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.

Morning Headlines 12/2/20

Say “Hey!” to Project US@ – a Unified Specification for Address in Health Care

ONC, HL7, and other participants announce Project US@, which hopes to publish a healthcare standard for representing patient addresses sometime next year.

Olive Attracts Additional $225.5MM Investment to Fast-Track AI Workforce For Healthcare

Healthcare process automation vendor Olive achieves a $1.5 billion valuation after announcing a $225 million financing round.

Salesforce acquires Slack for over $27 billion, marking cloud software vendor’s largest deal ever

Salesforce acquires Slack for $27.7 billion.

DAS Health Acquires Randall Technology Services

Ambulatory health IT company Das Health Ventures acquires Randall Technology Services and its portfolio of Allscripts EHR and practice management solutions.

Morning Headlines 12/1/20

Skylight Health Announces Rebrand and Corporate Plan to Provide Primary Care Nationally to Millions of Americans

Clinic operator and health IT developer CBS Insights rebrands to Skylight Health Group.

M12 Invests in the Future of Virtual Health with Andor Health

Virtual healthcare collaboration and delivery company Andor Health announces a Series A funding round from Microsoft’s M12 venture fund.

Change Healthcare Announces Sale of Capacity Management Business to HealthStream

Change Healthcare sells its Capacity Management business, which includes services related to nurse staffing, patient flow, and anticipated patient demand, to workforce solutions company HealthStream.

Morning Headlines 11/30/20

Health systems are using AI to predict severe Covid-19 cases. But limited data could produce unreliable results

Health systems are using AI to assign COVID-19 risk scores despite lack of proof that they correlate to real-world outcomes or whether their training was broad enough to be generalizable.

Federal system for tracking hospital beds and COVID-19 patients provides questionable data

A CDC analysis finds that HHS Protect’s COVID-19 data do not line up with other hospital data sources used by many states, potentially giving government health officials and hospital personnel inaccurate estimates of disease burden and resource availability.

Full implementation of P.E.I.’s electronic record system not planned until March 2022

In Canada, Prince Edward Island health officials postpone the implementation of an enterprise EHR due to COVID-19-related vendor delays, pushing the project to 2021-2022.

Morning Headlines 11/26/20

$47M invested, $47,000 left for creditors: HealthSpot bankruptcy winding down

After five years in bankruptcy, telemedicine kiosk vendor HealthSpot has just $47,000 left to distribute to creditors.

UVM Medical Center restores electronic medical records nearly a month after cyberattack

The University of Vermont Health Network announces that it has restored access to its Epic EHR for all inpatient and outpatient sites.

Elizabeth Holmes Prosecutors Say Texts Show Theranos Beset With Problems

Federal prosecutors seek a judge’s approval to use texts between Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and former president Sunny Balwani to help prove they knew that the company’s technology was not as groundbreaking as they led investors to believe.

Morning Headlines 11/25/20

Well Health Secures $45 Million in Series C Funding to Transform Patient Communication for Healthcare Providers, Payers, and ACOs

Digital patient communications company Well Health raises $45 million in a Series C financing round, bringing its total funding to $75 million.

DataLink Receives Growth Equity Investment from Investor Group Led by DWS

Population health software company DataLink will use a growth equity investment to further scale its provider engagement services and pursue M&A activities.

Healthcare technology maker G Medical Innovations withdraws $30 million US IPO

G Medical Innovations, an Israel-based vendor of remote vital sign monitoring software, withdraws its IPO plans – for the second time – after filing to raise $30 million on the Nasdaq.

Morning Headlines 11/24/20

CompuGroup Medical strengthens US business with one of the largest acquisitions in company history

Germany-based health IT company CompuGroup Medical will acquire ambulatory-focused health IT vendor EMDs for $240 million.

GigCapital2 to merge with two telehealth firms in $1.35 billion deal

Special purpose acquisition company GigCapital2 will merge with Cloudbreak Health and UpHealth Holdings to create a telemedicine company valued at $1.35 billion.

Signify Health Acquires PatientBlox to Accelerate Prospective Episode of Care Payment Models, Advance Transition to Value-based Care

Value-based care coordination and payments vendor Signify Health acquires blockchain startup PatientBlox for an undisclosed sum.

CentralReach Acquires AI-Based Scheduling Algorithm to Automate Scheduling Operations for Autism & ABA Care Delivery

Health IT vendor CentralReach acquires Cartocal and will incorporate its automated scheduling technology into its software for providers specializing in applied behavior analysis.