Morning Headlines 4/3/23

Novant Health lays off executive team members

Novant Health (NC) lays off 50 employees, including EVP/Chief Transformation and Digital Officer Angela Yochem, MS.

Vendor Breach Event Notice: Adelanto Healthcare Ventures (AHCV)

Northwest Texas Healthcare System notifies patients that a phishing incident at Adelanto Healthcare Ventures, a consulting firm with ties to one of the health system’s business associates, may have exposed sensitive patient information.

FDA proposes a new plan to streamline updates to medical devices that use AI

The FDA publishes proposed guidance that will enable developers of AI-reliant medical devices to automatically update products already being used in clinical settings.

Morning Headlines 3/31/23

Murray, Tester, Brown Announce Comprehensive Bill to Overhaul VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Program

Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduce legislation to overhaul the VA’s Oracle Cerner project.

Columbus-based CoverMyMeds to cut more than 800 jobs, close Arizona office

McKesson-owned CoverMyMeds will lay off 815 employees; close its Scottsdale, AZ patient support center; and rent out space in its $240 million Columbus, OH headquarters.

Florence Launches Modern Healthcare Experience With $20M Seed Round Led by Thrive Capital, GV, and Salesforce Ventures

Florence, which offers a patient engagement app, emerges from stealth with a $20 million seed funding round.

Cassidy, Moran Introduce Legislation to Improve Electronic Health Record System Before Rollout Continues

A group of Republican senators introduces legislation that would halt further VA go-lives on Oracle Cerner until significant improvements are made from a rigorous list of requirements.

Morning Headlines 3/30/23

DoseSpot Acquires Bravado Health’s ePrescribing Platform TreatRx to Expand Solution Set for Healthcare Providers

E-prescribing vendor DoseSpot acquires Bravado Health’s TreatRx e-prescribing technology.

RhythmScience Secures $6M Series A Investment Led by Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures

Cardiac data integration and analytics startup RhythmScience raises $6 million in a Series A funding round led by Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures.

VA Secretary warns budget cap could hit agency’s telehealth and cyber programs

VA Secretary Denis McDonough says proposals to cap the department’s budget at fiscal 2022 levels will have a major impact on its telehealth and cybersecurity capabilities.

Morning Headlines 3/29/23

Primary Children’s Hospital launches new Neuro NICU telehealth program to better care for babies

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital’s new Neuro NICU telehealth service enables its pediatric neurologists to remotely monitor and suggest treatments for babies at several NICUs in Utah and Montana.

Mercy and Perry County Approve Lease Agreement for Perry County Memorial Hospital

In Missouri, Mercy will take over management of county-owned Perry County Memorial Hospital and will invest $6.5 million to transition the facility from Cerner to Epic this fall.

Philips Virtual Care Management offers a comprehensive approach to telehealth for patients, providers and payers

Philips launches its Virtual Care Management suite of technologies and services for providers, payers, and employers within the US.

Morning Headlines 3/28/23

Wellvana Health announces $84 million capital raise to drive innovation in value-based care enablement

Value-based care enablement startup Wellvana Health raises $84 million, bringing its total raised to $140 million.

CVS Health to Close Acquisition of Signify Health

CVS Health will wrap up its $8 billion acquisition of home healthcare provider Signify Health this week.

Atlantic General Hospital Provides Notice of Data Privacy Event

Atlantic General Hospital (MD) notifies patients of a data breach after discovering hackers had encrypted files on certain computer systems.

Morning Headlines 3/27/23

How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

Cigna’s reviewing doctors reportedly use “auto-denial” software that allows them to declare a patient’s test as medically unnecessary in an average of 1.2 seconds, without ever looking at the patient’s medical records.

Successful User’s Guide to High EHR Satisfaction

A new KLAS report finds that EHR personalization is the biggest driver of provider satisfaction, although providers often feel they don’t get much support in that area and resort instead to personal initiative.

US Organ Transplant System, Troubled by Long Wait Times, Faces an Overhaul

The federal government will solicit bids to provide services that have been offered by United Network for Organ Sharing, the top priority of which is to replace the organ-matching computer system in hopes of shortening transplant wait lists and addressing racial inequity.

Morning Headlines 3/24/23

Vital Secures $24.7 Million in Series B Funding to Advance Its Artificial Intelligence-Driven Software for Patients, Hospitals and Health Systems

ED patient experience software vendor Vital raises $24.7 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to $46 million since launching in 2019.

