Morning Headlines 8/1/22

Sentry deal doubles Craneware revenue

Scotland-based charge master software vendor Craneware attributes its jump in revenue and earnings to its July 2021 acquisition of US-based pharmacy systems vendor Sentry Data Systems.

Spok Reports Second Quarter 2022 Results

Spok announces Q2 results: revenue down 6%, EPS $0.10 versus –$0.04.

Pediatric Medical Centers Improve the Efficiency of Investigator-Initiated, Multi-Site, Collaborative Research with TriNetX

TriNetX announces members of its Pediatric Collaboratory Network – Children’s National Hospital, WVU Medicine Children’s, Children’s Health, and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

Morning Headlines 7/29/22

Teladoc loses $3 billion in three months, stock plummets 24%

Teladoc Health shares drop 18% on Q2 results: revenue up 18%, EPS –$19.22 versus –$0.86, missing Wall Street expectations for both.

NeuroFlow Launches a Comprehensive Referral Network to Meet Demand for Behavioral Health Care

Behavioral health integration vendor NeuroFlow launches a referral network of behavioral health providers, tele-therapy companies, and tele-psychiatry organizations to expand access to care.

BD Acquires MedKeeper to Offer Cloud-based, Connected Pharmacy Software

BD acquires MedKeeper, which offers cloud-based hospital pharmacy applications for IV verification and medication delivery tracking.

Morning Headlines 7/28/22

Payment Integrity Leader ClaimLogiq Acquires NLP Pioneer SyTrue

Payer-focused payments company ClaimLogiq acquires healthcare natural language processing technology vendor SyTrue.

NextGen Healthcare Reports Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Results

Despite Q1 revenue growth, NextGen’s revised 2023 revenue and earnings estimates cause shares to drop 5% in after-hours trading.

VA’s $16 billion health records overhaul may be scrapped if fixes aren’t made

House lawmakers say VA administrators will have to seriously consider pulling the plug on its EHR modernization efforts if improvements aren’t made in time for further roll outs early next year.

Morning Headlines 7/27/22

Clearwater Adds 24/7 Managed Detection and Response Services and HITRUST, CMMC and PCI Certification Services Through Acquisition of Tech Lock

Healthcare cybersecurity, compliance, and risk management vendor Clearwater acquires RevSpring subsidiary Tech Lock, which offers similar services for a variety of industries including healthcare.

Mayo Clinic, Mercy Collaborate to Globally Transform Patient Care

Mayo Clinic and Mercy announce a 10-year partnership in which they will transform their de-identified treatment and outcomes data into actionable insights for improved patient care.

RLDatix Acquires Galen Healthcare Solutions

Governance, risk, and compliance vendor RLDatix acquires Galen Healthcare Solutions, which offers system support, implementation, optimization, data migration, and cloud-based legacy system retirement.

Elation Health Announces $50M Series D for Innovative Primary Care

Primary care EHR vendor Elation Health raises $50 million in a Series D funding round, increasing its total to $109 million.

3M Announces Plans to Create Long Term Value Through Spin-Off of Health Care Business

3M will spin off its healthcare business into a stand-alone company focused on health IT, wound care, oral care, and biopharma filtration.

Morning Headlines 7/26/22

Theator, an AI platform that analyzes surgery videos, closes out its Series A at $39.5M

Theator, which uses AI to derive insights from videos of operations, caps its Series A funding round at $39.5 million.

Your Pediatrician is a Message Away: Announcing Summer Health and our $7.5M Seed Round from Sequoia and Lux

Text message-based concierge care provider Summer Health announces $7.5 million in seed funding.

VA Roseburg medical center hit with electronic health records outage

The Roseburg VA Health Care System’s Cerner-based EHR went down for several hours last week due to a patient registration programming glitch.

Morning Headlines 7/25/22

Statement of Mike Sicilia, Executive Vice President Industries Oracle Corporation Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Hearing on Examining the Status of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Program

Oracle EVP Mike Sicilia tells the US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that Oracle will move the VA’s Cerner implementation to the cloud and rewrite Cerner’s pharmacy module, completing both tasks within six to nine months.

Pre-Visit Clinical Intake Automation Company Health Note Nabs $17M in Funding Round

Health Note will use a $17 million Series A funding round to expand its market presence and EHR integrations, and invest in additional research and development.

Ascom acquires French software developer Appliware

Ascom acquires Appliware, a France-based developer of long-term care solutions for patient monitoring and alarming.

London NHS trust cancels operations as IT system fails in heatwave

In the UK, IT and telephone system servers at one of NHS’s largest trusts go down as data center cooling systems fail to keep up with a record heat wave.

