss building diverse executive teams. This webinar is geared toward female managers and leaders in healthcare IT seeking to further develop their professional careers. It’s also intended for colleagues, executives, and HR personnel who are looking to employ supportive techniques that ensure diversity in the workplace.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cardinal Health will acquire Medtronic’s Patient Care, Deep Vein Thrombosis and Nutritional Insufficiency businesses for $6.1 billion in cash.

Siemens Healthineers will acquire Medicalis for an undisclosed sum. Siemens plans to fold the San Francisco-based company’s clinical decision support, imaging workflow, and referral management technologies into population health management line.

Care Innovations will relocate and expand its R&D center in a $1.7 million project that will create 24 jobs in Louisville, KY. The Roseville, CA-based home health and remote monitoring company – a joint venture between Intel and GE – opened its first office in the area 18 months ago.

People

James “Butch” Baxter (Santa Rosa Consulting) joins Nashville-based secure messaging vendor Medarchon as CEO. Founder Baxter Webb will take on the role of chief strategy officer.

Announcements and Implementations

LifeBridge Health (MD) moves forward  with an enterprise-wide roll out of Cognizant’s Onvida communications software.

NTT Data Services will offer Praxify’s Mira voice-enabled charting technology.

Technology

Experian Health works with MyHealthDirect to add patient self-scheduling to its line of self-service payment tools.

Surescripts develops an accuracy monitoring tool for e-prescribing to help providers and pharmacists reduce callbacks and faxes, and better understand utilization patterns.

Healthgrades rolls out CareChats to help providers and patients stay in touch between appointments. The automated text- and email-based communications software integrates with the company’s CRM.

ImageMoverMD creates a Web-based solution to import medical images into a user’s EHR.

Sales

Arkansas Surgical Hospital selects PeerWell’s PreHab mobile app to help patients prepare for and recover from joint replacements.

Hill Hospital of Sumter County (AL) will add CPSI subsidiary Evident’s Thrive EHR to its existing Evident financial management tech.

Privacy and Security

Tanium finds itself in hot water after the Wall Street Journal reports that the cybersecurity company tapped into live hospital networks without permission during product demos between 2012 and 2015. Desktop and server management details were exposed, with some even showing up in videos. While patient data was not compromised, providers like former Tanium customer El Camino Hospital (CA) are not taking the intrusion lightly. “We are dismayed to learn that desktop and server management information was shared,” a hospital spokesperson told the WSJ.  “We are thoroughly investigating this matter and take our responsibility to maintain the integrity of our systems very seriously.”

Government and Politics

At a meeting earlier this week with White House officials, health insurance lobbyists and executives seeking assurances that subsidies would continue to be paid for low-income consumers buying individual marketplace plans – a step seen as critical to stabilizing the individual markets – were given no assurances and were instead told to take the matter up with Congress.

Innovation and Research

Nearly a month after Elon Musk announces his intent to develop an implantable brain-computer interface, Facebook unveils its plans to develop a similar interface that lets you type with your thoughts. The ultimate goal, according to Facebook researcher Regina Dugan, is to develop an interface that enables a person to to type even faster than they could with their hands, at close to 100 words per minute.

Other

AMA introduces a web-based EHR training tool developed by Regenstrief Institute that uses records from 11,000 de-identified Eskenazi Health (IN) patients with built-in medical histories going back as far as 40 years. The EHR training platform includes functionality based on Meaningful Use Stage 2 certification criteria so that the workflows will be similar to what residents will see in a hospital setting. I interviewed Regenstrief Institute CEO and Indiana University School of Medicine Professor Peter Embi, MD last month.

Sponsor Updates

• Intelligent Medical Objects will exhibit at the European Federation for Medical Informatics meeting April 24-26 in Manchester, England.
• Kyruus, Experian Health, and the SSI Group will exhibit at the NAHAM Annual Conference April 25-28 in Dallas.
• LogicWorks will exhibit at the Alert Logic Cloud Security Summit April 26 in New York City.
• MedData will exhibit at the HFMA Hawaii annual conference April 20-21 in Honolulu.
• Clinical Computer Systems, developer of the Obix Perinatal Data System, will exhibit at the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative meeting April 27-28 in Tampa.
• PatientKeeper will exhibit at the MUSE Community Peer Group-Canada East Coast April 27 in Nova Scotia.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new infographic, “The Importance of Data Security.”
• PokitDok cofounder and CTO Ted Tanner will present at Business and the Blockchain April 24-25 at Rice University in Houston.
• Sphere3 Consulting moves into new office space in St. Joseph, MO.
• Surescripts will exhibit at Health Datapalooza April 27-28 in Washington, DC.
• PMD makes the San Francisco Business Times 2017 Best Places to Work list.

Blog Posts

• Imprivata leading the way in the IAM category in the KLAS Cybersecurity 2017 report (Imprivata)
• Beyond the Satisfaction Survey: How to Measure Consumer Experience Across Touchpoints (Influence Health)
• Our Top 10 Favorite Moments From the InstaMed User Conference 2017 (InstaMed)
• Understanding Web Access for Labs and the New Enhanced Firewall (Learn on Demand Systems)
• What is Pharmacovigilance and How is it Practiced Today? (Liaison Technologies)
• Even More KPIs You Should be Tracking (Part 2) (Navicure)
• Stepping Through the Intersection of Innovation and Action at #NATCON17 (Netsmart)
• Mom and Dad were right about HIT Security (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• The role of secure communications in your clinical integration strategy (PerfectServe)
• March Health Data Breaches: Time to Report Improving, but Time to Discovery Still Troubling (Protenus)
• Four Tips for Creating Consistent Reports and Reducing Errors (Sagacious Consultants)
• How Search Engine Marketing is Changing in 2017 (Salesforce)
• Three Features of Great Texting Solutions (Solutionreach)
• From Russia with Two-Factor Authentication Love (Summit Healthcare)
• Planes, Trains, and Paperless Forms (Access)
• #JoinTheConversation with Brad Bostic, CEO of HC1 (Experian Health)
• The Power of Communications Analytics: Riverside Health System + Spok (Spok)
• We Are Not a Bank: Changing the Payment Culture (Aprima Medical Software)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne, Lt. Dan.
More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.
Get HIStalk updates. Send news or rumors.
Contact us.