Morning Headlines 11/12/14

BULLETIN: HIPAA Privacy in Emergency Situations

HHS updates its HIPAA guidance in light of the ongoing Ebola outbreak to authorize disclosure of PHI to any member of the public in danger of contracting the disease.

New AMA Policy Continues Call for Penalties to Be Removed From the Meaningful Use Program

The American Medical Association is calling for MU-related penalties to be dropped and for the program be refocused on interoperability.

KLAS Offers Performance Insights on HIE and EMR Interoperability

KLAS publishes interoperability survey responses that suggests that Cerner offers more advanced interoperability features, but that Epic customers are reporting much higher overall interoperability success.

Walgreens’ Greg Wasson kicks off an extraordinary roster of HIMSS15 keynotes

HIMSS publishes its 2015 annual conference keynote speakers, with Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson kicking off the event and George W. Bush taking the Wednesday afternoon slot.

Morning Headlines 11/11/14

CHIME, HIMSS Letter To HHS

In a just released letter sent to HHS on November 3, CHIME and HIMSS call on Secretary Sylvia Burwell to replace national coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD quickly if her new appointment as Acting Assistant Secretary of Health is going to be permanent, citing the need for leadership that can focus on the ONC in a full time capacity.

Identification of undiagnosed diabetes and quality of diabetes care in the United States

Researchers with Oxford University were able to identify over 60,000 undiagnosed diabetic patients by developing a search algorithm to pour through a data set of 11 million electronic medical records.

AHA unveils toolkit to help hospitals hire veterans

The American Hospital Association partners with the White House Joining Forces initiative and unveils a new toolset designed to connect hospitals with medically trained soldiers now actively looking for civilian employment.

Morning Headlines 11/10/14

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions’ CEO Paul Black on Q3 2014 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Allscripts holds its Q3 earnings call after shedding 15 percent of its share price Thursday on disappointing earnings. CEO Paul Black and CFO Richard Poulton both acknowledged the poor performance, citing lower full system sales and hardware sales, and noted that Q3 is traditionally the slowest quarter for the HCIT industry.

Proposed EHR/Meaningful Use Regulations

The Massachusetts medical board presents its recommendations on how to implement a state law requiring physicians to demonstrate EHR proficiency as a condition of licensure prior to the law’s January 2015 effective date.

Nurse Value-Added and Patient Outcomes in Acute Care

Researchers with the University of Michigan compare data from the hospital’s EHR system and its HR system to evaluate individual nurses and the effect they had on patient outcomes. The study attributed 7.9 percent of variance in patient clinical condition to nursing skill.

Most people don’t know they have the right to view medical records online

In England, only three percent of practices have a patient portal in place despite an April 2015 federal mandate that requires all citizens be given online access to their medical records.

Morning Headlines 11/7/14

Changes in Medical Errors after Implementation of a Handoff Program

A New England Journal of Medicine study finds that implementing a structured process for resident handoff procedures at nine hospitals led to a 23 percent medical error-rate decrease, and a 30 percent decrease in preventable adverse events.

Epic replies to comments made by Cerner CEO Neal Patterson at health conference

Typically media shy,  Epic’s media spokesman responds to charges from Cerner that her company shrugs off its interoperability responsibilities, claiming that, according to KLAS, it is an industry leader in this segment as well.

Allscripts Healthcare: Blue Harbour Group Won’t Go Lightly

Activist investor Blue Harbour Group has increased its stake in Allscripts from five to seven percent.

Morning Headlines 11/6/14

More Problems Expected on Federal Health-Insurance Site in New Year

The Wall Street Journal reports that known bugs and unfinished development efforts on Healthcare.gov will likely cause a fresh set of problems for consumers this enrollment period, including erroneous renewals of cancelled policies and duplicate enrollments for those that try to switch insurers.

