News 1/16/26

Top News

Kaiser Permanente affiliates will pay $556 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that they inflated Medicare Advantage risk scores.

Federal investigators say that Kaiser electronically searched patient histories for diagnoses that had not been reported to CMS for risk adjustment, then pushed clinicians months later to add those conditions to patient charts as medical record addenda.

Reader Comments

From Data Diver: “Re: Kaiser coding settlement. MA risk adjustment has become the national sport, where everyone claims innocence while quietly hiring more coders and consultants. A half-billion dollar settlement suggests that the line between legitimate documentation improvement and outright upcoding is not a faint one. If this is what gets caught, I can only imagine what stays below the waterline.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Ms. S of Burlington, NC provides an update about HIStalk reader donations that fully funded, with matching money applied from third parties as well as my Anonymous Vendor Executive, her Donors Choose teacher grant request for headphones.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Vista AI, which offers automated MRI scanning software, raises a $29.5 million Series B round, with several health systems joining other investors.

Sales

• Advanced Health chooses 1upHealth’s data interoperability platform.

People

The Stowers Institute for Medical Research names Dan Devers, JD (Cerner) as general counsel.

Steve LeBlond, MBA (Sutter Health) joins Prisma Health as CIO/CDO.

RLDatix hires Richard Jarvis, MSChE (OptumUK) as CTO.

Komodo Health names Amit Sangani (Meta) as CTO.

AMIA names Philip Payne, PhD (WashU Medicine, BJC Healthcare, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis) as president and board chair.

Announcements and Implementations

Epic posts social media videos of Emmie, its MyChart AI assistant for patients that includes a chatbot for inquiries.

Google Research updates its open MedGemma model with improved medical imaging support and a speech to text model that is fine tuned for medical dictation.

Hospitals list their top RCM priorities as improving patient experience, boosting revenue, and cutting costs, according to a new FinThrive survey. Executives cite prior authorization, denials, and clinical documentation and coding as their main AI targets, and nearly 60% expect to consolidate RCM vendors within three years.

A Black Book survey finds that for behavioral health, post-acute care, public health, and community-based organizations, the “last mile” of health data interoperability still relies on manual work and fragmented systems because of cost, immature APIs, and slow vendor onboarding.

US healthcare spending rose 7.2% to $5.3 trillion in 2024, with $1.6 trillion spent on hospital services. CMS says that healthcare spending accounted for 18% of US gross domestic product.

Government and Politics

The White House unveils “The Great Healthcare Plan,” which would send federal funds directly to citizens to purchase their own health insurance, while asking insurers to lower premiums. The proposal also seeks to require drug makers to match US prices to those charged overseas and to shift more prescription drugs to over the counter status. The administration will ask Congress to approve the plan, which does not restore federal ACA premium subsidies or address the significant cost driver of provider pricing.

Researchers question a bill that would require Medicare to cover every FDA-designated “breakthrough” device, warning that it would sidestep CMS’s evidence-based review, expose patients to unsafe or unproven products, and hamstring CMS from reversing coverage if unfavorable evidence arises.

Privacy and Security

A Fortified Health Security report finds that total reported healthcare breaches doubled in 2025, as did the number of email-based breaches.

Sponsor Updates

• Medicomp Systems releases a new episode of its “Tell Me Where IT Hurts” podcast featuring Acting Administrator of DOGE and CMS Strategic Advisor Amy Gleason.
• Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “Quick HITs” podcast titled “Turning Healthcare Data Strategy into Execution with Mohammed Abdelaziz.”
• Five9 expands its partnership with Google Cloud and announces a new joint Enterprise CX AI solution.
• Healthmonix rebrands its MIPS Cost Analytics product to Healthmonix Cost and its MIPS Analytics product to Healthmonix Analytics.
• The “Walk-Ins Welcome” podcast features Inbox Health Enterprise Sales Lead Guy Bergman and SVP of Sales Edward Sherlock.
• The University of Southern California presents its Distinguished Alumni Award to Infinx co-founder Sandeep Tandon.

Blog Posts

• Navigating healthcare data through QHIN connectivity: A smarter approach to patient information (Altera Digital Health)
• Hospital CIOs Share Their EHR Help Desk Improvement Wish Lists (Med Tech Solutions)
• Major Challenges Facing the Healthcare Industry Today (Bizmatics)
• Share Your Story at the 2026 Connect Social Care Summit (Findhelp)
• Patient Access Automation: A Strategic Imperative (Impact Advisors)
• 2026 Horizon Report: The New Reality of Healthcare Cybersecurity (Fortified Health Security)
• The High Cost of Delayed Details in Surgical Departments (LiveData)
• The latest in interoperability: Everything you need to know (Meditech)
• VBC under pressure: Five insights from the front lines (Navina)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 1/14/26

Top News

Epic, OCHIN, and three health systems sue Health Gorilla, alleging that the data-exchange vendor has improperly allowed access to Epic-stored patient records by organizations that aren’t delivering care.

The suit claims that some companies are selling the data to attorneys seeking class-action clients. It says that some of those companies have used fake websites, shell firms, and bogus NPI numbers to hide their intent. It also alleges that they have inserted junk data into exchange frameworks to create the appearance of treating patients and sending back updated patient information.

Health Gorilla denies the accusations, says Epic that is trying to limit competition and data access, and maintains that it supports legitimate information sharing, including for organizations and use cases that Epic does not serve.

Reader Comments

From Cristol: “Re: news. Is it me, or is there less than before? I would have thought it would have accelerated with AI news, but it appears not to be.” It is lumpier, with some days have little interesting going on (Monday) and others overloaded with real news (today). Some of the last week’s feast and famine was driven by the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference that started Monday. I don’t pad news posts with non-newsworthy junk, so it’s pretty obvious when not much is happening. Rightly or wrongly, most health-related news involves business rather than science.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cardamom will use new funding from Valspring Capital to expand its professional services for healthcare IT.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI acquires AI-powered medical records insights startup Torch Health for a reported $100 million. The four-employee, year-old startup was co-founded by Ilya Abyzov, who previously co-founded doc-in-a-box kiosk vendor Forward, which shut down in late 2024 after raising $650 million with little to show for it.

