Morning Headlines 1/24/20

23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline, CEO says she was ‘surprised’ to see market turn

Consumer DNA testing company 23andMe lays off 100 employees as it struggles with declining sales.

Babylon Health is building an integrated, AI-based health app to serve a city of 300K in England

Babylon Health signs a 10-year agreement with the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust to develop an app that will offer the city’s residents diagnoses, virtual care, and monitoring of chronic conditions; plus appointment booking, prescription refills, and other care management capabilities.

Wuhan Coronavirus: Epic Sends Automatic Travel Screening Update to Spot New Cases

Epic updates its software to include travel screening prompts for patients who may have traveled from China or who are experiencing symptoms of the coronavirus.

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Certain GE Healthcare Clinical Information Central Stations and Telemetry Servers: Safety Communication

The FDA alerts hospitals to cybersecurity flaws found in some GE Healthcare Clinical Information Central Stations and Telemetry Servers that could enable hackers to effectively take over devices and gain access to PHI.

Morning Headlines 1/23/20

Epic’s CEO is urging hospital customers to oppose rules that would make it easier to share medical info

Judy Faulkner urges CEOs at some of Epic’s largest hospital customers to sign a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar protesting the proposed interoperability rule published last year.

Gentem raises $3.7 million to fund future growth

San Francisco-based Gentem raises $3.7 million in a seed funding round that will help the company scale its RCM technology for physician practices.

DoctorLogic Secures $7 Million Series A Financing From Unbundled Capital

Medical marketing software and services vendor DoctorLogic raises $7 million in a Series A round.

Morning Headlines 1/22/20

Snohomish County man is first US case of new coronavirus

Providence Health & Services in Washington is working to install screening for the Novel Coronavirus in its Epic EHR after caring for the first US citizen to contract the infection.

Amazon just filed a bunch of international trademarks for ‘Amazon Pharmacy’

Amazon files trademarks for “Amazon Pharmacy” in the UK, Canada, and Australia.

Operations back to normal at Great Plains Health after cyberattack

Great Plains Health (NE) nears full recovery from the November 25 ransomware attack that forced it to pen and paper for several days, and to cancel some services and appointments.

Morning Headlines 1/21/20

Two Former Outcome Health Employees Plead Guilty

Former Outcome Health analysts Kathryn Choi and Oliver Han change their pleas to guilty of charges related to felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Health Scholars, the Virtual Reality Healthcare Training Platform, Raises $17M in Series B funding.

VR medical training and simulation company Health Scholars raises $17M in a Series B round.

Apple working on preventative healthcare technology, CEO Cook reveals

Apple CEO Tim Cook says he is hopeful the yet-to-be-revealed work the company is doing to further incorporate preventative healthcare technologies into products like the Apple Watch will improve lives and cut healthcare costs.

Morning Headlines 1/20/20

Epic Systems, a major medical records vendor, is warning customers it will stop working with Google Cloud

Epic decides to stop pursuing integrations with Google Cloud based on a lack of customer interest.

Cox Enterprises Invests in Aver’s $27M Series C to Accelerate Implementation and Execution of Value-based and Bundled Payments Programs

Columbus, OH-based analytics company Aver raises $27 million in a Series C round led by Cox Enterprises.

Surescripts Can’t Sink FTC’s Monopoly Case

A federal court turns down Surescript’s motion to dismiss the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against.

Morning Headlines 1/17/20

Buoy Health Raises Investment from Cigna Ventures

Digital triage startup Buoy Health raises $20 million in an oversubscribed Series B round.

The Future of Healthcare Tech Support, Black Book Research Releases 2020 Outlook

Cerner achieves top marks for hospital technology support services for the fourth year in a row, according to Black Book Research’s latest survey of senior-level health IT end users.

Piedmont Names New Chief Health Information Officer

Piedmont Healthcare (GA) names Lacy Knight, MD (Northwestern Medicine) chief health information officer.

