Morning Headlines 3/23/18

HHS official who approved Tom Price’s flights resigns

John Bardis, the former MedAssets founder who as HHS assistant secretary of administration signed off on the charter flights of long-time friend HHS Secretary Tom Price, resigns effective April 6.

Finger Lakes Health: ‘Minimal patient impact’ from cyber attack

Finger Lakes Health (NY) is still recovering from a ransomware attack over the weekend that forced it to revert to paper-based processes and EHR backups.

The Yelping of the American Doctor

The threat of a negative patient Yelp review holds more sway with physicians than educational campaigns encouraging them to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics.

Morning Headlines 3/22/18

Trump’s pick to lead CDC both celebrated and censured

HHS Secretary Alex Azar announces that HIV/AIDS researcher and 20-year US Army Medical Corps veteran Robert Redfield, MD will become director of the CDC.

Apple EHR Initiative to Expand API Use?

Apple’s EHR initiative takes root as Cerner announces plans to expand its pilot of the Health Records app from four customer sites to nine, and Athenahealth lobbies for a consumer-friendly appointment calendar interface.

Wyoming Department of Health to improve clinical record sharing

The Wyoming Dept. of Health will partner with Medicity to launch a statewide HIE that it hopes to eventually connect to neighboring HIEs in Colorado and South Dakota.

Morning Headlines 3/21/18

VA Open Application Programming Interface Pledge Gains Momentum to Shape a New Direction for Health Care

UPMC Chief Innovation Officer Rasu Shrestha, MD, MBA will lead the VA’s API project that was announced at HIMSS18.

Intermountain Healthcare employees brace for more job cuts as Utah’s largest employer readies to ‘adapt or die’

Intermountain Healthcare employees prepare for another round of layoffs as the Utah-based health system continues cost-cutting efforts to remain competitive with disruptors to the healthcare field like Amazon and Google.

VA-Cerner numbers skyrocket

The VA’s Cerner project will cost $16 billion instead of the previously hinted $10 billion, according to comments made in a House Appropriations Committee by Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL).

Morning Headlines 3/19/18

Technical glitch and market turmoil overshadow Healthineers IPO

Siemens AG raises $5.2 billion in its Healthineers IPO despite technical glitches that delayed the start of business.

Giving patients control of their health information will help give patients control of their health

CMS Administrator Seema Verma and presidential advisor Jared Kushner reiterate the Trump administration’s commitment to the MyHealthEData initiative.

Amazon is hiring a former FDA official to work on its secretive health tech business

Amazon hires the FDA’s first chief health informatics officer, Taha Kass-Hout (Trinity Health), to head up healthcare project business development on its Grand Challenge team.

Morning Headlines 3/16/18

Mediware Announces New Headquarters In Overland Park

Mediware Information Systems will build a 66,000 square-foot global headquarters in Overland Park, KS that it expects to open in mid-2019.

UnitedHealth Group Announces Leadership Actions

Sir Andrew Witty (GlaxoSmithKline) will join Optum as CEO, replacing Larry Renfro, who will become a managing partner of Optum Ventures and its new $100 million fund.

Mount Sinai Announces Appointment of Joel Dudley, PhD, as Executive Vice President for Precision Health

Mount Sinai Health System (NY) taps Icahn School of Medicine Associate Professor Joel Dudley to lead its new Precision Health Enterprise, which will focus on external partnerships with technology companies as part of its strategy to develop personalized therapies for patients.

Morning Headlines 3/15/18

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is not allowed to lead a public company for a decade

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will pay the SEC $500,000 to settle charges that she fraudulently raised over $700 million. She will also be banned from directing a public company for the next decade.

Software snarl riles patients of Danbury network doctors and hospitals

Danbury Hospital (CT) patients express frustration with scheduling and procedure delays resulting from a system-wide Cerner implementation earlier this month at Western Connecticut Health Network.

Springfield agencies will soon get software to better connect and serve

Community Partnership of the Ozarks in Springfield, IL prepares to launch a Mediware software project that will eventually connect 16 healthcare and social services organizations across the region.

Morning Headlines 3/14/18

Electronic Health Record? Comprehensive Health Record? Connected Health Record!

A blog post from UCSF’s Center for Digital Health Innovation takes exception to Epic’s claim that it offers a “comprehensive health record,” pointing out that no EHR can be comprehensive since important information is also generated by numerous entities and sourced from non-clinical settings.