Oncology-focused health IT vendor VieCure raises $43 million, bringing its total funding to $113 million.

Healthcare financing and payments solution provider HPS/PayMedic raises $33 million in funding.

PE firm Sheridan Capital Partners acquires ICANotes, which offers a behavioral healthcare EHR.

Claims automation technology vendor EnableComp acquires H/ROI, which offers denials and revenue recovery services.

Sales

• Inova Health (VA) will use Notable’s AI Platform to automate revenue cycle, referral management, and patient access workflows.
• Community Memorial Hospital (NY) selects Oracle Health.
• Parrish Healthcare (FL) will implement Meditech Expanse.

People

Tendo hires Beth Godsey, MBA (Vizient) as GM of Tendo Insights.

Direct Recruiters names Graham Gardner, MD, MBA (Kyruus Health), Michael Schram (Get Well), and Todd Helmink (DrFirst) as principals and operating partners of its new Healthcare Operator Advisory practice.

HealthLeap hires Wayne Grodsky (SmarterDx) as chief commercial officer, Michael Blumenthal (Hyro) as chief strategy officer, and Tamir Shklaz (Wordware) as CTO.

Umair Shah, MD, MPH (Washington State Department of Health) joins Jaan Health as chief medical officer.

Announcements and Implementations

HCA Healthcare implements Meditech at 43 hospitals.

Waystar adds agentic AI to its revenue cycle solutions.

Anthropic debuts Claude for Healthcare, giving users the ability to connect their medical and insurance records and wearables data into the AI app for personalized insights. Developers can take advantage of the ability to connect to the CMS Coverage and ICD-10 databases, and the National Provider Identifier Registry. Anthropic developers stress that Claude for Healthcare is HIPAA-ready and that health data shared with the app is not retained for the training of future models. The company has also launched new features for life sciences.

Surescripts launches its Script Corner prescription price transparency app for patients.

Other

Eureka Springs Hospital (AR) fires its CFO after discovering unpaid invoices to Oracle America, with the CEO noting that the hospital had been paying bills based solely on submitted invoices rather than verifying them against contract terms and payment schedules.

The CEO of Shopify uses Claude to create an HTML-based viewer of the exported data from his annual MRI scan.

OSF Healthcare’s Innovation team develops CliniPane, an EHR-integrated clinical insights and data visualization tool designed for use at the point of care. A select group of primary care physicians is piloting the new software.

Heart failure patients who engage with text messages about their medications fill their prescriptions at higher rates and are less likely to be readmitted to the hospital than those who opt out of such messages. Magnolia Regional Health Center (MS) sent the messages from DrFirst’s prescription engagement tool within Meditech Expanse.

Sponsor Updates

• Findhelp’s new partnership with SimplePractice connects people seeking behavioral health services with real-time provider availability and scheduling from within the Findhelp platform.
• Judi Health shares 2025 milestones, including the signing of more than 80 new partnerships for the second year in a row.
• WellSky’s Scribe ambient listening technology helps clinicians reduce documentation time by up to 50%.
• Clinical Architecture releases a new episode of “The Informonster Podcast” titled “Dr. Sarah Matt on Healthcare Data Gaps.”
• Arcadia names Sandy Leonard general manager of life sciences.

Blog Posts

• Four Revenue Cycle Management Trends for Healthcare Leaders to Watch in 2026 (AGS Health)
• Health IT Staffing Resource Guide: Overcoming 6 Key EHR Support Challenges Amid Competitive Market Pressures (Med Tech Solutions)
• A360 Isn’t Just Another Update. It’s a Turning Point for Accreditation Readiness (RLDatix)
• Transforming patient care: How a leading ACO is setting the standard for value-based care success (WellSky)
• Charting the future of healthcare: 2026 and beyond (Altera Digital Health)
• Bridging the Gap: How Payers and Providers View Shared Accountability in Value-Based Care (Arcadia)
• Healthcare PMO Expert Answers Top Project Management Questions (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• The Pros and Cons of Electronic Health Records (EHR) (Bizmatics)
• When the Perimeter Disappears: Securing OT, IoMT, and Clinical Devices in Modern Healthcare (CloudWave)
• Cultural Connection in IT Managed Services for Healthcare: A Q&A With Linda Janiszewski (CTG)
• AdvancedMD Top Predictions for AI in 2026: More Time with Patients, Less Burnout and Improved Personalized Care Models (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 1/12/26

Top News

Google removes some of its health-related AI Overviews from search results after reports that they were providing inaccurate information.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Asked about streamlining EHR certification requirements, poll respondents have achieved the perfect balance of confusion, optimism, pessimism, and indifference.

New poll to your right or here, inspired by Brian Too’s comment last week:  What factors drive health system investment in health tech firms? Multiple answers are OK. It would be fascinating to compare expectations to reality, but of course we hear a lot about the former and little about the latter. If you’ve been involved in a health system’s commercial dabbling, what are your conclusions?

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare staff protection system vendor Canopy raises $22 million in Series B funding. The company sued Commure in May 2025 for using its insider knowledge as a Canopy reseller to develop a competing product. The lawsuit was settled in July 2025, when Canopy took over customer management of Commure’s Strongline Pro panic button system.

People

Aidoc hires former AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH as chief medical officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Health systems that have signed up for ChatGPT for Healthcare include AdventHealth, Baylor Scott & White, Boston Children’s, Cedars-Sinai, HCA Healthcare, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Stanford, and UCSF.

Other

A Georgia jury awards $52 million to the family of a woman who died following a Brazilian butt lift. The cosmetic surgery clinic ran out of anesthesia during the procedure, and staff who attempted to revive her found that they also had no oxygen. The clinic, which did not carry insurance and is unlikely to pay much of the damages, was immediately dissolved by its owner. His previous business in the same building was called Butts Gone Wild.

