Morning Headlines 4/4/19

UMass prize will fund telemedicine initiative

UMass will roll out video-based substance use disorder evaluation software developed by prize-winning physicians within its Memorial Medical Group at three of its EDs over the next three months.

VA’s IT leadership problem has infected modernization efforts

Officials at a House Veterans Affairs Committee Hearing say the VA’s abysmal CIO track record has hampered – and will continue to hamper – the success of its extremely expensive IT modernization efforts.

Quil, The Joint Venture Between Independence Health Group And Comcast, Names Carina Edwards Chief Executive Officer

Digital health company Quil names former Imprivata executive Carina Edwards CEO.

HealthVerity Announces $25 Million in Series C Funding

Patient data retrieval and management company HealthVerity raises $25 million.

Morning Headlines 4/3/19

Walgreens Boots Alliance Reports Fiscal 2019 Second Quarter Results

Walgreens announces executive changes, store layout redesign, and cost-cutting measures following its announcement of disappointing quarterly results.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Joins DirectTrust’s Accredited Trust Anchor Bundle

The VA joins DirectTrust’s anchor bundle, which will allow its employees to use Direct messaging and information exchange to communicate with 1.8 million providers.

Abernethy tapped as FDA’s CIO

Politico reports that FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner and former Flatiron Health executive Amy Abernethy, MD will become the agency’s CIO, taking over from CISO and interim CIO Craig Taylor.

Theranos Whistleblowers To Launch Tech Ethics Venture

Theranos whistleblowers Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz will launch the nonprofit Ethics in Entrepreneurship to help connect startups with ethicists, more experienced entrepreneurs, and resources that will help them avoid the fate of the disgraced blood-testing company.

Morning Headlines 4/2/19

Brian Tyler Becomes McKesson’s New CEO

McKesson COO and President Brian Tyler succeeds John Hammergren as CEO.

NTT DATA Services Acquires State Healthcare Consulting Practice from Cognosante

NTT Data Services acquires Cognosante Consulting, which has supported IT projects for HHS departments and state agencies.

We’ve Got to Have More Time

Healthcare trade groups including the AMA, MGMA, and CHIME call for a 30-day extension of the comment period on the ONC’s 21st Century Cures Act proposal and the CMS interoperability rule.

Critical Alert Completes Acquisition of Sphere3

Former Sphere3 CEO Kourtney Govro becomes VP of Critical Alert’s business development and managing director of the its new Sphere3 Clinical Advisory Division.

Morning Headlines 4/1/19

West Michigan doctor’s office hacked, doctors held for ransom

A two-doctor ENT practice in Michigan closes for good and its partners retire after they refuse to pay a hacker $6,500 to restore their ransomware-encrypted systems.

Queensland Health rejects call to pause electronic medical record rollout

Queensland Health officials reject the Australian Medical Association of Queensland’s calls to halt the rollout of the Cerner-powered IEMR, saying all of AMAQ’s issues with the software have been resolved or are in the process of being addressed.

UM Health Spinoff Fifth Eye Nabs $11 Million VC Round

Post-operative patient monitoring startup Fifth Eye raises $11 million in a Series A round.

Mount Sinai and Hasso Plattner Institute Launch New Institute for Digital Health

Mount Sinai Health System (NY) and the Hasso Plattner Institute will spend $15 million to develop an institute that will develop digital health products with real-time predictive and preventive capabilities.

University Healthcare System to invest $170 million in new medical record technology

University Health System (TX) will spend $170 million to implement Epic over a three-year period.

Morning Headlines 3/29/19

Teladoc Health Launches Telemedicine Service in Canada, Expanding Portfolio of Available Healthcare Solutions

Teladoc Health will launch its services in Canada.

FDA Chief Calls For Release Of All Data Tracking Problems With Medical Devices

Departing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD says the agency will make good on its promise to release thousands of patient safety reports.

Hackers attempt to access Northampton General Hospital computers 240 times a day

Officials at Northampton General Hospital in England say they are fending off 240 data-breach attempts a day, and worry that the problem will only escalate as NHS facilities become paperless.

Morning Headlines 3/28/19

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Health Outcomes Challenge

CMS announces the AI Health Outcomes Challenge, which will award up to $1.65 million to winners who develop AI-powered technologies that can predict unplanned hospital and SNF admissions, and adverse events.

Health care leaders back Xealth with Series A funding to digitally enable patient care

Digital prescription startup Xealth raises $11 million in a funding round led by McKesson Ventures, Novartis, Philips, and ResMed.

