Morning Headlines 11/30/12

Medicare Is Faulted on Shift to Electronic Records

A review by the Office of the Inspector General finds that Medicare is not adequately overseeing the Meaningful Use program, leaving it vulnerable to paying incentives to Eligible Providers and hospitals that have inaccurately claimed their compliance.

After All the Time and Money is Invested, Will e-Health Ever Deliver on its Promise?

A Toronto newspaper reviews Canada’s ambitious and expensive e-health program that still leaves it behind much of the industrial world, with 80 percent of physician practices still using paper charts.

MIT Media Spin-Out Ginger.io raises $6.5 Million Series A Round

The startup, which summarizes its smartphone-based population management tool as a “check engine” light for humans, raises its investment total to $8.2 million in a round led by Khosla Ventures.

Guidance Regarding Methods for De-identification of Protected Health Information in Accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA ) Privacy Rule

HHS issues a guide describing acceptable method for de-identifying patient information to comply with HIPAA’s privacy rule.

Hospitals Get New Grades on Safety

Leapfrog Group issues its second set of hospital grades on patient safety, with a significant number of hospitals moving two letter grades up or down due to new data and an adjusted methodology. One of the 25 hospitals that earned an F is Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, while Cleveland Clinic’s grade slipped from a C to a D.

Morning Headlines 11/29/12

Report finds ACOs serving more patients than expected

A recent report suggests that 45 percent of the population now lives in an area covered by at least one ACO.

State Variation in E-Prescribing Trends in the United States

E-prescribing rates show significant increase as more than half of MDs nationwide have adopted e-prescribing.

NextGen Healthcare Forges Partnership with Aviacod

NextGen partners with Aviacod, a medical coding service, to provide cloud-based coding to NextGen customers.

AMDIS President Bria named Dataskill CMO

The Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems president William Bria, MD is named chief medical officer of Dataskill, a San-Diego based integration engine.

Morning Headlines 11/28/12

KLAS Report Shines Light on Global PACS Marketplace

The newest KLAS report looks at the global PACS marketplace from a high level, as well as vendor-specific perspective.

Medsphere Systems Marks 10 Years of Better Patient Care Through Affordable Healthcare Technology

Medsphere celebrates 10 years of implementing OpenVista, which it says has successfully allowed 70 percent of its eligible customers to attest for Stage 1 Meaningful Use.

Cleveland Medical Mart Signs on Cleveland Clinic, GE Healthcare as Tenants

The highly publicized Cleveland Medical Mart has signed Cleveland Clinic and GE Healthcare as tenants in the newly constructed $465 million facility.

Healthrageous and Partners Healthcare Continue Partnership to Support Company’s Growth

Healthrageous, a 2010 spinoff of Partners HealthCare, returns to the founding organization for $700,000 in Series B funding.

Morning Headlines 11/27/12

Merge to Connect to Surescripts Network for Clinical Interoperability to Deliver Imaging Results Directly to Physician EHR Systems

Merge and Surescripts have reached an agreement that will connect the networks to allow hospitals and imaging centers to send reports and images to practice EMRs through the Surescripts network.

OIG lists EHR incentives abuse, security among top HHS challenges

OIG releases its 2012 Top Management and Performance Challenges Report, citing Integrity and Security of Health Information Systems and Data among its top 10 continuing issues for the new year.

Hello Health Raises $11.5M from First Generation Capital, Inc. and Others to Meet Market Demands for Free Revenue Generating EHR Platform

EHR and patient portal vendor Hello Health announces an $11.5 million investment from First Generation Capital that it will use to bolster its freeware EHR platform to create a revenue positive EHR for private practice physicians.

MMRGlobal Receives Fifth Patent Expanding Rights to Control of Online Medical Record

Patent troll MMRGlobal Receives a fifth patent involving patient portals and personal health records.

Syndromic surveillance for health information system failures: a feasibility study

A recent JAMIA study suggests syndromic surveillence methods may be used to monitor health information technology systems to detect system failures earlier.

Morning Headlines 11/26/12

RSNA 2012 Begins

The 98th Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America  begins this weekend under a unifying “Patients First” theme.