Sponsor Updates

• Five9 partners with the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.
• Fraser Health saves seven minutes per patient in discharge with Meditech’s AI-powered Hospital Course Summary in its Expanse EHR.
• Findhelp opens registration for its virtual Connect Summit, which will take place May 13-14.
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Aditi U Joshi, MD.
• Nym names Shachar Borovitz and Ido Shitrit medical data analysts, Oren Shalom and Inbal Tako software engineers, Sapir Shekhtman R&D medical project manager, and Inbal Rudin linguist.
• CHIME’s “Leader2Leader” podcast features Optimum Healthcare IT Chief Strategy Officer Rick Shepardson in an episode titled “Empowering Transformation: Leading with Strategy, Purpose, and Partnership in Digital Health.”
• PerfectServe offers a new case study titled “Improving Clinical Efficiency with Optimized Care Schedules and Integrated Care Team Communication.”
• Praia Health publishes a new case study titled “LabCorp and Praia Health partner to improve patient adherence, satisfaction, and outcomes at Providence.”
• Rhapsody expands its AWS Marketplace presence to power AI-ready healthcare data exchange.
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, will exhibit at the HFMA Western Region Symposium January 18-21 in Las Vegas.
• TruBridge and The Health Management Academy launch the Rural Health Collaborative.
• VitalChat names Alan Young, MD, MBA general manager.
• Waystar will present at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference January 12 in San Francisco.

Blog Posts

• Denial Management Trends, Challenges, and Innovations (AGS Health)
• CISO Brief: 7 Healthcare Cybersecurity Predictions for 2026 (Fortified Health Security)
• EHR Health IT Service Desk FAQs (Med Tech Solutions)
• Opportunities for AI to empower preventive healthcare (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Season of Clarity: The Life Changing Power of Early Autism Technology (Netsmart)
• If you want AI to think like a clinician, show it what clinicians see (Nordic)
• What Healthcare Executives Read Most in 2025 (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• 2025: A Year in Review (RLDatix)
• From Denials to Dollars: Turning Revenue Cycle Pain into Financial Wins (SlicedHealth)
• From Pain to Progress: Faster Benefit Verification for Specialty Medications (Surescripts)
• Federal Regulations & Standards for Credentialing and Privileging (Symplr)
• Tegria Embarks on a New Chapter (Tegria)
• Waystar + Google Cloud: How is AI transforming healthcare revenue cycle management? (Waystar)
• The top 5 revenue cycle changes for 2026: What post-acute care organizations need to know (WellSky)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 1/9/26

Top News

OpenAI announces ChatGPT Health, which supports health conversations with encryption, isolation from model training, and connectivity to wellness and medical records applications such as Apple Health and MyFitnessPal. Access is via waitlist.

B.well is providing the health data network connectivity with its SDK for Health AI.

Reader Comments

From Vendorize: “Re: product names. You should be including our copyright and trademark symbols.” Wrong. US law does not require anyone, even the owning company, to use those symbols to create or maintain rights. I don’t trust third-party sites or LinkedIn posts that include the symbols, which runs contrary to AP Stylebook standards, just because the company itself voluntarily chose to do so. It’s also improper and possibly illegal for someone to use a trademark symbol for a name they don’t own no matter how fawning their intentions.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare staffing platform vendor IntelyCare acquires CareRev, which offers a hospital shift-bidding platform. CareRev made headlines in 2023 when it reportedly laid off 100 employees following the resignation of its founder and CEO William Patterson, who departed after telling a colleague that he had delivered the company’s $50 million Series A pitch (“Uber for nurses”) while taking LSD.  

Oasys Health, which offers therapist workflow automation with wearables integration, raises $4.6 million in seed and pre-seed funding.

A Bain & Company report finds that global healthcare private equity investment hit a record $190 billion in deal value in 2025, driven by an increase in large transactions and strong activity across sectors like biopharma and healthcare IT, with buyout counts and exit values also approaching historic highs.

Sources report that private equity firm TPG is reportedly close to acquiring UnitedHealth’s Optum UK business, which supplies electronic patient record systems to most of Britain’s GPs, for $1.5 billion. Analysts speculate that TPG could combine Optum UK with its portfolio company Nextech, a US-based specialty EHR/PM vendor.

Sales

• Lifepoint Health chooses ambient documentation from IScribeHealth.

People

Lyric names Halsey Wise, MBA (Lime Barrel Advisors) as CEO.

Imprivata promotes Tom Shapiro to VP of cybersecurity sales.  

Announcements and Implementations

Dentists who have access to a patient’s shared comprehensive health record in Epic avoided 260,000 potential drug interactions in 2025, the company reports.

VectorCare launches Lyft Smart on FHIR App, which allows care teams to schedule and manage patient rides within EHRs, starting with Epic.

Government and Politics

The FDA will step back from regulating low-risk wellness technologies, including fitness apps and activity trackers. Products that only share information won’t need clearance as long as companies avoid making medical claims.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore team members volunteer at the Salvation Army Angel Tree event.
• Black Book Research recaps 2025 research announcements and customer-related honors.
• Ellkay offers a new customer success story featuring West Feliciana Hospital titled “Empowering Rural Healthcare: From Integration to Enterprise Data Management.”
• Health Data Movers names Carl Ferguson (Healthcare IT Leaders) director of client partnerships.
• Healthmonix’s Emergency and Acute Care Clinical registry earns CMS QCDR approval for 2026.
• Infinx will exhibit at the HFMA Western Symposium January 18-21 in Las Vegas.
• Judi Health names Sara Bunn (Boston Consulting Group) chief human resources officer.
• Clearsense appoints Terry Shaw, former president and CEO of AdventHealth, as its board chair.

