News 11/20/20

Top News

Nuance sells its transcription services business and EScription technology to newly formed DeliverHealth Solutions, in which Nuance will hold a minority share.

The new 2,000-employee company was formed by private equity firm Assurance Healthcare Partners and outsourcer Aeries Technology Group.

CEO Michael Clark, MBA is an industry long-timer who was most recently SVP/GM of provider solutions with Nuance’s healthcare division.

Reader Comments

From EHR Warrior: “Re: SpringCharts. Another EHR headed for the dustbin. No longer ONC certified and the website lists no physical address or team members.” Unverified. The LinkedIn of CEO Jan Watson says that she’s still there, along with a dozen other folks.

From Meditech Follower: “Re: Meditech. AVP Larry O’Toole is no longer at the company and customers working with him were not informed. He was also Meditech’s representative on CommonWell’s board.” Larry’s LinkedIn says he left Meditech in October after 18 years and is consulting.

From Focus Please: “Re: telehealth and attention spans. A recent survey found that the attention of many patients wanders during their virtual visits.” The survey found that three-fourths of male patients and 39% of women say they didn’t pay full attention during their virtual visit, with their most common distractions being surfing the web, texting or emailing, watching news or movies, and checking Facebook. It’s fascinating to me that our best and brightest have applied their daunting intellectual horsepower to successfully draw us irresistibly to stare stupidly at our phone screens in trading real-world involvement with mindless distraction, even when we are sick, driving, or eating in an expensive restaurant (back when that was a thing). I can’t imagine booking a virtual visit and then watching a movie or scrolling Facebook during it (those must be multi-device patients), but I also can’t picture how patients would think it’s OK to play a video game, drive a car, or drink a cocktail during a telehealth visit, all of which were reported in significant percentages. I bet virtual visit doctors see all kinds of bizarre behavior on the other end of their video sessions, such as domestic violence, sexual activities, illegal acts, and endangering situations. The Internet has robbed us of our comfortable naiveté that most people in the country are like us, which is true only to the degree that we are some combination of ignorant, lazy, cruel, selfish, and immoral.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

How you know your previous job was a misfire – when your new employer’s hiring announcement brags your time with an employer that wasn’t your most recent one.

Webinars

December 3 (Thursday) noon ET. “Why Patient-Centered Billing: How University Physicians’ Association Increased Revenue and Reduced Days to Pay.” Sponsor: Relatient. Presenter: Christy Bailey, VP, University Physicians’ Association. Financial recovery calls for a better patient financial experience as providers drive revenue, engage patients, and reduce costs and bad debt. The presenter will talk about patients as payers and how delivering a financial experience that meets their expectations can improve the financial outcomes of providers, hospitals, and health systems.

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

Here’s the recording of Wednesday’s webinar, sponsored by Mend, titled “Do You Really Have a Telehealth Program, Or Just Videoconferencing?”

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Private equity firm Clearlake Capital will reportedly buy the software business of revenue cycle management company NThrive, which was formed in late 2015 by private equity firm Pamplona Capital in combining its MedAssets and Precyse acquisitions. Reports suggest a valuation of more than $1 billion for the business, which has EBITDA of $100 million. NThrive recently reorganized its technology business into NThrive Technology, which is led by CEO Sloan Cardy, MBA.

Nuance announces Q4 results: revenue down 9%, adjusted EPS $0.18 versus $0.23, beating Wall Street estimates for both. NUAN shares are up 104% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 39% rise, valuing the company at nearly $10 billion.

Medsphere acquires Micro-Office Systems, which offers custom medical practice technology services and a patient engagement service.

Outcomes4Me, which offers a free cancer treatment navigation app, raises $4.7 million in funding.

Israel-based telemedicine vendor K Health raises $42 million in a Series D funding round, increasing its total to $139 million, and will partner with Mayo Clinic to improve its virtual care services. The AI-powered app applies logic gleaned from a 20-year EHR database of an Israel-based HMO to compare a patient with similar ones and to list likely diagnoses, then offers text-based chat with a doctor. Patients pay $19 for a one-time text encounter that can include issuing prescriptions or $9 for a primary care monthly membership that provides unlimited visits.  

The Nashville business paper notes that Bridge Connector spent most of its recent $25.5 million funding round before shutting the company down. The company also received up to $5 million in April from federally guaranteed Paycheck Protection Program loans.

Sales

• Sarasota Memorial Health Care System will implement Glytec’s EGlycemic Management System.
• One Brooklyn Health selects Infor Cloverleaf Integration Suite.
• The VA will integrate with state prescription drug monitoring programs using Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway.

People

Kate Palazzolo, MS (Allscripts) joins Care.ai as chief growth officer.

Medstreaming hires Steve Schroeder (Elekta) as EVP of sales.

