Morning Headlines 6/23/15

Provider Experiences with HIE: Key Findings from a Six-State Review

ONC publishes a report on provider perceptions of state health information exchanges, finding that the needs of providers and ACOs have surpassed the basic requirements outlined in MU. Access to care summaries, ADT alerts, and medication reconciliation support are the most valued services offered by HIEs.

Cigna rejects Anthem takeover bid

Cigna has rejected a $47 billion offer to acquire the insurer by larger rival Anthem, calling the offer inadequate and “woefully skewed in favor of Anthem shareholders." The offer came in at $184 per share, an 18 percent premium on Cigna’s closing stock price on Friday.

Budgetary and Economic Effects of Repealing the Affordable Care Act

The CBO publishes the financial implications of repealing the ACA, finding that regardless of whether the entire law is repealed or only the contested federal subsidy portion, any repeal will add to the national deficit.

House votes to repeal medical device tax

A bi-partisan majority in the House of Representatives votes to repeal the Medical Device Tax enacted as part of the ACA. The President has promised a veto should the bill clear the Senate.

Morning Headlines 6/22/15

Aerospace Medicine Safety Information System (AMSIS)/ Request for Information

The FAA publishes an RFI for a system that it will use to track medical certifications, coordinate its substance abuse program, and integrate with NHIN and state and regional HIEs to collect medical information on pilots.

Personalized Technology Will Upend the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Harvard Business Review predicts that wearables, implanted devices, and medical apps will eventually deliver a 24/7 picture of individual health, revolutionizing the way chronic diseases are treated and managed and creating a gold-rush style influx of activity from existing businesses and startups. 

8 Indicted in Identity Thefts of Patients at Montefiore Medical Center

Eight Montefiore Medical Center (NY) were indicted Friday on charges of selling 12,000 medical records for $3 each, exposing the names, birthdays, and Social Security numbers of its patients.

Tamper-proof pill bottle could help curb prescription painkiller misuse, abuse

Engineering students at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering createda 2.7 pound, 9-inch tall, tamper-proof pill bottle that uses fingerprint scanning technology to ensure that narcotics are dispensed only to the prescribed patient. The team cites the growing number of prescription drug-related overdoses as the motivation behind their work.

Morning Headlines 6/19/15

Health and social care leaders set out next steps to transform NHS services and improve health outcomes using technology and data

In England, the NHS announces that patients will be given real-time access to their entire digital health records by 2018. UK citizens are already able to book appointments, request prescription renewals, and view medical record summaries online.

New NHS e-Referral service ‘unavailable until further notice’

Also in England, the NHS’s new online appointment scheduling system has been taken offline until further notice after going live on Monday. The service, whose predecessor was used by 40,000 patients per day to schedule appointments until last week, launched despite 33 known issues, including missing functionality and slow loading times.

Making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education

A draft budget created by the House Appropriations Committee reduces ONC’s requested $75 million budget to $60.4 million, and provides no funding for its proposed ONC Patient Safety Center.

National Medicare Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against 243 Individuals for Approximately $712 Million in False Billing

The Department of Justice announces that it has arrested 243 individuals, including 46 doctors, in connection with a Medicare fraud scheme that netted $712 million through false billing. The arrests were the largest coordinated takedown in the history of the DOJ’s Strike Force.

Morning Headlines 6/18/15

Fitbit raises $732M in its IPO, $37M more than expected

Fitbit finalizes its IPO, raising $732 million at a $20 per share price, for a total valuation of $4.1 billion. Shares will begin to trade this Thursday under the symbol FIT.

Congressional GOP plans to continue health law subsidies

As the Supreme Court nears a ruling on a case challenging the legality of ACA subsidies paid on behalf of seven million Healthcare.gov consumers, congressional republicans announce that they will move forward with a plan to extend those subsidies through the end of the year while they draft their own healthcare reform plan.

US Nonprofit Hospital Tax Exemption Almost Doubles Between 2002 And 2011

Health Affairs publishes a study finding that the total value of tax exemptions enjoyed by non-profit hospitals has grown to $24.6 billion, up from $12.6 billion in 2002.

Doctor On Demand Pulls In $50 Million To Continue Expansion Of Its Virtual Doctor Visit Platform

Three-year-old telehealth vendor Doctor on Demand raises a $50 million Series B funding round to accelerate the growth of its platform. The company also announced that it has signed its 200th employer-customer.

Morning Headlines 6/17/15

CMS Internal Controls Did Not Effectively Ensure The Accuracy Of Aggregate Financial Assistance Payments Made To Qualified Health Plan Insurers Under the Affordable Care Act

An OIG report finds that CMS paid subsidies on behalf of Healthcare.gov and state insurance exchange customers without verifying that payments were made on behalf of confirmed enrollees or verifying that payments were made in the correct amounts.

