Morning Headlines 1/15/19

U.S. Digital Service has an ambitious agenda at the VA

The US Digital Service is building an interface as part of the VA’s EHR Modernization project to help patients easily access their health records during the projected 10-year switch from VistA to Cerner.

NHS England digital chief moves to digital GP company

NHS England’s first Chief Digital Officer, Juliet Bauer, leaves to become an executive at Livi, an NHS contractor for telemedicine services.

Premier Health Signs Definitive Agreement for Acquisition of Cloud Practice Inc., a National Medical Software Application Company

In Canada, primary care-focused health IT company Premier Health acquires EHR and RCM vendor Cloud Practice for $5 million.

Morning Headlines 1/14/19

2018 M&A in Review: The Growth of Mega Mergers

The average acquired health system had annual revenue of $409 million in 2018, according to a new Kaufman Hall report on mega-mergers, that also found expansions were prompted more by improving business than patient care.

Offshoring over 1,000 health care jobs? That’s coming soon at Dallas-based Tenet

Tenet Healthcare (TX) tells investors it will look across the enterprise – including its Conifer Health Solutions billing and United Surgical Partners International ambulatory services divisions – to offshore over 1,000 jobs in the next 12 to 18 months.

Man gets 10 years for cyberattack on Boston Children’s Hospital

The US District Court in Boston sentences Martin Gottesfeld to 10 years in federal prison and orders him to pay $443,000 in restitution for his role in the 2014 cyberattack on Boston Children’s Hospital and nearby Wayside Youth and Family Support Network.

Early research on Apple’s Health Records service suggests patients generally like it

UC San Diego Health patients report high levels of satisfaction with using Apple’s Health Record feature to connect to and share their health data with family and friends.

Morning Headlines 1/11/19

Change Healthcare Makes Strategic Investment in MDsave

Change Healthcare makes a strategic investment in MDsave, a healthcare price comparison startup that offers consumers discounted services when booked through its website.

PatientPing to Double in Size in 2019

Boston-based PatientPing will hire 100 employees over the next 12 months in an effort to double its staff.

PSI’s Acquisition of QuarterLine Strengthens its Position as a Health IT Leader

Federal health IT vendor Planned Systems International acquires competitor QuarterLine for an unspecified amount.

Morning Headlines 1/10/19

Good things are happening’ as DoD continues to roll out MHS GENESIS

MHS EHR Functional Champion and Air Force Maj. Gen. Lee E. Payne, MD reassures federal health employees that the MHS Genesis project is on track, and that the next wave of implementations will benefit from improved training processes.

IBM isn’t retreating from using Watson in health care, CEO Rometty says

Despite a plethora of recent bad press about IBM Watson’s healthcare capabilities, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says it is still a viable part of the company’s business, and that Watson for Oncology is doing well.

Tim Cook teases new Apple services: Our ‘most important contribution to mankind’ will be in health

Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals the company will soon roll out new healthcare services that have been years in the making, and that will ultimately revolutionize the way patients manage their health data.

DSS Acquires veEDIS Emergency Department Information System Software

Federal health IT vendor DSS adds newly acquired Emergency Department Information System software from VeEDIS Clinical Systems to its new Juno EHR.

Northwestern Medicine MyChart Users: Your Legal Options Just Shrank

Northwestern Medicine (IL) requires patients to agree not to pursue class-action lawsuits or jury trials over the mishandling of digital services like Epic’s MyChart.

Morning Headlines 1/9/19

The NHS Long Term Plan

In England, NHS issues a long-term plan that calls for technology to, among other goals, improve patient access and the ability to self-manage health, and give clinicians access to patient records from any location.

Healthgrades Acquires Influence Health

Physician and hospital information publisher Healthgrades acquires Influence Health, which offers web services, listings, reputation management, and CRM.

Amazon’s next big thing? Prime, but for healthcare

Analysts predict that Amazon will create Prime for healthcare, which could focus on offering lower drug prices via its acquired PillPack mail order pharmacy, Alexa services, and using its recently announced medical records analytical service to scribe clinical encounters.

AT&T and Rush System for Health Ink Agreement to Use 5G in Hospital Setting

AT&T and Rush University Medical Center (IL) will create the country’s first 5G-enabled hospital and will explore ways that a faster cellular network can improve operations and patient experience.

Morning Headlines 1/8/19

Vatica Health Acquires CareSync’s Technology to Expand Value-Based Care Capabilities

Vatica Health acquires CareSync’s care coordination and chronic care management technology following a $1 million bid made last October.