Terri Steinberg, MD, MBA (ChristianaCare) joins Medecision as group SVP of analytics and population health and chief medical officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Ellkay announces LKHive, a platform that allows entrepreneurs to share and develop their health IT ideas and products and potentially receiving mentorship, market advice, and funding. 

QliqSoft’s Quincy Healthcare Chatbot and QliqConnect Secure Texting platforms are added to Epic App Orchard.

Health First (FL) deploys Vocera Ease for patient and family communication.

Cerner offers CommunityWorks clients a video visit platform that will be free through 12/31/21.

A new KLAS report on ERP finds that Workday meets customer needs with strong human capital management and less-capable supply chain functionality, Oracle Cloud’s satisfaction scores have jumped in the past year, and Premier delivers a solid product that excels in supply chain management despite weakness in human capital management. Infor customers are least satisfied with CloudSuite due to relationship and communication issues, while 62% of Allscripts customers say they’ll be moving on because of limited development and no announced plans to move the product to the cloud. 

Time’s list of “The Best Inventions of 2020” includes the Vocera Smartbadge in the “Connectivity” category. It’s a good list, full of interesting items that were in most cases new to me. 

COVID-19

States reported 164,000 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, along with 1,869 deaths and a record 79,000 hospitalized inpatients. Wyoming is reporting that over 70% of its tests are coming back positive.

AHA is reporting hospital staffing shortages in up to 25 states due to both an increased number of coronavirus patients as well as employees who are out sick with the virus, with no option to bring in outside help from less-affected areas because there aren’t any. Stat reports that hospitals are paying up to $6,000 per week for traveling ICU nurses, double their pre-COVID rate. Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, so hospitals worry about staffing for the inevitable infectious crisis that will be caused in December and January by holiday gatherings in which mitigation recommendations were ignored.

Aspirus Wasau Hospital (WI) will send some COVID-19 inpatients home to free up beds, relying on nursing calls, telehealth, and help from family members to care for them.

Mayo Clinic reports that 900 of its employees have contracted COVID-19 in the past two weeks, 93% of them having been exposed away from work and most of the rest from eating in its break rooms.

CDC advises Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving at home with only the people they have lived with for 14 or more days. The announcement came in CDC’s first media briefing in months as CDC noted the risk of having travelers spread infection around the country.  

CHIME and the Patient ID Now Coalition urge people to ask their senators to support repealing the national patient identifier ban, saying that it’s especially important to be able to positively identify people whose COVID-19 vaccination will involve one of potentially several available products that require a two-dose regimen over several weeks.

Epidemiologists question why New York City has closed its relatively low-risk schools indefinitely six weeks after reopening while allowing high-risk bars, gyms, and restaurants to remain open.

Cooper University Health Care will roll out the Heroes Health frontline worker mental health support app that was developed by the UNC Institute for Trauma Recovery. Employees are sent a weekly self-assessment questionnaire, tracking tools, and resource links.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book ranks Imprivata as a top vendor of identity management and governance solutions, and Spok as a top vendor of secure communications platforms for hospitals and health systems.
• Frost & Sullivan recognizes Nuance with its 2020 Global Company of the Year Award.
• The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council awards Everbridge Tech Top 50 awards in the categories of COVID-19 Response and Business Accomplishment.
• Industry Era includes Goliath Technologies CEO Thomas Charlton in its list of Top 10 CEOs of 2020.
• Collective Medical gives its customers access to Vital’s AI-powered care coordination software for hospital EDs and patients.
• Jvion wins the 2020 Georgia Healthcare Innovation Challenge and will conduct a beta test of its clinical AI solution with Navicent Health.
• Meditech congratulates 14 hospital and health system customers on their Digital Health Most Wired recognitions from CHIME.
• OptimizeRx is ranked #432 in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.

Blog Posts

• Lori Weiss on the Role of the CDCES in Nurse Education and Patient Safety (World Diabetes Day) (Glytec)
• Alarm Fatigue Solutions Your Organization Can Implement Right Away (Halo Health)
• How to engage and enhance digital user experiences (The HCI Group)
• Six Strategies to Navigate COVID-19 Financial Recovery for Health Systems (Health Catalyst)
• 6 Top Esignature Software Challenges & Solutions for Hospitals (Access)
• While Hospitals are Busy Fighting COVID-19, The Competition is Getting Serious (Loyale Healthcare)
• 5 Questions to Ask When Creating Custom Health Education (Healthwise)
• InterSystems Virtual Summit 2020: Day One Keynote and Day Two Keynote Recaps (InterSystems)
• Patient Perspectives on Virtual Care Part 3: How to Expand Access to Virtual Care and Generate Future Interest (Kyruus)
• Promoting a Culture of Innovation at Medhost (Medhost)
• How to help patients live well with COPD (Meditech)
• Best Practices for PT Practice Compliance (MWTherapy)
• Building a Golden Provider Record (NextGate)

Contacts

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