What makes an EHR “open” or interoperable?

AMIA proposes an objective definition of EHR interoperability that calls on vendors to support data extraction, medical record transmission with structured data elements, exchanging records via record locator service queries, supporting migrations to another vendor by moving existing records to another EHR, and providing APIs that allow third-party apps to access and write to the EHR.

Bethesda health tech company raises $30 million

Bethesda, MD-based digital health startup Aledade raises a $30 million Series B to expand its ACO transition support firm. The company was founded by Farzad Mostashari, MD, former national coordinator for health IT, shortly after he left ONC.

CVS to Buy Target’s Pharmacy Business for $1.9 Billion

CVS acquires Target’s pharmacy business, which includes 1,700 pharmacies within Target stores, for $1.9 billion.

Morning Headlines 6/16/15

Anthem Talks to Cigna on Possible Takeover

Anthem pursues rival insurer Cigna in an acquisition deal that values Cigna at $45 billion.

FDA to Work With Online Patient Forum to Mine Safety Data

Online support group vendor PatientsLikeMe signs a research partnership with the FDA to supplement its post-market drug surveillance program with patient-generated adverse events reports.

Inside Obama’s Stealth Startup

Fast Company profiles Obama’s growing US Digital Services team, which was established in the days after Healthcare.gov’s failed launch. Todd Park, who is responsible for recruiting Silicon Valley’s best and brightest for the team, describes it as “DARPA meets the Peace Corps meets SEAL Team Six,” and tells stories of Obama’s hands on involvement in recruitment efforts.

White House Weighs Sanctions After Second Breach of a Computer System

The Office of Personnel Management reports that mental health data may have been compromised in its second confirmed security breach in the last two weeks.

Morning Headlines 6/15/15

VA app could change future of veteran care

The VA will pilot a new app that will give VA doctors a single view of a patient’s complete medical history, including allergies, prescriptions, and test results from both DoD and VA medical records.

Health Catalyst Is Keeping the Jobs At Home

Health Catalyst announces that it will add 300 jobs over the next five years, for which it will receive $700,000 in incentives from the Utah Governor’s Office.

Data Security in Healthcare 2015

A Peer60 survey on data security in healthcare finds that information security is the most important priority for 29 percent of organizations. The report finds that lack of funding and staff compliance with IT procedures are the largest issues preventing improvements.

Additional Actions and Oversight Urgently Needed to Reduce Waste and Improve Performance in Acquisitions and Operations

A GAO report on government IT projects finds that projects often result in “multimillion dollar cost overruns and years-long schedule delays,” with billions wasted on failed project cited. The government spends $80 billion on IT projects annually.

Morning Headlines 6/12/15

Committee Working to Identify Immediate Solutions to Electronic Health Records Program that has Physicians “Terrified”

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the HELP committee charged with evaluating the Meaningful Use program, says at the committees first hearing this week, “Physicians and doctors have said to me that they are literally terrified of the next implementation stage of electronic health records, called Meaningful Use Stage 3, because of its complexity and because of the fines that will be levied. My goal is that before that phase is implemented, we can work with physicians and hospitals and the administration to get the system back on track and make it a tool that hospitals and physicians can look forward to using to help their patients instead of something they dread.”

E-health Progress Still Poor $2 Billion and 14 Years Later

The Canadian Medical Association Journal reports on the country’s largest annual e-health conference, saying that interoperability roadblocks are still hindering improvements. Mike Checkley, conference speaker and president of British Columbia-based QHR Technologies, quipped “Ten years ago, the big topic was interoperability. Ten years later, it’s not a lot different."

Study may help Department of Veteran’s Affairs find patients with high risk of suicide

The VA and NIH co-develop an algorithm that can scan the VA’s electronic medical records and identify patients that have a high suicide risk.

Judy Faulkner’s Giving Pledge

Epic Systems CEO Judy Faulkner signs the Giving Pledge, launched by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010, promising to leave 99 percent of her estimated $2.3 billion fortune to charity upon her death or direction.

Morning Headlines 6/11/15

Walgreens and MDLIVE Expand Telehealth Platform to Three New States, Add Desktop and Tablet Functionality

Walgreens expands its telehealth service to users in Colorado, Illinois and Washington, and promises to make the service available to 25 states by the end of the year.

Kentucky Physician Named AMA President-elect

AMA announces that its next president will be Steven Stack, MD, an emergency medicine physician from Kentucky. Stack served as the chair of the AMA’s Health Information Technology Advisory Group from 2007 to 2013 and has served on multiple ONC advisory groups.

