Morning Headlines 3/14/14

Validic Secures $1.25 Million in New Funding, Adds Key Executives

Durham, NC-based Validic closes a $1.25 million convertible note to support expansion for its mHealth integration engine.

MMRGlobal and Cerner Announce Patent Agreement

Cerner signs a confidential agreement with MMRGlobal over MMR’s Personal Health Record patents.

Unique Database Collaboration Will Enable Improved Care for Heart and Lung Surgery Patients

The Society of Thorasic Surgeons will link its database with CMS to provide researchers a means of tracking long-term outcomes.

Wearable Computing at BIDMC

John Halamka, MD, CIO at BIDMC, writes about his hospital’s trial use of Google Glass in the ED.

Morning Headlines 3/13/14

Late on restatement, Accretive expects stock to be delisted

Accretive Health, a healthcare focused revenue cycle management firm and debt collector, announces that it will miss its deadline to file restated financial statements and expects that the NYSE will delist it as a result.

GAO comes down on meaningful use program

A GAO report finds that the EHR Incentive Program is not helping CMS improve overall quality because there are "reliability issues" within the clinical quality measures data that is being collected. The report concludes, "Although HHS expects that the use of EHRs can help achieve improved outcomes and support other efforts that are also intended to improve care, that result is not yet assured."

EHR Incentive Program Exceeds $22.5 Billion Payout Estimate

According to the January 2014 EHR Incentive Payment report, $22.7 billion has been paid out in incentive payments to hospitals and providers thus far, passing CMS’s estimate for what the total cost would be for the program over a 10-year timeframe.

Leidos Awarded Contracts by Department of Veterans Affairs

Leidos, an SAIC spinoff made up of former MaxIT and Vitalize consulting firms, signs a $16 million deal with the VA to provide IT support for several health IT initiatives, including technical development services for the VA’s Repositories Program, an project that will consolidate administrative and clinical data from across all VA sites into a single set of databases that centralize EHR data within the VA.

Morning Headlines 3/12/14

Federal panel approves MU Stage 3 recommendations

The Health IT Policy Committee approves the Stage 3 Meaningful Use requirements that were recommended by its health policy workgroup, but only after cutting 30 percent of the functionality that was originally proposed.

2014 CEHRT Hardship Exception Guidance

CMS publishes its revised hardship exemption criteria for EHs and EPs. The new criteria essentially rubber stamps the exemption application for anyone that asks for one so long as they report "2014 Vendor Issues" in their request.

Carolinas HealthCare seeks to cut costs through prevention, technology

Carolinas HealthCare System is turning to predictive analytics to help identify ED patients that would likely be readmitted so that preventative measures can be taken. The hospital recorded a $5 million loss this year, its first loss in 30 years, and executives hope that analyzing the data from its EHR system will help it recover that loss.

Integrating Electronic Health Records into Clinical Workflow

A report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology finds that ambulatory EHR vendors are not doing a good enough job building key clinical workflows into EHR software.

Morning Headlines 3/11/14

GOP senators want specifics on hardship exemptions

Six Republican senators are calling on CMS to provide more details on its plan to grant healthcare providers more lenient hardship exemptions for Stage 2 Meaningful Use.

Coroner blames "failure" of NHS computer system for boy’s death

In England, a coroner at Royal United Hospital blames a new outpatient scheduling system in his report after a three-year-old boy passes away because he missed months of appointments booked to monitor a heart condition. The appointments were properly scheduled but were lost when the hospital migrated its scheduling data to the new system.

County Government Settles Potential HIPAA Violations

The HHS Office of Civil Rights settles a HIPAA violation with Skagit County, WA for $215,000. The case marks the first time that the OCR has targeted a county government.

Morning Headlines 3/10/14

M*Modal Preparing to File for Bankruptcy

M*Modal will file for bankruptcy in the next two weeks in order to restructure its $750 million in debt.