Blog Posts

• Current Procedural Terminology® 2026 Code Set Overview (AGS Health)
• Preparing for the New Era of HCC Risk Adjustment (Medicomp Systems)
• AI is helping nursing educators teach more effectively, and students to learn more deeply (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• A Rural CNO on Why Most Healthcare Innovation Fails Nurses (CereCore)
• How Insurance Discovery Enhances Hospital Revenue Recovery Rates (FinThrive)
• Why Healthcare Vulnerability Threat Management Breaks Down and How to Fix It (Fortified Health Security)
• The Value-Based Care Wake-Up Call for Health Tech CEOs (Get-to-Market Health)
• Reflections from a Doctor’s Visit (HCTec)
• December Momentum: A Look Back at 2025 and Ahead to 2026 (Health Data Movers)
• Adoption Over Implementation: Incorporating a Change Management Mindset (Impact Advisors)
• The Right Tool for the Job: An EHR Alone Isn’t Enough to Drive Efficiency (LiveData)
• Advancing health equity through data, community, and action: Insights from ACHDM leaders (Meditech)
• Top 10 Legacy Health IT Support Client Questions and Answers (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 1/7/26

Top News

Healthcare-focused private equity firm Altaris acquires Tegria from Providence St. Joseph Health.

Tegria was formed in 2020 from Engage, Bluetree, and Navin Haffty. It then acquired Cumberland, Sisu Solutions, Cloud21. It had previously acquired KenSci, Colburn Hill Group, Lumedic, Community Technologies, and MediRevv. 

Providence spun out analytics firm Advata in June 2022 by combining KenSci, Colburn Hill Group, MultiScale, Lumedic, Quiviq, and Alphalytics. That company apparently shut down in early 2023. Providence sold Acclara to R1 RCM in early 2024 for $675 million.

Altaris acquired Sharecare in 2024. Its exited healthcare holdings include Acclara, AGS Health, Clearwater, and Precyse.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor VectorCare. VectorCare is the first patient logistics platform that is built directly inside leading EHRs using SMART on FHIR. Care teams can schedule transportation, home health, and DME in under a minute, without leaving thepatient chart or relying on phone calls and portals. Our SMART on FHIR integration embeds VectorCare into Epic, Cerner, Meditech, Allscripts, Athena, and more with zero code or IT effort. Real-time updates, vendor communication, and live tracking flow directly into the EHR to streamline every transition of care. With VectorCare’s no-code workflow builder, organizations can standardize discharge and care-coordination workflows instantly. This reduces delays, improves handoffs, and helps lower preventable readmissions by up to 30%. Explore our SMART on FHIR app in the Epic Showroom or request a demo. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for updates on patient logistics innovation. Thanks to VectorCare for supporting HIStalk.

I found this YouTube demo of Vector’s SMART on FHIR app within Epic.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Sales

• Kirby Medical Center (IL) selects Switchboard, MD’s automated healthcare communications software.

People

InterSystems promotes Don Woodlock to president.

MDAudit promotes Nisheet Goenka, MSEE to CTO.

The Guthrie Clinic (NY) promotes Brad Carvellas, MS to SVP and chief digital officer.

Asif Ali, MD (University of Houston College of Medicine) joins Kencor Health as chief medical officer.

Atropos Health promotes Kevin Smith to chief growth officer.

TeleTracking appoints Derek Ritchea, MBA (Lincoln International) as chief strategy officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Utah launches a pilot to allow AI technology from Doctronic to autonomously manage prescription refills for 190 common medications. The company also markets a free chatbot that assesses systems, offers guidance, and then offers to connect users with virtual providers for a $39 virtual consultation.

Healthcare data foundation operator CAQH restructures to assign ownership to 12 shareholder entities that are affiliated with national health plans.

Southwestern Medical Center and Comanche County Memorial Hospital merge to form Memorial Health System of Southwest Oklahoma. The combined system will implement Meditech Expanse this summer.

Connecticut’s Connie HIE implements Clinical Architecture’s PIQXL Gateway patient data quality measurement tool.

Government and Politics

The FDA issues an RFI on a proposed contracting vehicle that is aimed at making it easier for VC-backed companies to do business with the agency. FDA notes that many breakthrough health technologies come from firms that lack the resources and know-how to navigate federal procurement, and that the government’s use of prime contractors, whose incentives favor billable hours over scalable solutions, often impedes adoption.

The VA sees a 10% annual increase in telehealth use amongst veterans, 92% of whom report being satisfied with the care received.

Other

A social determinants of health-focused survey of 145 healthcare facilities in Arkansas finds that, while providers screen at a high rate, significant gaps exist in referring patients to services and providing services directly. The survey also found that SDOH-related needs most often pertain to housing, transportation, and food insecurity.

Sponsor Updates

• TruBridge staff partner with United Way of Southwest Alabama to support the Africatown Hall & Food Bank in Mobile, AL.
• Netsmart announces its commitment to the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem initiative as a CMS Aligned Network.
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, announces the release of a KLAS First Look report highlighting strong early results and customer satisfaction for its Cloud Payments solution.
• Black Book Research releases its “2026 State of Global Digital Healthcare Technology” report.
• AdvancedMD helps mental health practice Modern Mojo reduce time spent on insurance eligibility by more than 80%.
• Artera releases new insights on the rising cost of patient no-shows across healthcare systems.
• Grand Lake Health System will implement Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise Axon, connecting through Health Gorilla’s TEFCA-enabled QHIN.
• Consensus Cloud Solutions CRO and EVP Johnny Hecker wins the 2025 Gold Globee Business Award.
• CereCore releases a new podcast titled “A Rural CNO on Healthcare Innovation That Actually Helps Nurses.”

Blog Posts

• Maximizing Utilization Review Processes for Quality and Productivity (AGS Health)
• Centralized solutions help align drug development teams, providers, and patients (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Headlines across healthcare: Altera’s take on top trends in 2025 (Altera Digital Health)
• Why Most Organizations Are Already Behind on CMS-0057-F (Canopii Collaborative)
• What Healthcare Executives Read Most in 2025 (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• EHR build sprawl: Why “just in case” is costing you more than you think (Cardamom Health)
• Visibility Ahead: How 2026 Will Defog the Prior Authorization Process (DrFirst)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 1/5/26

Top News

The Drug Enforcement Administration extends telehealth flexibility in the prescribing of controlled substances through December 31, 2026.

