Morning Headlines 3/25/14

HHS lays out 4-part health IT strategic plan

HHS publishes a broad health IT strategic plan for 2014-2018 that focuses on expanding health IT adoption, coordinating the development of interoperability standards, and integrating clinical best practices.

Western Maryland Regional Medical Center staff adheres to ‘circle of care’ approach

In a recently released Maryland Hospital Patient Safety Program Annual Report, the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene named EHR systems as a culprit in some adverse events. The report explains, “The inability to access pending tests or results has led to delays in treatment, inappropriate discharges and futile surgeries.”

Proposed patient-centered telemedicine policy raises licensing questions

The Federation of State Medical Boards will vote on a new telemedicine policy that requires physicians to be licensed in the state where the patient is located when telemedicine visits are conducted.The proposal is being called an unnecessary barrier to telehealth expansion and adoption by advocates.

ONC, West Health see mobile interoperability saving $30B annually

A white paper published by the Gary and Mary West Health Institute claims that if mobile medical devices had greater interoperability the nation could avoid $30 billion a year in wasteful healthcare spending.

Morning Headlines 3/24/14

Metro Detroit health systems Beaumont, Oakwood and Botsford sign letter of intent to merge

In Detroit, Beaumont, Botsford, and Oakwood health systems announce plans to merge, citing integrated medical records as a driving factor behind the decision. The new system will span eight hospitals and consolidate $3.8 billion in annual revenue.

McKesson Technologies Anesthesia Care: Recall – Patient Case Data May Not Match Patient Data

The FDA issues a Class-1 recall of McKesson’s Anesthesia Care product. The decision suggests that the FDA sees clinical applications, ones that provide CDS but do not control medical devices, as falling into the high-risk category that warrants a class 1-level recall. McKesson issued a voluntary recall of the system in 2013 after customers reported that anesthesia data had been erroneously saved to the wrong patient’s record..

‘Flawed’ patient record system led to crisis on jubilee weekend

In England, the troubled Meditech go-live at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust is profiled by a local paper, which says that after a four-year install, the system go-live compromised key cancer treatment schedules, ER workflows, outpatient appointment bookings, and generated $17 million in cost overages.

Conn. health official accuses Mass. of hoarding federal grant for New England health insurance collaborative

Connecticut officials are seeking $10 million from Massachusetts over a $45 million federal grant that had been issued to Massachusetts in 2010 to build an HIE infrastructure that was supposed to then be shared with other New England states. The project never resulted in a platform that other states could use, prompting Connecticut to seek reimbursement for work it eventually had to do on its own.

Morning Headlines 3/21/14

M*Modal Files Voluntary Chapter 11 Petitions to Facilitate Financial Restructuring

M*Modal files for chapter 11 bankruptcy two years after being acquired by private equity firm OneEquity for $1.1 billion. M*Modal markets cloud-based transcription and voice recognition solutions, and says that it will continue on with normal operations throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.

Harvard Research Reveals EarlySense Monitoring System Reduces Length of Stay in the Hospital and ICU

Harvard Researchers testing the effectiveness of the EarlySense monitoring system, a sensor that sits beneath a bed mattress and monitors heart rate, respiration rate, and movements, find that its use led to a reduction in length of stay, a reduction in ICU days, and a reduction in code blues.

REC Program Evaluation Interim Report: Round 1 Case Studies

ONC publishes findings from a review that was conducted with nine RECs, highlighting the most difficult challenges faced, and emerging best practices for helping providers achieve MU.

Key leadership in OHA, Cover Oregon to be replaced following investigation

The head of the Oregon Health Authority has resigned over the poor performance of Oregon’s health insurance exchange. The exchange, which was developed by Oracle, remains the only exchange in the US that has still not enrolled a single person in an insurance plan.

Morning Headlines 3/20/14

Penetration Test Of the Indian Health Service’s Computer Network

The OIG conducts staged cyber attacks on the Indian Health Services computer network and finds significant and addressable vulnerabilities. During the exercise, OIG hackers were able to access internal IHS networks and databases, uncover user account and password details, and remotely take over IHS computer terminals.