Inside the Making of Obamacare

White House special adviser on health policy, Ezekiel Emanuel publishes a recap of the major political hurdles the Affordable Care Act had to jump on its way to becoming a law. One major issue he cites was with Medicare officials who pushed back on payment reform because it claimed that it did not have the computer infrastructure to support bundle payments.

Bain, Lemhi Seeking Buyer for Health-Care IT Company Ability Network

The PE firm that owns Ability Network Inc. is shopping the company around for a rumored $500 million. Ability provides web-based CMS claims processing.

Morning Headlines 3/7/14

Moody’s: 6 Hospitals With Credit Challenges Related to EHRs

Moody’s recaps the EHR-related credit downgrades that took place at US hospitals during 2013.

Use of Telemedicine Can Reduce Hospitalizations of Nursing Home Residents and Generate Savings for Medicare

A Commonwealth Fund study finds that nursing homes that used telemedicine to provide after-hours care significantly reduced hospitalization rates for their residents, compared with facilities not using this service.

Effects of Meaningful Use Functionalities on Health Care Quality, Safety, and Efficiency

ONC publishes a dashboard that consolidates 2010-2013 literature focused on MU related outcomes changes.

HIE solutions see drop in provider satisfaction

KLAS rates HIE solutions and finds that Epic, Orion, and Siemens are doing the best. Researchers note that “What is surprising is that despite the millions of dollars HIE vendors invested to add needed functionality, only about half of them are seeing their provider satisfaction scores improve."

Morning Headlines 3/6/14

Kaiser Permanente board member quits amid questions over conflicts

Dr. Christine Cassel, chief executive of the National Quality Forum, quits her board positions with Kaiser Permanente and Premier Inc. after ProPublica reported that she was being paid a cumulative $400,000 for her advisory role with the companies.

Defense Health Agency Wants More Money For IT Operations In 2015

The DHA has requested $1.6 billion to support operations and maintenance of its health information management systems in 2015, seven percent more than its 2014 budget.

Obama’s Budget for 2015: 10 Points for Hospitals Know

Becker’s Hospital Review evaluates President Barak Obama’s 2015 budget proposal, highlighting Medicare payment reforms, critical access hospital reimbursement changes, and increased funding for Medicaid/Medicare fraud detection programs.

US health information breaches up 137%

More than seven million health records in the United States were affected by data breaches in 2013, an increase of 137% over the previous year, according to the annual breach report..

Morning Headlines 3/5/14

FCC Chairman Announces New Connect2Health Task Force

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announces the formation of a new task force that will work to accelerate the adoption of health care technologies by leveraging broadband and other communications services.

Association Between Participation in a Multipayer Medical Home Intervention and Changes in Quality, Utilization, and Costs of Care

JAMA publishes a study following the performance of a Patient Centered Medical Home from its launch in 2008 through 2011, and concludes that participation in a PCMH does not directly correlate to reductions in utilization of hospital, emergency department, or ambulatory care services or reductions in total costs of care over three years.

Wake Forest Baptist’s operational revenue rises in second quarter of fiscal 2014

Wake Forest Baptist’s chief financial officer credits reduced expenses related to its Epic implementation in part for its financial turnaround. The medical center reported a loss of $23.5 million, an improvement compared with a loss of $49.8 million for the same period in the previous year.

Castlight Health amends IPO filing, hopes to raises up to $140 million

Castlight Health has updated its February IPO filing to reflect that it plans to sell between 11 million and 12.6 million shares of common stock for  $9 to $11 per share, bringing the total it hopes to raise to $140 million.

Morning Headlines 3/4/14

TELUS Health Acquires British Columbia-Based Electronic Medical Record Provider Med Access Inc.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based TELUS Health acquires Med Access Inc., an ambulatory EHR vendor that services 2,000 physicians across Canada. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Impact of Patient Portal Secure Messages and Electronic Visits on Adult Primary Care Office Visits

A new study published in Telemedicine and e-Health follows 2,357 patients for three years following a patient portal implementation and finds that rolling out secure messaging has no impact on total volume of office visits.

