Morning Headlines 5/25/17

Congressional Budget Office: HR 1628 American Health Care Act of 2017

CBO reports that by 2026, AHCA will reduce the federal deficit by $119 billion but increase the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million.

Putting America’s Health First: FY2018 President’s Budget for HHS

President Trump’s budget proposal includes a $22 million reduction in ONC’s budget.

U of C receives $100 million donation for new wellness institute

The University of Chicago Medicine receives a $100 million donation, the largest in its organization’s history, from Chicago investor Craig Duchossois and his family. The donation will be used to establish a wellness research center.

Patient Safety and Information Technology

Former National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD speaks at the release of Bipartisan Policy Center’s report on health IT safety.

Morning Headlines 5/24/17

Patient Safety and Information Technology: Improving Information Technology’s Role in Providing Safer Care

The Bipartisan Policy Committee publishes a report on health IT and patient safety, calling for “a coordinated effort—supported by public and private sector funding—to set health IT safety priorities, drawing upon existing reporting and analysis efforts,” in addition to disseminating best practices and continued development of safety standards.

Evaluation of Suicide Prevention Programs in Veterans Health Administration Facilities

An OIG investigation of suicide prevention programs in VHA facilities finds that while veterans account for 18 percent of all deaths from suicide within the US, many VHA facilities still fail to conduct mandatory community outreach activities designed to bolster suicide hotline call volumes.

What Hospital CIOs Think About Data Security and Clinical Mobility 

A survey of 100 hospital CIOs finds that 30 percent of respondents believe PHI is being shared via unsecure methods within their facility.

NantHealth Names Ronald A. Louks as Chief Operating Officer

NantHealth names former BlackBerry President  Ronald Louks as its new COO.

Morning Headlines 5/22/17

How ECMC got hacked by cyber extortionists

A local paper covers the Erie County Medical Center’s (NY) recent ransomware attack, in which hackers likely executed a brute force attack to identify the password needed to access the hospital’s system, after which they manually encrypted system files and then demanded a $44,000 ransom.

Teladoc Expands Virtual Care Capabilities in Texas

After fighting a six-year legal battle regarding the use of telemedicine in Texas, Teladoc wins the right to expand statewide.

MUSC plans to change the way doctors are paid and the doctors are ‘livid’

Medical University Hospital (SC) will stop paying its providers based on the profitability of their department and start using an RVU-based system, a change that has is unpopular within the local physician community.

Morning Headlines 5/19/17

Athenahealth shares soar after Elliott discloses 9.2 percent stake

Athenahealth shares jump 22 percent after hedge fund Elliott Management disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in the company.

ECMC exec on ransomware attack: ‘This is a form of terrorism’

Erie County Medical Center (NY) confirms rumors that the cyberattack that brought its entire network, including email, EHR, and billing systems, was indeed a ransomware attack. Hospital executives declined to pay the ransom and have instead been working to restore services from backups.

“Shoot the messenger:” NYC hospital and vendor threaten DataBreaches.net for reporting on their security failure

DataBreaches.net is served a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center lawyers after reporting that the hospital was exposing patient information due to an improperly configured server.

CHIME National Patient ID Challenge

CHIME announces finalists from its National Patient ID Challenge.

Morning Headlines 5/18/17

Netsmart lands deal to deliver EHR to national behavioral health provider

Compass Health Network (MO), a national non-profit behavioral health network, signs a 10-year agreement to implement Netsmart’s behavioral health EHR and an interoperability platform that will allow it to exchange data with local practices and hospitals.

Upcoming Apple Watch to include game-changing health features

A widely-cited BGR article reports that the next Apple Watch will include non-invasive glucose monitoring technology, a rumor that it attributes to a single, anonymous source.

The Verdict Is In! BiAffect Takes Home The Grand Prize

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announces that BiAffect is the winner of its Mood Challenge, a contest soliciting ResearchKit-based studies of mood and its impact on health and wellbeing.

