Morning Headlines 7/24/17

Nuance Provides Update on Malware Incident and Business Impact

Nuance lowers its forecasted Q3 revenue by $15 million, citing its ongoing cyberattack related network outages.

athenahealth’s (ATHN) CEO Jonathan Bush on Q2 2017 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

In its earnings call, Athenahealth CEO Jon Bush provides an update on its CFO search, saying, "we’ve initiated a search to identify a permanent CFO and are focused on individuals who can serve as a strong partner to the senior team and to me. And who will bring demonstrated record of operating discipline and value creating capital allocation."

Expanding his medical empire is good for Patrick Soon-Shiong. But is it good for patients?

STAT continues its ongoing investigative reporting of Patrick Soon-Shoing’s business dealings, this time questioning the ethics of his acquisition of six California hospitals.

Morning Headlines 7/21/17

Athenahealth, Inc. Reports Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results

Athenahealth reports Q2 results: revenue climbed 15 percent compared to the same quarter last year, reaching $301 million. Adjusted EPS $0.51 vs. $0.34, beating expectations for both.

Fit for 2020 – Report from the NHS Digital Capability Review

England’s NHS Digital publishes a report outlining its plan to meet its lofty 2020 goals.

Team Trump Used Obamacare Money to Run PR Effort Against It

An investigative report finds that HHS is using taxpayer funding that was supposed to be spent on marketing campaigns to boost ACA enrollment on a series of “viral videos” about individuals that claim to have been harmed by ACA.

Morning Headlines 7/20/17

The US Digital Service Report to Congress: July 2017

In its report to Congress, the US Digital Service provides details on the work it is doing with CMS to develop APIs that “will reduce the cost and burden of participating in CMS programs by enabling the market to build software that interacts directly with Medicare systems and data.”

Trump administration to continue paying cost sharing reductions

The White House announces that it will continue paying cost sharing subsidies to help consumers afford coverage on exchanges through the month of July, but that the subsidies’ status is “undetermined beyond that.”

Trump Demands That Senators Find a Way to Replace Obamacare

One day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged that the newest ACA repeal and replace bill did not have the votes to pass, GOP senators are now pursuing a repeal-only version of the bill that the CBO estimates will increase the number of people without health insurance by 17 million in 2018.

Electronic Health Records Are Stressing Doctors Out

KQED covers the frustrations clinicians are having with EHRs, including increased administrative burden and ongoing interoperability shortcomings.

Morning Headlines 7/19/17

Glass: We’ve All Been Busy

Google revives its Google Glass business with a focus on enterprise sales, rather than consumer applications.

Cleveland Clinic names CIO

Ed Marx, former CIO of University Hospitals(TX) and EVP at the Advisory Board Company, is named the new CIO of Cleveland Clinic.

Gov. Eric Greitens orders prescription drug monitoring program for Missouri

The governor of Missouri signs an executive order mandating that a PDMP be implemented in the state, though the state representatives are questioning the validity of the order because the governor does not have the authority to allocate funding to pay for the project.

Mackenzie Health Launches First in Canada Epic End-to-End Electronic Medical Record

In Canada, Mackenzie Health goes live on Epic across its inpatient and outpatient locations, marking the first system-wide Canadian install for Epic.

City Hall In Your Borough: First Year of Electronic Medical Record System at Two Queens Hospitals Shows Improved Patient Experience

NYC Health+Hospitals calls its Epic implementation a success in a one-year retrospective review of the project.

Morning Headlines 7/18/17

Emids Acquires Encore, Broadens Services to Healthcare Providers

Health IT service provider Emids acquires Encore Health Resources for an undisclosed sum.

Senate Letter to CMS Administrator Seema Verma

Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) send a letter to CMS asking what steps have been taken to recover the EHR Incentive Program overpayments uncovered in a recent OIG investigation.

Taking the Next Step: Deploying a Single Integrated Record across Inpatient and Outpatient Settings at Naval Hospital Oak Harbor

Cerner and the DoD bring Naval Hospital Oak Harbor live on MHS Genesis, its first inpatient setting go-live.

Cerner hires former VA IT strategist for EHR team

Cerner hires former VA chief information strategy officer David Waltman to work on its federal team. During his time at the VA, Waltman worked on the VistA modernization project and DoD/VA interoperability efforts.