Cognizant Gobbles Up Another US Healthcare IT Services Provider

Cognizant will acquire Louisville, KY-based RCM services vendor Bolder Healthcare Solutions.

Presidential Order Regarding the Proposed Takeover of Qualcomm Incorporated by Broadcom Limited

The White House puts a stop to Broadcom’s hostile takeover of Qualcomm, meaning that medical device information systems and integration vendor Capsule Tech will remain a Qualcomm subsidiary.

Epic won’t challenge Cerner Contract

Epic’s Judy Faulkner says the company won’t challenge the VA’s single-source Cerner contract choice, but she estimates that Epic would have charged at least $3 billion less than Cerner and would have offered more interoperability with providers outside of the VA system.

Morning Headlines 3/13/18

Mercy Health launches new department

Mercy Health (OH) hires former Angel MedFlight Worldwide Air Ambulance Services CEO Jason Siegert to head up its new analytics department, which will bring together business intelligence, and quality and population health analysis to better evaluate data.

Lake Mary firm to close, lay off employees

Greenway Health announces it will close its Lake Mary, FL and Birmingham, AL offices as it continues to consolidate operations at its headquarters in Tampa, FL.

Intermountain Healthcare Launches New Company, Expanding Access to Proven Mental Health Integration Approach

Intermountain Healthcare (UT) spins off Alluceo, a new company that will help providers apply technology to the integration of primary and behavioral healthcare.

Losing Software Bidder Charges University of Illinois is About to Make a $100M Mistake

After making a stink about the amount of money Illinois tax payers will have to pay if the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System moves forward with its Epic contract, Cerner convinces the Illinois Procurement Policy Board to convene all parties to explain their bids and the procurement process.

Morning Headlines 3/12/18

Minneapolis-based Ability Network sells to Inovalon for $1.2 billion

Analytics vendor Inovalon will acquire competitor Ability Network for $1.2 billion, doubling the 2015 investment of the latter’s private equity owners.

Nuance lands a major partner in the health care sector

Epic will integrate Nuance’s AI-powered virtual assistants into its Haiku, Rover, and Cadence software.

Cerner Investment Community Meeting HIMSS Las Vegas -2018

Cerner reps announce during a HIMSS investment presentation that the VA will go live in 48 waves that will begin in Q4 2019 with pilot sites and then run through 2027, while DoD go-lives beyond the pilot sites will start this fall and go live in 23 waves.

Morning Headlines 3/2/18

Healthcare Consulting and Services 2018: Which Firms Deliver a True Partnering Experience?

A new KLAS report that asked providers to rate consulting firms they’ve worked with finds that Nordic and Deloitte were most often perceived as true partners, while Advisory Board was by far the firm providers would not use again because of disappointing outcomes and use of inexperienced consultants.

The SSI Group Announces Acquisition of ICA

The SSI Group acquires Informatics Corporation of America and its CareAlign clinical data aggregation and exchange platform.

Uber, but for Getting to the Hospital

Uber stirs up the healthcare hype with the launch of a HIPAA-compliant service that will enable providers to arrange rides for patients to and from appointments.

Morning Headlines 3/1/18

Intermountain Healthcare boosts digital care for Utah patients with launch of new, more centralized ‘virtual hospital’

In Utah, Intermountain Healthcare brings its 35 telemedicine programs under one roof – that of a 20,000 square-foot facility that will be home to the health system’s new Connect Care Pro virtual hospital services.

Officials say new military health records plan on track, already showing results

Military officials are pleased with the progress of MHS Genesis, comparing the roll out of the Cerner system more favorably to similar implementations last year at three of Cerner’s private-sector customers.

Microsoft rolls out more AI-infused healthcare services, software

In another attempt at relevancy in healthcare, Microsoft launches cloud-based computing tools for precision genomics and AI-powered transcription, as well as security and compliance templates for moving health data to its Azure cloud.

Morning Headlines 2/28/18

EClinicalWorks Launches Acute Care EHR & Revenue Cycle Management Starting at $599 Per Bed Per Month

EClinicalWorks launches a cloud-based hospital EHR/RCM system that will start at $599 per bed per month, with the first live hospital scheduled to be 42-bed Hamilton Healthcare System (TX).

