Morning Headlines 4/29/16

Medicare’s new plan for paying doctors: 10 key takeaways

The Advisory Board Company recap’s yesterday’s MIPS and APM incentive proposed rule.

Leidos Holdings, Inc. Reports First Quarter Fiscal Year 2016 Results

Leidos reports Q1 results: revenue grew five percent to $1.31 billion vs. $1.25 billion in the same quarter last year, adjusted EPS $0.72 vs. $0.67. Executives announced that

Athenahealth, Inc. Q1 Profit Rises 47%

Athenahealth reports Q1 results: revenue climbed 24 percent to $256 million vs. 206 million in the same quarter last year, EPS $0.34 vs. $0.24, beating expectations on both.

FDA rejects antipyschotic drug/device combo

The FDA has rejected Proteus Digital Health’s request to embed smart sensors designed to track medication compliance into Otsuka’s antipsychotic medication Abilify.

Morning Headlines 4/28/16

Moving Toward Improved Care Through Information

CMS publishes details on how physicians will be paid under MACRA’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System, including new standards for using EHRs in a program called Advancing Care Information.

Christie says New York joins New Jersey drug monitor program

New York and New Jersey officials agree to start sharing information from each state’s prescription drug monitoring program.

Adam Landman, MD, MS, MIS, MHS, Named Chief Information Officer at Brigham and Women’s Health Care

Adam Landman, MD is named CIO of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Landman had been serving as the hospital’s CMIO for Health Information Innovation and Integration.

2016 Data Breach Investigation Report

Verizon publishes its annual report on data breaches, finding that insider misuse, miscellaneous human errors, and lost or stolen property generated for the most beaches in healthcare in 2015.

Morning Headlines 4/27/16

Nokia Just Made Its First Big Move Into Digital Health

Nokia acquires Withings, a digital health company that markets Bluetooth connected scales, blood pressure cuffs, and other medical devices, for $192 million.

Proposed Sanctions – Conditions Not Met Immediate Jeopardy

CMS publishes the letter it sent to Theranos last month in response to the company’s plan to correct problems found at its California lab, noting that the company’s responses “show a lack of understanding of the CLIA requirements.”

Verisk Analytics, Inc., Signs Definitive Agreement to Sell Its Healthcare Services Business to Veritas Capital for $820 Million

Veritas Capital acquires the health service business of Verisk Analytics for $820 million.

Morning Headlines 4/26/16

What We Mean When We Talk About EvGen Part I: Laying the Foundation for a National System for Evidence Generation

In a blog post, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD calls for greater interoperability and connectivity in healthcare IT in order to help researchers create a national system for evidence generation.

Customizing transitional care for N.C. Medicaid patients

Community Care of North Carolina, which coordinates care for 1.4 million Medicaid beneficiaries in the state, has developed an algorithm-based population health program that has significantly reduced hospitalizations and readmissions for patients with multiple chronic medical conditions.

Augmedix nabs $17M to ‘rehumanize’ doctor/patient relations using Google Glass

Google Glass startup Augmedix raises a $17 million investment round from Catholic Health Initiatives, Dignity Health, Sutter Health, TriHealth Inc., and a fifth anonymous investor. Augmedix is building an app that allows scribes to remotely monitor patient encounters, documenting the visit note and navigating the EHR on behalf of the provider.

Medicare’s New Physician Payment System

Health Affairs discusses the new physician payment system put in place with the passage of MACRA.

Morning Headlines 4/25/16

Lockheed Martin cuts 200 jobs in merger with Leidos

Lockheed Martin lays off 200 from its IT workforce in preparation for its $5 billion IT services merger with Leidos.

Testing electronic health records in the “production” environment: an essential step in the journey to a safe and effective health care system

A JAMIA article calls for testing EHR updates in both the test and production environment used by clinicians.

Vail Valley hospital says former therapist took patient records

Vail Valley Medical Center (CO) will inform 3,118 patients that their records were compromised after a former physical therapist copied their records prior to moving to a new job.

Morning Headlines 4/22/16

An Act To Prevent Opiate Abuse by Strengthening the Controlled Substances Prescription Monitoring Program

Maine will require all narcotics prescriptions to be transmitted electronically after June 1, 2018. Providers will also be required to check the state’s drug monitoring database prior to writing new prescriptions.

Rejecting employees’ pleas, EmblemHealth CEO sets major IT layoff

New York insurer EmblemHealth will lay off 250 IT and operations employees after contracting with Cognizant to modernize the company’s IT systems.

Hospital’s dispute with software provider puts patients at risk

A local TV station reports that patients at Parrish Medical Center (FL) are at risk after McKesson blocked the hospital from updating the drug formulary in its Horizon system. The hospital is in the process of suing McKesson over the implementation, which it says included unfinished software, missed deadlines, and monetary disputes.