Morning Headlines 7/17/17

athenahealth Announces Chief Financial Officer Transition

Athenahealth CFO Karl Stubelis resigns after just a year on the job, while current board member Jack Kane takes on the role of interim CFO. Discussing potential replacements, CEO Jon Bush says, “We intend to focus our CFO search on leaders who bring a record of operating discipline and value-creating capital allocation. I look forward to working closely with the athenahealth Board, especially Jack Kane and Tom Szkutak, former CFO of Amazon, to identify the best individual for the role.”

eClinicalWorks Settlement Reaction Survey

A small survey of providers’ opinions finds that 27 percent report a decrease in confidence in their own EHR vendor following the eClinicalWorks settlement announcement.

KVH in the process of making large-scale electronic medical record switch

A local paper covers Kittitas Valley Healthcare’s (WA) consolidation of various clinical IT systems on a single Cerner implementation.

Morning Headlines 7/14/17

Opioids in Medicare Part D: Concerns about Extreme Use and Questionable Prescribing

An HHS OIG report finds that one in three Medicare Part D beneficiaries received a prescription opioid in 2016, while 90,000 beneficiaries were given extreme amounts of opioids, and 400 prescribers had questionable prescribing patterns.

HGP Releases its Mid-Year Health IT Market Review

Healthcare Growth Partners releases its midyear health IT market review.

Elizzbeth Holmes Just Put Theranos’s Palo Alto Headquarters Up For Rent

Theranos puts its 116,000 square foot Palo Alto headquarters office up for rent.

Mayo launches new $1.5 billion records system

Mayo Clinic brings its first facilities live on its $1.5 billion Epic installation.

Morning Headlines 7/13/17

Improving the Health Records Request Process for Patients

ONC leverages human-centered design principles in its new report on making medical data easier for patients to access.

Enlisting Virtual Reality to Ease Real Pain

The Wall Street Journal profiles the work researchers are doing using VR to treat pain.

Humana And Oscar Partner To Sell Health Plans To Small Businesses

Health insurance startup Oscar Health partners with Humana to begin offering policies to small businesses.

House passes bipartisan FDA user fee bill

The House of Representatives passes legislation reauthorizing the FDA’s ability to collect user fees from drug and device makers, a process that funds much of the FDA’s operations. The Senate still needs to approve its own version, and the two need to be reconciled, before the current authorization expires in September.

Morning Headlines 7/12/17

Celebrating the Life of Neal Patterson

The memorial service for Neal Patterson will be held Thursday, July 13th, at 11am and will be live-streamed.

Nuance Healthcare: Impacted Customer Update

Nuance reports that it will begin holding solution-specific conference calls to update impacted clients on the progress it is making to restore services. Nuance has now been working to restore services for 14 days.

Can Patients Make Recordings of Medical Encounters?

A JAMA review of state laws finds that patients are legally allowed to secretly record clinical encounters in 39 of 50 states and the District of Columbia. A small survey of the general public found that 15 percent of respondents reported having done so in the past.

Neil Woodford-backed healthtech startup Drayson Technologies just raised £10m to make the NHS more digital

In England, Drayson Technologies raises a $13 million Series C funding round to commercialize technology developed with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Morning Headlines 7/11/17

Fewer issuers apply to participate in Health Insurance Exchanges for 2018

A CMS press release cites a 38 percent decline in applications to sell qualified health plans on the federal exchange for the 2018 enrollment period as evidence that ACA is failing.

Digital Health Funding 2017 Midyear Review: A record breaking first half

Rock Health publishes its midyear report on digital health funding, concluding that 2017 is on pace to be a record-setting investment year, despite ongoing legislative uncertainty, with $3.5 billion invested in the first half of the year.

Georgia’s Health Commissioner Named to Lead CDC

Brenda Fitzgerald, MD and public health commissioner of Georgia, is tapped to lead the CDC.

US  to Fund Advanced Brain-Computer Interfaces

DARPA issues $65 million in grants to fund a moonshot effort a developing brain implants that would result in seamless brain-to-computer communications.

Morning Headlines 7/7/17

After the Medicare breach, we should be cautious about moving our health records online

The Australian Federal Police are investigating after discovering that Medicare card details of Australians was available for purchase on the dark web.

The MeDoc Connection

An analysis of the spread of the NotPetya cyberattack concludes that a popular Ukranian accounting software hosted on compromised web servers propagated the attack.

FirstHealth completes major project

FirstHealth (NC) goes live on Epic following an 18 month implementation.

Morning Headlines 7/6/17

Heritage Valley Health System Restores Services at All Locations

Heritage Valley Health System (PA) announces that it has restored network services across all of its hospitals and clinics following a June 27 “NotPetya” cyberattack that forced operations back to paper.

What Jared’s office actually does

Poitico reports that Jared Kushner and his Office of American Innovation worked behind the scenes with VA Secretary David Shulkin and DoD Secretary James Mattis to resolve the agencies longstanding IT issues, brokering an agreement between the two to consolidate on a Cerner EHR platform and approving the VA’s request to side-step normal procurement procedures.