Saudi Arabia is Building a Massive Nationwide eHealth Network

Saudi Arabia publishes a 10-year eHealth strategy that calls for an integrated national-wide health information network that will connect 3,500 healthcare facilities, representing 70,000 beds.

Morning Headlines 3/3/14

VA and DOD Need to Support Cost and Schedule Claims, Develop Interoperability Plans, and Improve Collaboration

The General Accounting Office analyzes the VA/DoD decision to abandon its iEHR development program last February. The resulting report suggests that the departments cancelled the project without ever evaluating the impact it would have on the overall cost and timeline of their interoperability goals.

How the Medical Establishment Got the Treasury’s Keys

Uwe E. Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton, dissects the formation of Medicare and the subsequent battles for payment reform fought between the federal government and healthcare providers.

McKesson Announces Further Changes to Corporate Governance and Compensation Practices

McKesson CEO John Hammergren voluntarily reduces his pension’s total value from $159 million to $114 million following outrage from shareholders.

Greenway Extends Patient Engagement Service with Acquisition of PeopleLYNK

Greenway acquires PeopleLYNK, a patient engagement tool that automates the process of sending patient reminders, lab results, prescription notifications, and clinical alerts.

Morning Headlines 2/28/14

Intermountain to Miss 2014 Meaningful Use Attestation Deadline, Citing Safety Concerns

Intermountain Healthcare CIO Marc Probst says the organization is not planning to attest for meaningful use Stage 2 in 2014, forgoing a sizable incentive payment and triggering penalties in 2016 from CMS.

ICD-10 deadline won’t be delayed, Tavenner tells HIMSS

During a press conference at HIMSS CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner announced that there would be no deadline extensions for either ICD-10 or meaningful use Stage 2, but that it would be more flexible with hardship exemption applications from providers that are unable to meet Stage 2 MU on time.

NY startups make the case for funding HIE

New York’s 10 independent and disconnected regional health information exchanges are applying for $65 million in state funding to connect to the Statewide Health Information Network of New York, or SHIN-NY.

Oracle pulls 100 programmers from unfinished Cover Oregon health insurance exchange

Oracle, the main contractor responsible for the failed Oregon health insurance exchange, has reassigned 100 of the 165 programmers working on the project even though the site is still non-operational and plagued with bugs.

Morning Headlines 2/27/14

Top healthcare groups petition HHS for meaningful-use extensions

50 influential healthcare groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, send a letter to HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking that MU stage 2 be delayed due to a lack of EHR vendors meeting 2014 edition certification standards.

Framework for I.T. Regulation Slated to Reach Congress in March

Representatives of the FDA, ONC and FCC all promise that the now overdue report on a risk-based regulatory framework for health I.T will be published as a draft version by the end of March

Congress wants to kick the FDA out of digital health with this new bill

A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would remove the FDA’s regulatory authority over all but "high risk" digital health technologies.

Health law cybersecurity challenges

An AP report shows that more than two-thirds of state-run health insurance exchanges were rated as having "high risk" security vulnerabilities just after their launch.

Morning Headlines 2/26/14

Carequality Launches Significant Industry-Wide Effort Focused On Achieving Interoperability Between Existing and Emerging HIE Networks

HealtheWay, formerly known as the Nationwide Health Information Network Exchange, partners with Epic, Meditech, eClinicalWorks, Greenway, CVS, Walgreens, UnitedHealth Group, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, and others to create a wide-reaching health information exchange.

Cleveland Clinic, Dell collaborate on EHR service

Dell and Cleveland Clinic announce a partnership to offer EHR consulting services for hospitals implementing Epic.

A New One-Stop Shop for eHealth

CMS launches eHealth University at HIMSS14, a website designed for providers that consolidates information on various health IT programs and requirements.