Reducing Alert Fatigue Prevents Pharmacy Medication Errors

Hospital Sisters Health System (IL) reduces the number of alerts being presented to physicians by 40 percent, while improving its rate of catching preventable medication errors by analyzing and optimizing its alerts.

Growth Of New York Physician Participation In Meaningful Use Of Electronic Health Records Was Variable, 2011–12

Health Affairs publishes an analysis of the Meaningful Use program, finding that providers that had adopted EHR systems prior to MU were more likely to be “early and consistent participants” in the program.

Morning Headlines 6/10/15

American Well Corp v Teladoc, Inc

Telehealth vendor American Well sues rival Teladoc for patent infringement, alleging that Teladoc is using American Well’s patent-protected technology to match patients with doctors. The lawsuit comes just as Teladoc prepares for its IPO.

NHS details released against patients’ wishes, admits data body

In England, the Health and Social Care Information Centre reports that 700,000 patients have had their medical information shared against their wishes. The organization, which is responsible for processing patient requests to prevent data sharing, reports that it does not have the staff to keep up with the volume of requests it is receiving.

Charities struggle to share care data

In England, the CIO of Combat Stress, a charity dedicated to providing mental health services to  veterans, reports that a lack of interoperability with NHS health IT systems is hindering care delivery. He is calling for a standards-based approach to document sharing between the organizations.

Veterans Adding Life Story to Medical Records

The Madison, WI VA Medical Center is piloting an initiative aimed at capturing the life story, as told by the patient, for every patient’s medical record. The initiative is designed to permanently record the traumatic events behind many of the veteran’s injuries so that they do not need to retell the story every time they see a new doctor.

Morning Headlines 6/9/15

Medicare Program; Medicare Shared Savings Program: Accountable Care Organizations

CMS publishes its final rule addressing changes to the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The final rule introduces a new program, called Track 3, based on the successful aspects of the Pioneer ACO Model. The rule also beings to address performance benchmarking concerns, and promises additional performance benchmarking regulations later this year.

Back to the Future

Outgoing AMA president Robert Wah, MD, rails against the Meaningful Use program and ICD-10 implementation at the AMA Annual Conference this weekend in Chicago, saying “the Meaningful Use requirements for electronic records are a heavy burden and a prison for innovation,” and “We believe ICD-10 will further disrupt physician practices when we’re already facing headaches like Meaningful Use.”

ICD-10 ‘Grace Period’ Bill Introduced in US House

Representative Gary Palmer (R-AL) introduces HR 2652, titled Protecting Patients and Physicians Against Coding Act of 2015, which if passed would establish a two-year grace period during which both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes would be accepted. It is the third bill introduced in the last two months that attempts to delay the upcoming ICD-10 switchover.

Morning Headlines 6/8/15

CSC to pay $190 million to settle SEC charges

CSC will pay a $190 million to settle fraud allegations after the SEC charged the company with manipulating financial results and hiding problems with its largest contract, the UK’s now defunct NPfIT program, from investors. CSC signed a $4.5 billion contract with the NHS to deploy its Lorenzo EHR across 166 hospitals, but a poor implementation track record led to the program being shut down.

Evolent Health Stock Closed at $18.86 in IPO Debut

Evolent Health finishes its first day of trading on the NYSE at $18.86, up 11 percent from the start of the day.

Hawaii Pulls The Plug On Embattled Health Insurance Exchange

Hawaii will shut down its $130 million, state-run health insurance exchange and migrate to Healthcare.gov after a series of technical failures kept it from meeting key ACA requirements. With one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country, administrators acknowledged that the sites 40,000 users would no generate enough revenue to continue operations after federal subsidies ran out.

Data hacked from U.S. government dates back to 1985: U.S. official

Chinese hackers breach the severs of the US Office of Personnel Management, stealing security clearance and background check data going back to 1985 and affecting nearly four million current and former government employees.  

Morning Headlines 6/5/15

Quality Systems, Inc. Announces Retirement of President and Chief Executive Officer Steven T. Plochocki; Names Rusty Frantz Successor

Quality Systems announces that President and CEO Steven T. Plochocki will retire from the Company, effective June 30, 2015. He will be replaced by Rusty Frantz, former Carefusion SVP/GM.

So What is Interoperability Anyway?

John Halamka, MD and CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, calls for the end of the Meaningful Use program, proposing instead that Congress hold providers accountable for outcomes and let the free market dictate which technologies will work best to pursue those goals.