This fourth extension came during the last hours of December 31 and took effect the next day.

The flexibilities allow practitioners to remotely prescribe scheduled drugs without first conducting an in-person visit. They may also manage maintenance and withdrawal treatments for opioid use disorder.

Reader Comments

From Boyd Beaver: “Re: HTI-5. Washington keeps writing rules as if health IT were competitive, while the market keeps behaving like it isn’t.” In health tech, some companies are innovative and some are imitative, but the rules assume equal market power and equal buyer choice. Companies don’t grow unless they are selling something customers actually want over competitive alternatives. It’s not clear that EHRs are in such demand in the post-Meaningful Use era that vendors are staying out of the market primarily because certification costs are too high. It’s also worth noting that EHR certification was created under a Republican administration and announced days into the Obama presidency as the string attached to federal stimulus money, a move that pushed out smaller vendors and permanently shaped the product roadmaps of the survivors. Today’s EHR market was deliberately created by federal certification.

From AI Drop: “Re: AI. Health systems aren’t adopting AI because it is transformational. They are using it because it’s cheaper than people. Nobody should be surprised that workflow messes persist and disruption is limited to financials.”

From UHG Whiz: “Re: the January 1 mess of US health insurance. Premiums have skyrocketed, deductibles are up to the point of making all policies catastrophic coverage only, and the resetting of those deductibles causes people to defer care that they can’t afford. Just try to get through to insurer to ask about new formulary changes or another round of prior authorizations. This isn’t cost control so much as cost shifting, with patients left to absorb the risk and the consequences.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

HIStalk readers want HIMSS to pick a lane, but can’t decide on which one, which is probably the same challenge that faces Hal Wolf. The #1 choice could be a moneymaker but only at modest scale, #2 doesn’t generate much revenue, and #3 is history because they’ve sold the annual conference exhibit. Respondents are looking for HIMSS to provide industry relevance while HIMSS itself is trying to stop its post-2020 free fall. Respondents skew heavily US, so the global conference answer might be underrepresented. Maybe the takeaway that both sides is that expertise beats booths, plus its pre-COVID ambitions involved selling consulting services around its now-multiple adoption models. Another good poll question would be – would you pay out of your own pocket for HIMSS membership?

New poll to your right or here: What is your reaction to ASTP/ONC’s proposed cutback of EHR certification requirements? Is it a free pass for vendors, a catalyst for innovation, or are those effectively the same thing?

Thanks to these companies for recently supporting HIStalk. Click a logo for more information.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Population health technology vendor Clint shuts down and files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing insufficient cash to make payroll and pay creditors.

People

Rich Rogers, MBA, SVP/CIO at Prisma Health, retires.

Announcements and Implementations

The FDA grants 510(k) clearance for BrainSpace’s Intellidrop autonomous brain fluid pressure management system for ICUs. Brain Fluid Interface (BFI) products monitor cerebrospinal fluid, interstitial fluid, and cerebral blood and create training data for Physical AI models.

Other

I enjoyed this LinkedIn photo taken by Altera Digital Health during San Gorgonia Memorial Hospital’s (CA) upgrade to Sunrise 25.1. Go-live teams of both vendor and hospital people, united by their immediately recognizable team support shirts, usually get squeezed into temporarily and lightly repurposed conference rooms (hint: tape cables down, make sure computer-controlled HVAC doesn’t automatically take off for the night, wheel in a whiteboard, and source an unreasonable amount of coffee). Go-live warriors will be taken back olfactorily to long nights in the war room — overheated laptops and printers, panic sweat, and the stench of around-the-clock leftover junk food like pizza and everything bagels. Regards to those who know the smell and have thus earned the shirt.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/31/25

Top News

CMS will award all 50 states an average of $200 million each under the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, which states are expected to use to modernize rural health infrastructure and technology.

Reader Comments

From Blaspheme: “Re: HIMSS board. It doesn’t have many C-level executives from non-profits.” Excluding Hal Wolf, five of the 12 board members work for non-profits, two of them hospitals. Seven of the 12 are based outside the US. None work for a US-based non-profit health system, although that perspective is represented by recently retired Hal Baker, MD, former SVP/CDO/CIO of WellSpan Health.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Struggling Maimonides Health will be taken over by NYC Health + Hospitals in a move that is backed by $2.2 billion in New York state funding to protect Brooklyn’s safety-net healthcare. The city cites as a benefit that Maimonides will be able to implement Epic, replacing applications from its best-of-breed portfolio that include several systems that it acquired from the former Eclipsys and Allscripts.

People

University of Utah Health promotes Donna Roach, MS to system CDIO.

Announcements and Implementations

The US Navy will extend the pilot of its new medical operations system for at-sea care after completing testing earlier this month.

Epic is working with Penn Medicine to improve patient and clinician experience by deploying technology at the point of care. The organizations previewed a model exam room for the Montgomeryville multispecialty clinic that will open in late 2027.

Black Book Research reports that 80% of international health tech buyers are using digital sovereignty as a first-cut, pass-fail test in eliminating companies that store and host data outside the buyer’s own country. The shift is due to pressure from tariffs, export controls, geopolitical risk, and mandates to use in-country hosting.

A new KLAS report on health system AI use finds that ambient documentation leads by far, with 79% of participating organizations using it. Microsoft, Abridge, Epic, and Oracle Health are considered most often. Two-thirds of organizations use some form of AI, primarily for productivity. Microsoft, Epic, OpenAI, and Abridge most often considered. Agentic AI remains mostly a buzzword, with just one of 3,000 respondents reporting live use. Planned AI use cases focus on revenue cycle management, patient engagement, and clinical workflows.

Government and Politics

The Defense Health Agency issues an RFI to solicit industry feedback on its draft contract strategy for a follow-on to MHS Genesis. It proposes a program office structure that would separate technical integration, human-centered design, and product management.

