Morning Headlines 12/29/20

Health startup seeks to bring COVID-19 vaccine tracking to Apple Wallet

Los Angeles County chooses Healthvana to allow people to present proof of COVID-19 vaccination as stored in Apple Wallet and to receive reminders when their second shot is due.

Home DNA test unicorn 23andMe raises nearly $85M

The company was laying off employees a year ago in citing declining consumer demand.

‘Toxic Individualism’: Pandemic Politics Driving Health Care Workers From Small Towns

Healthcare workers are moving away from their rural communities after being harassed by their neighbors for providing public health advice, challenging rural hospitals that were already struggling to fill clinical positions during the pandemic.

Morning Headlines 12/28/20

EverCommerce Acquires Updox, Industry Leader in Virtual Care and Communications Solutions

Service sector business software vendor EverCommerce acquires Updox, which offers healthcare solutions for faxing, electronic forms, video chat, and secure messaging.

Sumner Regional Medical Center experiencing outage issues as result of Nashville explosion

The Gallatin, TN hospital goes back to paper records when network outages caused by the Nashville RV explosion disrupt its EHR access.

Frieden honored for his lifelong work helping people with disabilities

Lex Frieden, MA, professor of health informatics at UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics, was named the 2020 Katie Beckett Award recipient for his lifelong work advancing the rights of people with disabilities.

Morning Headlines 12/24/20

Two Owners of New York Pharmacies Charged in a $30 Million COVID-19 Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering Case

The two owners of several New York pharmacies are indicted on federal charges for healthcare fraud and money laundering, accused of using Medicare’s emergency override COVID-19 codes and edits to submit $30 million in claims for cancer drugs that were never ordered or administered.

Leaky Server Exposes 12 Million Medical Records to Meow Attacker

A hospital EHR vendor in Vietnam exposes 12 million unprotected records that contained the medical and financial details of 80,000 patients of 18 medical facilities, and immediately afterward the misconfigured database was deleted in a so-called “meow” attack in which a hacker-dispatched bot erases an exposed database as a security lesson to its owner.

Trump commutes 20-year sentence in massive health care fraud run out of Florida

President Trump commutes the 20-year prison sentence of Miami Beach businessman Philip Esformes, who was convicted in April 2019 for his involvement in a $1 billion healthcare fraud case.

Morning Headlines 12/23/20

HMS to be Acquired by Veritas Capital-Backed Gainwell for $37.00 Per Share

Medicaid technology vendor Gainwell Technologies will acquire publicly traded HMS, which offers cost and outcomes systems, for $3.4 billion in cash.

Azara Healthcare and SPH Analytics’ Population Health Division Announce Merger

Community Health and physician practice population health technology vendor Azara Healthcare merges with the population health division of SPH Analytics.

Astria Health bankruptcy plan gets closer to approval as objections resolved

Washington-based Astria Health resolves Cerner’s objections to its bankruptcy reorganization plan, in which Cerner said it was owed $10.7 million that the health system it wasn’t said it wasn’t paying because its problems with Cerner billing caused at least $150 million in damages.

Morning Headlines 12/22/20

Mass General Brigham apologizes to employees for rocky vaccine rollout

A crush of sign-ups takes down employee COVID-19 vaccine appointment systems at Mass General Brigham and Tufts Medical Center.

Rio Grande Hospital Workers Turned Down the Vaccine. A Senator and a Sheriff’s Deputy Lined Up Instead.

A Texas hospital that was among the hardest hit with COVID-19 says that so many of its high-priority employees declined to receive the vaccine that it instead vaccinated a state senator, a sheriff’s deputy, and a community pharmacist and his daughter as it used all of its allocated 5,850 doses.

Joni Ernst Sparks Backlash for Getting COVID Vaccine After Spreading Conspiracy

US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who previously accused doctors of falsifying COVID-19 deaths for money and claimed that only 6% of reported COVID-19 deaths are actually caused by the infection, draws ire for tweeting out a photo that shows her receiving one of the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

Morning Headlines 12/21/20

Intelerad Medical Systems acquires Digisonics, Inc.

Imaging workflow vendor Intelerad acquires Digisonics, which sells cardiovascular and OB/GYN information systems.

DataLink Acquires Orizon360°: Expands Value-based Clinical Data Integration, Advanced Analytics and Financial Informatics Capabilities

EHR, analytics, and patient engagement software vendor DataLink acquires Orizon360°, which offers risk-bearing contract management technology.

Mental wellness platform Lyra Health is raising up to $175M at a $2.25B valuation

Employer-focused mental health app developer Lyra Health is raising $175 million in a Series E round, more than doubling its valuation to $2.25 billion.