Morning Headlines 7/22/22

Amazon to buy One Medical for $3.9 billion as it expands healthcare footprint

The announcement comes two weeks after reports that primary care operator One Medical, whose share price had dropped by nearly two-thirds in the past 12 months, was exploring its options after reported acquisition interest by CVS Health didn’t materialize.

Internal document reveals more frequent computer problems at Spokane VA than previously known

The Spokane paper says that the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center users have experienced more than 180 episodes of system degradation or downtime since September 2021.

VA’s $16 billion medical records overhaul could triple in cost

VA officials say its Oracle Cerner project could cost $51 billion over the next 30 years when maintenance and staffing are factored in.

Justice Department Seizes and Forfeits Approximately $500,000 from North Korean Ransomware Actors and their Conspirators

DOJ seizes $500,000 from North Korean hackers and returns the $220,000 that two US hospitals had paid in ransomware attacks.

Morning Headlines 7/21/22

How Apple is empowering people with their health information

A new Apple report proclaims the company as “an intelligent guardian for [consumer] health and safety,” dividing its products between health and fitness (the Health app and the Apple Watch) and medical community collaboration (ResearchKit for study recruitment, Health Records to give patients access to provider data, Apple Watch for health system integration, and the company’s work in building COVID-19 apps and features).

Simplified Transfer Learning for Chest Radiography Model Development

An article published in the journal Radiology describes how Google Health has used advanced machine learning methods to pre-train chest X-ray networks that convert images into numerical vectors, which allows high-quality models to be created from 600-fold less data that can detect abnormalities and perform better in underrepresented populations and rare conditions.

Invitae to Lay Off Over 1,000 Workers Amid Restructuring, Leadership Transition

The medical genetic testing company will lay off 1,000 of its 2,900 employees, restructure, eliminate non-core operations and geographies, focus on profitable business lines, and shuffle its executive leadership and board.

VA scraps last EHR go-live date in FY 2022, amid IG accounts of patient harm

The VA postpones its last remaining 2022 go-live on Oracle Cerner, saying that the system isn’t ready to be used in larger facilities because of stability issues.

Morning Headlines 7/20/22

Columbus tech company Olive lays off 450 employees

Healthcare automation vendor Olive AI lays one-third of its total headcount, saying that economic realities have forced it to “reconcile missteps” related to its aggressive expansion.

New! USCDI v3 Published

ONC publishes the the latest version of the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI).

DiMe Releases Toolkits to Improve Sensor Data Integration and Power Better, Faster Global Healthcare and Research

The Digital Medicine Society releases four toolkits for integrating data from wearables and digital sensing products.

Morning Headlines 7/19/22

GE Unveils Brand Names for Three Planned Future Public Companies

GE, which is separating itself into thee public companies that will focus on the growth sectors of healthcare, energy, and aviation, will name the healthcare business GE HealthCare when it spins it off early in 2023.

Cerner integration with Oracle will include new roles for Feinberg, Dalton

Former Cerner CEO David Feinberg, MD will become chairman of the new Oracle Health Global Industry Unit, while former Cerner Chief Client and Services Officer Travis Dalton will become general manager.

Eleven Enforcement Actions Uphold Patients’ Rights Under HIPAA

HHS OCR settles 11 cases in which providers failed to give patients copies of their medical records in a timely manner, assessing civil money penalties that range from $3,500 to $240,000.

Biden’s FTC Has Blocked 4 Hospital Mergers and Is Poised to Thwart More Consolidation Attempts

The Federal Trade Commission, noting the market dominance of the largest health systems and the failure of mergers to reduce costs, signals that it will more aggressively investigate planned hospital mergers and acquisition of physician practices.

Morning Headlines 7/18/22

Senior Staff Gave Inaccurate Information to OIG Reviewers of Electronic Health Record Training

A VA OIG report says that VA project executives provided it with misleading information about employee training on Cerner.

Scoop: Veritas buys RCM firm Coronis Health

Axios reports that private equity firm Veritas Capital has acquired physician billing and RCM company Coronis Health, reportedly with the intention of buying another privately held RCM company and combining the two.

R1 RCM Announces 10-Year End-to-End Revenue Cycle Management Partnership with Sutter Health to Drive Improved Financial Performance

Sutter Health signs a 10-year RCM outsourcing contract with R1 RCM, which will hire 1,150 Sutter employees.

Do Cancer Centers Push Too Many Tests?

A New York Times review of 600 cancer center websites finds that they often tout the benefit of tests, often highly profitable radiology exams, in ways that conflict with medical evidence and recommendations.

Morning Headlines 7/15/22

Making Electronic Health Records Both SAFER and SMARTER

Informatics leaders call for expanding use of the SAFER guides to align health systems and EHR vendors in improving safety and usability, and for developing a similar set of SMARTER guides to protect the cognitive attention of clinicians.

