News 3/15/19

Top News

Rutland Regional Medical Center (VT) notifies 72,000 patients of a breach after discovering that the email accounts of nine employees had been hacked late last year.

Hospital officials believe the hack originated outside of the US.

RRMC did similar damage control in 2017 after an employee exposed patient information by sending a bulk email to patients using CC: instead of BCC:.

Webinars

March 27 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Waiting on interoperability: What can payers and providers do to collaborate?” Sponsored by Casenet. Presenter: Amy Simpson, RN, director of clinical solutions, Casenet. A wealth of data exists to identify at-risk patients and to analyze populations, allowing every payer and provider to operate readmissions intervention and care management programs. Still, payer and provider care managers are challenged to coordinate and collaborate to improve outcomes because of the long road ahead to interoperability. Attend this webinar to learn what payers and providers can do now to share information and to coordinate their efforts to create the best healthcare journey for members and patients.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health research network TriNetX raises $40 million in financing, earmarking the funds for enhancing its analytics software and further expanding in Asia, Europe, and South America.

Medical record retrieval and image-sharing company EHealth Technologies secures $41 million in financing.

People

Haven hires Sandhya Rao (Partners Healthcare) as VP of clinical strategy.

PatientPoint names Wes Staggs (Blue Ridge) as its first EVP of customer success.

Australia-based Telstra Health names former New Zealand National Health IT Board Director Graeme Osborne, who also spent seven years leading New Zealand’s EHealth Program, to run its hospital software business unit, which includes the EHR it acquired along with Emerging Systems in 2014.

Wendy Hill (Cerner) joins Netsmart as its first chief people officer.

Sales

• In Australia, SDS Pathology will replace its Triple G Ultra lab system with SCC Soft Computer.
• Val Verde Regional Medical Center (TX); Bayamon Medical Center (PR); Puerto Rico Women’s and Children’s Hospital; and Massachusetts Health Collaborative members Harrington Healthcare, Holyoke Medical Center, and Heywood Healthcare will implement Meditech Expanse.

Announcements and Implementations

Johns Hopkins Health System (MD) goes live with Bluetree’s Service Center for Epic users.

Partners HealthCare leverages Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway interface to become the first health system in Massachusetts to integrate its EHR with the state’s PDMP.

OhioHealth goes live on Epic.

Privacy and Security

Emerson Hospital (MA) notifies patients of a data breach that occurred last May when an employee of its billing vendor, MiraMed Global Services, sent electronic patient files to an unauthorized third party. The hospital’s forensics team found the files to be of such poor quality that the data was likely not used in further malicious activity.

Other

• The overriding theme, beyond company paranoia, is the willingness of Holmes to “fake it until you make it.”
• Gibney likens Elizabeth Holmes to Thomas Edison in that both invented larger-than-life celebrity personas to sell themselves and their inventions. His footage of her in-house interviews shows that she worked hard to present that contrived version of herself. “[T]hat was precious to us,” he says, “because, if you’re talking about the psychology of deception, now we had an opportunity to show from the inside out how that deception was manufactured.”
• After a team member interviewed Holmes in 2017, Gibney concluded that, “Elizabeth perceived herself to be a victim. Not somebody who was contrite, but somebody who was brought low by forces who were out to get her because she was a woman.”
• After acquiring footage of Holmes and her boyfriend and company executive Sunny Balwani jumping in a bouncy house to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” in celebration of FDA’s marketing clearance for one of its tests, Gibney admits, “It was jaw-dropping to see the delusional behavior inside the company.”

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic names Michael Malecha (Huron) senior director of ERP solutions.
• Elsevier adds new assessment capabilities to its ClinicalKey Student medical education platform.
• EClinicalWorks and InterSystems will exhibit at the Rise Nashville Summit March 17-19.
• HBI Solutions will present and exhibit at the Population Health Colloquium March 19 in Philadelphia.
• The University of Florida recognizes The HCI Group CEO Ricky Caplin as one of its outstanding young alumni.
• HGP publishes the results of its 2018 health IT private equity survey.
• Imprivata will exhibit at Texas HIMSS March 25-26 in Austin.
• Medhost recaps its 2018 business growth.
• Spok releases a new case study featuring Vail Health (CO).
• EHealth Exchange expands its use of InterSystems solutions by selecting its HealthShare unified care record to power its HIE.
• Meditech releases a video showing how its solutions deliver real results to executives, providers, and patients.

Blog Posts

• HCC: Gauging Risk in the Real World (EClinicalWorks)
• How “bots” improve patient engagement and save money (Formativ Health)
• Jordan Messler, MD: Improving the Quality and Cost of Diabetes Care (Glytec)
• Best Response to the CMS TPE Program? Be Prepared. (Hayes)
• Purge the Pager? At Your Own Risk (Spok)
• Healthcare IT Integration is Never Straightforward (The HCI Group)
• Epic Training and Learning Management Systems (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Huntzinger Applauds Geisinger for Earning HIMSS Analytics Validation (Huntzinger Management Group)
• Planning for a Multi-Hospital Communications Program – Where to Begin (Impact Advisors)
• Patient safety has its own week. Here’s why. (Imprivata)
• Beyond Secure Messaging: Rich Communication via Video Calling (PMD)
• Healthcare Innovation in 2019: Keeping the Consumer Top of Mind (Dimensional Insight)
• Five hospitals, two organizations, and one eMAR come together to improve patient safety (Meditech)

Contacts

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