Morning Headlines 11/29/18

Atrium Says Hackers Accessed Its Billing Records

Billing services vendor AccuDoc Solutions reveals that a September breach of its database may have impacted over 2 million Atrium Health (NC)  patients. 

HHS Issues Draft Strategy to Reduce Health IT Burden

CMS and ONC seek feedback on draft recommendations for reducing regulatory and administrative burdens caused by health IT and EHRs.

Iranian hackers wanted for hijacking Chicago health data company

Unsealed court documents reveal that two Iranian hackers were responsible for SamSam ransomware attacks on 200 organizations in the US and Canada, including Allscripts.

CVS Health Completes Acquisition of Aetna, Marking the Start of Transforming the Consumer Health Experience

CVS Health wraps up its $70 billion acquisition of Aetna, promising to include digital health tools in its “new innovative healthcare model.”

Morning Headlines 11/28/18

Big Tech Expands Footprint in Health

Amazon will launch a software product for payers that combs through electronic patient records to find incorrect coding or diagnoses in an effort to improve quality and lower cost.

GAO to look into whether Mar-a-Lago trio inappropriately influenced VA

The GAO will investigate rumored VA meddling by three political supporters of President Trump who said they “were anointed by the President” as private citizens, and whom some contend influenced the no-bid, $10 billion Cerner contract.

OVMC, EORH Hope To Have Emergency Rooms Back Online

Systems of two OH and WV hospitals remain down following a ransomware attack Friday, with their EDs remaining on partial diversion.

Vivian Lee quietly left her job as a professor at the University of Utah — after her $1 million salary contract ended and a year of turmoil

Former University of Utah health system CEO Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, MBA joins Verily as president of health platforms.

Morning Headlines 11/27/18

Mental health therapy at Walmart? It’s now a thing

Managed care company Beacon Health Options creates a new business to oversee the launch of mental health clinics in retailers like Walmart, promising virtual access to providers during peak hours.

Black Book Survey of More Than 1,500 Executives Confirms the Changing Role of the Healthcare CIO

The purchasing-decision power of hospital CIOs falls over the last three years from 71 percent to 8 percent, according to a Black Book report.

Patients discharged sooner in hospitals with highest use of electronic health records

A Case Western Reserve University study finds that patients are discharged almost four hours earlier at hospitals that use EHRs at the highest federal standard of implementation.

Morning Headlines 11/26/18

Intelerad Medical Systems Acquires Clario Medical

Intelerad acquires radiologist worklist technology vendor Clario Medical.

Naval Hospital Bremerton’s new medical records system making ‘significant strides’

Fourteen months after going live on MHS Genesis, Naval Hospital Bremerton CMIO Lt. Cmdr. Bryan Wooldrige reports that pharmacy wait times are back to normal, care standards are once again being met, and initial workflow glitches have been ironed out.

Nuance Introduces New PowerScribe One Radiology Reporting Platform Powered by AI and the Cloud

Nuance launches PowerScribe One, a radiology reporting platform that includes AI-powered diagnostic and decision support tools.

Hospitals: Patient information safe in EORH, OVMC computer attack

East Ohio Regional Hospital and Ohio Valley Medical Center go on ED diversion after their systems are attacked by ransomware.

Morning Headlines 11/21/18

Apple in Talks to Give Veterans Access to Electronic Medical Records

Apple and the VA discuss developing software that would enable veterans to transfer medical records to their iPhones.

Jump Technologies Receives $2M in Follow-on Series B Funding, Bringing Total Round to $5.5M

Hospital supply chain management software vendor Jump Technologies raises $2 million with help from Mount Sinai Ventures.

Office 365, Azure users are locked out after a global multi-factor authentication outage

Microsoft brings its cloud-based, multi-factor authentication services for Office 365 back online after a global outage Monday morning.

How Geisinger Health System Reduced Opioid Prescriptions

Geisinger Health (PA) attributes a 30-percent decline in opioid prescriptions to a multi-pronged approach that includes EHR-based interventions, e-prescribing, and access to the state’s PDMP.

Morning Headlines 11/20/18

The health care venture from Amazon, Berkshire and JP Morgan just hired its first female exec, and she comes from a big insurance company

The ABJ health initiative hires Dana Safran (BCBS of Massachusetts) as head of measurement, leading analysts to surmise the still-unnamed joint venture will focus heavily on health data analytics.

Update on our Smart Lens program with Alcon

Citing insufficient consistency in measurements, Verily shuts down its four-year smart contact lens project with the eye-care division of Novartis, which sought to help diabetics manage their disease through tear-based glucose measurement.