Morning Headlines 1/16/20

2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan

ONC publishes a draft of its “2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan” for public comments, due March 18.

Fellow Health Partners Acquires Billing Services, Inc.

Fellow Health Partners acquires New York-based competitor Billing Services for an undisclosed amount.

Bon Secours Mercy Health and Lirio Announce Partnership and Investment

Bon Secours Mercy Health adopts behavioral change software programs from Lirio and makes an undisclosed investment in the company.

Morning Headlines 1/15/20

Physician Time Spent Using the Electronic Health Record During Outpatient Encounters: A Descriptive Study

Physicians spend 16 minutes per encounter doing EHR work, according to a Cerner study that reviewed client data from its Lights On Network.

Medsphere to Grow Interoperable Healthcare IT Platform with $40 Million Preferred Equity Investment from TPG Sixth Street Partners

Medsphere raises $40 million in new funding to support growth and pursue acquisitions.

Masimo to Acquire Connected Care Business from NantHealth

Masimo buys NantHealth’s Connected Care business for $47 million in cash.

AHRQ Advances New Frontiers in Digital Healthcare

AHRQ launches a Division of Digital Healthcare Research, which will produce and disseminate evidence about how digital health can support healthcare quality, safety, and effectiveness.

Morning Headlines 1/14/20

Bill Frist launches CareBridge, a new health care tech company backed by Google

Former US Senator Bill Frist, MD launches CareBridge, a Nashville-based technology company that will use an initial $40 million in funding to improve home healthcare.

DrChrono Raises $20 Million Growth Capital Round to Accelerate Growth

EHR, practice management, and RCM vendor DrChrono raises $20 million from Orix Growth Capital.

R1 Announces Agreement to Acquire SCI Solutions, a Leading Provider of Digital Patient Engagement Solutions

R1 RCM acquires SCI Solutions for $190 million just days after SCI announced its acquisition of Tonic Health.

Arcadia Finishes Strongest Performance Year Ever by Closing Fully-Subscribed Growth Equity Investment

Population health management vendor Arcadia raises $29.5 million through an investment from Cigna.

Framingham’s Definitive Healthcare expands its data business by acquiring PatientFinder

Market intelligence company Definitive Healthcare acquires PatientFinder, which has developed software companies can use to find physicians with patients who would benefit from their products.

Morning Headlines 1/13/20

Teladoc Health to acquire InTouch Health

Teladoc will acquire telehealth platform vendor InTouch Health for $600 million in cash and TDOC shares.

Inside Google’s Quest for Millions of Medical Records

The Wall Street Journal reports that Cerner passed on Google’s offer of $250 million in incentives to use its cloud storage system because Google wouldn’t fully divulge its plans for using Cerner-stored patient EHR data, leading Cerner to choose Amazon instead.

SCI Solutions Acquires Tonic Health

Digital engagement technology vendor SCI Solutions acquires Tonic Health, which offers a mobile patient intake, survey, and payments platform.

A billion medical images are exposed online, as doctors ignore warnings

Researchers determine that lax cybersecurity at hundreds of healthcare facilities have left over 1 billion medical images exposed on the Internet.

HCA Healthcare Acquires Technology and Analytics Company Valify

HCA Healthcare acquires purchased services analytics vendor Valify.

Morning Headlines 1/10/20

Kyruus Raises $42 Million in New Financing After Delivering Another Year of Record Growth

Kyruus raises $42 million in a Series D funding round, increasing its total to $125 million.

Support for Windows 7 is nearing the end

Microsoft’s support of Windows 7 will end on January 14, leaving some significant number of hospital and practice users without security updates.

Premier process on hold as ownership structure is considered

Premier postpones its sale for six months so it can poll its health system shareholders on whether they plan to roll their equity to a new owner or to cash out.

Apple Stole Tech for Watch, Masimo Claims in Patent Suit

Patient monitoring technology vendor Masimo files a lawsuit claiming that Apple hired away key employees in order to steal trade secrets that it used in the development of the Apple Watch.