House Dems introduce pair of bills to overhaul IT acquisition at Department of Veterans Affairs

Democratic lawmakers propose two pieces of legislation that would overhaul IT procurement within the department, and require the VA to procure an independent audit of its four major IT modernization programs, including the Oracle Cerner project.

State board approves health information exchange rules despite pushback

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority board unanimously votes to implement a statewide HIE despite protests from mental health professionals over patient privacy concerns, and provider pushback on the $5,000 sign-up fee.

Morning Headlines 3/23/23

Veterans Affairs shares statement on electronic health records rollout

Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center (WA) shares improvements made to the VA’s Oracle Cerner system, and stresses that the VA remains committed to fully implementing the same system as that used by the DoD and Coast Guard.

Mental Health Leader SonderMind to Provide More Personalized Care with Acquisition of Mindstrong Technology

SonderMind, a mental healthcare company that helps match patients with therapists, acquires the technology of virtual mental healthcare provider Mindstrong, which is in the midst of winding down operations.

There in the sky! Not a bird, not a plane, it’s VA’s old VistA system!

The VA will shift its legacy VistA system to the cloud to ensure its functionality and accessibility while the new Oracle Cerner system is optimized and implemented across the department’s remaining facilities.

Morning Headlines 3/22/23

Nuance and Microsoft Announce the First Fully AI-Automated Clinical Documentation Application for Healthcare

Microsoft-owned Nuance will launch Dragon Ambient EXperience Express, which uses ChatGPT-4 to automatically generate clinical notes, this summer.

Maven Clinic Accelerates Growth in the United Kingdom with Acquisition of Naytal

Maven Clinic, a virtual women’s and family health provider that has raised $300 million, acquires UK competitor Naytal for an undisclosed sum.

Bionic Health raises $3M for its AI health clinic using GPT-4 and other ML models to design better preventative care

North Carolina-based Bionic Health will use $3 million in seed funding to further develop its membership-based “AI health clinic” for preventative care.

Perspectives of Patients About Immediate Access to Test Results Through an Online Patient Portal

A survey involving four academic medical centers finds that nearly all patients appreciate having their test results posted immediately to the patient portal, even if their providers haven’t reviewed them.

Morning Headlines 3/21/23

Washington prepares for war with Amazon

Politico reports that the FTC decided not to sue to block Amazon’s $4 billion acquisition of One Medical due to the case being considered too hard to win.

RookMotion Raises $1.7M in Pre-Seed Funding to Empower Companies With More Actionable Health Data, Rebrands to Rook

Texas-based wearables data integration and analytics startup Rook raises $1.7 million.

Infinity Announces New Name, Now SimiTree Behavioral Health

Behavioral health IT vendor Infinity rebrands to SimiTree Behavioral Health after being acquired by the RCM, outsourcing, and professional services company SimiTree last year.

Morning Headlines 3/20/23

Oracle Cerner appears to have started another round of job cuts

Oracle Cerner has conducted another round of layoffs, according to the social media posts of some employees, which appears to line up with a restructuring plan approved in 2022.

Two Key Players in Ohio’s Health Information Exchange Announce New Partnership

The Healthcare Collaborative exits the HIE business and will transfer its customers – 70 hospitals and 18,000 providers — to Ohio Health Information Partnership’s CliniSync service by the end of 2023.

UC San Diego Health Notifies Patients of Vendor Data Collection Issue

UC San Diego Health notifies patients that vendor Solv Health used analytics tools that distributed information to third-parties without authorization on the scheduling websites of the health system’s Express Care and Urgent Care clinics.

Pear Therapeutics Announces Process Exploring Strategic Alternatives

Pear Therapeutics, which offers prescription-based digital therapeutics, will explore strategic alternatives to avoid reorganizing or liquidating the company.

Morning Headlines 3/17/23

Senators threaten consequences after VA confirms 4 deaths tied to computer system tested in Spokane

VA officials testify before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that its Oracle Cerner system has been linked to six incidents of severe patient harm, including four deaths.

Zus Health Closes Financing, Signs Partnership with Elation Health, to Accelerate Growth of its Data Service to Provide Connective Tissue for Healthcare

Interoperability platform vendor Zus Health raises $40 million in funding and announces that EHR vendor Elation Health will integrate Zus Aggregated Profile to allow clinicians to view expanded records.