R1 to Acquire Intermedix Corporation

Revenue cycle technology company R1 RCM will acquire Intermedix’s healthcare division, which includes physician and EMS RCM, practice management, and analytics service lines, for $460 million.

Does Fitbit have time to pull off its digital healthcare transformation?

Fitbit reports Q4 revenue of $571 million – $17 million less than analyst estimates, prompting stocks to tumble 15 percent and CEO James Park to stress that the wearables company will focus on “managing down” expenses while expanding its line of smartwatches.

Shulkin: ‘There’s one agenda … and anyone who doesn’t want to do that shouldn’t be in the VA’

At the annual American Legion conference, VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD hints at unrest within the ranks when he makes it clear that those staffers who aren’t on board with the department’s priorities – replacing VistA with Cerner, increasing access to care, and suicide prevention – should get their walking papers in order.

Morning Headlines 2/27/18

New System Makes it Easier for Patients to Talk to Doctors

The Wall Street Journal describes OurNotes, the next step in the OpenNotes movement in which patients will be able to share their own notes with their doctors.

Hospital taking steps to resolve billing issues

Western Missouri Medical Center struggles with its billing system conversion to Cerner, notifying patients that they may receive catch-up bills going back to January 2017.

Apple is launching medical clinics to deliver the ‘world’s best health care experience’ to its employees

Apple will launch two employee clinics near its California headquarters called AC Wellness and is listing open positions for doctors, health coaches, and health behaviors program designers.

Morning Headlines 2/26/18

Changes in hospital bond ratings after the transition to a new electronic health record

Researchers looking at how hospital bond ratings fared after implementing a new EHR conclude that it’s tough to prove any relationship between EHR implementation and the macro financial picture provided by bond ratings, even though ratings announcements often reference either the cost or the financial benefit of a new EHR.

Cerner deal creeps closer

The VA could sign its Cerner mega-deal as early as this week, with both parties agreeing to 50 minor contract changes recommended in Mitre’s interoperability evaluation.

Your next activity tracker could be a pair of glasses

After a year of beta testing, vision care insurance company VSP will give Intel a run for its money with the launch of its Level activity-tracking smart specs.

Morning Headlines 2/23/18

Duke Health First in the US to be Recognized by HIMSS Analytics for its Advanced Analytical Capabilities

Duke Health (NC) becomes the first health system to earn all three HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 capability and maturity honors – ambulatory EHR, acute care EHR, and the new AMAM analytics model of which Duke is the first Stage 7 winner.

VA Partners With DeepMind to Build Machine Learning Tools to Identify Health Risks for Veterans 

Google’s DeepMind Health subsidiary will use de-identified veteran health records to help the VA develop machine learning algorithms that can predict patient deterioration, initially focusing on acute kidney injury.

Bon Secours Health System to merge with Mercy Health of Ohio

Bon Secours Health System and Mercy Health – both Epic shops – will merge to create an $8 billion health system serving seven states across 1,000 facilities.

Morning Headlines 2/22/18

Practice Fusion is scrapping free software model after agreeing to sell to Allscripts

Despite chief executive statements to the contrary, Practice Fusion will start charging customers $100 monthly subscription fees for its previously free EHR software.

Mayo Clinic sees big jump in 2017 earnings

Eight months after kicking off a $1.5 billion Epic implementation, Mayo Clinic officials report a 50-percent increase in earnings that they attribute to reduced Medicaid losses, greater philanthropy gains, increased efficiencies, and strong investment returns.

UVA Health System Notifies 1,882 Patients About Potential Privacy Issue

The University of Virginia Health System notifies nearly 2,000 patients of a malware attack that enabled a hacker to remotely view hospital settings, possibly including PHI, through breached devices.

Morning Headlines 2/21/18

Time to Release Medicare Advantage Claims Data

A JAMA editorial calls for CMS to release Medicare Advantage encounter data to allow taxpayers to see how their money is being spent on its growing number of beneficiaries.

Electronic Health Records Don’t Reduce Administrative Costs

Researchers find that a large academic health system’s certified EHR significantly drives up administrative costs associated with billing and insurance activities.

Leaked Nokia memo says no path forward for ‘struggling’ digital health business

Less than a week after announcing a strategic review of its digital health business, Nokia Chief Strategy Officer Kathrin Buvac tells employees that it will most likely not be a “meaningful part” of the company’s future.