How hospitals hope to boost ratings on Yelp, HealthGrades, ZocDoc and Vitals

The Washington Post covers the impact patient satisfaction scores are having on clinical economics and the various efforts being undertaken by hospitals and practices to monitor and improve their online reputations.

Former Facebook CFO Ebersman Launches New Health Tech Startup Lyra Health

Former Facebook CFO David Ebersman launches a new business, backed by a seed investment from Venrock, focused on improving population health efforts in the behavioral health space.

Morning Headlines 6/4/15

ICD-10 Medicare FFS End-to-End Testing: April 27 through May 1, 2015

CMS reports the results of its latest end-to-end ICD-10 testing period: 88 percent of the test claims were accepted, up from the 81 percent in February. Two percent were rejected due to invalid ICD-10 codes, while the remaining rejections were due to errors unrelated to ICD-10.

Why CMS should stop Stage 3 of meaningful use

AMA joins the growing list of industry organizations calling on ONC to delay MU3. AMA proposes a one-year pause in the program in 2017, giving providers and vendors a much needed break, before moving forward with MU3 in 2018.

We the people want easy, electronic access to our health information

Farzad Mostashari, MD and former National Coordinator for Health IT, unveils a new petition called Get My Health Data that is soliciting signatures from people that are passionate about patient’s access to medical data. He also encourages patients to test the current environment by requesting their medical records from local health facilities and then reporting issues they run into under the Twitter hashtag #tracer.

Morning Headlines 6/3/15

Partners’ $1.2b patient data system seen as key to future

Partners Healthcare goes live on Epic across nearly all locations except for its Massachusetts General Hospital facility. The total cost of the implementation grew to $1.2 billion, double the $600 million initially budgeted, making it the largest investment the health system has ever made.

Revisit Rates and Associated Costs After an Emergency Department Encounter: A Multistate Analysis

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that 8.2 percent of ED patients will readmit within three-days, often going to a different hospital for the second visit. Skin infections generated the highest rate of revisits at 23 percent, and the second visit was typically far more expensive than the initial encounter.

Comvest Partners Acquires McKesson Care Management Business

McKesson sells its care management system, marketed to payors and risk-bearing health systems, to investors for an undisclosed sum.

Governor: Update fixes health exchange delays

Vermont updates its health insurance exchange to fix problems that were causing delays of up to two-hours for users trying to update their coverage mid-year due to life changes such as marriage or the birth of a new child. The HIE is still unable to enroll businesses, a requirement of ACA, and the governor has reported that he will push to have the requirement dropped before attempting to add the functionality to the site.

Morning Headlines 6/2/15

New Medicare data available to increase transparency on hospital and physician utilization

CMS releases its latest Medicare payment dataset, covering all inpatient and outpatient hospital billing and reimbursement figures for 2013. The latest data breaks down what hospitals charged, and what Medicare reimbursed, for the 100 most common inpatient DRGs and outpatient procedures.

AMA Weighs Ethical Telehealth, Doctor Care Via iPhone

At the 2015 AMA Annual Meeting this week, the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs will debate and vote on a new telehealth policy that will advise doctors on everything from patient privacy, diagnostic procedures, and follow up care.

Providers want CMS to slow down EHR superhighway

Several provider organizations weigh in with their concerns over the proposed MU3 rules, with Catholic Health Initiatives saying “We are concerned that CMS is trying to force providers to move toward meaningful use of EHRs at a pace that is too fast and impossible to meet,” and the AHA saying “We do not yet have sufficient experience at Stage 2 to be confident that the proposals for Stage 3 are feasible and appropriate.”

Morning Headlines 6/1/15

Federal Court rules in favor of Teladoc, blocking Texas Medical Board rule and preserving telehealth in Texas

Dallas-based Teladoc wins an early victory in its anti-trust lawsuit against the Texas Medical Board, which passed a rule earlier this month requiring a face-to-face consultation before any telehealth services could be provided in the state. A US District Court has blocked the rule from going into effect until after the trial.

Report of the AMIA EHR 2020 Task Force on the Status and Future Direction of EHRs

The American Medical Informatics Association publishes the recommendations of its EHR 2020 Task Force in a report on the status and future direction of EHRs.

Erlanger spending $91 million on major IT overhaul

Erlanger Health System approves a $91 million contract to implement Epic across its system, with an additional $97 million budgeted to maintain the system over the next 10 years. The hospital’s selection committee, made up of clinical and operational leaders, voted in favor of Epic 28 to two over Cerner.

Big Data Beats Cancer

IEEE Spectrum profiles John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who helped pioneer several big data initiatives in healthcare and in 2011 turned to big data to help create a personalized treatment plan for his wife when she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer.