Morning Headlines 5/1/20

Arcadia Enhances Value-based Care & Interoperability Expertise with Acquisition of Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative Assets

Health data and software company Arcadia acquires assets of the Massachusetts EHealth Collaborative, including technology and customer accounts.

Twilio to Power Epic’s New Telehealth Video Offering

Epic will embed telehealth into its EHR using Twilio Programmable Video, which is also used by Kaiser Permanente,  MDLive, Doctor On Demand, and several health systems.

Tampa General, AdventHealth and other Florida hospitals come together to share coronavirus data

Fifty-one hospitals along Florida’s west coast partner with analytics vendor SME Solutions Group to form a collaborative to share COVID-19 patient data through a regional data exchange.

HHS Awards $20 Million to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic through Telehealth

HHS awards $20 million to six organizations to help them expand telemedicine access.

Cleveland Clinic, Epic develop home monitoring tool for COVID-19 patients

Cleveland Clinic works with Epic to customize its MyChart Care Companion remote monitoring technology for chronically ill patients to include COVID-19 care pathways.

Morning Headlines 4/30/20

Apple and Google have begun testing their COVID-19 exposure notification API

Apple and Google deliver an initial version of their exposure notification API to several developers who are working with public health agencies, and promise a broader release in several weeks.

Regions Hospital tests new ventilator tech from Medtronic

Regions Hospital (MN) works with Medtronic to develop software that allows providers to remotely monitor and adjust ventilators.

Current Health partners with the Mayo Clinic for remote coronavirus patient monitoring

Mayo Clinic (MN) will invest in Current Health and work with it to develop COVID-19 predictive and remote-monitoring technologies.

Morning Headlines 4/29/20

IG: Veterans Affairs slow to heed lessons from DoD’s electronic health record rollout

A VA OIG evaluation of the now-postponed first Cerner go-live at at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center finds the VA had not adequately prepared for staffing and patient access issues, or for dealing with missing EHR capabilities that may have compromised patient safety.

Irvine-based company among first to offer COVID-19 antibody testing to employees

EHR vendor Kareo becomes one of the first companies in Southern California to offer free COVID-19 antibody tests to its employees and their families.

Cerner Reports First Quarter 2020 Results

Cerner reports Q1 results: revenue up 2%, adjusted diluted EPS $0.71 vs. $0.61, beating analyst expectations on earnings and missing on revenue.

Particle Health Raises $12M Series A led by Menlo Ventures

Medical record API startup Particle Health raises $12 million in a funding round led by Menlo Ventures.

Morning Headlines 4/28/20

Allscripts trims workforce by 5%, cuts pay for highest earners

Allscripts announces layoffs, which HIStalk readers reported earlier this month, plus pay reductions for high earners and executives like CEO Paul Black, who will see a 40% decrease for an anticipated six months.

Parkview Medical Center confirms cyber attack

Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, CO works to restore its IT systems after an April 21 data breach.

Apple, Google pledge extra privacy protections

Apple and Google will update APIs for their jointly developed COVID-19 exposure tracking software to include randomly generated encryption keys, encryption of Bluetooth metadata, and an exposure time limit of 30 minutes.

Leading Telehealth Platform, Medici, Sees Immense Growth as Virtual Healthcare Continues to Rise

Telemedicine company Medici raises $24 million in a Series B round.

UnitedHealth’s Optum is in advanced talks to acquire remote mental health provider AbleTo for about $470 million

Optum considers acquiring mental telehealth company AbleTo for $470 million.

Morning Headlines 4/27/20

Cerner Provides Access to De-Identified Patient Data for COVID-19 Research and Vaccine Development

Cerner offers health systems and researchers free access to the de-identified data of COVID-19 patients for developing epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and medical treatments.

Mark Zuckerberg: How data can aid the fight against covid-19

Facebook is offering users a coronavirus symptom survey that was created by Carnegie Mellon University, with results from 1 million users per week being sent directly to CMU for predicting disease spread and county-by-county impact.

Bankruptcies, tech-savvy doctors, and data for the greater good: The CEO of health-tech giant Epic shares her predictions for how US healthcare will change after the coronavirus

Epic CEO Judy Faulkner says customers have reported revenue declines of up to 55%; and that post-pandemic mergers, acquisitions, and layoffs are likely, especially as small providers are purchased by large health systems with greater financial reserves.

Private sector races to build virus apps to track employees

Several companies are developing potentially mandatory apps that will monitor the spread of COVID-19 in offices and workplaces.

Morning Headlines 4/24/20

Banner Health $8.9 Million Data Breach Settlement Gets Court Nod

Banner Health (AZ) will pay $8.9 million to settle claims from its 2016 data breach, which exposed the information of 3.7 million patients and health plan members.

The FDA just approved Columbia’s Covid-19 plasma therapy study, backed by Amazon

Amazon commits $2.5 million to an FDA-approved clinical trial at Columbia University that will assess whether plasma from 450 COVID-19 survivors can be used in potential treatments for the virus.

Tech company pays $1.7 million in restitution for defrauding hospital electronic records programs

EHR vendor KPMD pays $1.7 million to settle charges that Southwest Regional Medical Center (OH) falsely attested to state and federal governments that its ED met the requirements for EHR incentive payments even as the hospital was shutting down.

VR telemedicine platform XRHealth raises $7M

XRHealth raises $7 million, bringing the virtual reality-based telemedicine startup’s total funding to $15 million.

Morning Headlines 4/23/20

Cleveland Clinic and SAS share COVID-19 predictive models to help hospitals plan for current and future needs

Cleveland Clinic and SAS make predictive models available on GitHub that can help hospitals better prepare for COVID-19-related impacts on supply chains, capacity, medical devices, and finances.

Nearly 25,000 email addresses and passwords allegedly from NIH, WHO, Gates Foundation and others are dumped online

SITE Intelligent Group discovers that activists have shared 25,000 email addresses and passwords stolen from WHO, NIH, CDC, and the Gates Foundation.

IT services company Cognizant warns customers after ‘Maze’ ransomware attack

IT services company Cognizant – owner of RCM vendor TriZetto – confirms that a ransomware attack has caused service disruptions for some of its clients.

Morning Headlines 4/22/20

Leading Healthcare Companies Announce COVID-19 Research Database

Several healthcare companies create COVID-19 Research Database, a secure repository of de-identified, patient-level, longitudinal datasets from claims and EHRs.

Statements from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Interoperability Flexibilities amid the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

CMS says it will extend deadlines for compliance with final interoperability rules so that healthcare stakeholders can focus on COVID-19-related operations.

Microsoft hires a former GE exec to work with health companies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic

Microsoft hires former GE Healthcare head of imaging Tom McGuinness as its VP of global healthcare.

Morning Headlines 4/21/20

VA, DoD implement new capability for bidirectional sharing of health records with community partners

The VA and DoD launch HIE capabilities, giving government providers the ability to share health data with their private-sector counterparts.

Aledade Raises $64 Million Series C on Nationwide Growth of Value-Based Care Network

Practice management company Aledade plans to expand its California footprint with a new $64 million funding round.

A buzzy healthcare startup that raised $50 million from Andreessen Horowitz 3 months ago just cut staff amid the coronavirus pandemic

After raising $50 million in January, healthcare data and analytics startup Komodo Health lays off 23 employees – nearly 9% of its staff.

Amazon is teasing a new health care offering — for its sellers

Amazon surveys its sellers to determine their satisfaction with current health insurance offerings and their interest in alternative coverage.

Our Healthcare API and other solutions for supporting healthcare and life sciences organizations during the pandemic

After a year in beta, Google Cloud announces GA of its Cloud Healthcare API, which enables the sharing of data between healthcare apps and those built on Google Cloud.

Morning Headlines 4/20/20

Trump Administration Announces New Nursing Homes COVID-19 Transparency Effort

CMS will now require nursing homes to report COVID-19 cases directly to the CDC, and that they inform residents, their families, and representatives of cases in their facilities.

Private Equity Firm sues Intel over Failed Acquisition

A private equity firm sues Intel for failing to consummate a deal in which the firm intended to buy Intel’s Care Innovations remote patient monitoring subsidiary in early 2017.

Enforcement Policy for Digital Health Devices For Treating Psychiatric Disorders During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency

FDA waives limitations on using digital health for treating psychiatric disorders, whether new conditions or created by the public health emergency.

Beaumont Health says 112K patients were impacted by data breach

Beaumont Health (MI) notifies 112,000 patients of a 2019 data breach that compromised employee email accounts and patient information.

Microsoft is launching a ‘plasmabot’ to encourage people who recovered from the virus to donate their plasma as a possible treatment

Microsoft and a group of pharmaceutical companies launch a chatbot that screens recovered COVID-19 patients to determine if they are eligible plasma donors.

Morning Headlines 4/17/20

Representative Population Antibody Study Underway in North Carolina

Wake Forest Baptist Health partners with Scanwell Health to launch a study using at-home antibody testing kits that it hopes will give officials a better understanding of how prevalent the virus is in North Carolina.

FCC Approves First Set of COVID-19 Telehealth Program Applications

Just three days after opening the application window, the FCC awards over $3 million to six healthcare organizations in New York, Atlanta, Cleveland, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh for the purchase of telemedicine services.

AMA & AHA respond to rise in cyber threats exploiting COVID-19 pandemic

The American Medical Association and American Hospital Association create a cybersecurity guide for working from home.