GP blames computer for man’s death from ulcer

A UK physician blames the poor usability of his practice EMR as the root cause of a patients death after he failed to prescribe the patient a medication to treat a stomach ulcer.

Welsh First Minister Opens Clinithink’s Development Centre

First Minister of Wales Rt. Hon Carwyn Jones opens Clinithink, a Healthcare IT R&D firm based in Bridgend, Wales.

Matching DNA With Medical Records To Crack Disease And Aging

A recently published research project is matching DNA sequencing data with information from Kaiser Permanente EHR data to identify at risk patients before chronic diseases develop.

Morning Headlines 11/21/12

Nuance Communications Posts Q4 Profit

Nuance releases Q4 results, reporting that revenue was up 28 percent with adjusted EPS $0.51 vs. $0.42, beating expectations of $0.48.

CareCloud Appoints Ralph Catalano as Vice President of Operations

CareCloud announces that Ralph Catalano, former athenahealth VP of client development, has joined the company as VP of operations.

Association of Online Patient Access to Clinicians and Medical Records With Use of Clinical Services

A recent JAMA study tracking clinical services consumption before and after implementation of a patient portal concludes that patient access to medical records correlates to an increased use of clinical services.

Aurora Health Care Selects Humedica MinedShare to Support Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Efforts, Joins Anceta to Collaborate with Other Leading Medical Groups

Aurora Health Care partners with Humedica to provide population risk analysis, improve coding accuracy, and develop ambulatory physician scorecards.

Morning Headlines 11/20/12

NextGen Healthcare Launches New 8 Series Electronic Health Record (EHR) Content

NextGen releases its newest platform, dubbed 8 Series, which promises a faster and easier clinical user experience.

Medical education provider Pri-Med buys Amazing Charts, an electronic health records firm

Pri-Med, a Boston-based medical education firm, buys EHR vendor Amazing charts for an undisclosed sum.

National Football League Selects eClinicalWorks

The NFL has announced it will implement a league-wide eClinicalWorks EHR to better manage player injuries.

The Patient Engagement Framework

The National eHealth Collaborative publishes a five-tier framework for strengthening patient engagement strategies.

McKesson Announces $1 Million Software Give-Away to Help Benevolent Physicians Bring Better Health to Patients Across America

McKesson will donate more than $1 million in free EHR licenses to physicians providing charity care to the needy.

Morning Headlines 11/19/12

Healthcare Information Technology: Trends and Transformations

Greenway releases results of an expansive survey of the HIT marketplace, including within its findings that 50 percent of surveyed hospitals say they have no ACO plans.

US firms drawing a line on after-hours email

The Advisory Board Company is featured in an article about its corporate e-mail policy which prohibits employees from checking company e-mail after business hours.

Health Information Technology; HIT Policy Committee: Request for Comment Regarding the Stage 3 Definition of Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs)

ONC initiates a 45-day Request for Comment period for Stage 3 Meaningful Use rules, starting this week and ending on January 14.

Quest Diagnostics’ CEO Hosts Investor Day

Quest Diagnostics, parent company of ChartMaxx and Care360EHR, announces that it will re-evaluate its EHR business strategy in an effort to focus on its core business, diagnostic information services.

Epic Systems Corporation, Applicant v.McKesson Technologies, Inc.

Epic receives a 30-day extension for a Supreme Court appeal request it is preparing in response to the recent “induced infringement” case it lost in the Federal Court of Appeals.

Morning Headlines 11/16/12

A Survey Of Primary Care Doctors In Ten Countries Shows Progress In Use Of Health Information Technology, Less In Other Areas

A study of 10 high-income countries finds that America is rising in adoption of EHRs, with 69 percent of US primary care physicians reporting that they are using an EHR.

Vt. GE Healthcare outpost lays off 10 percent

GE Healthcare announces layoffs for approximately 50 employees at its Burlington, VT offices.

Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs Award EHR Integration Subcontract to DSS, Inc. for Fully Integrated Data

DSS is awarded the iEHR project, migrating VistA and legacy DoD systems onto a single integrated platform.

Cerner to Standardize Health Care for NBA Players

Cerner will implement a single EHR across all 30 NBA teams to securely manage the health of the athletes.

