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.

Morning Headlines 3/9/23

Melinda French Gates’s Pivotal Ventures backs women’s health clinic Tia

Women’s care company Tia, which operates virtual and in-person clinics in three states, secures an undisclosed amount of funding from Pivotal Ventures.

Wave Life Secures $6M Investment to Increase Mental Health Access For Gen Z

App-based mental health and wellbeing startup Wave Life raises $6 million in a seed funding round.

Fifth Third Announces Acquisition of Big Data Healthcare, a Payments Company Serving National Health Systems, Physicians

Fifth Third Bank acquires Madison, Wisconsin-based healthcare payments technology vendor Big Data Healthcare.

Morning Headlines 3/8/23

Gang leaks Lehigh Valley Health Network cancer patient photos as part of data hack

BlackCat hackers post pictures of Lehigh Valley Health Network (PA) cancer patients on the dark web after the health system refused to meet the group’s ransomware demands last month.

Virtual Education Center Provides Health Information to Patients

The Defense Health Agency launches a six-month pilot of its Virtual Education Center, a tool offering validated health information to patients and providers that will eventually be integrated with the MHS Genesis EHR.

Best Buy will set up in-home hospital care through a new deal with Atrium Health

Best Buy will set up in-home virtual care systems for Atrium Health in a three-year deal that will enable the health system to remotely monitor up to 100 patients.

VA expects its legacy EHR to be ‘around for a long time’ as it troubleshoots replacement

VA officials tell members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Technology Modernization that its legacy VistA system will be utilized for at least another five to 10 years while the new Oracle Cerner EHR is implemented across the department’s remaining facilities.

Morning Headlines 3/7/23

Transcarent To Acquire Part Of AI-Powered 98point6 In $100 Million Healthtech Deal

Transcarent will acquire virtual primary care company 98point6’s AI-powered chatbot technology, among other assets, in a deal CEO Glen Tullman says could be worth up to $100 million.

Cybersecurity incident impacts Houston Healthcare’s operations

Houston Healthcare (GA) works to restore its computer systems after a cybersecurity incident March 3 forced it to use established back-up processes and downtime procedures to continue caring for patients.

WeightWatchers to Acquire Sequence, a Digital Health Platform for Clinical Weight Management

WeightWatchers will acquire Sequence, a telehealth company specializing in chronic weight management, in a deal valued at $132 million.

Morning Headlines 3/6/23

Epic Systems to add 1,700 jobs as it expands its Wizards Academy campus in Verona

Epic will add 1,700 employees to its current headcount of 11,600 in the next 12 months, housing them in two new office buildings that it will build within its Harry Potter-themed Wizards Academy complex.

MUSC invested $15M into RMC partnership; CEO says system focused on quality

The Medical University of South Carolina invests $15 million in its management of Regional Medical Center, which will include expanding telemedicine services and switching the hospital over from Cerner to Epic.

#StopRansomware: Royal Ransomware

The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency release a Cybersecurity Advisory to help healthcare providers protect their networks from the Royal ransomware variant.

Morning Headlines 3/3/23

Joint Statement of Chair Khan, Commissioner Slaughter, Commissioner Wilson, and Commissioner Bedoya Regarding Amazon.com, Inc.’s Acquisition of 1Life Healthcare, Inc.

The FTC warns Amazon that it will be monitoring its use of patient data following its acquisition of primary care provider One Medical, noting that it will judge pre-acquisition privacy promises by the standard of a “reasonable consumer” rather than that of a HIPAA expert.

Bright Health Group Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results

Health insurer Bright Health – fresh off layoffs, the exiting of most lines of business, an impending delisting of shares on the NYSE, and a $1.4 billion loss in 2022 – warns that it has overdrawn its credit and expresses doubt that the company can continue as a going concern.

Fertility player Kindbody gets $100M at $1.8B valuation

Fertility-focused provider Kindbody will use $100 million in new funding to open 10 additional clinics, and acquire virtual health and fertility companies.

FTC moves to ban BetterHelp from sharing mental health data for ad targeting

Online counseling company BetterHelp will pay $7.8 million back to consumers to settle FTC charges that it shared health data with third parties for advertising purposes.

Morning Headlines 3/2/23

Veradigm Inc. Update on 4th Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2022 Reporting of Results

Veradigm adjusts its 2023 revenue projections after discovering that a compliance software error has caused incorrect revenue reports over the last six quarters.

Press Ganey Announces Collaboration With Epic to Advance Integration of Patient Experience Insight Into Electronic Medical Records

Epic will incorporate Press Ganey’s patient experience data into its MyChart patient portal and Cheers CRM.

VA Deputy Secretary Donald Remy to depart

VA Deputy Secretary Donald Remy will step down from his post, which has included oversight of the department’s troubled EHR modernization program.

Agilon health Announces Acquisition of MphrX, a Leading Healthcare Technology Company

Agilon Health, a physician network development company, acquires FHIR-enabled health data vendor MphrX for $45 million.

Morning Headlines 3/1/23

Local Leaders Announce Plan to Strengthen Health Services in Imperial County

UC San Diego Health considers sharing its EHR with El Centro Regional Medical Center as part of its proposal to temporarily take over operational, clinical, and financial management of the financially troubled hospital.

BetterNight Raises $33M Growth Financing Round led by NewSpring.

Virtual sleep care provider BetterNight raises $33 million in a funding round led by NewSpring.

Vouched raises $6.3 million to expand its AI driven identity verification offering to telemedicine and healthcare providers

Vouched will use $6 million in new funding to market its AI-powered identity verification software to virtual and in-person healthcare providers.