New York’s single-payer healthcare plan passes in state Assembly

New York’s state Assembly passes The New York Health Act, a single-payer health insurance healthcare bill that would provide universal coverage statewide. The bill has passed the Assembly three times in the past, but has yet to clear the Senate, where the current version will now be sent.

Morning Headlines 5/17/17

Inside Corey Lewandowski’s Failed Romp in Trump’s Swamp

GQ profiles Corey Lewandowski, a one time Trump campaign adviser that launched his own lobby firm after the election, offering access to Trump and influence across government agencies. Health IT vendor Flow Health hired the lobby firm to reverse a decision by the VA to cancel its contract, which it illegally agreed to pay $250,000 for if the decision was reversed.

State Rep. Rehder will file PDMP bill again next year; “I’m a fighter, and I know that we will get this done”

Missouri’s effort to pass prescription drug monitoring program legislation died  Friday afternoon after the Senate added a provision mandating use by providers, a clause the Missouri State Medical Association opposed. The bill then lost support and failed to pass by 6pm Friday, when the 2017 legislative session ended.

Google DeepMind’s use of 1.6m Brits’ medical records to test app was ‘legally inappropriate’

The National Data Guardian at the UK’s Department of Health states in a leaked memo that Google DeepMind’s use of real NHS medical records to test an app designed to diagnose kidney disease was legally "inappropriate.”

Bipartisan bill will be reintroduced to force pharma to justify price hike

A bipartisan group of Senators introduce the Fair Drug Pricing Act, a bill that would require that pharmaceutical companies submit a report to HHS before increasing the price of a drug by 10 percent in one year, or by 25 percent over three years.

Morning Headlines 5/16/17

US defends NSA over WannaCry cyber attack

White House officials refute claims that the NSA deserves any blame for the WannaCry cyberattack after Microsoft President and chief legal officer Brad Smith publish a blog post publically criticizing the agency for losing control of a stockpile of unknown security vulnerabilities, saying “An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen.”

Dr. Gottlieb’s First Remarks to FDA Staff

FDA administrator Scott Gottlieb, MD issues a memo to his staff addressing his view of the agency’s role under his leadership. He discusses the importance of continuing to drive down US smoking rates, the emergency of gene therapies, the need to reduce drug prices, and the implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act.

Ebola outbreak reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo

As a small Ebola outbreak takes hold in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Merck confirms that it has stockpiled 300,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine designed by scientists at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory that has shown “high efficacy in clinical trials and could play a vital role in protecting the most vulnerable” 

Morning Headlines 5/15/17

Finding the kill switch to stop the spread of ransomware

The WannaCry ransomware attack that quickly spread to computers across the globe, including 48 NHS hospitals, is halted after a cybersecurity researcher, noticing that the malicious code routinely pinged an unclaimed domain, registered the domain in his own name, inadvertently halting the spread of the attack.

CareCore Admits to Improperly Authorizing Over 200,000 Procedures Paid For With Medicare and Medicaid Funds

MedSolutions CareCore agrees to a $54 million settlement with OCR, putting an end to the fraud lawsuit brought against the company after it authorized thousands Medicare and Medicaid payments for procedures without validating their medically necessary.

Use IHealth software, not paper, defiant Nanaimo doctors told

In Canada, Island Health announces that it will no longer support alternative workflows for the nine internal medicine doctors that have refused to use the recently implemented, $174 million Cerner EHR, citing patient safety concerns over its CPOE system.

Clover Health Tops $1 Billion Value With Alphabet Backing

Silicon Valley-based health insurance startup Clover Health secures a $130 million Series D investment round led by Google Ventures, bringing the three-year-old startup’s valuation to $1.2 billion.

Death By A Thousand Clicks: Leading Boston Doctors Decry Electronic Medical Records

One year after going live on Epic, three physician leaders from Massachusetts General Hospital pen an opinion piece in a local paper arguing that the administrative burden caused by poorly designed EHRs software is compromising the diagnostic abilities of providers and driving good physicians into early retirement.

Morning Headlines 5/12/17

Genevieve Morris

ONC names Genevieve Morris, MA Principal Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Morris has no clinical background, but worked on HIEs and Meaningful Use prior to taking on her new role.

