News 2/7/24

Top News

Inovalon acquires clinical surveillance and patient safety software vendor VigiLanz.

The deal marks Inovalon’s fifth recent acquisition and the first since the company was acquired by a private equity consortium in 2021 at a $7 billion valuation.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Laudio. The Boston-based company empowers health system leaders to drive large-scale change through everyday human actions. Its platform streamlines workflows for frontline leaders, strengthens interpersonal connections, and aligns C-suite goals with frontline actions – helping health systems improve operational efficiency, employee engagement, and patient experience. Laudio makes it possible for patients, frontline workers, and health system leaders to thrive together. Thanks to Laudio for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare tech sales and market intelligence startup Bonfire Analytics raises $2 million.

Ambience Healthcare, which has developed an AI operating system, raises $70 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to over $100 million. The co-leaders of the round are OpenAI’s Startup Fund and Kleiner Perkins.

Hamilton Beach Brands acquires Ireland-based HealthBeacon, which offers a digital health platform for patients who inject medications at home for chronic conditions. The company previously marketed HealthBeacon’s product in the US within its Hamilton Beach Health brand, which it plans to expand into remote monitoring systems.

Digital sleep therapy app vendor Stellar Sleep raises $6 million in seed funding.

Astarte Medical, which sells precision nutrition software for NICUs, will shut down and offer its intellectual property for sale. The eight-year-old company blames long hospital sales cycles that caused lower-than-expected sales that didn’t meet the expectations of investors, who suggested to co-founder and CEO Tracy Warren, MBA that she throw in some AI to capitalize on the funding boom. She said she would not be comfortable with AI-recommended therapy and instead chose to close the business.

Publicly traded value-based primary care provider Cano Health files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is looking for a buyer. Shares are down 99% since the company went public in June 2021 via a SPAC merger, valuing the company at $12 million.

Sales

• Yuma Regional Medical Center (AZ) selects NRC Health’s Human Understanding patient experience optimization software and programs.
• The Queen’s Health System (HI) chooses Medaptus Assign to assign patients to hospitalists with rules-based patient census integration with Epic.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation licenses the NSights de-identified patient database that the company sources from several premier health systems.

People

HCA Healthcare promotes Chad Wasserman, MBA to SVP/CIO upon the retirement of Marty Paslick.

Availity names Jennifer Irwin (Alegeus) chief marketing officer.

Aaron Wootton, MBA (Henry Ford Health System) joins Huntzinger Management Group as chief digital officer.

Alphabet’s Verily hires Myoung Cha, JD, MBA (Carbon Health) as chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Variety Care (OK) goes live with EVisit’s telehealth platform at three of its clinics and across its behavioral healthcare team.

Government and Politics

SAMHSA and ONC launch the Behavioral Health Information Technology Initiative, which will invest $20 million over the next three years to promote the use of health IT within behavioral healthcare and practice settings.

Privacy and Security

Northern Light Health, a 10-hospital system in Maine, brings its computer systems back online after a weekend cyberattack forced it to activate downtime procedures. Hospital officials say the attack was not the result of ransomware.

Other

San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare’s Spatial Computing Center of Excellence distributes 30 of the newly launched Apple Vision Pros to physicians, nurses, informaticists, software developers, and others to determine how the virtual reality headset can best used in healthcare settings. Sharp is working with Epic on possible uses.

Primary care physicians are spending an increasing amount of time working in their EHRs, according to a new report that looks at the usage data of 141 UW Health PCPs over a four-year period. The 28-minute increase was mainly driven by patient portal messaging, with patient medical advice requests being the biggest chunk of messaging volume.

The University of Rochester Medical Center (CT) installs Higi health stations at three community banks as part of an initiative to provide patients living in rural areas with better access to care.

Sponsor Updates

• Netsmart announces its support for the launch of the CMS Innovation in Behavioral Health model.
• AdvancedMD announces QBSolutioneers as its newest integration partner.
• Health Data Movers joins the ServiceNow Partner Program.
• Optimum Healthcare IT launches a new healthcare IT information and best practices newsletter called The Optimum Pulse.
• Artera receives Frost & Sullivan’s 2023 Customer Value Leadership Award.
• Censinet will present at the AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference February 11-14 in Orlando.

Blog Posts

• 2024 CPT Code Set Overview (AGS Health)
• Risk adjustment software: Key concepts and top vendors (Arcadia)
• How are Aridhia Customers Syndicating with HDR UK? (Aridhia Informatics)
• Revolutionizing Wellness: Navigating the Future of Digital Health in 2024 (Direct Recruiters)
• The Evolution of Prior Authorizations (Availity)
• Protect Healthcare’s Greatest Asset: Your Staff (AvaSure)
• New HHS Cybersecurity Performance Goals Help to Prioritize Security Practices, But Truly Protecting Healthcare Organizations Takes Much More (Clearwater)
• Taming the Tsunami of Clinical Data for Better Patient Care (DrFirst)

Contacts

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