Information on Medicare Telehealth

CMS reports that telemedicine utilization by Medicare beneficiaries increased 50 percent between 2014 and 2016, with members in rural areas making up the bulk of visits for mostly mental health and chronic conditions.

Morning Headlines 11/19/18

The 25 most valuable US startups that failed this year

Business Insider lists “The 25 Most Valuable US Startups that Failed This Year,” including four health technology companies that raised a combined $1.1 billion.

The Chopraj Group Launches Imperativ, Inc., Delivering Unique Artificial Intelligence For Healthcare

Industry long-timer and neurosurgeon Gopal Chopra, MBBS, MBA launches healthcare AI company Imperativ.

CommonWell Health Alliance Announces General Availability of Carequality Connection

CommonWell announces GA of its connection to Carequality two years after the organizations announced a connectivity agreement.

Morning Headlines 11/16/18

Lawmakers balk at $350M addition to VA’s health record deal

John Windom, director of the VA’s EHR modernization efforts, says during a congressional hearing that an additional $350 million in personnel costs will be part of the Cerner project’s already $16 billion budget.

Surescripts Prescription Price Transparency Tool Realizes Massive Provider Adoption, Achieves Breakthrough In Healthcare Market

Surescripts announces that its Real-Time Prescription Benefit tool has increased prescriber count 40-fold, and has been used 30 million times within EHRs to look up patient-specific drug price and alternative information.

HIPAA Privacy: Request for Information on Changes to Support, and Remove Barriers to, Coordinated Care

HHS OCR issues an RFI to solicit the public’s views on whether HIPAA rules prevent or discourage providers, payers, and patients from sharing information for care coordination and case management.

Morning Headlines 11/15/18

Mount Sinai Technology Spinout RenalytixAI Completes Initial Public Offering, Raising $29 Million to Combat Kidney Disease

RenalytixAI raises $29 million in an IPO that will be used to fund the launch of AI-enabled applications for the early detection of kidney disease and transplant management.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health teams with Philips on Tele-ICU program

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (NH) will use technology from Philips to develop a tele-ICU program, initially focusing on medical, surgical, and neurology ICUs.

Introducing Veradigm™ Providing Next Generation Healthcare Solutions for Today’s Healthcare Challenges

Allscripts rebrands its Payer & Life Sciences Division to Veradigm, offering clinical workflow, research, and analytics software and services to providers, payers, and health IT and life sciences companies.

Morning Headlines 11/14/18

‘We ran out of money’: High-profile startup seeking to connect patients with clinical trials shuts down

Driver, whose technology matches cancer patients with clinical trials, runs out of cash and shuts down just two months after its high-profile launch.

The new Google Health unit is absorbing health business from DeepMind, Alphabet’s AI research group

Alphabet will move its London-based DeepMind healthcare AI subsidiary under the newly formed Google Health, which will be led by former Geisinger CEO David Feinberg.

LeanTaaS Secures $15 Million in Series C Investment to Accelerate Growth of Its Healthcare Operations Platform

Smart scheduling and throughput technology vendor LeanTaaS raises $15 million in a Series C funding round, increasing its total to $39 million.

Morning Headlines 11/13/18

Veritas Capital Will Acquire Athenahealth for $5.7 Billion

Veritas Capital and Elliott Management subsidiary Evergreen Coast Capital will acquire Athenahealth for $5.7 billion.

FHIR Server for Azure: An open source project for cloud-based health solutions

Microsoft Healthcare releases an open-source project on GitHub to help developers build FHIR-based services and apps in the cloud.

Manatt Adds Prominent Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur

Healthcare venture fund expert Lisa Lisa Suennen will join Manatt Phelps & Phillips as head of its digital and technology businesses (including its healthcare consulting arm), and the firm’s venture capital fund.

Rapid Escalation of Practice Acquisitions Drives Hospital Systems to Merge Hosts of Physician Technology Platforms by 2021, Black Book Survey

Forty percent of hospital-based respondents plan to replace acquired physician practice EHR and PM systems, with Allscripts being the most recommended integrated solution.

Morning Headlines 11/12/18

Veritas Capital, Elliott clinch $5.5 billion acquisition of Athenahealth

Reuters reports that Veritas Capital and Elliott Management will acquire Athenahealth for $135 per share.

Corporate America’s blockchain and bitcoin fever is over

Executives of S&P companies are dropping their references to blockchain in earnings calls, with buzzword-dropping down 80 percent as shareholders stopped believing the hype and share prices stopped increasing.

Hackers stole income, immigration and tax data in Healthcare.gov breach, government confirms

CMS notifies 75,000 Healthcare.gov customers – mostly brokers and agents – that the recent data breach did not expose financial or personal health information. 