Healthcare Triangle Announces Closing of $6.5 Million Private Placement

Healthcare cloud and data transformation vendor Healthcare Triangle closes a $6.5 million private placement.

The New Electronic Health Record’s Unknown Queue Caused Multiple Events of Patient Harm

A new report from the VA’s Office of Inspector General confirms that an “unknown queue” within the VA’s Oracle Cerner system led to 150 adverse patient events.

HPG, a Leader in EHR Technology Integration, Acquires HIT Consulting Services Provider HDS

EHR consulting firm Healthcare Performance Group acquires competitor Health Data Specialists.

Canvas Medical Achieves ONC Certification, Raises $24MM to Power Clinicians and Developers Building and Scaling Digital Health Companies

EHR and developer tools vendor Canvas Medical raises $24 million in a Series B funding round.

Morning Headlines 7/13/22

UHG’s Optum and Red Ventures launch consumer health JV

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Health and Red Ventures form RVO Health, which will include consumer-facing health and wellness websites — such as Healthline, Psych Central, and Healthgrades – along with Optum Store and virtual coaching platforms.

Particle Health Raises $25 Million to Accelerate Platform Growth

Clinical data exchange API company Particle Health raises $25 million in a Series B funding round.

Fold Health Raises $6M in Funding

Fold Health, a San Francisco-based startup developing technology for primary care practices, raises $6 million.

Morning Headlines 7/12/22

Memorial Hermann Health System Invests in EnableComp, an Industry-Leading Specialty Revenue Cycle Management Solution

Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System makes an unspecified investment in RCM vendor EnableComp.

Syntellis Performance Solutions to Acquire Stratasan, Expanding Healthcare Data Analytics Capabilities

Enterprise performance management software vendor Syntellis Performance Solutions acquires Stratasan, which specializes in healthcare market intelligence and analytics.

This cardiac care startup just landed $20M for virtual rehab services

Moving Analytics, a developer of virtual cardiac rehab programs, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round that brings its total investments to $30 million.

Morning Headlines 7/11/22

Cardinal Health’s Outcomes acquires smart prescription platform ScalaMed

Cardinal Health acquires ScalaMed, whose app is used by patients to receive their electronic prescriptions on their phone, giving them the ability to price-shop and choose their pharmacy after the fact.

Astria Health and Cerner reach settlement in billing system case

Astria Health and Cerner settle their legal dispute in which the health system blamed its 2019 bankruptcy on problems with Cerner’s billing system, a claim Cerner disputed with the rebuttal that Astria poorly managed its merger with two other hospitals.

OhioHealth to eliminate 637 jobs in its biggest layoff ever

OhioHealth lays off 637 employees, 567 of whom are in IT, as part of the outsourcing of its IT work to Accenture and RCM to AGS Health.

Oracle Discussed Laying Off Thousands of Workers

Oracle has reportedly considered cost-cutting measures of up to $1 billion that could include thousands of layoffs within the next several weeks.

Morning Headlines 7/8/22

North Korean State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Use Maui Ransomware to Target the Healthcare and Public Health Sector

The federal government warns healthcare organizations to defend themselves against potential North Korea-sponsored cyberattacks that are using Maui ransomware.

Tebra Secures More Than $72 Million at Over $1 Billion Valuation to Expand Digital Healthcare Technology Platform

Tebra, the new name for the combined ambulatory health IT businesses of Kareo and PatientPop, secures a $72 million investment from Golub Capital.

Former Theranos COO is guilty of federal fraud

Former Theranos President and COO Sunny Balwani joins his former fellow executive / former romantic partner Elizabeth Holmes in being convicted of federal charges.

Premier said to reevaluate strategic options

Premier Inc. is reportedly considering strategic alternatives that include being taken private.

$3.2 billion digital-health startup Cedar just cut 24% of its workers amid a market downturn

Patient payments startup Cedar, valued at $3 billion, lays off 24% of its workforce “in order to adapt to current market realities.”

Morning Headlines 7/7/22

CareConnectMD Announces $25 Million Investment from TT Capital Partners to Fuel Expansion and Hiring

CareConnectMD will use $25 million in new funding to expand its primary care services for medically fragile Medicare patients into new markets and further develop its technology, including telemedicine.

PFC USA Provides Notice of Data Security Incident

Professional Finance Corp. notifies the patients of nearly 600 healthcare providers of a February ransomware attack on its systems that may have compromised their data.

Medical Solutions Acquires North Carolina-Based Matchwell

Healthcare workforce company Medical Solutions acquires online healthcare staffing marketplace Matchwell for an undisclosed sum.