AHIMA/eHealth Initiative 2014 ICD-10 Readiness Survey Results

A recent survey conducted by AHIMA finds that 63 percent of health systems will be ready for end-to-end ICD-10 testing by the end of 2014, while 10 percent report that they plan to forgo testing altogether.

Office of Inspector General: Work Plan 2015

HHS’s OIG will increase its focus on EHRs in 2015, according to its recently published work plan. Audits will focus on validating downtime contingency plans, securing medical devices that interface with EHR systems, and verifying entitlement to Meaningful Use incentive payments.

Morning Headlines 11/5/14

HIT Policy Committee

At Tuesday’s HIT Policy Committee meeting, ONC released updated Stage 2 MU attestation numbers. 93 hospitals and 2,282 providers have attested for Stage 2, compared to the 4,000 hospitals and 266,067 providers that attested for Stage 1.

CPSI Announces Third Quarter 2014 Results

CPSI reports Q3 earnings: revenue was up 14 percent to $53 million, while net income jumped 29 percent, EPS $0.83 v $0.66.

Novant Health to cut pay for medical secretaries

Novant Health will demote and reduce the wages of 150 medical secretaries after its EHR implementation eliminates one of their core job functions, order entry.

Cerner will break ground Nov. 12 for $4.45B Three Trails Campus

Cerner will break ground on its $4.45 billion Three Trails Campus construction next week. The project will add 3.7 million square feet of offices and eventually house 16,000 employees.

Morning Headlines 11/4/14

Bids are in for $11B DOD health records system

The deadline to submit a bid on the DoD’s EHR search passed Friday, with submissions from teams proposing Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, and VistA making up the competition.

Oregon’s transition to federal exchange on track

After scrapping its health insurance exchange website after a failed launch in 2013, Oregon reports that it is on track to merge with Healthcare.gov by the November 15 enrollment period.

Onward and upward: Big news at Rock Health

Health IT startup accelerator Rock Health announces that it has raised a new $250 million investment fund and that it will begin offering $250,000 in seed capital to startups accepted to its program, up from $100,000.

CDC National Health Report

The CDC releases its National Health Report which shows a one year jump in life expectancy over the past ten years, topping off at 78.7 years. The increase is attributed to lower heart disease and cancer-related deaths.

Morning Headlines 11/3/14

Revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule

CMS updates its 2015 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, adding a requirement that providers use certified EHRs to support Chronic Care Management, a newly created reimbursable service.

Which electronic health record is better: A or B? Realities of comparing the effectiveness of electronic health records

A Future Medicine article discusses the feasibility of comparing EHR systems through comparative effectiveness research, concluding that there are too many variables that would need to be controlled for in the healthcare setting to be able to make an accurate comparison. The authors suggest that the best route would be comparing specific EHR features, rather than entire EHR platforms.

Epic Systems Corporation v. Tata Consultancy Services

Epic files a lawsuit against India-based Tata Consultancy Services alleging that a Tata employee logged into the Epic’s UserWeb and stole documents containing sensitive intellectual property. Epic says the company intends to use the information to improve its own medication management application.

Castlight Health Announces Third Quarter 2014 Results

Castlight Health reports Q3 earnings: revenue jumped 238 percent to $12.2 million, but despite the increase the company recorded a net loss of $20.3 million for the quarter, EPS -$0.23 vs -$1.58.

Morning Headlines 10/31/14

Epic Systems makes strategic next moves for expansion

Epic confirms that it has constructed a data center on its Verona, WI campus that it will use to begin offering hosted Epic systems to new customers. A backup data center is currently being constructed in Western Wisconsin.

PwC pitches open-source electronic health records

FWC analyzes the VistA EHR bid that PricewaterhouseCoopers and General Dynamics are proposing for the $11 billion DoD deal.

McKesson’s CEO John Hammergren on Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

In its Q2 earnings call, McKesson CEO John Hammergren highlights its $45 billion quarterly revenue, but notes that revenue from its health IT business dipped six percent.  He also mentions plans to monetize its involvement in the CommonWell health data exchange through the expanded use of RelayHealth, the McKesson-owned exchange suite powering the network.