SpectrumAi Secures up to $20M Series A Investment

SpectrumAi, a healthcare IT company focused on autism care, closes a Series A funding round of up to $20 million.

Electronic Health Record Modernization:VA Needs to Address Change Management Challenges, User Satisfaction, and System Issues

A new report from the US Government Accountability Office recommends that the VA address change management, user satisfaction, system trouble ticket, and independent operational assessment deficiencies within its EHRM program.

Morning Headlines 3/16/23

PointClickCare Advances the Transition Toward Value-Based Care with Acquisition of Patient Pattern

Care collaboration software and services company PointClickCare acquires EHR vendor Patient Pattern.

Telehealth Startup OpenLoop Raises $15 Million to Streamline Virtual Care Delivery

White-label telemedicine company OpenLoop raises $15 million in a Series A funding round.

Our Co-Creation of Maribel: Integrating Home and Community-Based Care Within the Care Continuum to Progress Our Health Assurance Vision

Maribel launches with $25 million in Series A funding to help health systems launch hospital-at-home programs, optimize post-acute care processes, and coordinate long-term chronic care.

Morning Headlines 3/15/23

Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need

Medicare Advantage plans are using “unregulated predictive algorithms under the guise of scientific rigor” to cut off payment for the treatment of seniors.

Tegria RCM to Adopt Acclara Brand

Tegria rebrands its RCM business as Acclara, naming Tegria RCM managing director Lincoln Popp CEO.

Google introduces Open Health Stack for developers

Google unveils Open Health Stack, an open source program that offers healthcare app developers a FHIR-based Software Developer Kit for Android, design guidelines, and analytics.

VA sprint team outlines 4 key issues leading to EHR rollout problems

The VA publishes an EHRM Sprint Report acknowledging that, while the Oracle Cerner implementation “has not met Veteran or VA expectations,” the VA itself is to blame for failing to standardize processes and fix issues that arose in its initial deployments.

Morning Headlines 3/14/23

U.S. FDIC shifts SVB deposits to new bridge bank, names CEO

The FDIC transfers all deposits of Silicon Valley Bank to a new bridge bank headed by former Fannie Mae CEO Tim Mayopoulos.

1 big thing: Iron offers a virtual hand to OB-GYNs

Iron Health, which helps women’s healthcare providers connect their patients with primary and specialty care, and virtual services, raises $4.5 million in a seed funding round.

Notice of Florida Medical Clinic System Cyberattack

Florida Medical Clinic announces that an early January ransomware attack compromised 94,000 patient files, though no financial data was breached.

Morning Headlines 3/13/23

Silicon Valley Bank has collapsed. Here’s what we know.

Silicon Valley Bank, a major player in tech company financing, collapses and is taken over by federal regulators in the biggest US bank failure since 2008.

Top House Republican wants to end VA’s Oracle Cerner EHR contract and ‘claw back the money’

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), chair of the VA’s subcommittee on technology modernization, says he would like to cancel the VA’s Oracle Cerner contract, claw back some of the money that the company has been paid, and focus instead on improving the VA’s legacy VistA system.

Mental health startup exposes the personal data of more than 3 million people

Virtual mental health startup Cerebral notifies HHS that its use of pixel tracking has inadvertently exposed the information of 3.2 million users to third parties.

Gauge Capital Announces Strategic Investment in Streamline Healthcare Solutions

Behavioral health EHR vendor Streamline Healthcare Solutions secures growth capital funding from Gauge Capital.

Morning Headlines 3/10/23

Oracle Announces Fiscal 2023 Third Quarter Financial Results

Oracle reports Q3 results: revenue up 18%, adjusted EPS $0.68 versus $0.84, beating earnings expectations but falling just short on revenue.

Biden 2024 budget calls for IT spending boosts at VA, Social Security, GSA and CISA

President Biden’s proposed $6.8 trillion 2024 budget includes $1.9 billion for the continued roll out of the VA’s Oracle Cerner EHR.

The founder of Elemy raised more than $200 million to provide better autism therapy for kids. Now he’s ditching patient care to chase billions selling healthcare software.

Elemy, which raised over $300 million to open clinics to treat children with autism, has pulled out of 11 of the 14 states it covered and conducted layoffs as it transitions to selling software to clinicians to command a higher investor valuation.