Morning Headlines 12/18/20

Diameter Health Closes $18M Series B to Accelerate Vision to Improve Health Data Interoperability

Healthcare interoperability technology vendor Diameter Health raises $18 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $30 million.

Verily Announces $700 Million Investment Round to Accelerate Key Businesses, Including Baseline and Verily Health Platforms

Verily will use a new $700 million investment to expand its work in clinical research, population health, care delivery, and chronic disease management.

H1 Closes $58 Million Series B Funding

H1, whose platform allows drug companies and health systems to target influential physicians, raises $58 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $71 million.

Kyruus and HealthSparq Come Together to Transform Care Navigation Through Novel Payer-Provider Collaboration

Kyruus acquires the HealthSparq business of Cambia Health Solutions, which offers insurers provider search, cost estimates, reviews, appointment scheduling, and member rewards.

Sphere Acquires Patient Engagement and Revenue Cycle Management Platform, Health iPASS

Payments solution vendor Sphere acquires Health IPass, which offers patient engagement and RCM technology.

Morning Headlines 12/17/20

Medical-data company Flywheel nearing goal on $15M Series B

Minneapolis-based medical research informatics startup Flywheel raises $14 million of a planned $15 million Series B funding round.

Cerner Announces Agreement to Acquire Health Division of Kantar

Cerner will acquire data, analytics, and real-world evidence and research consulting subsidiary Kantar Health for $375 million in an effort to help its customers more effectively engage in clinical research.

Khosla-Backed Health AI Startup Raises $27.5 Million To Supercharge Primary Care

Chatbot telemedicine startup Curai raises $27.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Morningside Group.

Workit Health, a digital rehab startup, raises $12 million

Workit Health raises $12 million in a Series B round of funding that will enable the addiction treatment telemedicine startup to expand beyond the five states it currently serves.

Morning Headlines 12/16/20

67,000 hospital patients notified about data breach

Sonoma Valley Hospital (CA) notifies 67,000 patients of an October 11 ransomware attack that may have compromised patient information.

ConsejoSano Raises $17 Million in Series B Funding To Support Technology-Based Solutions That Help Reduce Health Disparities Among Multicultural Populations

Multicultural patient engagement software vendor ConsejoSano secures $17 million in a Series B financing round led by Magnetic Ventures.

TransUnion and Socially Determined Partner to Improve Health Outcomes By Using SDOH Data & Analytics

TransUnion Healthcare announces an undisclosed investment in and commercial partnership with social determinants of health risk analytics company Socially Determined.

Morning Headlines 12/15/20

Pair Team Secures $2.7M to Build Primary Care Operations Infrastructure

Automated patient engagement software startup Pair Team raises $2.7 million in seed funding from Kleiner Perkins, Craft Ventures, and YCombinator.

Cityblock Health Raises $160M Series C to Address Systemic Healthcare Inequity

Community care provider and software developer Cityblock Health wraps up a $160 million financing round that brings its valuation to over $1 billion.

Blueprint Maps Out Data-Driven Mental Health Platform With $3.4M Seed

Blueprint will use $3.4 million in seed funding to further develop its assessment, analytics, and reimbursement software for mental healthcare providers.

Morning Headlines 12/14/20

Reducing Provider and Patient Burden, and Promoting Patients’ Electronic Access to Health Information

CMS announces a rule that requires Medicaid managed care and insurers that sell products on the Exchanges to facilitate the exchange of patient data between payers.

eHealth Technologies Announces Expansion in Virginia

Medical record retrieval and image-sharing company EHealth Technologies, based in Rochester, NY, announces plans to open a location in Scott County, Virginia, and hire 160 employees over the next five years.

Tempus Announces $200 Million Series G-2 Financing

Precision medicine and analytics company Tempus will use a $200 million investment to expand its work beyond cancer to infectious diseases, depression, and cardiology.

Morning Headlines 12/11/20

Ro Acquires Workpath to Offer In-Home Care Services Nationwide

Consumer telehealth vendor Ro acquires Richmond-based Workpath, which offers an API-powered platform for dispatching workers to provide in-home blood draws and nurse visits.

LeanTaaS Raises $130 Million to Strengthen Its Machine Learning Software Platform to Continue Helping Hospitals Achieve Operational Excellence

Capacity management, access management, and analytics software vendor LeanTaaS raises $130 million in a Series D funding round, increasing its total to $250 million.