Lockheed Martin to buy health technology firm Systems Made Simple

Lockheed Martin acquires health IT vendor Systems Made Simple for an undisclosed sum. Systems Made Simple targets government contracts, providing data analytics and systems integration support to federal health IT projects, generating $278 million in revenue in 2013.

Morning Headlines 10/30/14

Big health records firm Epic raises DC profile

Epic CEO Judy Faulkner gives a rare interview to Politico to discuss the company’s interoperability performance, explaining “If we don’t speak up, people will believe what others say about us, and an unanswered accusation becomes seen as the truth if you don’t respond.”

Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector

Google unveils its latest X labs project, a pill that delivers millions of antibody-coated nanoparticles into the blood stream where they will live indefinitely, hunting for signs of early-stage cancers, monitoring for concerning blood chemistry changes, and pushing alerts to a wrist-worn health tracker.

Booz Allen buys Boston health analytics start-up Epidemico

Booz Allen Hamilton will buy Boston-based analytics startup Epidemico for an undisclosed sum. Epidemico is the Harvard and MIT spinoff behind HealthMap, a data analytics project that tracks the spread of infectious diseases on a map by analyzing public health data from a variety of sources. HealthMap was recently credited with picking up on the Ebola virus first, weeks before the World Health Organization noticed it.

Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2015

The Cleveland Clinic publishes its list of the top 10 medical innovations set to disrupt healthcare in 2015, with telemedicine-enabled, ambulance-based stroke units coming in at number one.

Morning Headlines 10/29/14

Office of the National Coordinator update

The ONC reports that National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD will continue to lead the organization as she simultaneously takes over her new responsibilities as HHS’s Acting Assistant Secretary of Health.

UnitedHealth Group Unit to Acquire Alere Health

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Health will acquire Alere Health for $600 million. Alere will bring its population health expertise to Optum and will help implement wellness programs aimed at reducing overall health care costs.

Addenbrooke’s Hospital paperless system goes live

Epic goes live at Addenbrooke and Rosie hospitals, the company’s first live sites in the UK.

Health software brings risk of death

In Australia, a risk assessment of IMDsoft’s ICU application calls the system a threat to patient safety after finding that software bugs were contributing to a significant number of near miss medication errors at the nine hospitals using the system. The report predicts that the likelihood of the system contributing to a patient’s death sits between 60 and 90 percent.

Morning Headlines 10/28/14

Practice Fusion Rebuilds Its Electronic Health Record For Apple And Android Tablets

Practice Fusion unveils a new tablet-based version of its EHR, which CEO Ryan Howard says will differentiate it from competitors because “Most vendors’ mobile electronic health record is a half-assed version of desktop.” The company will now shift its focus toward creating a smartphone version.

A Letter from Dean Klag to Governor Chris Christie

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Dean Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH writes a letter to NJ Governor Chris Christie criticizing his newly instituted 21-day involuntary quarantine for care workers returning to the US from West Africa.

Patient-To-Physician Messaging: Volume Nearly Tripled As More Patients Joined System, But Per Capita Rate Plateaued

A study conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center finds that patient-to-physician email traffic has tripled in the last 10 years, but that the per capita rate has stabilized at around 18 messages per month, per 100 patients.

Mass. HIT survey shows high rates of EHR adoption; enthusiastic public

A government run health IT adoption survey soliciting opinions from a group of Massachusetts hospitals and practices finds positive physician support of EHRs, with 82 percent reporting that EHRs improve care, 80 percent reporting that EHRs reduce errors, and 75 percent reporting that EHRs enable better decision making.

Morning Headlines 10/27/14

Cerner Q3 2014 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

In its Q3 earnings call, Cerner representatives address its recent Siemens acquisition, the upcoming DoD EHR deal, and its goal of having “the most open EMR.”