NantHealth Reports 16% Increase in 2017 First Quarter Total Net Revenue; SaaS Revenue Rose 11% and GPS Adoption Continues to Climb

NantHealth reports Q1 results: revenue up 16 percent to 22.5 million, adjusted EPS –$0.24 vs. –$0.18, missing expectations for both.

Microsoft bets big on AI data with new developer, user features

Cerner is reportedly interested in working with Microsoft’s AI-powered Custom Vision Service, which allows applications to learn the names of items in images users upload. Joe Quint, an director over app development at Cerner, commented “That was very interesting. Being able to use this broadly across a hospital and being able to do image extraction of videos would be very cool.”

Outbreaks, Evolution, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: Topol Talks to Pardis Sabeti

Eric Topol, MD interviews Pardis Sabeti, MD, Dphil, a professor with the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, where she develops algorithms investigating evolution in the genomes of deadly diseases.

Morning Headlines 5/11/17

Modernizing Medicine Announces $231 Million Equity Investment from Warburg Pincus

Specialty EHR vendor Modernizing Medicine takes on a $231 million investment from PE firm Warburg Pincus.

Senate Confirms Scott Gottlieb to Head FDA

The Senate voted 57 to 42 on Tuesday to confirm Scott Gottlieb, MD as commissioner of the FDA.

Aetna fully exits Obamacare exchanges with pull-out in two states

Aetna announces that it will exit the Nebraska and Delaware public exchange markets for the 2018 open enrollment period, the two remaining states where it had still offered plans.

Kaiser raises record $4.4 billion in white-hot hospital bond market

Kaiser Permanente (CA) secures $4.4 billion in funding through three bond offerings. CFO Kathy Lancaster reports that the proceeds will be used to fund expansion.

Morning Headlines 5/10/17

Confidential medical records from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital exposed online by vendor’s error

Bronx-Lebanon Hospital exposes “tens of thousands or even millions” of patient records after a contractor misconfigures its rsync backup.

Teladoc Announces First Quarter 2017 Results

Teladoc reports Q1 results: revenue climbed 60 percent to $43 million, while net losses remained flat. EPS –$0.30 vs. –$0.40, beating analyst expectations on both. Share prices jumped 25 percent on the news.

Intelligent Medical Objects Awarded Patent for Industry-leading Medical Terminology Solution

IMO receives a patent for its “concept-based” terminology management solution.

Cambridge trust set for IT services market test decision this summer

In England, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust announces that it will make a decision on its IT outsourcing contract by the end of summer.

Morning Headlines 5/9/17

FBI Director Invites Hospitals to Reach Out to His Agency

Addressing hospital executives at the annual AHA meeting, FBI Director James Comey calls on executives to report all instances of cyberattacks, explaining, “we have to convince you to talk to us. We will treat you as what you are — as victims. We will explain to you what will happen to any information you give us; we will be open and honest with you.”

GOP Sen. Susan Collins Says Senate Will ‘Start From Scratch’ on Health Care Bill

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) says that the Senate will not take up a vote on the House passed AHCA, and will instead start from scratch and write its own legislation.

Mental health leader Thomas Insel is leaving Alphabet’s Verily

Former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel, MD announces that he is leaving Verily, Alphabet’s life science business. Insel was developing technology that could be used to combat anxiety and depression.

The Internet Is Making Us Lose Trust In Our Doctors

A recent study links exposure to online symptom checker data with a decreased  confidence in a physician’s diagnosis, concluding that “prior exposure to information can ‘prime’ a parent to have a unique bias,” which can damage the doctor patient relationship and alter the care pathway.

Morning Headlines 5/8/17

Warren Buffett, at Berkshire Meeting, Condemns Republican Health Care Bill

Warren Buffet comments on the recent House passage of AHCA, saying the bill amounted to “a huge tax cut for guys like me.” He also said rising health care costs, rather than high taxes, were the biggest drag on American businesses.