Centra Selects Cerner’s Enterprise-Wide IT System

Five-hospital health system Centra (VA) contracts with Cerner to replace EHRs in use at each of its hospitals and 50 ambulatory and long-term care facilities.

Morning Headlines 4/20/16

Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by US

Federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation to determine whether Theranos misled investors about the state of its technology and operations.

Major Health Insurer Bailing On Most Obamacare Exchanges

UnitedHealth Group pulls its plans from ACA exchanges, citing $1 billion in losses from the markets over the past two years.

Health apps: Unlimited promise or ‘like having a really bad doctor’

The LA Times highlights the persistently poor clinical quality of consumer-focused medical apps, citing concerns over diabetes management apps that do not instruct users to call 911 when their sugar levels are dangerously low, or apps for people with depression that do not recommend calling a suicide hotline when users report feeling unsafe or suicidal.

Movie stars have their uses: medical science isn’t one of them

The Guardian discusses the role movie stars have in forming public health opinions after Robert De Niro lobbied to have a discredited movie about the risks associated with vaccinations included in the Tribeca Film Festival.

Morning Headlines 4/19/16

Theranos Chief Elizabeth Holmes Is ‘Devastated’ Over Lab Deficiencies

Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes responds to federal calls for her ban from the blood testing industry, saying she is “devastated that we did not catch and fix these issues faster.”

CMS drops two-midnight rule’s inpatient payment cuts

CMS will stop imposing inpatient payment cuts to hospitals under the two-midnight rule.

Celebrating the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act’s First Birthday

Acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt discusses the impact MACRA is expected to have on healthcare reform on the one-year anniversary of its passage.

Why Medical Devices Aren’t Safer

The New York Times argues for more robust tracking of implantable medical devices.

Morning Headlines 4/18/16

Epic Systems wins $940 mln U.S. jury verdict in Tata trade secret case

Epic wins its trade secret lawsuit against Indian IT firm Tata Consultancies. A judge awarded Epic $240 million in compensatory damages and $700 million in punitive damages after concluding that Tata employees illegally accessed Epic’s customer website and accessed proprietary information.

VA teases plans for new ‘state-of-the-art’ digital health platform

VA CIO LaVerne Council says she will unveil plans for a “new digital health platform” to replace VistA.

Nova Scotia spends $39M on electronic medical records push

After spending $39 million in incentive payments to encourage EHR adoption, Nova Scotia continues to rely on faxes to communicate between facilities.

Kansas City TIF Commission approves financing agreement for huge Cerner redevelopment

Kansas City approves a reimbursement plan to repay Cerner $1.75 billion of the $4.45 billion it is spending to build its new campus.

Morning Headlines 4/15/16

Missing clinical and behavioral health data in a large electronic health record (EHR) system

A JAMIA study comparing clinical data from an EHR with data from insurance claims finds that EHR data is incomplete, missing information on care delivered outside of the organization.

athenahealth Announces Acquisition of Arsenal Health, formerly known as Smart Scheduling, Inc

Athenahealth acquires former More Disruption Please startup Arsenal Health, a company building schedule optimization solutions.

Economic Outlook: Spring 2016 C-Suite Survey

A small survey of health executives finds that only 38 percent of organizations are successfully accessing ambulatory data from non-employed physicians, while 84 percent of respondents report that health IT will continue to be the area where most significant capital investments are made.

Morning Headlines 4/12/16

CMS launches largest-ever multi-payer initiative to improve primary care in America

CMS launches the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus model, a value-based payment program that will give PCPs more financial flexibility when caring for the chronically ill.

Tracking The Impact Of The Affordable Care Act In Kentucky

The Foundation for a Health Kentucky publishes a report studying Kentucky’s implementation of the ACA and its impact on coverage, access, costs, quality of care, and health outcomes.

Security flaws found in 3 state health insurance websites

The AP reports that federal investigators have identified significant cybersecurity weaknesses in the state insurance exchanges in California, Kentucky, and Vermont.

This Intel Healthcare Guru Is About to Head a Major Government Project

The NIH announces that Eric Dishman, general manager of Intel’s Health and Life Sciences Division, will head up Obama’s recently launched Precision Medicine Initiative.

Morning Headlines 4/11/16

Dell: The going rate for a hacker to break into a Gmail account is $130

Dell Security Works publishes its annual Underground Hackers Markets report, which lists the typical cost of various black hat services, including hacking email and social media accounts, running DDoS attacks, and stealing bank account information.

Lessons From More Than A Decade In Patient Portals

In a Health Affairs article, Kaiser Permanente researchers outline lessons learned in the ten years since implementing its patient portal.

Pfizer Taps IBM for Research Collaboration to Transform Parkinson’s Disease Care

Pfizer partners with IBM to co-develop remote patient monitoring solutions for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Sentient Technologies is using AI to tackle deadly diseases

Artificial Intelligence company Sentient Technologies sets its sights on healthcare with AI nurse, a system that forecasts changes in a patient’s condition, predicting sepsis and other critical conditions.