CitiusTech Completes FluidEdge Consulting Acquisition and Appoints Eric Schultz as President of FluidEdge Consulting

CitiusTech acquires Philadelphia-based healthcare management firm FluidEdge Consulting.

Elation Health Announces $40M Series C To Power Independent Primary Care

Physician practice-focused health IT vendor Elation Health raises $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Generation Investment Management, bringing its total raised to $55 million.

Morning Headlines 12/10/20

UVM Heath Network cyberattack fixes expected to exceed $63M

University of Vermont Health Network officials says the ransomware attack that occurred on October 28 has so far cost the organization $63 million in lost revenue and incurred expenses.

Baxter in $5 billion bid for Omnicell

Medical device manufacturer Baxter has reportedly approached medication management software vendor Omnicell with an acquisition offer of $5 billion.

GE puts default password in radiology devices, leaving healthcare networks exposed

The US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency issues an advisory urging GE Healthcare customers to request that the company change default passwords in certain radiology devices so they are no longer susceptible to hackers.

Advancing health research with Google Health Studies

Google launches a Health Studies app, giving Android users the opportunity to participate in research such the initial respiratory illness study conducted by Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Elsevier acquires Shadow Health, a leading provider of best-in-class healthcare simulations

Elsevier acquires Shadow Health, a developer of virtual simulation software for nursing and healthcare education.

Morning Headlines 12/9/20

Story Health Launches Virtual Specialty Care to Empower Patient-Clinician Relationship

Verily co-founder Tom Stanis launches digital care coordination and engagement company Story Health with $4 million in seed funding.

Cerner and Elligo to Make Clinical Trials Accessible for Health Systems of All Sizes

Cerner invests in Elligo Health Research and will use its technology to offer clinical trial opportunities to providers and patients.

AWS Announces Amazon HealthLake

Amazon Web Services launches HealthLake, a HIPAA-compliant data aggregation, normalization, and analytics service for healthcare and life sciences organizations.

In the Latest COVID-19 Surge, Health Record Exchanges Through Care Everywhere Reach 221 Million in a Month

Epic’s Care Everywhere reached 221 million health record exchanges in October 2020, up 40% from the same period a year ago.

Morning Headlines 12/8/20

PointClickCare is buying a Kleiner Perkins-backed startup for $650 million in the latest sign that health-tech is heating up

Long-term and post-acute care software vendor PointClickCare will acquire care notification startup Collective Medical for $650 million.

COVID-19 is Complex, as is COVID-19 Open Data

HHS publishes COVID-19 hospital data at the facility level on a weekly basis dating back to August 1.

CA Notify app to offer COVID-19 exposure notification

California Governor Gavin Newsom announces that CA Notify, an app-based, COVID-19 exposure-tracking tool built on Google and Apple technology, will launch statewide later this week.

Talkspace Working With Advisers on Possible Sale

Talkspace considers putting itself up for sale, leading analysts to speculate that an acquisition could value the online therapy app startup at $1 billion.

Morning Headlines 12/7/20

CommonHealth, a Free Mobile App for Patients to Share Health Data – including COVID Test and Vaccine Status – Connects to 230 US Health Systems

The non-profit Commons Project has connected its CommonHealth app to 230 health systems, allowing the majority of Americans who use Android devices to use Apple Health-like functionality to obtain their health records from connected providers.

City of Chicago Launches New Data Analytics Tool in Fight Against COVID-19

The Chicago Department of Public Health and Rush University Medical Center launch a COVID-19 tracking hub to which all 28 area hospitals have agreed to contribute lab test results, CCDA information from Epic-using sites, and capacity information.

GBMC Health Care experiences information technology systems outage

Greater Baltimore Medical Center experiences a network disruption that has taken down several of its IT systems.

Morning Headlines 12/4/20

Olive Acquires Verata Health to Accelerate Artificial Intelligence Technology For Healthcare Providers and Payers

AI solutions vendor Olive acquires Verata Health, which offers an AI-powered prior authorization solution.

McKesson Launches Ontada, an Oncology Technology and Insights Business Dedicated to Help Advance Cancer Research and Care

McKesson launches Ontada, which will sell drug companies real-world patient data from its IKnowMed oncology EHR and Clear Value Plus cancer pathways system.

Trump Administration Finalizes Permanent Expansion of Medicare Telehealth Services and Improved Payment for Time Doctors Spend with Patients

CMS will continue to pay for certain telehealth services after the pandemic’s end, most notably those for nursing home residents in rural areas.

Prepare for medical visits with help from Google and AHRQ

Google builds an evidenced-based tool leveraging AHRQ’s expertise to help patients prepare a visit plan when using the company’s search tool to find providers.