Morning Headlines 9/23/20

FDA Launches the Digital Health Center of Excellence

The Center will provide expertise and advise FDA on modernizing digital health policies and regulatory approaches.

Microsoft launches Cloud for Healthcare in general availability

The managed service will includes Dynamics 365, Azure, 365, Teams and its new EHR connector, and Healthcare Bot Service for developing self-assessment tools.

A call for social informatics

A JAMIA article calls for creating an informatics subfield that focuses on social determinants of health.

NCDHHS Launches SlowCOVIDNC Exposure Notification App; Available for Download Today

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services launches SlowCOVID19, a contact tracing app that uses the Exposure Notification System from Google and Apple.

Morning Headlines 9/22/20

Orthopedic Clinic Pays $1.5 Million to Settle Systemic Noncompliance with HIPAA Rules

Athens Orthopedic Clinic (GA) will pay the HHS Office of Civil Rights $1.5 million to settle potential HIPAA violations related to a 2016 data breach by The Dark Overlord.

Carlyle Makes Strategic Growth Investment in TriNetX; Acquires Majority Stake in Leading Global Health Research Network

The Carlyle Group will acquire a majority stake in global health research network TriNetX.

Teladoc accuses Amwell of infringing on its telehealth patents

Teladoc accuses Amwell of infringing on patents related to its digital scope, stethoscope, and some telemedicine carts.

Nebraska Medicine addressing ‘security incident’ impacting IT systems

Nebraska Medicine reverts to downtime procedures after an unspecified security incident on Sunday takes its IT systems offline.

Morning Headlines 9/21/20

Olive Adds $106MM to Transform Healthcare Payments with AI Workforce

Healthcare robotic process automation vendor Olive raises $106 million in an equity investment, increasing its total to $220 million.

University Hospital New Jersey hit by SunCrypt ransomware, data leaked

Hackers dump online nearly 50,000 administrative and patient-related documents stolen in a ransomware attack earlier this month on University Hospital New Jersey.

HealtheMed Raises Seed Capital, Announces the Launch of Its Telemedicine Platform for Medicaid Populations

HealtheMed raises an undisclosed amount of seed capital to scale its remote patient monitoring technology for Medicaid patients in Minnesota.

Morning Headlines 9/18/20

Google-Backed American Well Stock Rises 28% in Market Debut

Boston-based telemedicine company Amwell raises $742 million in an IPO that saw shares hit a debut high of $25.90.

LifeSpeak Announces $42 Million Equity Investment To Accelerate Growth Of Digital Mental Health and Wellness Platform

Toronto-based employee mental health and wellness digital education vendor LifeSpeak raises a $42 million growth investment.

Forbes 400 2020: These Billionaires Have Gotten The Richest Over The Past Year

Epic founder and CEO Judy Faulkner is among the members of the Forbes 400 whose net worth increased the most in the past year, gaining $1.7 billion to hit $5.5 billion.

Washington and Oregon Join California in Pilot Project Using Google and Apple Exposure Notification Technology to Slow the Spread of COVID-19

Oregon and Washington join California in a pilot project that will test COVID-19 exposure notification technology developed by Apple and Google.

Morning Headlines 9/17/20

On-demand Healthcare Service, Ready, Raises $54 Million in Series C Financing

House call company Ready will use a $54 million Series C funding round to help it expand into mental healthcare, point-of-care testing, and vaccination services.

Anthem to study whether Apple Watch could help people with asthma

U.C. Irvine, Anthem, and CareEvolution will conduct a two-year study to investigate the role consumer devices can play in managing asthma.

Clearlake Capital-Backed Provation Acquires ePreop

Clinical decision support and documentation vendor Provation acquires EPreop, a developer of anesthesia quality reporting and perioperative care coordination software.

Vibrent Health Wins NIH Contract to Develop Powerful New Digital Health Solutions for COVID-19 Contact Tracing to Reduce the Risk of Infection and Help Society Return to Normal Activities

NIH grants Vibrent Health a $4 million contract to develop contract-tracing software that will also enable users to differentiate COVID-19 from the flu.

Medigate completes $30M Series B

Partech leads a $30 million Series B funding round in medical device security company Medigate, bringing its total raised to $50 million.