CACI Announces Intent to Acquire Emergint Technologies, Inc.

CACI, a government information systems provider specializing in Intelligence and Defense, acquires Emergint technology to expand its Healthcare IT position and broaden its portfolio.

Morning Headlines 11/15/2012

Rep. Ellmers pushes HHS on safety of health technology

HHS receives a second letter from Rep. Renee Ellmers after failing to respond to an initial letter citing an IOM study that questioned the safety of electronic health records.

MU helps drive interoperability, standards could also help

Farzad Mostashari of the ONC, along with HIMSS Chair Willa Fields, Charles Romine of NIST, and several private sector industry experts testify in congress today defending the results of Meaningful Use thus far among accusations that there should be a higher level of interoperability.

Arcadia Solutions Acquired by Ferrer Freeman & Company and Senior Management

Arcadia Solutions announces its acquisition by Ferrer Freeman and addition of Jim Crook, former CEO of IDX Systems, to the Board of Managers.

Surescripts and NextGen Healthcare Take Important Step to Improve Quality of Care Collaboration and Coordination Across the U.S. Healthcare System

NextGen announces that it will connect its 75,000 users to the Surescripts network enabling e-prescribing and access to a clinical messaging platform.

WakeMed to spend up to $100M on medical records project

WakeMed Health & Hospital System, an 840-bed Raleigh, NC-based health network, announces plans to implement Epic over the next 18 months.

Morning Headlines 11/14/12

HITPC Stage 3 Request for Comment

ONC issues a request for public comment on Stage 3 Meaningful Use rules.

Carlyle, Blackstone, TPG bid for Allscripts

Three private equity firms have submitted second-round offers but there is no guarantee of a deal as Allscripts asks for a significant premium over its current trading price.  

Cerner Receives FDA Clearance for Mobile Fetal Monitoring Solution

Cerner receives FDA 510(k) pre-market clearance for its Cerner FetaLink+ mobile fetal monitoring solution.

Texas Hospitals Select Healthland Centriq for Complete Electronic Health Record Solution

Medina Regional Hospital (TX), Red River Regional Hospital (TX), Ward Memorial Hospital (TX), and First Street Hospital (TX) choose Healthland Centriq, adding to the company’s total of more than 70 rural Texas hospital customers.

HHS announces first external class of the HHS Innovation Fellows Program

Six fellows will spend the next 12 months working with HHS on national projects including: accelerating clinical quality measures for ACA, building a more resilient health technology infrastructure to withstand natural disasters, and a national organ transplant tracking system.

Morning Headlines 11/13/12

Zynx Health President/CEO Scott Weingarten resigns 

Zynx Health announces that President and CEO Scott Weingarten has resigned and will be replaced by First Databank CEO Greg Dorn, who will run both of the Hearst organizations.

Less Than a Month After Launch, Windows 8 Head Steve Sinofsky Departs 

Steve Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division and rumored favorite to eventually replace Steve Ballmer as CEO, departs unexpectedly amid rumors of a deteriorating relationship with the executive level.

VA head envisions big improvements in backlog 

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki reports that problems integrating the Department of Defense and VA electronic health records systems, which caused a massive backlog of health benefits claims, have been resolved.

Healthcare provider attitudes towards the problem list in an electronic health record: a mixed-methods qualitative study

Harvard study recommends defined policy on using problem lists, finding that their use is incomplete because physicians don’t necessarily agree on what they should contain for specific cases and who should be responsible for maintaining them.

Morning Headlines 11/12/12

UnitedHealth deal draws concern

Sen. Orin Hatch raises concerns with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the acquisition of an IT company that will help build the federal insurance exchange citing potential conflicts of interest.

Guilford business brings telemedicine to the workplace

Online diabetic consultations with physicians from Tufts University were provided to remotely located employees working for a Maine based wood products company.

Dalcon changes name to Amplion, adopts new hospital alert mission

Dalcom Communications Systems raises $3.75 million, changes its name to Amplion Clinical Communications and reinvents business mission to target clinical communications market.

Digital Health Entrepreneur Survey

A survey of health entrepreneurs identifies reimbursement, government, and Epic/Cerner as being the top three barriers to health innovation.