Morning Headlines 4/8/16

MHS Genesis rolls out as name for new electronic health record

The DoD brands its Cerner implementation project MHS Genesis.

Hospitals’ Computerized Systems Proven to Prevent Medication Errors, but More is Needed to Protect Patients from Harm or Death

A new report finds that CPOE systems fail to flag 39 percent of potentially harmful drug orders and 13 percent of potentially fatal drug orders.

MedStar disputes report it ignored warnings that led to attack

MedStar disputes recent allegations that the ransomware attack it suffered exploited known security flaws from 2007 and could have been prevented with a simple software update.

As hospitals go digital, human stories get left behind

A physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MA) argues that EHRs fail to capture a meaningful patient story, arguing that EHRs mask “how one symptom relates to another, the emotional context in which the symptoms or events occurred, or the thought process of the physician trying to pull together individual strands of data into a coherent narrative.”

Morning Headlines 4/7/16

Allergan, Pfizer call off proposed $160B merger

Pfizer backs out of its plan to acquire Allegran and move its headquarters to Ireland for tax reasons after the Treasury Department put new rules in places to make tax inversions less lucrative.

National Health IT Coordinator Says Technology Can Help Unblock Patient Data Access

National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD discusses health data portability, information blocking, and cloud technology in a Wall Street Journal interview.

Better Health Care: A Way Forward

Former National Coordinator David Blumenthal writes a JAMA op-ed on improving access, cost, and quality of care.

It’s Time To Stop Pretending Patients Don’t Care About Their Medical Records

Fast Company discusses barriers to expanding patient access to their medical information after an informal internet survey finds that 77 percent of patients are very interested in having access to the information.

Morning Headlines 4/5/16

New York’s Epic EHR ‘go-lives’ please officials, staff

Two NYC Health & Hospitals facilities are live with Epic after an April 1 go-live that a spokesman for the health system went well, explaining, “There were minor issues, but they were dealt with right away.”

Theranos Devices Often Failed Accuracy Requirements

A newly released CMS inspection report confirms that Theranos’ proprietary blood testing analyzer, Edison, failed internal quality control tests 29 percent of the time, while its California lab was also cited for doing tests with unqualified personnel and storing samples at the wrong temperatures.

Proteus Digital Health Presents Interim Results at ACC From a Randomized Controlled Clinical Study of Proteus Discover

Proteus Digital Health announces interim results from an RCT study of its smartpill technology, finding that its smartpill technology improves blood pressure control in hypertension patients significantly. 85 percent of patients using the smartpill achieved their target blood pressure within four weeks, while only 33 percent of participants in a control group receiving traditional care were able to do the same.

AMA taking bigger role in key IT initiatives

Michael Hodgkins, MD, CMIO of the American Medical Association, discusses interoperability and his role on the board of the Sequoia Project, formerly Healtheway.

Morning Headlines 4/4/16

Ransomware and Recent Variants

The US Department of Homeland Security issues a ransomware alert focused on the recent increase in healthcare-focused attacks. Alvarado Hospital Medical Center (CA) and Knings Daughters Health (IN) are both hit with new ransomware attacks.

Fitch Affirms Baptist Health Care’s Rev Bonds at ‘A-‘; Outlook Stable

Fitch affirms the A- bond rating of Baptist Health Care Corporation (FL) but notes that EHR-related training costs will impact profits.

e-MDs Finalizes Acquisition of Software Technology Assets from McKesson

e-MDs completes its acquisition of McKesson ambulatory products Practice Choice, Medisoft, Medisoft Clinical, Lytec, Lytec MD, and Practice Partner.

Trades executed – or killed – by final medical opinion

A Cincinnati paper discusses the medical review process involved in baseball contracts, highlighting the MLB-wide EHR that went live in 2010 and houses medical information on every player from every team in one centralized, online database.

Morning Headlines 3/31/16

MedStar Health Update Regarding Computer Downtime

MedStar restores access to its major clinical systems 48 hours after a malware attack crippled the systems network.

It’s game over for the robot intended to replace anesthesiologists

Johnson & Johnson announces that it is pulling the plug on its anesthesiology robot Sedasys because of poor sales.

Analysis of clinical decision support system malfunctions: a case series and survey

A study published in JAMIA analyzing clinical decision support malfunctions at Brigham and Women’s Hospital concludes that malfunctions occur frequently and often go undetected. 93 percent of surveyed CMIO’s reported having experienced a CDS malfunction.

Details of Anthem’s massive cyberattack remain in the dark a year later

A year after a cyberattack that left the medical information of 78 million people exposed, the FBI is still investigating the attack and little new information has come to the surface.