Circle Medical Rapidly Expands Telemedicine Offering with New Investment

Decathlon Capital Partners makes a seven-figure investment in UCSF-affiliated primary care company Circle Medical.

FDA debuts new online portal to encourage donation of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients

The FDA launches a website that connects recovered COVID-19 patients with opportunities to donate their plasma for treatment research.

Morning Headlines 4/16/20

GE Healthcare and Microsoft are bringing a COVID-19 patient monitoring tool to health systems

GE Healthcare and Microsoft retool software originally intended to debut at HIMSS into monitoring software for COVID-19 patients in ICUs.

Meadville hospital’s computer system not yet fully restored after malware attack

Meadville Medical Center (PA) expects to have all of its IT systems back up and running three weeks after a ransomware attack took everything offline.

Alphabet’s health company defends decision to require a Google account to use its coronavirus screening site

Following in Apple’s footsteps, Verily assures senators that its COVID-19 screening website for California residents adheres to data protection standards, and adds that it has no plans to open up the full platform to non-Google account holders.

Morning Headlines 4/15/20

Epic and University Hospital of New Jersey Partner to Lead Statewide Surge Response

Epic donates software and services to the temporary hospital set up in the Meadowlands Exposition Center by University Hospital (NJ).

Mayo Clinic develops COVID-19 tracking tool for staff

Mayo Clinic (MN) develops a tool using EHR data that alerts staff if they come into contact with a COVID-19 patient.

W2O acquires social media analytics platform Symplur

Marketing firm W20 acquires Symplur, a healthcare-specific social media tracking platform that it used to create a coronavirus media tracking tool for the California Life Sciences Association.

Morning Headlines 4/14/20

FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program Application Portal Opens on Monday

The FCC begins accepting applications for its $200 million COVID-19 Telehealth Program, which will help eligible providers purchase infrastructure, services, and devices needed to offer telemedicine during the pandemic.

Apple Responds to Senators Questioning Privacy of Covid-19 Tools

Apple responds to privacy concerns related to its COVID-19 screening app and website, stressing that the tools don’t collect user data, and that they are not bound by HIPAA guidelines.

Rapid roll-out of telehealth services in Iowa: ‘We’re just going crazy with it,’ one doctor says

Health systems in Iowa see telemedicine utilization rates skyrocket as reimbursement restrictions are lifted in light of COVID-19, prompting many to hope that virtual care will become part of their new normal after the pandemic has passed.

Mobilizing AI for Health to fight against COVID-19

As part of its AI for Health project, Microsoft will donate $20 million to advance the use of AI in the fight against COVID-19, particularly in the areas of data and insights, hospital resource allocation, treatment and diagnostics, research, and information dissemination.

Morning Headlines 4/13/20

Apple and Google partner on COVID-19 contact tracing technology

Apple and Google will enhance their mobile devices with an API that will use Bluetooth to perform coronavirus contact tracing to help detect outbreaks.

Bankruptcy judge OKs sale of St. Vincent hospital to Patrick Soon-Shiong

A federal judge approves the $135 million sale of St. Vincent Medical Center (CA) to health IT, life sciences, and publishing mogul Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD who plans to turn it into a COVID-19 research facility.

Doctors at UCLA, UCSF create registry to study coronavirus effects on pregnancy

Researchers at UCLA Health and UC San Francisco launch the PRIORITY study and national data registry to better understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnant and post-partum women.

Morning Headlines 4/10/20

Behind the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard

The Johns Hopkins University and Medicine COVID-19 case-tracking site draws over 1 billion page views each day for its near-real time display of data from WHO, CDC, and other authorities.

The Nation’s Largest Convention Center Being Converted into a COVID-19 Alternative Care Facility in Chicago, To Be Equipped with Epic Health Records Software

The Chicago Department of Public Health will work with Rush University Medical Center to set up a temporary hospital within McCormick Place Convention Center that will use the medical center’s Epic system.

LabCorp and Ciox Health Enter Collaboration to Create Comprehensive Patient Data Registry

LabCorp and HIM vendor Ciox Health will develop a COVID-19 patient data registry for clinical researchers using de-identified lab testing data and data culled from EHRs.

Morning Headlines 4/9/20

Pamela Powers tapped to perform duties as VA’s No.2

President Trump appoints VA Chief of Staff Pamela Powers to the additional role of deputy secretary, making her the top authority over the VA’s EHR modernization project.

Epic Partners with New York Hospitals for COVID-19 Patients Treated at Manhattan’s Javits Center

NYC Health + Hospitals extends its Epic system to the field hospital set up for COVID-19 patients at the Javits Center.

CliniComp International Gets $429M DHA IDIQ to Help Manage Clinical IT Systems

CliniComp secures a $430 million contract to maintain parts of the DoD’s clinical information system while it migrates to Cerner.