News 8/14/20

Top News

Health Catalyst reports Q2 results: revenue up 18%, adjusted EPS -$0.15 versus -$0.21, beating Wall Street expectations for both.

Health Catalyst also announced that it will acquire RCM software and services vendor Vitalware for $120 million in cash and shares. The purchase marks the company’s third acquisition this year, having acquired Able Health for $27 million in February and Healthfinch for $40 million last month.

The company also announced that Northwell Health has signed up for its Data Operating System analytics and applications platform.

Reader Comments

From Hope Springs Eternal: “Re: Ascension. Announced at an all-hands meeting Tuesday that the service desk, server, and network operations teams will be eliminated and outsourced to Accenture and HCL. The process will be completed by November 25, 2020, with affected associates getting severance and training assistance. I don’t know if the service desk calls will be handled in India as the coding now is.” Unverified, but also reported by a few folks on TheLayoff.com who noted that Ascension started down this path a couple of years ago.

From Ring Ring: “Re: CHIME. I’m hearing that it is looking to fully separate itself from HIMSS. Not necessarily news since they operate separately, but I’m more interested in the political presentation. Will CHIME no longer be held in conjunction with HIMSS and co-present the CIO of the Year award? Feels like there’s a story there, but I’m just not sure what it is.” Unverified.

From Demand Management: “Re: Medlio. What happened to them? We had them set up for our FHIR implementation and got the app downloaded and working, but now the app isn’t working and has been removed from the Apple store. The company’s website also doesn’t launch. We use TouchWorks and Medlio is still on their vendor list.” Medlio’s website is indeed down, their Twitter went silent a year and a half ago, and one of the founders seems to have taken a full-time job elsewhere, according to LinkedIn. Medlio has also been removed from the Allscripts app store, it appears. I’ve emailed the company but haven’t heard back. Seems like they would have let folks know if they are kaput.

From Daddy Sang Bass: “Re: Deep Purple. Begs the question, best rock bass player of all time?” My top five, in order: Chris Squire (Yes), John Entwistle (The Who), Geddy Lee (Rush), Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), and Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers). Honorable mention: Gary Thain (Uriah Heep), Carol Kaye (The Wrecking Crew), Mike Rutherford (Genesis), Paul McCartney (The Beatles), and Tony Levin (King Crimson). I can’t think of any contenders from newer bands, but I don’t claim to listen to many of them – maybe Joe Dart from funk band Vulfpeck.

Webinars

August 19 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “A New Approach to Normalizing Data.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Rajiv Haravu, senior product manager, IMO; Denise Stoermer, product manager, IMO. Healthcare organizations manage an ever-increasing abundance of information from multiple systems, but problems with quality, accuracy, and completeness can make analysis unreliable for quality improvement and population health initiatives. The presenters will describe how IMO Precision Normalize improves clinical, quality, and financial decision-making by standardizing inconsistent diagnosis, procedure, medication, and lab data from diverse systems into common, clinically validated terminology.

September 3 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “How Does A Global Pandemic Reshape Health IT? A Panel Discussion.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Rob Wallace, chief product officer, IMO; Andrew S. Kanter, MD, MPH, chief medical officer, IMO; Lori Kevin, VP of enterprise IT and security, IMO; Sahas Subramanian, MCA, enterprise architect, IMO. As COVID-19 continues to spread, regulation changes, code system updates, and an increased reliance on technology are making it hard to stay on top of the many ways the pandemic is altering health IT. What’s more, we’re confronting challenges that rely heavily on technological solutions – like accurate reporting tools or telehealth adaptations – and we need those solutions now. The panel of subject matter experts across the enterprise will share insights on how the global pandemic is reshaping the health IT world.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Waystar will acquire Medicare-focused revenue cycle technology vendor ESolutions in a deal that values the company at over $1.3 billion. Francisco Partners acquired ESolutions in January 2015.

Care pathway automation company Lumeon raises $30 million in a Series D investment round, bringing its total funding to $79 million. The London-based company plans to expand its US presence.

Scotland-based Craneware will raise $100 million, about 20% of its market value, to fund potential acquisitions from a small number of opportunities it has identified.

AI-powered healthcare messaging vendor MPulse Mobile raises $16 million in a Series C funding round.

MDLive’s CEO says the company plans to launch an IPO early next year, encouraged by Teladoc’s announced $18.5 billion acquisition of Livongo.

Sales

• NorthBay Healthcare will implement PeraHealth’s Rothman Index patient surveillance technology at its two hospitals in Solano County, California.
• Northwell Health (NY) selects Health Catalyst’s Data Operating System.