Morning Headlines 9/16/20

OnCall Health Raises $6M Series A to Enable Virtual Care Programs for Healthcare Brands

White-label telemedicine vendor OnCall Health raises $6 million in a Series A round led by Base10 Partners.

CareCentrix, backed by Summit, enlists Morgan Stanley to weigh options

Home and post-acute care technology company CareCentrix will assess its options after receiving interest from a potential buyer.

Here’s everything Apple just announced

Apple adds a blood oxygen monitoring feature to the newest version of Apple Watch, and will partner with three healthcare organizations to study the feature and its benefits.

Loblaw investing $75 million for minority stake in telemedicine firm Maple

In Canada, Loblaw Companies takes a minority stake in telemedicine vendor Maple through its Shoppers Drug Mart business.

Morning Headlines 9/15/20

MDLIVE Announces $50 Million Crossover Equity Investment from Sixth Street Growth

MDLive secures $75 million through a $50 million crossover equity investment from Sixth Street Growth and $25 million in debt expansion from other investors, bringing its total raised to nearly $175 million.

Industry Vet Ron Lattomus Named Director of Federal Programs at Cerner

Cerner hires Ron Lattomus (DRS Global Enterprise Solutions) to head its federal programs, including the VA’s EHR modernization project.

Carbon Health Partners with REEF to Launch 100 Pop-up COVID-19 Testing Clinics Nationwide, Expanding Access to Testing and Primary Care

Tech-heavy primary care company Carbon Health establishes 100 pop-up COVID-19 testing clinics that will eventually transition into permanent care facilities.

Morning Headlines 9/14/20

New Virtual Plus care plan in Washington

Kaiser Permanente launches Virtual Plus, a virtual-forward health plan for members in six Washington counties to get care for their non-urgent issues via phone, online chat, video, or email.

Tech Executive Pratap Sarker Joins Greenway Health as President

Greenway Health hires Pratap Sarker, MBA (Conduent) to the newly created position of president.

Exclusive: Change Healthcare shutters HQ, moves hundreds of employees virtual

Change Healthcare will close its headquarters in Nashville and transition as many as 700 employees to remote work.

Morning Headlines 9/11/20

Hyland enters definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco

Hyland will acquire Alfresco, which offers cloud-native content services solutions.

Grand Rounds Secures $175 Million Investment, Led by The Carlyle Group, to Accelerate Clinical Navigation and Virtual Primary Care

Grand Rounds, which offers self-insured employers a health navigation app, telemedicine services, and medical opinions for their employees, raises $175 million.

Radiology Partners Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire MEDNAX Radiology Solutions

Radiology Partners will acquire Mednax’s radiology solutions business, including teleradiology software used by 500 virtual radiologists, for $885 million.

Morning Headlines 9/10/20

Update: Closing on $75 million in new cash, Truepill plans at-home testing service as it nears $200 million in annual revenue

Telemedicine and pharmacy fulfillment company Truepill will use a new $75 million funding round to develop at-home testing services by the end of the year.

Progressive Care Enters into Letter of Intent to Acquire Telehealth Service Provider MyApps Corp.

Progressive Care acquires MyApps and its CallingDr white-label telemedicine service for $10.2 million.

Independent physician-owned practices adopt more quality improvement strategies

An observational study conducted by researchers at George Mason University finds that independent, physician-owned practices adopt more quality improvement strategies than their hospital-owned and community clinic counterparts.

Morning Headlines 9/9/20

United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division: Memorandum Opinion and Order

A federal court dismisses a class action lawsuit that was brought by a University of Chicago Medical Center patient who objected that the hospital shares the de-identified records of adult patients with Google for machine learning research.

NIH awards Fairfax company $39M contract

The National Institutes of Health awards Vibrent Health a $39 million contract to continue providing participant management technology for its All of Us research program.

ConnectiveRx and HelpAround Transform Mobile Access for Specialty Medication Patients

ConnectiveRx invests in HelpAround, a patient engagement and medication adherence startup that is focused on app-based messaging for patients undergoing specialty treatments.

Seattle health tech startup Optimize.health raises $15.6M for remote patient monitoring service

Optimize.health raises $15.6 million after pivoting from developing smart pill bottles to remote patient monitoring services.

Telehealth firm Amwell looks to raise about $560 million in U.S. IPO

Amwell expects to raise $560 million through its mid-September IPO of 35 million shares priced at between $14 and $16.

