Morning Headlines 12/31/19

FDA Failed to Ensure Safe Prescribing of Opioids, Documents Show

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers find that FDA was lax in failing to require opioid manufacturers to collect data to prove that their physician prescribing training was effective in reducing addiction, overdoses, and deaths and instead allowed those companies, in the absence of such data, to regulate themselves.

I tracked my sleep with an Oura ring — here’s what I learned

CNBC’s Chrissy Farr says Oura’s sleep tracking ring provided a lot of sleep quality data over a two-week period, but the 15 minutes she spent with a sleep coach – which the company does not offer – provided more value.

What’s Next for Health: Leading Through Change with a Strategic Direction

HIMSS touts its “new strategic direction and brand re-alignment” that includes a reorganization to remove silos, an emphasis on its value beyond the annual conference, and its intention to become “a catalyzer to transform the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology.”

The Big Change Coming to Just About Every Website on New Year’s Day

The California Consumer Privacy Act, which takes effect January 1, requires the websites of large companies to provide ways – including web buttons saying “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” – to their websites, which will be available to all US citizens since the sites can’t target Californians specifically.

Morning Headlines 12/30/19

DCH Health System patients file federal suit over ransomware attack

Four patients of the Alabama-based health system claim their care was disrupted by an October ransomware attack.

Verily Partners with Emory Healthcare to Analyze Medication and Lab Ordering Patterns for Improved Cost-Effectiveness and Operational Efficiency

The health system hires Alphabet-owned Verily to use analytics to find value opportunities.

Just what the doctor ordered: How AI will change medicine in the 2020s

Eric Topol, MD again calls for technology to give doctors “the gift of time” that will allow them to develop deeper relationships with their patients.

New York doctor sues Apple over irregular heartbeat detection

NYU Langone Health cardiologist Joseph Wiesel, MD says Apple violated his patented method for detecting atrial fibrillation after he shared details with the company in September 2017.

Morning Headlines 12/27/19

The Watch Is Smart, but It Can’t Replace Your Doctor

A physician author says in a New York Times article that the public health value of the Apple Watch’s atrial fibrillation detection capability is overhyped and that even study participants mostly ignored its guidance.

Artificial Intelligence Is Rushing Into Patient Care – And Could Raise Risks

AI systems have already made significant healthcare mistakes as technology companies their rush products to market without the benefit of peer-reviewed studies and with minimal FDA oversight.

Mayo Clinic names chief digital officer to lead transformative digital strategy, create Center for Digital Health

Mayo Clinic hires Rita Khan (United HealthCare, Best Buy, Macy’s) as chief digital officer.

Augmedics Announces FDA 510K Clearance and U.S. Launch of xvision, the First Augmented Reality Guidance System for Surgery

Chicago-based Augmedics earns FDA’s F10(k) clearance for its augmented reality system that allows surgeons to visualize 3D spinal anatomy and track instruments and implants while looking directly at the patient.

Morning Headlines 12/26/19

Artificial Intelligence Is Rushing Into Patient Care – And Could Raise Risks

Experts say AI could have a big healthcare impact, but worry about excessive hype, the tech industry’s mantra to “fail fast and fix it later,” systems whose training allows them to base predictions on meaningless data points, and the absence of any randomized clinical trials proving that such systems actually work.

Pentagon Warns Military Personnel Against At-Home DNA Tests

The military urges service members to decline to take consumer DNA tests because they create security risks, their results are unreliable, and they could lead to unintentional discovery of genetic information that could jeopardize their military career.

CoverMyMeds about to grow to 1,500 jobs – as outgoing CEO Matt Scantland charts what comes next

CoverMyMeds will grow to 1,500 employees by the end of March, triple its headcount since McKesson acquired the medication prior authorization company three years ago.

Morning Headlines 12/24/19

Electronic Health Records Creating A ‘New Era’ Of Health Care Fraud

Kaiser Health News covers fraud by hospitals and medical practices in receiving Meaningful Use payments, by vendors that overstated their MU compliance, and in false claims settlements by Greenway Health and EClinical Works, with experts concluding that the MU program was poorly conceived and that most of the money was handed out too early in the program when providers were paid for doing little beyond agreeing to participate.

Health documents reveal patient harm linked to Queensland’s new medical record system

In Australia, a TV news department’s Right to Information request finds that 95 cases of patient harm have been attributed to Queensland Health’s Cerner IEMR system in just over a year, with 45 incidents being caused by user error and 32 by poor usability.

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Evident Partner to Improve Patient Outcomes in Canada

CPSI’s Evident business unit and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre announce plans to develop a Canada-specific hospital information system that will combine the health center’s Sunnycare system with the Evident EHR.

Besler acquires majority ownership in Panacea Healthcare Solutions Inc.

Reimbursement solutions vendor Besler acquires a majority ownership position in Panacea Healthcare Solutions, which offers physician revenue cycle services and technology. 