IBM Watson goes after brain cancer

A group of New York hospitals along with researchers from the New York Genome Center will team up with the IBM Watson group to start work on a new Watson application that will evaluate a patient’s genome and EMR data, and then reference medical literature and a library of medical charts to help create a personalized treatment plan based on outcomes probability. To start, researchers will focus on glioblastoma, an aggressive and malignant brain cancer.

Healthcare Organizations Haven’t Maximized Full Potential of Meaningful Use, According to HIMSS14 Stoltenberg Consulting Survey

A non-scientific study conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting during HIMSS finds that a lack of resources is the number one barrier to advancing meaningful use adoption, followed by restricted timeframes, a lack of buy in, and competing IT projects.

Morning Headlines 3/19/14

From vital signs to clinical outcomes for patients with sepsis: a machine learning basis for a clinical decision support system

Researchers at the University of California Davis Health System have demonstrated that EHR data can be used to predict sepsis, and are working on an algorithm that can be incorporated into EHRs to generate alerts and drive interventions.

Colorado health exchange workers are paid more than similar positions in three other states

20 percent of the 36 employees working at the Colorado health insurance exchange make more than $100,000 per year, drawing criticism from local papers. Patty Fontneau, the executive director over the HIE, defended the salaries, saying "I had to hire individuals with skill sets to implement a significant project in a short period of time."  Colorado has one of the best performing exchanges in the country, but it did have significant technical issues at launch, and its enrollment numbers are below the state’s expectations.

New York Presbyterian Hospital Announces Winners and Results from NYC’s First Hospital ‘Hackathon’

New York Presbyterian Hospital awards the three winners of its hospital hackathon $50,000, $25,000, and $10,000 respectively. The two-day hackathon it held drew 17 teams and focused on developing tools to improve patient engagement and the patient experience.

Google’s Flu Tracker Suffers From Sniffles

David Lazer, a Northeastern University computer science professor, publishes a paper criticizing Google Flu Trends for presenting highly inaccurate data, saying that last year Google predicted twice as many flu cases as the CDC later said there were.

Morning Headlines 3/18/14

CMS Wants Money Back from PQRS, eRx Programs

According to a Federal Register notice, CMS will launch a four-year program that will survey PQRS and eRx program participants to verify data quality. The project will include efforts to "evaluate incentive payment information for accuracy and identify improper payments, with the goal of recovering these payments.”

Group advocates for single-payer system over HIX

Several states, including Pennsylvania, discuss following in Vermont’s footsteps by creating a state-level single-payer system as an alternative to supporting expensive and problematic health insurance exchanges.

Massachusetts to Cut Ties With CGI Group Over Troubled Online Health Exchange

Massachusetts fires healthcare.gov contractor CGI Federal over the state’s own failing health insurance exchange rollout. CGI Federal is also under investigation for fraud in Vermont stemming from another failed health insurance exchange rollout there.

Morning Headlines 3/18/14

Castlight Health Soars in Stock Market Debut

Castlight Health’s stock price climbed 149 percent during its Friday IPO. The company was seeking a $1.4 billion valuation, but closed its first day of trading at $3 billion. Some are calling the IPO evidence of a tech bubble because Castlight ended 2013 with only $13 million in revenue and a net loss for the year of $62 million, yet was still valued as a billion dollar company.

VA Is Competing For The Pentagon’s Electronic Health Record Contract

The VA will enter its newly revamped VistA EHR platform into the competition to be the DoD’s next EHR.

Form 8-K for ACCRETIVE HEALTH, INC.

Accretive Health has been delisted from the NYSE after failing to file restated financial reports from 2012.

Hospital database hacked, patient info vulnerable

Valley View Hospital (CO) discovers that a computer virus within its network has been taking screenshots of sensitive patient information, including social security numbers and credit card numbers, and saving them in a hidden folder on one of its servers. The virus went undetected for three months and captured information on 5,400 patients.

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.