Morning Headlines 9/7/20

VA reboots health record rollout

The VA’s implementation of Cerner’s scheduling solution in the Midwest’s VISN10 region will be followed there by the full Cerner rollout.

Race for Coronavirus Vaccine Pits Spy Against Spy

The FBI warns University of North Carolina and other universities that state-sponsored cyberhackers from China, Russia, and Iran are targeting their COVID-19 research data.

Lessons from a Virus Tracing Dud

The state of Utah paid $3 million plus $300,000 per month to a small technology firm to develop its Healthy Together contact tracing app, which is being used by just 200 people.

Morning Headlines 9/4/20

Premier Inc. Earns First Place in AHRQ Predictive Analytics Challenge

AHRQ names Premier as the winner of its predictive analytics challenge, in which its PremierConnect most closely predicted admissions and length of stay.

Nordic taking proactive steps to serve clients more effectively in a COVID-19 world

Nordic lays off 72 of its 1,000 US-based employees due to the pandemic-induced financial disruptions its customers have faced.

Defense Innovation Unit Selects Google Cloud to Help U.S. Military Health System With Predictive Cancer Diagnoses

The DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit will work with Google Cloud to develop a digital pathology solution that will include augmented reality microscopes and AI models for more accurate and timely cancer detection.

Morning Headlines 9/3/20

Coast Guard Begins Deploying Pentagon’s New Electronic Health Records System

The US Coast Guard goes live on the DoD’s Cerner-powered MHS Genesis EHR at four facilities in California, with facility-wide deployment expected over the next two years.

WELL Health to Expand into US Market with Proposed Majority Stake in US Telehealth Leader Circle Medical and Announces $23M CAD Offering with Group of Investors Led by Mr. Li Ka-shing

Canadian Well Health Technologies will acquire San Francisco-based primary care company Circle Medical for $14 million.

Insurer Centene invests in start-up Hazel Health in $33.5 million venture funding round

Student-focused telemedicine startup Hazel Health raises $33.5 million in a Series C round led by Bain Capital and Owl Ventures.

Boston startup Biofourmis raises $100m for remote medical tech

Biofourmis raises $100 million to further develop its predictive analytics-based remote patient monitoring technology.

Morning Headlines 9/2/20

PicnicHealth Announces $35M in Funding to Accelerate Medical Research Based on Real World Data

PicnicHealth, which assembles a user’s health history from their medical records, packages them into a PHR, and then allows the user to send their anonymized data to drug companies as real-world evidence for research, raises $35 million.

TigerConnect Acquires Call Scheduler, Launches Fully Integrated TigerSchedule to Simplify Physician On-Call Scheduling

TigerConnect acquires Adjuvant’s physician scheduling tool, which it will release as TigerSchedule in combining physician scheduling with clinical collaboration.

Apple and Google will build their coronavirus contact tracing software right into your phone

Apple and Google will include COVID-19 exposure notification in the next updates of IOS and Android, eliminating the need for users to install them as a separate app.

Morning Headlines 9/1/20

CMS agrees to cover ‘breakthrough’ medical devices

A proposed CMS rule would give Medicare beneficiaries access to medical devices the FDA designates as breakthrough technology.

Cerner Unit Books Potential $161M VA Health Network Deployment Order

Cerner’s government services business receives a $161 million order to implement an enterprise healthcare services network at four VA medical centers in Ohio.

Madison nurses start company to provide online COVID-19 screening

Former Epic nursing innovation and product lead Bre Loughlin, RN co-founds Nurse Disrupted to offer virtual COVID-19 screening to men’s and women’s shelters in Madison, WI.

Morning Headlines 8/31/20

GoodRx files to go public with a rare characteristic: Profits

Prescription shopping vendor GoodRx files for an IPO, showing first-half results of $55 million in profit on $257 million in revenue with high growth in both.

Ascension Michigan health system to lay off and outsource 223 IT jobs in Troy

Ascension Michigan will lay off 223 employees of its IT network operations and service desk in October as the health system outsources their jobs.

HHS Deputy Secretary Hargan Statement on Appointment of Acting CIO

HHS Principal Deputy CIO Perryn Ashmore will begin serving as acting CIO following the resignation of Jose Arrieta.