New York-New Jersey Quarantines Fuel Ebola Debate

After a doctor returning from Guinea is diagnosed with Ebola in New York, the state governments for both NY and NJ enact a mandatory 21-day quarantine order for any US aid workers returning from the affected areas. On Friday, a non-symptomatic nurse returning through Newark Liberty International Airport was involuntarily detained and is now being held under quarantine at Newark University Hospital.

FDA Approves Two Faster Ebola Tests

Two new Ebola tests that reduce the time it takes to run an Ebola screening from four hours down to just two hours have been approved for use by the FDA.

Salesforce to make big push into healthcare industry

Reuters reports that Salesforce will begin pursuing sales in the healthcare market, with a formal announcement expected in November.

Morning Headlines 10/24/14

HHS reshuffles amid Ebola crisis

Karen DeSalvo, MD leaves her post leading the ONC to take over as HHS’s acting assistant secretary for health. Interim national coordinator Jacob Reider, MD also announces he will leave ONC in the coming weeks, leaving ONC COO Lisa Lewis to take over as the new acting national coordinator.

HHS Secretary announces $840 million initiative to improve patient care and lower costs

HHS announces $840 million in new grant money that will be used to help provider organizations implement the tools needed to create more coordinated, integrated health systems.

Wikipedia and Facebook for Clinical Documentation

John Halamka MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, calls for clinical documentation, which was designed to support billing needs, to be redesigned as an interdisciplinary communication tool.

Cerner Reports Third Quarter 2014 Results

Cerner reports Q3 results: revenue is up 15 percent to $840 million, adjusted EPS $0.42 vs. 0.35.

Morning Headlines 10/23/14

U.S. government probes medical devices for possible cyber flaws

Reuters reports that the Department of Homeland Security is quietly investigating cybersecurity flaws found in medical devices that government officials suspect could be exploited by hackers.

The Comparative Value of 3 Electronic Sources of Medication Data

A study measuring the accuracy of home medication list data sources compares the actual home medication lists for 858 patients with the data found in the hospital’s EHR, the local HIE, and a commercial ePrescribing network. Researchers found that the EHR had 80 percent of the patient’s home medications accurately listed, while the commercial ePrescribing network had 45 percent, and the local HIE had 37 percent.

Guidance on Personal Protective Equipment To Be Used by Healthcare Workers During Management of Patients with Ebola Virus Disease in US Hospitals

The CDC updates its Ebola personal protective equipment guidelines to specify that no skin should be exposed, and that repeated training with demonstrated competency on infection control standards should be conducted prior to caring for Ebola patients.

Morning Headlines 10/22/14

Obama’s Ebola czar declines to testify

Newly appointed Ebola czar Ron Klain declines a request to testify before the House Oversight Committee over the government’s Ebola response thus far. The hearing, scheduled for Friday, will be just his third day on the job.

NCCN Chemotherapy Order Templates to be Integrated into Epic’s Electronic Health Record

Epic will integrate the evidence-based chemotherapy order templates from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network into its Beacon oncology product.

Athenahealth to expand at Ponce City Market

Athenahealth will expand its Atlanta, GA offices, adding 20,000 square feet immediately, with plans to add an additional 40,000 square feet in 2016.

Morning Headlines 10/21/14

Tech firms vie for $11 billion military healthcare contract as deadline looms

The DoD has extended its EHR RFP deadline by one week, to October 31. The deadline was already extended by two weeks earlier this month. There are currently four EHR vendors known to be competing for the deal: Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, and VistA via Medsphere.

Healthcare IT Leaders Embrace Federal Interoperability Plans

CHIME and HL7 announce that they will partner to lobby for the inclusion of API-based interoperability standards in Meaningful Use Stage 3.

New Affordable Care Act initiative to support care coordination nationwide

CMS announces the ACO Investment Model, a $114 million initiative aimed at providing rural ACOs upfront funding to help them implement advanced health IT systems.