Sutter Health, Suki Introduce Digital Voice Assistant to Support Patient Care

Sutter Health (CA) will pilot an AI-enabled digital voice assistant developed by Suki in primary care, dermatology, and orthopedics.

Centene to Buy WellCare in $17.3 Billion Health-Care Deal

Public and private payer Centene acquires WellCare Health Plans for $17 billion.

Alphabet-backed Clover Health is cutting tech jobs after realizing it needs more health-care experts

Medicare Advantage payer Clover Health lays off 140 employees as part of a restructuring that will help it focus more on healthcare rather than software expertise. 

Morning Headlines 3/27/19

The end for Obamacare? Trump administration says it will ask a court to throw out entire health law

The Justice Department won’t dispute a federal court’s decision that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and should therefore be eliminated in its entirety.

Philips expands its radiology solutions offering with advanced teleradiology services

Philips acquires teleradiology practice Direct Radiology, whose 70 radiologists provide services to 300 hospitals, imaging centers, and practices.

‘Desperate’ risk delayed electronic medical record, meeting minutes show

Australia’s Queensland Health was so desperate to prove the financial viability of its Cerner-powered IEMR that it planned to go live at Princess Alexandra Hospital in mid-2015 even though the project was in “cannot meet objectives” status.

Alexander Says New HHS Rules Should Improve Electronic Health Records To Give Patients Better Outcomes, Better Experiences At A Lower Cost

HELP committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) says HHS’s proposed interoperability rules will provide a definition of information blocking, require insurers to give patients copies of their data, mandate that EHRs support API access, and require hospitals to send ADT notifications to a patient’s doctors.

Morning Headlines 3/26/19

Judge dismisses final worker wage lawsuit against Epic Systems

A federal judge dismisses the last pending lawsuit brought by employees against Epic, finding that the 2016 suit of a group of quality assurance workers was too similar to that ruled on by the US Supreme Court last year.

Apple could combine its expertise in health and fintech to get into medical billing, experts say

Industry insiders speculate that Apple’s new credit card, combined with its Apple Pay service, could signal a pending foray into medical billing.

UA Physician and iTether Create App for Pregnant Women, New Moms, with Opioid Addiction

The University of Arizona College of Medicine is working with ITether Technologies to revamp its digital care management software for substance use disorder patients to better fit the needs of pregnant women and new moms.

Patient data exposed at 2 Toronto hospitals, privacy commissioner investigating

An anonymous computer programmer accidentally discovers the PHI of over 200 hospital patients in Toronto after intercepting unencrypted pager messages.

Morning Headlines 3/25/19

FDA Chief Calls For Stricter Scrutiny Of Electronic Health Records

Departing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says FDA oversight of EHRs would be appropriate “when they’re doing things that could create risk for patients” in turning into a medical device.

Healthcare Analytics Leaders Clinigence and QualMetrix Merge to Accelerate Value-Based Care and Population Health Management

Population health analytics company QualMetrix becomes a subsidiary of quality reporting software vendor Clinigence.

Wolters Kluwer provides NASA astronauts in outer space access to UpToDate clinical decision support resource

Wolters Kluwer is providing International Space Station astronauts with access to its UpToDate medical information resource.

UCLA Health System Settlement

UCLA Health System (CA) will spend $5.5 million on cybersecurity defense as part of a proposed settlement stemming from a 2015 data breach that left patient data exposed for nearly a year.

Morning Headlines 3/22/19

BESLER Completes Acquisition of Essential Consulting LLC, a Leader in Hospital Reimbursement Services and Supporting Technology

Hospital RCM company Besler acquires competitor Essential Consulting for an undisclosed amount.

Family’s letter to Providence St. Mary leads to new telemedicine program for critically ill children

A family’s suggestion and donation leads Providence St. Mary (WA) to pilot telemedicine capabilities that enable its providers to consult with neonatologists and pediatric intensivists in Spokane.

750,000 Medtronic defibrillators vulnerable to hacking

Homeland Security alerts consumers to vulnerabilities in 16 types of Medtronic implantable defibrillators that would allow a hacker to access or modify the device’s data, and change device settings.

Morning Headlines 3/21/19

CMS Awards IMPAQ Contract to Support Patient Safety Measure Development and Maintenance

Impaq International signs a five-year, multimillion dollar contract with CMS for the development, implementation, and maintenance of patient safety measures used in the the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting program, Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction program, and the Promoting Interoperability program.

ZOLL Reports Recent Data Security Incident

Critical care device and software company Zoll notifies customers and patients of a data breach that occurred when a third-party vendor left emails exposed during a server migration late last year.

