Monday Morning Update 12/3/18

Top News

Reuters reports that a federal judge involved with the final legal step in the CVS/Aetna acquisition feels as if he has been just a cog in the wheel of a shady business deal – one that vocal opponents have said will drive up costs and steer patients away from traditional providers. Judge Richard Leon, who ended up pushing final court proceedings to December 3, told DoJ, CVS, and Aetna lawyers that after reviewing the approved motion, “I kind of got this uneasy feeling that I was being kept in the dark, kind of like a mushroom. I’m very concerned, very concerned that you all are proceeding on a rubber-stamp approach to this.”

Reader Comments

From underTheRadar: “Re: Allscripts. Allscripts is having significant layoffs this week. Rumor has it that 250 people in services and development will be let go. Merry Christmas.” Unverified. Comments left at TheLayoff.com from within the last week may provide some context:

• Most US based Paragon Support staff will be terminated on either 12/16/2018 or 2/1/2019. Offshore resources are not impacted and hiring.
• Just got the call, position no longer needed, last day 12/14.
• Was told seven US Allscripts offices closing before January, a consolidation effort. Separate from ongoing space reorgs, such as Alpharetta. Anyone know which offices?

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A tiny pool of respondents finds more value in HIMSS than RSNA. Steve Gould says of RSNA, “Any show that doesn’t ruin Thanksgiving weekend with family provides more value. It is unconscionable that the dates have not moved to run Tuesday-Friday instead of requiring people to arrive either Friday or Saturday for a Sunday morning start.” John Wayne is a fan of neither: “I think both conferences are a waste of time and money and have become cash cows for the organizers with mediocre content, massive and poorly organized exhibit areas, and inconvenient dates with difficult travel requirements. Can’t the Internet make these obsolete?”

New poll to your right or here: As a consumer, are you worried about Amazon potentially using your medical data to influence your purchasing decisions?

HISsies nominations are still open. Coveted honors like “Industry figure in whose face you’d most like to throw a pie” and “Industry figure with whom you’d most like to have a few beers” will be based on your recommendations. Given that Jonathan Bush didn’t leave Athenahealth until June, I suppose he’s still eligible.

Webinars

December 5 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “Tapping Into the Potential of Natural Language Processing in Healthcare.” Sponsor: Health Catalyst. Presenters: Wendy Chapman, PhD, chair of the department of biomedical informatics, University of Utah School of Medicine; Mike Dow, senior director of product development, Health Catalyst. This webinar will provide an NLP primer, sharing principle-driven stories so you can get going with NLP whether you are just beginning or considering processes, tools, or how to build support with key leadership. Dr. Chapman’s teams have demonstrated phenotyping for precision medicine, quality improvement, and decision support, while Mr. Dow’s group helps organizations realize statistical insight by incorporating text notes along with discrete data analysis. Join us to better understand the potential of NLP through existing applications, the challenges of making NLP a real and scalable solution, and the concrete actions you can take to use NLP for the good of your organization.

December 6 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Make the Most of Azure DevOps in Healthcare.” Sponsor: CitiusTech. Presenter: Harshal Sawant, practice lead for DevOps and mobile, CitiusTech. Enterprise IT teams are moving from large-scale, project-based system implementations to a continuously evolving and collaborative process that includes both development and business teams. This webinar will review healthcare DevOps trends and customer stories, describe key factors in implementing a DevOps practice, describe how to assess Azure DevOps, and lay out the steps needed to create an Azure DevOps execution plan.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Remote patient monitoring startup Myia raises $6.75 million in a seed funding round led by BootstrapLabs and Zetta Venture Partners. The San Francisco-based company has developed software that analyzes data from wearables and sensors to predict relapses in chronically ill patients. Co-founder and CTO Bryan Smith came to the company from PokitDok.

Decisions

• Eastland Memorial Hospital (TX) will switch from Azalea Health to a new EHR vendor. Two companies are under consideration.
• Adams Memorial Hospital (IN) replaced its Evident financial management software with technology from Harris Healthcare.
• Titus Regional Medical Center (TX) switched from Allscripts to Epic’s EHR and revenue cycle management software.

These provider-reported updates are supplied by Definitive Healthcare, which offers a free trial of its powerful intelligence on hospitals, physicians, and healthcare providers.

Announcements and Implementations

Memorial Hospital (NH) moves from three EHRs to Epic as part of its unification with MaineHealth.

In the UK, NHS vendor Emis Group will shift 40 million patient records from its servers onto AWS as part of a continued national push for more flexible health data exchange and easier set up of digital health services like video consults and chatbot triage.

Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center (NE) goes live on Epic.

Other

In Finland, researchers determine that Instagram can be an accurate predictor of flu outbreaks after combing through 22,000 posts spanning six years and then comparing them with public health data from the same time period.

USA Today points out that the National Practitioner Data Bank is sorely underused by licensing boards when it comes to keeping up with malpractice payments and disciplinary actions taken against doctors. Nearly half of state medical boards checked the database less than 100 times last year, while 13 boards didn’t check it at all, amounting to 137,000 total searches by the boards. The analysis is part of a year-long investigation into medical licensing system deficiencies that have kept dangerous doctors in practice.

In JAMA, physicians argue against EHR vendor gag clauses, pointing out that an inability to share screenshots, video, and other types of visual media prevent end users from sharing and learning from usability issues that may endanger patients. They advocate for policies that require EHR vendors to:

• Permit the release of information in a timely manner when it informs the usability and safety of the EHR product and enables comparison of specific challenges across products.
• Promote a culture of safety that encourages identification and dissemination of usability and safety issues by EHR vendors and provider organizations.

Sponsor Updates

• TriNetX team members make 300 sandwiches for the Life Science Cares Food for Free program.
• LiveProcess will exhibit at the Oklahoma Hospital Association 2018 Convention & Tradeshow December 5-7 in Oklahoma City.
• LogicStream Health, OmniSys, and Sansoro Health will exhibit at the 2018 ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting December 2-6 in Anaheim, CA.
• Inc.com features Waystar CEO Matt Hawkins in “31 Tech Predictions for 2019.”
• Netsmart will exhibit at the I2I Center for Integrated Health’s Visionary Voices conference and exhibition December 5-7 in Pinehurst, NC.
• The Visiting Nurse Association Health Group joins PreparedHealth’s EnTouch Network.
• Redox will host a networking event at the IHI National Forum December 7 in Orlando.
• Vocera will exhibit at the Healthcare Patient Experience Transformation Assembly December 3 in Denver.
• The Phoenix Business Journal awards WebPT President Heidi Jannenga with the Ed Denison Business Leader of the Year Award.

Blog Posts

• Tackling Complex Integrations to Enable Business Process Automation (Liaison Technologies)
• Managing Adaptive Change in Healthcare (Loyale Healthcare)
• Is Your Hospital Strategically Interoperable? (NextGate)
• Enhancing Autism Services with Technology (Netsmart)
• How to do more with patient portals (Experian Health)
• Medical Bills & Healthcare Payments: Lessons from a Mobile P2P App (Patientco)
• 5 ways your answering service is hurting your practice (PerfectServe)
• These Good Payroll Practices Will Get You Through Year-end Easier (ROI Healthcare Solutions)
• CMS Price Transparency rule enforced January 1, 2019. Are you ready? (TransUnion)
• 10 years on, Voalte still delivers the ‘wow’ factor. (Voalte)
• Q&A With the 2018 Ascend Practice of the Year Winner (WebPT)

Contacts

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