News 7/19/17

Top News

Google revives its long-dormant Glass hands-free display – which never graduated from consumer beta status — with an enterprise edition that can run apps, display training materials, and connect workers with colleagues via a live video stream.

Technically Glass Enterprise Edition is part of X, the “moonshot company” research subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet. The still-mothballed Glass Explorer Edition is under Google’s hardware group.

Google is featuring Glass’s use as an EHR remote scribe charting and documentation solution as sold by Augmedix.

SwyMed will deploy its telemedicine solution on Glass Enterprise Edition as part of its DOT Telemedicine Backpack, which connects mobile care providers to doctors in real time. 

Reader Comments

From Bill: “Re: Nuance. Seriously mis-timed marketing or a company that just doesn’t care after two weeks without service to some health systems.” Some Nuance systems remain offline 21 days after its malware attack, so perhaps the new client pitch could have been timed better. Still, the company has to continue on under the assumption that its systems will eventually be fully restored.

From Unbreak Healthcare: “Re: Athenahealth. A university practice customer wanted to directly send outbound orders to the hospital lab’s LIS and EHR after finding that poorly configured fax orders were sending one order per page, meaning thousands of pages per day. However, Athena only allows transmission of outbound orders by its AthenaCoordinator Receive Lab Orders. The company wants to charge the hospital (which has no desire to be an Athena ‘customer’) subscription model pricing instead of as a one-time fee, incurring a significant cost for each patient requisition with some discounts for volume. This has not been warmly received by the hospital. Thanks, Jonathan, give me more of this disruption, please!” Unverified, but the document above that I found on Athenahealth’s website says labs can receive orders only if they sign a contract and pay $1.00 per order. 

From Expanding Paunch: “Re: HIT100. I’d like to see the winners scored on real-life experience and accomplishments instead of chronic Twitterhea.” I spent way too much time thinking about this idea, coming up with a scoring methodology that reflects what I look for in assessing someone’s accomplishments in deciding whether they are therefore qualified to render healthcare-related opinions. Here’s my first pass – score yourself and your peers and tell me which criteria you would change. I’ll grade the HIT100 once they are named, using the self-reported information (often inflated) from their LinkedIn profiles since everything should be right there. The scores I tested tracked pretty closely to my assessments of some of our industry’s more prolific pundits, ranging from 0.5 points to over 70. I was kind in deleting an additional metric that deducted points for using self-styled, questionably accurate labels such as thought leader, visionary, thinker, innovator, and entrepreneur.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The latest in my long string of pet peeves is using the initialism CMO, which in our industry means chief medical officer, not chief marketing officer. I’m also annoyed at sites that use trademark and copyright symbols when referring to products and companies – that’s not good form outside of company-produced material since those symbols apply to commerce, not journalism. I’m also frustrated at awkwardly worded sentences caused by incorrectly using “there” as a subject and then stubbornly trying to wrangle the rest of the sentence into submission, but that’s hardly new.

Listening: new from Charlotte & Thieves, a Norway-based band whose moody, slow song “Apparently” is quite fine.

Thanks to new HIStalk and HIStalk Practice Founding Sponsor Medicomp Systems. I have just two Founding Sponsorships available on each site (both of which have been held by the same companies for 10+ years, Medicity being one) and Nuance’s new marketing person hadn’t heard of HIStalk and decided to end their sponsorship, after which at least a dozen companies expressed interest in grabbing their Founding spot. Medicomp got first dibs as the oldest sponsor, with CEO Dave Lareau (he did a great interview with me a couple of years back) graciously stepping up as he has in years past, including sponsoring great HIStalkapaloozas in New Orleans and Orlando. Physicians and nurses love Medicomp’s intuitive Quippe documentation and clinical viewer tools that work with any EHR and allow them to see more patients with better usability and more focus on the patient instead of the screen while giving them the full clinical picture. Quippe Clinical Lens offers a problem-oriented view of all relevant clinical data for any disease state, eliminating the clinical static to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Medicomp has been singularly focused since 1978, when it was founded by legendary MEDCIN terminology inventor and company president Peter Goltra (I met him years ago at a HIMSS conference and he’s an impressive and humble guy). Thanks to Dave and Medicomp for supporting HIStalk and HIStalk Practice, not just now, but for many years running.