HHS ASTP posts a recorded  information session on the just-published HTI-5 Proposed Rule. The 60-day public comment period closes on February 27, 2026.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 12/29/25

Top News

New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoes the New York Health Information Privacy Act, which would have required companies that handle health-related information to obtain user consent before storing or selling that data.

The bill defined Regulated Health Information to include data from apps, wearables, telehealth, and employer-provided health information.

Critics said that the definition was so broad that it could encompass non-health data, impose complex and costly compliance requirements, threaten innovation, and create unnecessary burdens for health systems.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most provider poll respondents say that remote patient monitoring payment changes won’t really affect them.

New poll to your right or here: What primary role should HIMSS choose to maintain or increase its business success? This question addresses big-picture strategy, but leave a poll comment after voting to suggest the #1 thing HIMSS should do within the next year to position itself for the future.

HIStalk supporters and vendor marketing folks: Current HIStalk sponsors get free spotlights and text ads, while prospective ones can talk to Lorre about the benefits of full-year exposure. Startups and former sponsors might even get a lagniappe. Lorre also has a single Top Spot banner for companies that are seeking maximal exposure (10,000 clicks in the past year) and the satisfaction of always seeing their ad atop those of competitors. Sponsors get zero influence over news and opinion, but that’s to their advantage since decision-makers will bail quickly on thinly veiled pay-for-play and inexpert babbling.

News is understandably slow, so let’s enjoy the results of reader donations to Donors Choose. Dr. K says that her Florida first graders started using their new STEM materials immediately after she explained, “I told them that they were donated to our classroom by people who wanted to help them learn.”

Meanwhile, new reader donations, matched with third-party donations and funds from my Anonymous Vendor Executive, fully funded these Donors Choose teacher grant requests:

• Visual learning tools for Ms. W’s Honors Algebra and Geometry middle school classes in Oklahoma City, OK.
• STEAM manipulatives for Ms. W’s elementary school class in Oklahoma City, OK.
• Headphones for Ms. S’s elementary school class in Burlington, NC.
• Math manipulatives for Ms. M’s disability needs middle school math class in Charlestown, MA.
• STEM toys for Ms. N’s elementary school class in Brighton, MA.
• A laptop to support robotics coding and 3D printing in Mr. G’s high school class in Bloomfield, NM.
• A math classroom (learning tools, organizers, sensory tools, and supplies) for Ms. K’s elementary school class in Dorchester, MA.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Announcements and Implementations

Peer-reviewed studies find that Linus Health’s AI-based digital cognitive assessments can detect subtle behavioral signals that are associated with Alzheimer’s pathology years before symptoms appear, allowing early identification of people who should be tested for blood-based biomarkers.

Black Book Research posts its annual report on the standards it uses to rank health tech products and services. The company does not sell consulting, advisory, or improvement services to vendors, does not offer paid placements, does not pay survey participants, and offers no pay-to-play options such as offering score improvement services and related recognition. This statement caught my eye:

Black Book’s annual refresh cycle is informed by a widely recognized measurement principle often referred to as Goodhart’s Law: once a measure becomes a target, it can become less effective as a measure. In vendor rankings, stable rubrics can unintentionally encourage optimization for what performs well in the scoring system rather than what consistently delivers implementation success, operational reliability, service responsiveness, and realized value after contract signature. Over time, a ranking can drift toward measuring “ability to rank” instead of “ability to deliver.”

Government and Politics

A federal grand jury indicts the physician owner of a clinic for allegedly billing Medicare $45 million for Botox injections that were medically unnecessary and, in many cases, never provided. Violetta Mailyan, DO is also charged with obstructing a criminal investigation by allegedly submitting falsified medical records in response to a grand jury subpoena. Prosecutors say the clinic billed for services on dates when it was closed, when Mailyan was traveling outside the country, and on at least one date when the Medicare patient was incarcerated in federal prison.

Other

The New York Times profiles the kidney transplant-matching National Kidney Registry, which transfers much of its millions of dollars in annual income – collected mostly via hospital fees – to for-profit technology and holding companies that were formed by Founder and CEO Garet Hil, who developed the software that matches donors to recipients. NKR had $69 million in annual revenue in 2023 and paid Hil’s technology company $8.2 million when it sold the commercial operations portion to Hil for $2.6 million.

I was fascinated by a New Yorker article titled “The Role of Doctors is Changing Forever,” written by Weill Cornell hospitalist Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP. He says that doctors are losing their cultural authority as patients seek “unbundled” medical advice and services outside of traditional practice. Doctors once reigned as the gatekeeper to everything that relates to health, but now people are obtaining and trusting information from attention-optimizing TikTok docs, direct-to-consumer companies, the MAHA movement, and AI, causing people to trust doctors less or to avoid them entirely. He writes this, although glossing over how doctors might actually earn a living in this new role:

When a hegemon loses status, it can take a few paths. It can aim for restoration — bringing back the empire — which in this case would probably focus on gatekeeping. It can retreat, which might mean abdicating medicine’s broad public role, perhaps in favor of a narrow focus on earnings and technical skills. The last — and, in my view, the best — path is reinvention. Doctors can remake their profession by embracing the multi-polar medical landscape they now inhabit, and by acting as a kind of system stabilizer: working with other powers to help shape rules, norms, and relationships.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/24/25

Top News

ASTP/ONC releases HTI-5, a proposed rule that streamlines its Health IT Certification Program, updates information blocking regulations, and establishes a foundation of FHIR-based APIs to support AI-enabled interoperability.

HTI-5 would remove 34 of the 60 certification criteria and revise seven to reduce developer cost.

The proposal would also eliminate a Biden administration requirement that health tech vendors provide “model cards” that explain how their AI models work and how they should be used, similar to food nutrition labels.