Million Veteran Program Surpasses 580,000 Enrollments; Faces Cut

The Million Veteran Program, a large-scale research project being launched by the VA to study how veterans’ genetic profile, medical history, and military service affect their health, has recruited 580,000 participants, but faces challenges amid cuts to the VA’s research and IT budgets.

Patrick Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks to take over St. Vincent and 5 other California hospitals

NantWorks, the health tech startup of Patrick Soon-Shiong, acquires six California hospitals, to which Soon-Shiong notes “I’ve spent the last decade of my life quietly building this infrastructure. This system will provide an experiment at scale.”

Morning Headlines 7/5/17

Google DeepMind trial failed to comply with data protection law

In England, the Information Commissioner’s Office concludes that Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust broke data privacy laws when it handed 1.6 million patient records over to DeepMind, a Google business unit applying AI to healthcare problems.

Chief medical officer calls for gene testing revolution

England’s Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies, MD focuses the entirety of her annual report on the potential of genetic testing, calling for an increase in the routine use of genomics testing in treatment and preventative care.

T-MSIS Data Not Yet Available for Overseeing Medicaid

An OIG report concludes that adoption of the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System, a database comprised of state and federally reported Medicaid data, is behind because there is no fixed deadline for when States and CMS must begin participating.

Morning Headlines 7/4/17

Roche buys diabetes app firm in digital health push

Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche acquires mySugr, a Vienna-based diabetes management platform, to expand its patient-facing app offerings. Financial details were not disclosed.

The ice bucket challenge, made famous by ALS patient Pete Frates, raised millions. Here’s how the money was used

Pete Frates, the ALS patient behind the Ice Bucket Challenge, has been hospitalized. STAT recaps how the $115 million his idea raised was used.

Building Unity Farm Sanctuary – First Week of July 2017

John Halamka, MD and CIO of BIDMC updates readers on recent improvements he has made around his 60 acre farm.

Morning Headlines 7/3/17

Nuance Healthcare: Impacted Customer Update

In Nuance’s most recent cyberattack update, the company says that its Emdat eScription RH service is being brought back online.

Department of Veterans Affairs IT Project In Danger of ‘Catastrophic Failure’

A $543 million project to implement real-time location service tracking software across VA medical facilities to help track medical equipment has been setback by a slew of previously undisclosed problems, including failed operational tests and questions over whether VA WiFi networks can adequately support the new tracking equipment.

Day 4: Princeton Community Hospital diligently rebuilds network after cyberattack

Princeton Community Hospital (WV) continues to manually rebuild its network following a cyberattack that forced clinicians back to paper. The hospital’s  IT department is installing new hard drives across all of its computer and reports that “fifty-three new computers have been installed throughout the hospital offering clean access to Meditech.”

Patients are losing patience, and they’re speaking out

The Boston Globe reports on patient satisfaction amid the tendency of practices to double book provider schedules, sometimes leaving patients waiting an hour past their scheduled appointment.

Morning Headlines 6/30/17

Nuance Healthcare: Impacted Customer Update

Nuance launches a webpage to keep customers informed of its progress restoring services following a cyberattack that took down its hosted services.

Petya.2017 is a wiper not a ransomware

A blogpost on Petya explains that its not technically ransomware because it does not attempt to solicit money from victims and offers no options for reversing the damage it causes.

Medicare Halts Release of Much-Anticipated Data

CMS cancels the highly anticipated planned release of Medicare Advantage data to researchers, which was scheduled to be released at the annual research meeting of AcademyHealth.

Former DoD acquisition chief Kendall joins Leidos board

Frank Kendall, the former DoD undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, joins the board of directors at Leidos, effective immediately.

Morning Headlines 6/29/17

Cyberattack Causes Surgeons to Cancel Some Operations

The Wall Street Journal covers the global Petya ransomware attack that forced a Pennsylvania-based, two-hospital health system (PA) back to paper.

Merck hit by new global ransomware attack

Pharmaceutical giant Merck’s network is taken offline, a victim of the global Petya ransomware attack.

Survey Finds Doctors Don’t Feel Prepared for Quality Reporting Rules

A survey of 1,000 practice-based physicians involved in MACRA planning finds that fewer than one-in-four feel well prepared to meet its requirements in 2017.

Fast, Precise Cancer Care Is Coming To a Hospital Near You

Wired profiles a recently FDA approved tumor sequencing test from Thermo Fisher Scientific that will tell doctors which treatments will work best to tackle lung cancers.