Here’s a overview video I found on YouTube describing how Medicomp’s Quippe Clinical Lens helps prevent MACRA-caused lost productivity and physician dissatisfaction.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information on webinar services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Ability Network acquires patient payments management system vendor Secure Bill Pay.

Bright.md, which offers a patient interview tool for telehealth visits, raises $8 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $11.5 million.

Singapore-based ST Engineering will acquire TUG robot vendor Aethon for $36 million. Aethon — which had raised $56 million but reported an asset value of negative $1 million as part of the acquisition — sold its pharmacy logistics line last week.

The private equity owner of EMDs is looking for a buyer, according to a Wall Street Journal article that estimates the EHR vendor’s 2017 EBITDA as $13 million.

Sales

Colorado’s HHS chooses H4 Technology’s Compass data management and analytics platform for its behavioral health program. Founder and CEO Chris Henkenius also founded Stella Technology.

People

Cleveland Clinic (OH) hires Ed Marx (Advisory Board) as CIO. He replaces Martin Harris, MD, MBA, who left late last year to become AVP/chief business officer of the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Karl Stubelis (Athenahealth) joins Arcadia Healthcare Solutions as CFO.

Joe Alberta (Verscend) joins OmniClaim as SVP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

In Canada, Mackenzie Health goes live on Epic’s first full-suite implementation in a Canada-based hospital.

CMS qualifies National Decision Support Company’s CareSelect as a decision support platform for Appropriate Use Criteria under PAMA and MACRA.

The patent office issues a patent to Sphere3 for its Aperum LeadIt, which correlates data from nurse call lights, smart beds, and RTLS to patient care perception.

Government and Politics

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) writes a lot of indignant letters making demands that go nowhere, so here’s his latest – he and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) want CMS to go after the $729 million in Meaningful Use incentives that HHS OIG estimated was overpaid in its June 2017 report. The senators also want to know how much of the $291,000 was recovered from the 14 sample EPs who were found to have been paid too much and are asking for a random review of EP self-attestation documentation.

The DoD’s MHS Genesis project continues as its second site, Naval Hospital Oak Harbor (WA), goes live on Cerner. Meanwhile, Cerner hires former VA IT executive David Waltman for its federal team. He led the VA’s VistA Evolution program before a short stint as chief strategy officer of federal IT contractor AbleVets.

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens signs an executive order directing the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services to create a prescription drug monitoring program database. Missouri is the only state that doesn’t have a PDMP database, but experts say the state’s new one won’t be fully functional since pharmacies will be required to submit prescription information, but doctors and pharmacists won’t be able to us it during prescribing and dispensing — it’s only intended to be used by pharmacy benefits managers to monitor drug cost and overprescribing. The governor signed the order at the headquarters of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts. Lawmakers question whether the governor’s order is legal since his office can’t allocate spending, so the legislature will be required to provide any funding to create it.  

A Politico article observes that the Affordable Care Act gave hospitals – especially big ones – more paying customers who would previously have been charity cases, with the top seven hospitals enjoying a combined $4.5 billion annual revenue boost while their charity care dropped by 35 percent. The article notes that hospitals still enjoy tax-exempt status and adds, “Many US cities boast hospitals that are among the best in the world, but the communities around those hospitals might as well be the Third World” as the non-profits provide their executives with million-dollar salaries and country club memberships.

United Hospital Center (WV) will go live on parent company WVU Medicine’s Epic system on August 1.

Technology

Microsoft, always late to any technology party, will set up an artificial intelligence research lab.

Other

The interim CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals declares its implementation of Epic a success in two Queens hospitals, citing improved patient experience, growing patient interest in MyChart, a reduction in time from ambulatory visit arrival to completion from 104 minutes to 80 minutes, and improved management of unscheduled visits. He also says improved capture of patient information has increased the case mix index in adding $7 million in revenue in one hospital. The organization will begin rolling out Epic’s revenue cycle system in Q4 2018 and expects to complete the full Epic implementation by the end of 2020.

Eric Topol tweeted out an interesting study about whether people can detect Photoshopped news photos, which the article concludes they cannot. The article’s genesis was a 2015 photojournalism awards program in which 22 entries – including the winner – were disqualified for manipulating their entries. Everybody already knows this, but just because you see a photo or video doesn’t mean you’ve seen truth.