People

LexisNexis Risk Solutions promotes Todd Garlitz to head of marketing for its healthcare business.

Provider search and scheduling vendor Kyruus hires Jamie Kiggen (Yotpo) as CFO.

Orleans Community Health (NY) promotes CIO Marc Shurtz to interim CEO/CFO.

Announcements and Implementations

Philips announces GA of Rapid Deployment Equipment Kits to help ICUs ramp up patient monitoring capabilities in the event of a COVID-19 surge.

Medhost expands its price transparency solution to allow providers to comply with the requirement to publicly post charges for 300 shoppable services by January 1, 2021.

Government and Politics

DirectTrust President and CEO Scott Stuewe tells me via email that while the VA OIG’s report on HIE use blamed low Direct use in the VA on lack of training from DirectTrust, along with facilities whose community partners don’t use it, DirectTrust doesn’t offer end-user training. DirectTrust is a membership and standards body and relies on vendors to train users on their specific implementation of Direct Secure Messaging. The DirectTrust EHR Roundtable, in which VA participates, recognizes the variability in utilization and is creating a best practices guidelines document to advance usability and use of Direct Secure Messaging.

COVID-19

CDC warns that face masks that are equipped with exhalation vents, like those typically made for construction workers, are not effective for preventing coronavirus spread. A previous study found that “neck gaiters” that pull up from the neck to cover the mouth and nose are ineffective for the same reason they are comfortable – they don’t restrict air flow, making them even worse than not wearing a mask at all.

Cedars-Sinai tweaks a predictive analytics tool originally developed to forecast staffing needs to track hospitalization volumes, supplies, and confirmed cases. It also helps providers tailor treatments and pinpoint patients likely to be readmitted.

WHO says that even though health authorities in China have found coronavirus on the surface of frozen food, evidence does not indicate that food or the food chain is involved with virus transmission.

Other

Epic makes its planned return to campus optional, reversing its previous decision and allowing employees to work from home through at least the end of the year. The county public health department says the 50 complaints it received from Epic employees led it to ask questions about why the return to campus was necessary in light of the county’s emergency order that calls for remote work “to the greatest extent possible.”

The latest national analysis of telemedicine visits from The Chartis Group finds that utilization has fallen from its peak visit level of 50% in mid-April to between 18 and 20% as of late July. Virtual visits in COVID-19 hot spot states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona have remained above the national average.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic volunteers help The River Food Pantry distribute over 100 pounds of curbside emergency food and supplies per household.
• Gartner gives Dimensional Insight a high rating in the Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer: Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms” report.
• To help prevent readmissions, PatientPing partners with Real Time Medical Systems to offer skilled nursing and post-acute care facilities real-time care notifications and identification of high-risk patients.
• Healthcare Growth Partners publishes its “HIT July 2020 Insights.”
• In the UK, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust pilots Imprivata’s Identity Governance technology.
• New Mexico’s Bernalillo County selects Netsmart’s CareManager technology to help coordinate care for people transitioning out of its correctional facilities.
• Medhost expands its Price Transparency solution to help providers comply with the updated Price Transparency Policy from CMS.
• Phynd receives Avia Health’s Vetted Designation for 2020 for its Phynd 360 provider data management platform and Phynd Provider Search software.
• Central Logic will host the online AO² Summit on September 15.
• PatientPing partners with Real Time Medical Systems to reduce hospital readmissions from skilled nursing and post-acute care facilities.
• Audacious Inquiry marks a decade as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.
• Empericus incorporates Wolters Kluwer Health’s Health Language Reference Data Management capabilities into its Health Intelligence EHR for athletes.
• New data from Experity customer sites shows record urgent care patient volumes in July.

Blog Posts

• New best practices to help automate more secure Cloud deployments (Google Cloud)
• Using COVID-19 Value Sets for Patient Identification (Health Catalyst)
• Ready to Comply with New Information Blocking Rules? (Healthcare Triangle)
• Prioritize Revenue Cycle Team Building (Impact Advisors)
• 10 reasons to attend Inforum: The digital experience (Infor)
• Tips for a Successful Charge Capture and Champion Program (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Creating precise patient cohorts for acute conditions (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Patient Perspectives on Virtual Care Part 1: How to Increase Awareness of and Access to Virtual Care (Kyruus)
• In Healthcare, All Signs Point to Digital Transformation (Loyale Healthcare)
• 3 Things to Consider for Contactless Check-In at Your PT Practice (MWTherapy)
• Post-Acute Leaders Embrace Change to Combat COVID-19 (Netsmart)

Contacts

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