Morning Headlines 11/9/18

Google has hired Geisinger’s David Feinberg to lead its health strategy

Google will hire Geisinger President and CEO David Feinberg, MD, MBA to develop its healthcare strategy across its business units.

GetWellNetwork Acquires HealthLoop

Bedside patient engagement company GetWellNetwork acquires HealthLoop, a Silicon Valley-based developer of automated messaging for follow-up care.

Patel to succeed Johnson in Health IT leadership role

Chief Health Information Officer Neal Patel, MD, MPH will replace Chief Informatics Officer Kevin Johnson, MD, MS as head of health IT efforts at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (TN) as of January 1.

Tabula Rasa HealthCare Acquires Cognify an Integration HealthCare Technology Company

Medication safety technology vendor Tabula Rasa HealthCare acquires Cognify, which offers solutions to support the federal PACE program.

Morning Headlines 11/8/18

Focused on Customer Success, Greenway Health Announces the Appointment of Kimberly O’Loughlin to President

After six months with the company as COO, Greenway Health promotes Kimberly O’Loughlin to president.

FDA launches new digital tool to help capture real world data from patients to help inform regulatory decision-making

The FDA will use data collected directly from patients through its new open-source MyStudies app to inform future drug development and medication and device safety efforts.

Mobile Telehealth Company Medici Acquires DocbookMD

Healthcare messaging and virtual visit company Medici acquires competitor DocbookMD from Scrypts for an undisclosed amount.

Morning Headlines 11/7/18

Identifying Electronic Health Record Usability And Safety Challenges In Pediatric Settings

A review of EHR-related pediatric medication events in three hospitals that use Cerner or Epic finds that EHR usability contributed to 36 percent of the reports, while 18 percent appear to have caused patient harm.

Premier Inc. Agrees to Acquire Stanson Health to Integrate Data-Enabled Clinical Decision Support Capabilities within EHRs

Premier will acquire clinical decision support vendor Stanson Health for up to $66.5 million in cash.

Phonak teams up with Microsoft to improve access to hearing care over distance

In what might be the first use of teleaudiology, hearing aid manufacturer Phonak will offer access to hearing care professionals to perform online fitting and tuning via its remote support app.

Morning Headlines 11/6/18

ResMed to Acquire MatrixCare, Expands Out-of-Hospital SaaS Portfolio into Long-Term Care Settings

Connected health vendor ResMed will acquire LTPAC EHR and quality software vendor MatrixCare for $750 million.

Social Determinants Of Health: Holy Grail Or Dead-End Road?

A Forbes article says that addressing social determinants of health can’t improve health outcomes on its own, calling for improving food literacy, enhancing the respectful relationship between patients and providers, and addressing poverty and the lack of economic opportunity that often override health needs.

Exact Sciences signs deal with Epic Systems, hikes sales, widens losses

Madison, WI-based cancer screening test vendor Exact Sciences will implement Epic for “order entry all the way through revenue cycle and customer care.”

Cancer Society Executive Resigns Amid Upset Over Corporate Partnerships

American Cancer Society EVP/Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD resigns after negative reaction to the organization’s commercial partnerships with companies with questionable health credentials, such as Herbalife International, Long John Silver’s, and the Tilted Kilt bar chain.

Morning Headlines 11/5/18

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (MDRX) Q3 2018 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Allscripts executives comment on the potential sale of Netsmart and its plan to increase margins for the former McKesson EIS business, but fail to directly answer a question about plans of its biggest client Northwell Health and make no mention of its Avenel EHR that was announced at HIMSS18.

OpenText to Acquire Liaison Technologies, Inc.

Information management technology vendor OpenText will acquire competitor Liaison Technologies for $310 million in cash.

Like clockwork: How daylight saving time stumps hospital record keeping

Users describe how they work around Epic’s inability to handle documentation entries between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. when clocks are moved back at the end of daylight saving time.

Why Doctors Hate Their Computers

Atul Gawande, writing about his experience with Epic’s go-live at Partners HealthCare, says EHRs were supposed to increase the mastery of doctors over work, but have actually increased work’s mastery over doctors. He quotes an Epic executive’s description of “the Revenge of the Ancillaries,” where the go-live allowed non-doctors to influence their workflow in unproductive ways. He also notes that EHRs have made the problem list nearly worthless and that Epic’s In Basket is “clogged to the point of dysfunction.” He also quotes Partners Chief Client Officer Gregg Meyer, who reminds that Epic is for the patients, not the doctors, and is at least mildly enthusiastic about using scribes.