For Her Head Cold, Insurer Coughed Up $25,865

A woman’s insurer pays $26,000 for a PCP visit in which she received only a throat swab and blood test, with much of the expense being the exotic DNA tests – all of which were negative – the doctor sent off to an out-of-network lab whose price was 20 times higher than average in her area. The lab is apparently owned by the doctor. 

New FDA Commissioner Takes Over Predecessor’s Twitter, Deletes All Previous Tweets

New FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, MD converts the @SGottliebFDA twitter account to @SteveFDA to keep his predecessor’s 44,000 followers for “maximum exposure,” but also deletes all of Gottlieb’s tweets and public comments, which some some experts say raises ethical concerns.

Morning Headlines 12/23/19

Australians shun My Health Record with only 9 per cent ever logging in

Government health officials in Australia admit that while 23 million people have a My Health Record online health account, 91% of them have never logged in and most of those who did log in have not returned.

Abbott Labs kills free tool that lets you own the blood-sugar data from your glucose monitor, saying it violates copyright law

Drug maker Abbott Labs issues a takedown notice to a diabetes support group that told users how to extract their own blood sugar readings from the company’s continuous glucose monitor and monitor them on a free software tool.

New Software Targets ICU Delirium

Epic works with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (TN) to release workflows that prevent ICU delirium.

Morning Headlines 12/20/19

NCPDP & Experian Health Announce 100% of the U.S. Population Has a Universal Patient Identifier, Powered by Experian Health UIM and NCPDP Standards™

Standards developer NCPDP and Experian Health announce that they have assigned a Universal Patient Identifier to all 328 million Americans.

Hospital execs say they are getting flooded with requests for your health data

Hospitals report that they are being inundated with requests to sell patient information to technology companies, many of them well-funded Silicon Valley startups that need to train their newly developed AI systems.

Mass General team detects Alzheimer’s early using electronic health records

Massachusetts General Hospital scientists say they can predict dementia by scanning their EHR data for a list of cognitive-related terms using natural language processing.

Morning Headlines 12/19/19

Streamline Health(R) Announces Signing of Definitive Agreement to Sell Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Business to Hyland

RCM vendor Streamline Health will sell its enterprise content management business to Hyland.

Blue Button 2.0 API Update

CMS temporarily shuts down the Blue Button 2.0 system after a developer notifies the agency of a bug that may have improperly exposed Medicare beneficiary data.

NTT DATA Services to Acquire NETE, Expanding Digital Transformation Capabilities in the Federal Healthcare Sector

NTT Data Services will acquire 300-employee NETE, which provides digital services including analytics and cybersecurity to NIH, CMS, and HRSA.

LifeLabs users wise to worry about fraud, ID theft after mass data breach say experts

Canada’s largest laboratory testing company notifies patients of an October ransomware attack that compromised a server used for online appointment bookings.

Morning Headlines 12/18/19

Announcing ICD-10-CM and RxNorm Ontology Linking for Amazon Comprehend Medical

Amazon Web Services adds ICD-10 and RXNorm linking to its Amazon Comprehend Medical natural language processing service.

Nashville executive lands head job at CMS innovation center

Aspire Health co-founder Brad Smith will become the new head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation.

Fujifilm to buy Hitachi’s diagnostic imaging business

Fujifilm will reportedly buy Hitachi’s diagnostic imaging business for $1.5 billion to improve its competitive position against Siemens, GE, and Philips.

Tidelands Health network impacted by malware attack

Computer systems of three-hospital Tidelands Health (SC) are apparently still down following a malware attack of an unspecified nature last Thursday.

1-800 Contacts Enters Agreement to Acquire Revolutionary Vision Start-Up 6over6 Vision

1-800 Contacts acquires 6over6 Vision, whose smartphone app allows consumers in certain non-US countries (including Canada) to perform their own eye exams.

Morning Headlines 12/17/19

Bankrupt uBiome preliminarily sells patents for 1% of the poop-testing startup’s original valuation

Once valued at $600 million, bankrupt microbiome-testing startup UBiome auctions off its patents and intellectual property for $7 million to a consumer DNA testing company.

CMS Made an Estimated $93.6 Million in Incorrect Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Payments to Acute-Care Hospitals, or Less Than 1 Percent of $10.8 Billion in Total Incentive Payments

An OIG audit finds that, because of inaccurate hospital calculations, CMS paid out $93.6 million in incorrect Medicare EHR incentive payments to acute-care hospitals between 2013 and 2017.

Evaluating Improvements and Shortcomings in Clinician Satisfaction With Electronic Health Record Usability

A study of 70 EHR vendors with the most Meaningful Use attestations finds that physician satisfaction with EHRs is diminishing for nearly half of the products.

Morning Headlines 12/16/19

NJ’s largest hospital system forced to pay ransom in cyber attack

Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest health system, admits that it has paid a ransomware hacker to regain access to its computer systems.

