Weekender 3/5/21

Weekly News Recap

• Several health systems and home-based care companies form Moving Health Home to encourage federal payment for moving some care from hospitals to home.
• Premier acquires Invoice Delivery Services.
• Duke University personalized chronic care spinout ZealCare will launch later this month.
• BD acquires GSL Solutions.
• Universal Health Services estimates that September’s cyberattack has caused $67 million in losses.
• HHS OIG officials recommend that prescriptions be required to include the condition for which the drug is being used to reduce errors, allow correct CMS payment, and help families sort patient meds.
• Naval Medical Center San Diego goes live on Cerner.
• Ambulatory health IT vendor MTBC will change its name to CareCloud, the EHR vendor it acquired in January 2020.
• Cigna’s Evernorth health services business will acquire telehealth vendor MDLive.

Best Reader Comments

I couldn’t agree more with the second point on why vaccination self-scheduling is harder than it looks. In Florida, Publix Supermarkets is the best place to get COVID vaccinations IMHO, but their self-scheduling app stinks. And it’s for that very reason; users have to enter several screens of data before you actually get to the point of trying to find locations with appointments. And Publix has hundreds of stores here. (Jim Beall)

When big health system is the only provider in town, they don’t need to thank you for choosing them. You had no other choice. (Was a Community Hospital CIO)

Interesting to see Allscripts spend time discussing Veradigm to the investor community. We recently asked them for a briefing to better understand Veradigm’s business model, including data governance model for patient privacy. They canceled that briefing after we authored a post looking at the healthcare data-for-sale marketplace. (John)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

Readers funded the teacher grant request of Ms. H in Arkansas, who asked for laptop accessories to support her class’s hybrid learning. She reports, “Thank you so much for your donation. The laptop riser and wireless mouse have made teaching much easier; and I honestly would not know what to do without the camera as my laptop is older and I didn’t have access to a camera until your donation. These have helped greatly with ease into this new type of teaching with blended classes of in-person and virtual students. I appreciate your help in making this year a success! These materials we are using almost daily to improve instruction and help my students.”

Baltimore County, MD’s vaccine site coordinator says his 12 years of experience as a roadie with Twisted Sister prepared him to get crowds into and out of large venues. His tips: (a) give each crew member just one job to do; (b) make it easy for attendees to follow the coned and taped areas that designate the flow of cars and people; and (c) keep attendees moving but don’t allow one station to move so quickly that people wait too long at the next one.

A 75-year-old Long Island doctor is charged with murdering five patients who died of opioid overdoses. Prosecutors say George Blatti, MD worked out of a hotel parking lot, a doughnut shop, and a defunct Radio Shack, prescribing massive quantities of drugs to addicts without an exam while accepting either cash or insurance for payment.

First-year internal medicine resident Troy Manz, MD died from being struck by a car during a Florida bicycle race last weekend. The 46-year-old Air National Guard air transport physician and captain in the 126th Medical Group served eight years in the US Marine Corps, 13 years as a US Air Force critical air transport respiratory therapist flying injured service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then earned his medical degree from University of Kansas School of Medicine in 2020. His commanding officer said, “He went to medical school in his 40s and that’s unheard of. it was frankly a struggle for him. But he set goals and had a vision of where his future was going to lead him.”

Actor Hugh Jackman delivers a loaf of his homemade sourdough bread to Wyckoff Hospital (NY) ED nurse and nurse practitioner student Alina Jackson, RN, who volunteered to work a 24-hour shift during snowstorm even though she is six months pregnant.

Ottawa Public Health’s earns accolades and millions of Twitter views for mixing up the usual serious coronavirus pronouncements with empathy, riffs, and jokes. Social media lead Kevin Parent says he uses the account to talk “with” rather than “to” readers in hopes of engaging them and having them share the information. The tweet above was seen and shared by millions of people, with newbies crowing about “you had just one job” and pondering the employment future of poor Bruce, unaware that (a) the answer to the question of whether any OPH tweet was intentional is always “yes;” and (b) there’s not an actual Bruce.

The local paper profiles Blount Memorial Hospital (TN) environmental services worker Tom Cunningham, who cheers up employees, visitors, and patients by channeling Elvis Presley in the hallways. He has done Elvis impersonation shows at birthday parties and weddings for 20 years. He joined Blount Memorial two months ago after years at University of Tennessee Medical Center, which asked him to stop praying with patients and employees who asked him, ordering him to leave religious work to the hospital pastoral staff.

In Case You Missed It

• News 3/5/21
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 3/4/21
• News 3/3/21
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 3/1/21
• Monday Morning Update 3/1/21

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