Reader Comments

From Lippy: “Re: Donors Choose. Remind me again how to donate.” I will first explain that I do not strong-arm readers into donating to Donors Choose through me. However, it is one of few organizations that I trust and whose mission I believe in. Donating as described below allows me to choose projects, apply matching funds from third parties and my Anonymous Vendor Executive, and then list the projects that were funded (a cranky reader once accused me of “virtue signaling” by listing the projects here, but it’s fun to celebrate them collectively). The same process works for company donations. Instructions:

1. Purchase a Donors Choose gift card in the amount you’d like to donate.
2. Choose the option to send the gift card by the email to mr_histalk@histalk.com (that’s my Donors Choose account).
3. Print your own Donors Choose receipt for tax purposes.
4. I’ll pool the money, apply the matching funds, and publicly report here the projects that I funded.

A generous donation from long-time HIStalk supporters Ben and Michelle at ST Advisors, boosted by matching funds, fully funded these Donors Choose teacher grant requests:

• Headphones for Ms. C’s middle school class in Houston, TX.
• Headphones for the technology classes of Ms. S’s middle school science academy class in Austintown. OH.
• A laptop extended for Ms. A’s elementary school class in Houston, TX.
• STEM computer lab supplies for Ms. B’s middle school class in Port Saint Lucie, FL.
• A rolling white board for Ms. B’s middle school class in Newark, DE.
• Math and science activity stations for Ms. D’s middle school class in Aston, PA.
• Science lab supplies and materials for Mr. B’s middle school class in Yuma, AZ.
• STEM lab supplies for Ms. K’s elementary school class in Knightdale, NC.
• A document camera for Ms. D’s elementary school class in Randolph, MA.
• Magnets and microscopes for Ms. W’s elementary school class in Oilton, OK.
• Chemistry lab supplies for Mr. S’s high school class in Greenwood, DE.
• Classroom library shelves for Ms. T’s high school early college high school class in Louisburg, NC.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Neurable raises a $35 million Series A round to accelerate commercialization of its brain-computer interface technology that allows wearables to track mental fatigue, cognitive recovery, and focus state detection. The company says that an immediate application will be to integrate brain insights into electronic gaming.

Sales

• Saint Peter’s Healthcare System (NJ), whose planned merger with Atlantic Health was cancelled in October 2025, will implement Epic.

Government and Politics

The former CEO of Power Mobility Doctor Rx is sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $452 million in restitution for running a telemarketing, telemedicine, and kickback scheme that defrauded Medicare and insurers of $1 billion. The company’s software platform connected DME suppliers and pharmacies with telemedicine companies that accepted kickbacks and bribes to issue fraudulent prescriptions. The company targeted Medicare beneficiaries who agreed to provide their personal information and accept the medically unnecessary medical equipment and supplies when contacted via offshore call centers and mass mailings.  

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 12/22/25

Top News

New Mountain Capital private equity president Matt Holt leaves the firm after nearly 25 years to combine five of New Mountain’s healthcare portfolio companies into Thoreau, which will use AI to reduce medical costs. The companies are:

• Datavant — health data exchange, includes the acquired former Ciox Health.
• Swoop — drug company marketing.
• Machinify — payment integrity.
• Smarter Technologies — payment processing, formed by New Mountain in May 2025 by combining Access Healthcare, Thoughtful.ai, and SmarterDx.
• Office Ally – claims clearinghouse, payments processing, and medical practice systems.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

AI-powered personal care robots get a definitive “maybe” from poll respondents.

New poll to your right or here, for providers: Does your organization rely on RPM revenue enough to get excited about insurer RPM payment changes?

The top-of-page HIStalk banner has been solidly booked for years, but it is available now to the first company that commits. Its previous occupant generated over 10,000 clicks in the past 12 months, so it draws attention and interest from people who read health tech news on purpose and make decisions accordingly. Contact Lorre.

A generous donation from Mike, plus matching funds from outside organizations as well as my Anonymous Vendor Executive, fully funded these Donors Choose teacher grant requests:

• Lunar New Year resources for Ms. H’s elementary school science academy class in Youngstown, OH.
• Math tiles for Ms. M’s elementary school class in Charlotte, NC.
• Math practice headphones and markers for Ms. A’s middle school class in Ayden, NC.
• Headphones for Dr. P’s elementary school math class in Orlando, FL.
• Science fair supplies for Ms. D’s high school class in Aurora, CO.
• Hands-on science kits for Ms. G’s elementary school class in Hope Mills, NC.
• Dry erase boards and markers for Ms. F’s middle school math class in Riverdale, GA.
• Math games for Ms. M’s elementary school class in Springfield, MO.
• Classroom pillows, balance ball seating, and learning prizes for Ms. D’s high school class in Los Lunas, NM.
• Supplies, dyslexia tools, and math boards for Ms. J’s elementary school class in Las Vegas, NV.
• Special Olympics shirt-making supplies for Ms. E’s elementary school class in Dallas, TX.
• Pi Day match celebration activities and decorations for Ms. D’s middle school class in Panorama City, CA.

I note with appreciation the matching funds that my Anonymous Vendor Executive provides annually. Most readers know this person, who asks that their donations remain anonymous and instead requests giving teachers the credit. I mostly choose STEM-related teacher needs in historically underfunded schools.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Mexico-based Leona Health raises $14 million seed funding and launches its AI copilot for physicians who use Meta-owned WhatsApp (meaning everywhere in the world except the US, China, and North Korea). Patient WhatsApp messages are routed to Leona’s app, which categorizes them, suggests responses, and supports team collaboration without exposing the user’s telephone number. I use WhatsApp on the desktop for my weekly video chats with my Ukrainian English student since Teams gave us problems after Microsoft killed Skype.

People

MRO promotes Hassan Abdallah, JD to VP / chief compliance and privacy officer.

Aaron Martin, MBA (Amazon) joins Humana as president of Medicare Advantage and will move to Insurance Segment President upon the retirement of George Renaudin in Q3 2026.

Government and Politics

HHS publishes an RFI seeking feedback on how it can use its regulatory, payment, and R&D activities to increase healthcare AI adoption.

Diagnostic radiology software vendor PenRad Technologies will pay $529,069 to settle False Claims Act allegations that its software used default settings that caused providers to bill Medicare and MassHealth for medically unnecessary breast cancer screening procedures. The whistleblower lawsuit was brought by Community Health Programs, Inc., which will collect $93,000 of the settlement. Intelerad acquired PenRad in August 2022.