GV Backs Kindbody As The Company Expands Employer Benefits Offering

Fertility clinic and technology company Kindbody secures financing from the former Google Ventures, bringing its total funding to $32 million and enabling it to further scale its direct-to-employer service.

US health insurance firm Cigna is using AI to check if patients are taking their medications but experts fear the controversial scheme may be used to cancel policies or avoid paying out

Privacy experts are concerned that Cigna’s new AI-powered medication adherence monitoring program will be used for the benefit of the payer’s bottom line rather than improved patient care.

VirTrial Acquires SnapMD and Bolsters Virtual Care Management Platform

Virtual clinical trial company VirTrial acquires telehealth vendor SnapMD.

Morning Headlines 12/13/19

Partners HealthCare Launches Digital Health Initiative

Partners HealthCare (MA) will spend $100 million on a five-year digital health initiative focused on developing self-service technologies for patients.

Senate confirms Trump’s nominee to lead FDA

The Senate confirms MD Anderson Chief Medical Executive Stephen Hahn, MD to lead the FDA.

Caresyntax to Acquire Operating Room Analytics Provider, Syus

Surgical automation and software vendor Caresyntax acquires OR analytics company Syus alongside a $45 million funding round.

BJC outsources IT services, cuts 200 jobs

BJC HealthCare (MO) lays off 200 employees as it outsources some IT services to an unnamed managed service provider.

NextGen Healthcare Announces Agreement to Acquire OTTO Health

NextGen acquires telemedicine vendor Otto Health.

Morning Headlines 12/12/19

Bridge Connector Increases Total Financing to $25 Million with Investment From Jeff Vinik & Axioma Ventures

Bridge Connector will use its $25 million in financing to help scale a new integration platform-as-a-service that connects health data systems without the need for code.

Proteus Digital Health plans hundreds of job cuts, facilities closures

Proteus Digital Health’s previously announced restructuring will include eliminating 292 jobs and closing several facilities by January 18.

U.S. Justice Department to review Google’s deal for Fitbit: source

The DoJ will look into Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit for possible antitrust violations.

Morning Headlines 12/11/19

Google snaps up chief medical officer of health device maker AliveCor, weeks after buying Fitbit

Former AliveCor CMO Jacqueline Shreibati, MD joins Google Health’s clinical research team.

McKesson Appoints Nancy Flores as Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Chief Technology Officer

McKesson names Nancy Flores (Johnson Controls) EVP, CIO, and CTO.

ESO Acquires Clinical Data Management to Extend Product Portfolio in Trauma Registry Market

Emergency medical services technology company ESO acquires trauma registry software vendors Clinical Data Management, Lancet Technology, and Digital Innovation.

CommonWell Health Alliances Announces New Executive Director

Former Philips VP Paul Wilder joins CommonWell Health Alliance as executive director.

Morning Headlines 12/10/19

etectRx Announces U.S. FDA Clearance of Novel Ingestible Event Marker

EtectRx’s smart pill system receives FDA clearance after news breaks of competitor Proteus facing financial difficulties.

Alleged billion-dollar fraud scheme leads to guilty plea by former Outcome Health exec

Former Outcome Health EVP Ashik Desai pleads guilty to wire fraud and agrees to cooperate with prosecutors.

For Concussion, MS, Other Neurologic Disorders, Telemedicine May Be as Effective as Office Visit

A retrospective analysis of 101 telemedicine studies finds virtual visits may be just as effective as in-person visits for several neurological conditions.

Morning Headlines 12/9/19

Hackensack Meridian’s ‘core clinical systems’ back online after week-long disruptions

Hackensack Meridian Health (NJ) brings its clinical systems back online after a downtime of several days, rumored to be the result of a ransomware attack.

Partners reports stellar financial results as it preps for rebrand

Partners HealthCare, soon to be renamed to Mass General Brigham, cites Epic’s more accurate coding as part of the reason it took in $484 million of operating income in its most recent fiscal year.

Digital health start-up once worth $1.5 billion is racing to keep lights on as investors flee

Once valued at $1.5 billion, “smart pill” medication management company Proteus struggles to stay afloat after a $100 million funding round falls through.

NHS gives Amazon free use of health data under Alexa advice deal

In England, NHS gives Amazon the option to use its clinical content in the development of future products and services as part of its contract for an Alexa skill that offers medical advice culled from the NHS website.

Morning Headlines 12/6/19

Premier considers sale with banks

Premier is reportedly arranging talks with several potential acquirers in seeking a sale of the company.

Stephanie Reel to retire as chief information officer of university, health system

Stephanie Reel, CIO/vice provost for IT at Johns Hopkins University and SVP/CIO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, will retire on July 1, 2020 after a 30-year Hopkins career.

Former Outcome Health employees plead not guilty to felony charges in alleged $1 billion scheme to defraud pharma clients

Two former Outcome Health analysts plead not guilty to charges of felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

VA launches National Artificial Intelligence

The VA establishes the National Artificial Intelligence Institute to research and develop AI solutions that will improve healthcare for veterans.