A remarkable LA Times story finds that USC’s former medical school dean hung out with criminals and prostitutes and was a a crystal meth and ecstasy user, all unwisely captured in photos and video. He quit his $1.1 million job after word leaked out that his 21-year-old female companion’s hotel room overdose on a date rape drug required him to call 911. USC also placed him on leave as an eye surgeon once the story ran.

In India, a hospital contract nurse who hadn’t been paid for two months beats up a doctor on rounds “with her footwear first.” Also in India, the local government orders several nursing schools to suspend classes for five days and send their students to hospitals as replacements for their striking nurses.

Sponsor Updates

• The Boston Business Journal recognizes Definitive Healthcare as the fourth-best place to work in Massachusetts.
• Besler Consulting releases a new podcast, “A new study shows readmission penalties don’t correlate to heart attack outcomes.”
• The Tampa Bay Business Journal recognizes AssessURHealth’s Kyle Mynatt as a Hero at Work.
• CareSync publishes a new white paper, “Chronic Care Management: Improve Patient Health, Increase Practice Revenue.”
• Cumberland Consulting Group is included in Gartner’s “Market Guide for Revenue Management in Pharma and Biotech.”
• Direct Consulting Associates will exhibit at mHealth & Telehealth World July 24-25 in Boston.
• Elsevier and HIMSS Asia Pacific launch the CMO of the Year Award.
• Healthgrades will integrate Medicom Health’s health risk assessment tool with its CRM solution.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the 2017 Michigan Primary Care Annual Conference July 24 in Acme, MI.
• FormFast announces that over 100 “Most Wired” healthcare organizations use its technology.
• InterSystems will exhibit at the Defense Health Information Technology Conference July 25-27 in Orlando.
• Medical Billing Service Review includes AdvancedMD in its list of top five medical billing service companies.

Blog Posts

• Meditech’s Mobile Blood Bank Improves Speed, Safety of Donation Drives in Botswana (Meditech)
• 12 Pitfalls of Electronic Patient Signatures in Registration (Access)
• The real problem with EHR training isn’t webinars, learning styles, or physician buy-in (Nordic)
• The bad news about CMS’s planned delay to the EHR upgrade mandate (Advisory Board)
• Infusion Insight: The AAMI Foundation’s National Coalition to Promote the Safe Use of Complex Healthcare Technology (Ivenix)
• Developing a Sense of Urgency in Healthcare (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• #AHRA2017: Impressions from the exhibition floor (Agfa Healthcare)
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS: What’s the Difference? (Datica)
• Are you a brilliant woman? We’d like to talk. (Nordic)
• Tapas on FHIR (Infor)
• Provider Sentiment Around Prior Authorization (CoverMyMeds)
• Keep Teams on Track with Project Management (CTG)
• Advantages & Disadvantages of Working Remotely (Direct Consulting Associates)
• The Nuts & Bolts of Potential Health Insurance Changes (Dynamic Computing Services)
• How to Succeed in Value-based Care (Diameter Health)
• Visual Standards in Dashboard Design (Dimensional Insight)
• Revisiting Productivity as a Basis for Compensating Physicians (ECG Management Consultants)
• The house call, once upon a time (EClinicalWorks)
• The Evolving Role of Digital Marketing in Healthcare (Evariant)
• How to Reduce Billing Errors Using GE Centricity EMR Forms (Hayes Management Consultants)
• EHR Implementation: You’ve Signed a New EHR Contract, Now What? (The HCI Group)
• 6 Ways Content as a Service Boosts Your Business (Healthwise)
• CIO Chat – Mike Maksymow, Beebe Healthcare (Huntzinger Management Group)
• Why Professional Dress Isn’t Really About Clothes (Impact Advisors)
• Roaming quickly and securely at Cumberland Healthcare (Imprivata)
• 6 Best Practices for Healthcare Brand Governance (Influence Health)
• Six ways actionable insights can impact top and bottom lines (Ingenious Med)
• How a Mobile-First World Influences Your Patients (Insta Med)
• Building a business case and governance for your EMR (InterSystems)
• Three Patient Access Models: How Health Systems Can Find the Right Fit (Kyruus)
• Medical Device Data Transparency Could Help Health Systems Hit the Elusive Supply Chain “Supply Spot” (First Databank)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne, Lt. Dan.
More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.
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