Morning Headlines 2/25/14

Introducing the Blue Button Connector

On opening day at HIMSS, ONC unveils the Blue Button Connector, an open-source website created to help patients view and download a centralized patient record that houses information from all contributing Blue Button partners.

CMS, ONC foretell aligned initiatives

ONC suggests that it may combine various incentive programs, as Karen DeSalvo explains "HHS is working to harmonize its various programs to create a more seamless and streamlined way to capture the info necessary for VBP and ACOs,” said national coordinator referring to value-based payments and accountable care.”

Practice Fusion Strikes Medical Device Deals to Offer Docs Real-Time Data

Practice Fusion announces a new partnership with AliveCor and Diasend that will allow it to integrate ECGs, insulin levels, and glucose levels into the ambulatory EHR in real-time. 

U.S. Veterans Health Administration Leverages New Nuance Cloud-Based Dragon Medical Solution to Optimize Physician Experience

The VA will implement Nuance’s cloud-based speech recognition system.

Morning Headlines 2/24/14

3M to Acquire Treo Solutions

3M announces that it will acquire Treo Solutions, a data analytics and business intelligence company that caters to healthcare payers and providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Deloitte announces the launch of ConvergeHEALTH

Deloitte invests $150 million in a new business unit called ConvergeHEALTH that will focus on developing data analytics solutions and services for healthcare.

Next edition of electronic health record technology certification criteria issued

ONC publishes its proposed 2015 EHR certification standards. The new standards are voluntary, meaning that vendors are not required to support them and providers are not required to implement them in order to predicate in Meaningful Use.

HIMSS 14 Coverage: ONC’s Fridsma Says ‘Jury Still Out’ on Stage 2 Progress

Doug Fridsma, MD and chief science officer for ONC, states during his pre-HIMSS keynote speech on Sunday that, while the nation’s health systems are making good progress toward achieving the EHR adoption requirements outlined in stage 1 MU, "the jury is still out" on meeting stage 2 requirements.

Morning Headlines 2/21/14

Allscripts announces fourth quarter and 2013 results

Allscripts reports Q4 2013 results: bookings are up 53 percent year-over-year, but revenue remained flat. Adjusted EPS of $0.08 vs. $0.16, meeting analysts estimates.

Sixteen Health Information Organizations Join Forces As Founding Members Of The Mid-States Consortium Of Health Information Organizations

16 HIEs in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states announce that they will work together to advance interoperability in the region.

Mayo Clinic physicians spin out a digital health company & secure $1.1M

A group of physicians from the Mayo Clinic are launching a startup called Ambient Clinical Analytics that will offer mobile-based tools for physicians including surveillance alerts and an EMR viewer that uses analytics to filter the most pertinent information about the patient to the forefront.

Epic opportunity: The software giant is positioning Dane County for an economic breakthrough

A local paper covers the economic impact Epic is having on the Madison community, citing the $60k – $100k average salaries and quickly growing employee base. The Madison planning chief estimated that Epic could hit 10,000 employees by 2018.

Morning Headlines 2/20/14

About-face: CMS to conduct ICD-10 end-to-end testing

CMS reverses its original position on ICD-10 testing, announcing that it will conduct end-to-end testing with a group of chosen practices prior to the October 1 switchover.

QUEST: High-performing hospitals: 5-year collaborative findings

Premier Inc. claims that its 350 hospital members have collectively prevented 136,000 deaths and saved $11.6 billion over the last five years by setting aggressive quality improvement goals and benchmarking against top performers.

Mostashari to join Get Real Health board

Farzad Mostashari, MD accepts a position on the board of Get Real Health, a PHR developer from Rockville, MD.

Triple-S fined $6.8M for HIPAA issue

A San Juan, PR-based insurance company is hit with a $6.8 million in fines from federal, state, and local agencies all stemming from a HIPAA violation that was triggered when the hospital sent out 13,000 letters with Medicare numbers visible from the outside. It was the organization’s second large breach, it failed to notify affected patients within the 60-day window, and it submitted vague and incomplete responses during the investigation.