News 10/11/19

Top News

Mednax will sell its MedData RCM software and services business to private equity firm Frasier Healthcare Partners for up to $300 million.

Reader Comments

From RWJBetter Believe It: “Re: RWJBarnabas Health’s rumored conversion to Epic. Looks like the rumblings have been confirmed: “We’ve announced the move to the Epic IT platform, and in 2020 that project will kick off in earnest. We view this move as transformational for our organization; it will allow us to truly connect all of our healthcare assets in a deeper way than they have been connected in the past.”  As Barnabas Rubble first suggested here in June, the New Jersey-based health system – the result of the 2016 merger of Barnabas Health and Robert Wood Johnson Health System – will finally bring all of its facilities onto one platform.

From anon: “Re: PeaceHealth layoffs. PeaceHealth just laid off more IT staff. Unlike their last round of layoffs in July, which was almost only people outside their Vancouver, WA office with the stated intent to centralize services, this round included Epic Analysts in Vancouver. Their upgrade goes live this week, no less.” The local news reports that this round is of 50 centralized support service staffers.

From Vaporware?: “Re: The Brent Schafer AI story. I totally believe that is real. The head-scratcher is further down in the press release: ‘Stemming from Cerner’s collaborative work in the federal space, the company is soon to roll out “Cerner Seamless Interoperability.’ Questions: Will it be a new contract for Cerner, since they’re just now inventing and releasing it? Will it be based on their current ;federal space’ interoperability model of logging in to side-by-side workstations? How is it different from CommonWell, which has been sold as ‘Seamless Interoperability’ since 2013 (and still is not live in federal space)?”

From Insider: “Re: Cantata Health. CEO let go and more layoffs coming. They have moved all support offshore, and clients are not happy. Talk about a sinking ship. The CTO and some finance people are now running the company.” Former CEO Krista Endsley’s LinkedIn profile confirms her departure after 18 months. The company’s sole C-suiter is CTO Rich Zegel.

Webinars

October 15 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Universal Health Services Case Study: How to Improve Network Design and Management with Claims Data.” Sponsor: CareJourney. Presenters: Mallory Cary, regional director of ACO operations, UHS; Abbas Bader, director of product development, CareJourney. Universal Health Services (UHS), one of the nation’s largest hospital management companies, has more than 350 acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities, and ambulatory centers across the US, Puerto Rico, and the UK. UHS has collaborated closely with CareJourney over the last three years in building high-performing networks in new markets, managing patient populations as they flow through those networks, and targeting areas for performance improvement within the network. Join the expert presenters for deep insights into network design and optimization.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Patient engagement vendor Relatient acquires patient self-scheduling and waitlist software developer Everseat.

Care coordination, analytics, and value-based care software company Persivia raises $15 million in a Series C funding round.

Three months after securing $73 million in funding, Omada Health announces an undisclosed investment from Intermountain Ventures. Intermountain Healthcare (UT) has worked with the digital chronic disease prevention company since 2016. Its diabetes services became a covered benefit for Intermountain employees earlier this year.

Harris Computer’s healthcare group acquires Brookfield, WI-based insurance enrollment technology vendor Connecture.

Sales

• Greeneville Community Hospital East (TN) selects tele-ICU services from Advanced ICU Care.

People

Nursing Informatics Boot Camp director Susan Newbold PhD, RN-BC will receive the Virginia K. Saba Nursing Informatics Leadership Award from the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing at its meeting next month.

Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center physician and Society for Participatory Medicine co-founder Danny Sands, MD joins Backpack Health as CMO and VP of medical affairs.

Announcements and Implementations

The Milford campus of Yale New Haven Health’s Bridgeport Hospital (CT) goes live on Epic. The health system wrapped up its system-wide go live in 2013; it added Milford Hospital several months ago.

The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute will leverage Veradigm Health’s HealthInsights de-identified EHR database in its development of the FDA’s Sentinel drug- and product-safety monitoring system.

Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare (MO) implements Meditech’s Sepsis Management Toolkit.

NewCrop will integrate OptimizeRx’s digital health messaging with its e-prescribing service.

Arrendale Associates adds NVoq’s speech-recognition capabilities to its Transcript Advantage software.

The Public Hospitals Authority in the Bahamas completes the first phase of its integrated health information management system implementation with help from Santa Rosa Consulting.

Other

VCU Health (VA) announces it will no longer sue patients for unpaid bills after seeing the uproar caused by revelations that UVA Health filed 36,000 lawsuits over six years in an effort to collect $106 million. VCU’s physician group has filed 56,000 lawsuits to recover $81 million from patients over the last seven. “We don’t want to be a part of that,” says CFO Melinda Hancock. “We feel that taking care of the patient’s financial health is taking care of their holistic health.”

Sponsor Updates

• Capsa Healthcare adds Imprivata’s identity and access management technologies to its CareLink Nurse Workstations.
• Elsevier Clinical Solutions will exhibit at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice conference October 13-15 in Seattle.
• EClinicalWorks, Ellkay, FormFast, and Kyruus will exhibit at MGMA October 13-16 in New Orleans.
• Ensocare will exhibit at the ACMA Great Lakes Chapter Annual Conference October 11 in Novi, MI.
• EPSi will host the Visis: 2019 EPSi Summit October 22-24 in Austin, TX.
• Allscripts names Healthfinch’s prescription renewal delegation solution, Charlie, as its October App of the Month.
• Healthwise and Intelligent Medical Objects will exhibit at the EClinicalWorks National Conference October 18-20 in Orlando.
• InterSystems will exhibit at the DoD/VA & Gov Health IT Summit October 16-17 in Alexandria, VA.
• Nuance expands Clinical Guidance for Dragon Medical Advisor, its AI-powered computer-assisted physician documentation capability available through Dragon Medical One.
• Imat Solutions integrates Zen Healthcare IT’s Integration-as-a-Service and gateway solutions with its health data management technology.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new case study, “Improving Provider Practice Efficiency at Southcoast Health.”
• Phynd partners with MedTouch to offer health systems one-step appointment search and scheduling capabilities.
• In a new video series, Wolters Kluwer Health takes a candid look at the nursing profession through the lens of practicing nurses.

Blog Posts

• Take time for discover and assessment – and consider a partner – for a successful cloud migration (Google Cloud
• Effective Habits, Courtesy of Impact Advisors Winners (Impact Advisors)
• How Health Systems Can Optimize Demand Conversion Online (Kyruus)
• Pause to Consider: Managed Security Service Provider (Fortified Health Security)
• Connect and Go Forward: Highlights from Meditech’s 2019 Physician and CIO Forum (Meditech)

Contacts

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