VA chief talks commercial Vista

Describing longstanding VA and DoD EHR interoperability issues, Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) tells VA Secretary David Shulkin “You could be the best VA secretary of all time if you solve this one problem,” to which Shulkin agreed and affirmed that he would either replace VistA with a COTS EHR or hand development work over to a private firm, explaining "VA has to get out of the business of being a software developer. This is not our core competency, and I don’t see how it serves veterans.

Big Mega HIT Purchasing Report

A Reaction Data health IT purchasing report notes that inpatient and ambulatory EHR systems sit at the top of the shopping list for healthcare executives, followed by telemedicine solutions, patient engagement solutions, and MACRA implementation services.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (MDRX) Q1 2017 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Allscripts Q1 earnings call affirms its positive Q1 results, noting a 13 percent increase in quarterly bookings, and announcing that it anticipates being accepted into the UK’s London Procurement Program, a sign of potential growth overseas.

Morning Headlines 5/5/17

What’s in the AHCA: The Major Provisions of the Republican Health Bill

The House passes the American Health Care Act in a 217-213 vote. The ACA replacement bill will now head to the Senate for debate.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX)

Allscripts reports Q1 results: revenue climbed 20 percent to $413 million, adjusted EPS $0.13 vs. $0.13.

Doctor On Demand Announces Lab Testing Services to Provide Patients Better Everyday Care

Direct-to-consumer telehealth vendor Doctor On Demand partners with both LabCorp and Quest Diagnostic. The partnership will give Doctor On Demand providers a way of ordering diagnostic tests that consumers can have run locally.

The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data

The Economist argues that data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable resource, and calls for antitrust actions against the technology giants that control the vast majority of data flow.

Morning Headlines 5/4/17

US Hospital EMR Market Share 2017

KLAS publishes its 2017 report on EMR market share finding, not surprisingly, that Epic and Cerner lead, with a fairly even split of 25.8 percent and 24.6 percent respectively, followed by Meditech with 16.6 percent.

Statement of the Honorable David J. Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

VA Secretary David Shulkin testifies before members of the House Appropriations Committee noting that the agency will make a decision on whether to implement a commercial EHR or continue with VistA by July 2017.

Growing Insurance Coverage Did Not Reduce Access To Care For The Continuously Insured

A Health Affairs study concludes that the increased insurance coverage brought about by ACA did not impact access to care for those that were already insured.

Genomic Testing and Precision Medicine in Cancer Care

A Medscape survey of 132 medical oncologists and hematologists finds that most patients do not benefit from genetic testing because results rarely point to evidence-based, clinically actionable changes to a treatment plan. Despite this, 61 percent of respondents still believe the tests are useful.

Morning Headlines 5/3/17

University Hospitals struck by computer outage

University Hospitals (OH) is working through a network outage that began Monday. Details surrounding the cause of the outage have not yet been disclosed.

Cancer patients in limbo as five hospitals suffer ‘major’ IT crash

In England, five major NHS trusts have started cancelling chemotherapy treatments and surgeries after widespread failures within radiology, PACS, dictation, and chemotherapy systems.

Demystifying Patient Matching Algorithms

ONC announces a $75,000 challenge soliciting patient matching algorithms.

Baptist Memorial and Mississippi Baptist Merge

Baptist Memorial Health Care (TN) and Baptist Health Systems (MS) complete their merger, creating a 21-hospital not-for-profit health system.

Morning Headlines 5/2/17

How science fares in the US budget deal

Congress passes a bi-partisan budge that will fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, including a 6 percent bump in NIH funding, and additional funding earmarked to establish a telehealth center of excellence.

Vanderbilt is a case study for the dreaded EHR conversion

Modern Healthcare profiles Epic’s $214 million implementation at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as it prepares for its November go-live.

VA partners with Department of Energy on big-data initiative to improve health care for Veterans

The VA is partnering with the Department of Energy to develop supercomputing capabilities that will analyze health and genomic data to help the VA improve its suicide prevention programs.

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove talks about his decision to step down, time at the helm: Q&A

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove announces that he will retire from his position by the end of the year.