SA Health upgrades to latest version of Allscripts EMR

SA Health in Australia upgrades its Allscripts Sunrise software after a report found numerous problems with the health system’s EHR and patient administration project.

Morning Headlines 3/20/19

Primus Capital Provides Growth Investment in Harmony Healthcare IT

Health data archiving company Harmony Healthcare IT secures an unspecified amount of funding from Primus Capital.

Unite Us Raises $35 Million to Bridge the Gap Between Health and Social Care

Healthcare and social services coordination software vendor Unite Us raises $35 million in a Series B funding round.

Teladoc Health to Expand Global Reach with Acquisition of MédecinDirect

Teladoc acquires French telemedicine company MédecinDirect.

Morning Headlines 3/19/19

Malfunctioning billing system leaves scars on Glens Falls Hospital

Glenn Falls Hospital (NY) reaches a confidential settlement with Cerner after a $38 million loss attributed to its faulty billing system.

Beware the hype over the Apple Watch heart app. The device could do more harm than good

STAT points out that the highly-publicized results of an Apple Heart Study on a-fib detection conducted by Stanford University should be taken with a grain of salt, given that it was an observational study without a control group of non-Apple Watch users.

The messy, cautionary tale of how Babylon disrupted the NHS

Babylon’s GP at Hand telemedicine clinic in London offers NHS patients a tech-friendly alternative to traditional clinics, but is placing an unexpectedly burdensome strain on local resources and staff.

$1 billion Sequoia-backed Health Catalyst has picked lead banks for its IPO

Sources report that Health Catalyst has selected Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to handle its IPO.

VA’s Private Care Program Headed for Tech Trouble, Review Finds

A US Digital Service review finds that private-care eligibility software developed by AbleVets on behalf of the VA should be scrapped due to numerous flaws resulting from a rushed development timeline.

Morning Headlines 3/18/19

Change Healthcare on deck for IPO

Change Healthcare, valued at up to $12 billion, files IPO documents for a $100 million IPO.

Signify Health acquires start-up TAV Health in multimillion-dollar deal

Mobile health evaluation company Signify Health acquires TAV Health, which offers a platform to connect community and health partners to address social determinants of health.

Doctors Create an iPad Program to Help NICU Babies Get Home Faster

Doctors at University of Virginia Children’s Hospital develop an IPad-based system that allows NICU babies to go home earlier, replacing a pen-and-paper and call-in system for parents to report their baby’s feedings and weight.

A huge trove of medical records and prescriptions found exposed

EHR vendor Meditab leaves a server unsecured for nearly a year, giving anyone the ability to read the content of medical faxes in real time.

Morning Headlines 3/15/19

More than 72,000 possibly affected by hospital data breach

Rutland Regional Medical Center (VT) notifies 72,000 patients of a breach after discovering that the email accounts of nine employees had been hacked late last year.

Aldrich Capital Partners Invests in eHealth Technologies

Medical record retrieval and image-sharing company EHealth Technologies secures $41 million in financing.

Theranos employees struggle to put scandal behind them

As HBO’s Theranos documentary gets set to air, former Theranos employees recount the ways in which their time at the company has stigmatized them and severely curtailed their career trajectories.

Morning Headlines 3/14/19

TriNetX Secures $40 Million in Series D Funding

Analytics-enabled global health research network TriNetX raises $40 million in a financing round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund.

ImagineSoftware Acquires RCM Software Company ProviderAlly

Medical billing company ImagineSoftware acquires healthcare payment automation and analytics vendor ProviderAlly.

Mental health providers, others ask for delay to electronic health record requirement

Citing high EHR costs and lack of selection, behavioral health providers in North Carolina are pushing for more time to connect to the statewide HIE ahead of the mandated June 1 deadline.

Morning Headlines 3/13/19

Mach7 Announces Restructuring to Accelerate Sales and Achieve Cash-flow Break Even

Australian imaging software vendor Mach7 fires its CEO and eliminates the CTO role as part of a restructuring and cost-cutting program that it hopes will propel its US growth.

NIH cancer chief to serve as acting FDA commissioner

National Cancer Institute Director Ned Sharpless, MD will take over as acting FDA commissioner once Scott Gottlieb, MD departs next month.

Apple’s Likely Healthcare Roadmap

An investment analyst thinks Apple will expand the Watch’s medical sensors and then sell the data of wearers to their doctors for $10 per patient per month.

2019 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns

Warnings against relying solely on EHR information for diagnostic stewardship and test result management, managing patient expectations around antibiotics, and physician burnout awareness and review top ECRI Institute’s annual list of patient safety recommendations.