Stanford Children’s Health CIO Ed Kopetsky Receives Healthcare CIO of the Year Award

CHIME and HIMSS honor Stanford Children’s Health CIO Ed Kopetsky with their CIO of the Year award.

Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on the agency’s new actions under the Pre-Cert Pilot Program to promote a more efficient framework for the review of safe and effective digital health innovations

The FDA releases a regulatory framework, test plan, and working model as part of the next phase of its Pre-Cert program for the review of digital health product applications.

EarlySense Completes $39 Million Financing Round to Accelerate Global Expansion of Contact-Free Sensing and Analytics Solution

Patient monitoring company EarlySense secures $39 million in a financing round led by Hill-Rom and Wells Fargo Strategic Capital.

Morning Headlines 1/7/19

Senate Confirms James Gfrerer as VA’s Information, Technology Leader

The VA finally has its first permanent CIO in two years after the Senate confirms James Gfrerer as assistant secretary of information and technology.

SVB Financial Group Completes Acquisition of Healthcare Investment Bank Leerink Partners

SVB Financial Group completes its acquisition of healthcare and life sciences investor Leerink Partners for $280 million in cash.

Livongo Names Lee Shapiro Chief Financial Officer

Livongo hires its board member and investor Lee Shapiro as CFO.

Morning Headlines 1/4/19

Alphabet’s Verily gets $1 billion in funding round led by Silver Lake

Alphabet’s life sciences company Verily —  the former Google Life Sciences — raises $1 billion in a new capital funding round.

Medsphere Acquires HealthLine Solutions, Expands CareVue Platform

Medsphere acquires supply chain vendor HealthLine System a few weeks after raising $32 million.

Best Buy bones up on health care biz

Best Buy promotes Asheesh Saksena to president of its new health division, which will focus on helping seniors age in place.

Medici starts 2019 by buying another Austin health-tech startup

Telemedicine vendor Medici acquires competitor Chiron Health for an undisclosed amount.

Morning Headlines 1/3/19

HL7 Publishes FHIR Release 4

Health Level Seven International publishes the FHIR Release 4 standard.

Bristol-Myers Squibb to buy Celgene in $74 billion deal

The merger, if approved by shareholders and regulators, will create the US’s fourth-largest drug company.

Jvion Secures Significant Strategic Growth Investment to Expand Application of Its Healthcare AI and Prescriptive Analytics Platform

Healthcare AI vendor Jvion raises a growth equity investment of an unstated amount, led by JMI Equity.

Morning Headlines 1/2/19

Epic Systems adds dentists, life insurers to its software network

Epic’s VP of population health says the company is “moving beyond the walls” in creating a single repository for all of a patient’s electronic health records – dental, on-site clinics, drugstores, specialty clinics, and potentially home health and hospice providers.

When Doctors Serve on Company Boards

Cancer centers are responding to the perceived conflicts of interest that arise when their researchers and doctors serve on the boards of drug, lab, and medical device companies.

In Screening for Suicide Risk, Facebook Takes On Tricky Public Health Role

Facebook has deployed suicidal thoughts detection algorithms without tracking their outcomes even as the company faces global scrutiny for its privacy practices.

Malware attack disrupts delivery of L.A. Times and Tribune papers across the U.S.

Several newspapers are left unable to print editions after Tribune Publishing is taken down by an attack of Ryuk ransomware, a potent strain spread via malicious emails that was the subject of an HHS Cybersecurity Program warning in August 2018.

Morning Headlines 12/31/18

CenturyLink outage knocks out 911 calls, hospital’s patient records

A CenturyLink outage left several hospitals without Internet service Friday, also taking down phones, 911 access, and ATMs all over the country.

Cranky comments: detecting clinical decision support malfunctions through free-text override reasons

A JAMIA-published study of comments that clinicians enter when overriding clinical decision support warnings finds that the text can be mined to identify system shortcomings about 26 percent of the time.

‘Bleed Out’ Shows How Medical Errors Can Have Life-Changing Consequences

A filmmaker’s new HBO documentary covers what he says was a medical error that left his mother with permanent brain damage, for which he primarily blames Aurora West Allis Medical Center’s use of E-ICU coverage.

Stanley Black & Decker Debuts Healthcare And Security Innovations At CES 2019

The company will launch a voice-controlled, smartphone-integrated medication management and caregiver communication tool that supports independent living.

Morning Headlines 12/28/18

Livongo Focuses on Government and Labor Segment with Proven Executive

Former Livongo sales executive Randy Forman returns to head up the company’s government and labor division following an eight-month stint at Vida Health.