Morning Headlines 1/8/20

Healthgrades Acquires Evariant

Physician directory and patient scheduling vendor Healthgrades acquires Evariant, which sells patient and physician relationship management systems.

Pieces Technologies raises $25.7 Million Series B led by Concord Health Partners

Clinical analytics vendor Pieces Technology raises $25.7 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $58 million.

Clearlake Capital-Backed Provation Acquires MD-Reports

Specialty EHR vendor Provation acquires MD-Reports, which offers EHR and practice management systems for ambulatory surgery centers and specialty practices.

HCTec’s HIM Business Line Acquired by GHR

Recruitment agency GHR Healthcare acquires HCTec’s HIM business, leaving its health IT and managed services businesses intact.

Morning Headlines 1/7/20

Walgreens names new chief medical officer

Former Athenahealth CMO Kevin Ban, MD takes on a similar role at Walgreens.

Perficient Announces Acquisition of MedTouch

Perficient adds to its healthcare marketing and technology consulting capabilities with the acquisition of MedTouch.

Philadelphia health tech firm raises $1.75M, plans to double headcount

Hospital discharge planning software startup Repisodic raises $1.75 million.

Morning Headlines 1/6/20

AMIA Announces Departure of President and CEO, Douglas B. Fridsma

The American Medical Informatics Association fires President and CEO Doug Fridsma, MD, PhD after five years.

Alphabet-backed One Medical files for IPO as money-losing tech companies struggle on public market

Membership-based primary care company One Medical files for a $100 million IPO.

NHS gets £40m to cut login times on its IT systems

England’s NHS will receive $50 million to implement single sign-on technology across its facilities.

Morning Headlines 1/3/20

Changes in Quality of Care after Hospital Mergers and Acquisitions

NEJM-published research finds that not only does hospital quality usually not improve after a merger, it sometimes gets worse as lower-rated hospitals acquire those with better quality scores.

Liberty IT Solutions Awarded $95M Management Consulting Services and Healthcare Revenue Workflow Management and Business Information Technology Tools Task Order

The government consulting firm expands its VA contract portfolio to over $800 million with more Cerner-related work.  

It Looks Like Health Insurance, but It’s Not. ‘Just Trust God,’ Buyers Are Told.

One million Americans have chosen unregulated cost-sharing health ministry plans to save money over traditional insurance, even though the companies issuing them are not obligated to pay claims, they don’t cover pre-existing conditions, they have a fixed limit on payouts, and they require adherence to a Christian lifestyle.

Morning Headlines 1/2/20

Doctors, Nurses and the Paperwork Crisis That Could Unite Them

Professors of nursing and medicine urge the professions to come together to reduce the documentation requirements enforced by the “bureaucratic nightmare” of EHRs.  

Using AI to improve breast cancer screening

A study in UK hospitals with the participation of Google Health finds that an AI model that supports radiologists in detecting breast cancer produced a modest reduction in false negatives and positives even though the model did not have access to patient histories and prior mammograms.  

The Family Wanted a Do Not Resuscitate Order. The Doctors Didn’t.

A ProPublica report finds that transplant doctors sometimes talk families out of asking for DNR or withdrawing life support within 30 days to avoid skewing the survival statistics of their programs. 

Social media hosted a lot of fake health news this year. Here’s what went most viral.

The most widely shared health misinformation on social media in 2019, much of it originating with anti-vaccination groups, include the US government conspiring with drug companies to hide cancer cures, herbs and homeopathy that cure cancer and chronic conditions more effectively than medical treatments, and the injuries and deaths caused by vaccines.

Woman wrongly told she had cancer when software misheard doctor

A hospital in England apologizes to an endoscopy patient for telling her doctor that her exam revealed “cancer,” which it says was an unnoticed mistake made by its speech recognition software that misunderstood the word “candida” that relates to the patient’s yeast infection.

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.