Can medical devices be hacked? Arizona doctors prepare for possibility of cyberattacks

University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix convenes CyberMed Summit, led by two ethical hackers who are graduates of the medical school.

After nearly five years lawsuit against Flowers Hospital is over

The Alabama hospital sets aside $150,000 to cover claims that a since-jailed lab employee sold 1,200 patient records for filing fraudulent tax returns.

Hospital prices: full cost lists must be published from January 1, new federal rule says

A rule announced in April requires hospitals to post “what they have online” in the form of annually updated, downloadable price lists.

Morning Headlines 12/27/18

One Giant Step for a Chess-Playing Machine

The New York Times describes Alphabet-owned DeepMind’s AlphaZero machine learning algorithm that not only became unbeatable in chess, it also appears to have used psychology to actually learn the game rather than choosing from pre-programmed moves, which may lead to development of novel solutions in science and medicine.

Misconceptions About Health Costs When You’re Older

End-of-life spending is often declared wasteful after the fact, but predicting who is likely to die to save the cost of heroic intervention isn’t accurate.

Massachusetts Stroke Patient Receives ‘Outrageous’ $474,725 Medical Flight Bill

A woman whose doctor and insurer agreed that her stroke symptoms required emergency transportation via private air ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital, an hour’s drive away, is shocked to learn that she’s on the hook to pay the nearly $500,000 portion of the bill that isn’t covered by insurance.

Humana Announces Inaugural Hospital Incentive Program Participants

Cleveland Clinic, Jackson Health System, TriHealth, and WellStar Health System will participate in Humana’s coordinated care program that emphasizes access to screening, avoiding health complications, using analytics to coordinate care, and paying doctors based on outcomes rather than volume.

Morning Headlines 12/24/18

Banks Asks VA to Adopt Modern Appointment Scheduling System

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), chairman of the House’s VA technology subcommittee, questions the VA’s plan to implement Cerner patient scheduling, noting the VA hasn’t said what it will cost to move to Cerner scheduling, the timelines required, and the benefit to veterans.

BayCare Hospitals Go Mobile with Wayfinding

BayCare (FL) goes live on indoor patient way-finding powered by Connexient’s MediNav.

With incubators, hospital systems tread ethical boundaries

Politico points out the ethically shaky ground hospitals find themselves on when developing sometimes sub-par technology through on-site incubators, often as a means to firm up finances.

Morning Headlines 12/21/18

DrChrono Raises $10M from SQN Venture Partners

Tablet-based EHR vendor DrChrono raises $10 million in funding.

Cerner could snag another big VA contract

The VA is considering terminating its $624 million Epic-Leidos patient scheduling system pilot project and buying a similar system from Cerner.

Medicare Program: Accrediting Organizations Conflict of Interest and Consulting Services; Request for Information

CMS issues an RFI asking for feedback on whether or not the consulting practices of hospital accreditation agencies like The Joint Commission pose a conflict of interest.

This Health Startup Won Big Government Deals—But Inside, Doctors Flagged Problems

An exposé on Babylon Health finds that, despite raising $85 million and convincing the NHS to use its chatbot-powered diagnosis app, its software wasn’t tested anywhere else and didn’t work.

Morning Headlines 12/20/18

3M to Acquire M*Modal’s Technology Business

3M will acquire MModal’s AI-powered physician documentation technology for $1 billion.

GE Files Confidentially for Health IPO, Buoying Stock

GE firms up plans to spin off its healthcare business via a public filing that will likely take place in mid-2019.

Walgreens to tackle health-care costs with Alphabet’s Verily

Walgreens and Verily will work together to develop solutions for patients with chronic conditions, initially focusing on diabetes and medication management.

Morning Headlines 12/19/18

Premier Health Announces Binding LOI to Acquire Cloud Practice Inc., a National Medical Software Application Company

Canada-based health IT vendor Premier Health will acquire Cloud Practice, which offers an EHR based on an open source product developed by McMaster University, for up to $5 million.

Teladoc Health Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer Resigns

Teladoc Health EVP/COO/CFO Mark Hirschhorn resigns following publicity and lawsuits over his romantic affair with a since-resigned Teladoc employee to whom he gave stock tips.

Brightree Acquires Mobile Delivery Provider Apacheta to Streamline HME Delivery

ResMed’s post-acute care technology subsidiary acquires Apacheta, which offers mobile software for medical equipment vendors.

Glen Tullman’s wearable tech startup hires a new CEO—and opens a new chapter

Chronic disease management technology vendor Livongo Health hires Zane Burke (Cerner) as CEO, replacing Glen Tullman, who moves to executive chairman.