Three Democratic senators express concern to VA Secretary Doug Collins that the VA plans to implement its EHR at 13 new sites in 2026 despite unresolved issues and software defects, asking for information on rollout support resources, provider feedback, unimplemented GAO recommendations, planned staffing levels, and pharmacy-specific corrective actions.

Other

Not new, but new to me. CBS Evening News covers Baltimore family physician Michael Zollicoffer, MD, who was left without radiation treatment for his newly diagnosed cancer when his insurer declined to pay and he didn’t have the money to self-pay. His patients created a GoFundMe that has raised $300,000. He said in an award acceptance speech, “You cannot see the patient from a computer. Put it down. Look at their faces, look at their hearts, and look at their souls.”

Sponsor Updates

• TruBridge and RevSpring expand their partnership to bring enhanced financial engagement and payment solutions to rural and community healthcare.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces the introduction of Lippincott CoursePoint+ with Expert AI for nursing education.
• CHIME’s “Leader2Leader” podcast features Optimum Healthcare IT Chief Strategy Officer Rick Shepardson.

Blog Posts

• HOPE Early Impressions: How Hospice Teams Are Navigating the New Era of Quality Reporting (Netsmart)
• 2026 Patient Experience Predictions: The Year Healthcare Becomes Consumer‑Driven (Praia Health)
• 2025: A Year in Review (RLDatix)
• Patient experience tips for mother-baby units (Sonifi Health)
• Clinical Evidence AI for Healthcare: Promises and Pitfalls (Symplr)
• Topics That Sparked Your Interest in 2025 (Tegria)
• Application Rationalization – Critical, Complex, and Absolutely Attainable (CereCore)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/19/25

Top News

UnitedHealthcare will delay implementation of a controversial policy that would have restricted its payment for remote patient monitoring, according to Stat.

The recently announced policy was to have gone into effect on January 1, but will instead be delayed until later in 2026.

Reader Comments

From Dr. Herzenstube: “Re: FHIR. The new version of the FHIR US Core Implementation Guide removes extensions for birth sex, gender identity, and individual pronouns as required to comply with the White House’s executive order titled ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’” Verified, per the document above.

From Potentate: “Re: HIMSS. I worked for them until recently. They were having major money issues and could not compromise on membership restructuring from the top to allow revenue generation, mainly from the corporate side of things. Funds were not allocated optimally after the sale of the global conference. They laid off what I would say was about half the organization because they knew that the chaos between the new CRM system (causing a lag in data and membership issues) and revenue, things were going south quickly. There is barely any chapter team left as the director and senior manager left before the layoffs. No corporate relations. Most of the media, engagement strategy, and government relations teams are down to bones.” Unverified. This report came from a verified former employee.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Sunday, December 21 is Yalda, a holiday that I like because it excludes no one (although to be fair, neither does New Year’s Day). Yalda celebrants, most of whom are in or from Iran and neighboring countries, mark the last day of fall and thus the longest and darkest night of the year. Then comes winter, when the light begins its slow return. Families celebrate Yalda by staying up until dawn, protecting each other from the dark forces and eating watermelon and pomegranates whose glowing reds signify sunrise and renewal. Yalda means “birth,” which feels exactly right for people like me whose energy level rises with long summer days (Southern Hemispherians must do their pomegranate procurement in June). Celebrant or not, may your Yalda or winter holiday of choice be filled with light, warmth, good company, and the optimism that the clock is about to be reset with 12 months that have no mistakes in them yet.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Startup Hundred Health launches its $499 annual membership program and app that offers lab testing, health tracking, and nutritional supplement sales.

People

Navina hires Shlomit Labin, PhD, MSc (Shield) as VP of AI.

Sean Dennehy, MBA (Oracle Health) joins Infinx as VP of business development.

Impact Advisors names Casey Bryson (Lurie Children’s Hospital) as VP and client relations executive.

Emory Healthcare promotes interim chief information and digital officer Laura Fultz, MS to the permanent role.

Announcements and Implementations

An Athenahealth survey of ambulatory practices finds that 62% used four or more AI-enabled tools in the past year, and most expect AI to reduce documentation burden and improve patient engagement. Respondents say that AI’s potential is limited by inconsistent data formats and the challenge of finding needed clinical information.

HCA Healthcare UK goes live on Google Cloud-hosted Meditech Expanse in its 11 hospitals, with project support from CereCore.

A KLAS Arch Collaborative analysis of previous surveys of acute care nurses finds that unproductive charting is a key contributor to nurse dissatisfaction, burnout, and departures. Nurses asked for streamline or reduced charting twice as often as any other EHR enhancement to address duplicate and redundant documentation (especially in flowsheets), lack of task standardization in flowsheets, and a requirement to document information that nobody ever looks at and that doesn’t make a difference in patient care.

Government and Politics

A federal jury indicts Done Global on allegations that it arranged the distribution of 40 million doses of Adderall for non-legitimate medical reasons to members who paid it $100 million in subscription fees. The company’s former CEO and medical president were convicted of controlled substances distribution and fraud charges last month.

Other

Cisco provides its hospital customers with Connected Santa, which offers hospitalized children a virtual visit with Santa via Webex with help from onsite company and hospital volunteers.

Sponsor Updates

• Wolters Kluwer Health publishes a new report titled “2026 healthcare AI trends: Insights from experts.”
• Fortified Health Security names Justin Bockrath penetration tester and Jace Cawiezell threat defense analyst.
• Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “QuickHITs” podcast titled “How Great CIOs Lead: Insights from Luis Taveras, PhD.”
• The “Tech Teams Today” podcast features Healthcare IT Leaders CTO Paul Cannon in an episode titled “Reliability Beats Cutting Edge.”
• Infinx names Heather Swanson business development director.
• WEDI honors InterSystems with its annual Innovation in Health IT Award.

Blog Posts

• 8 healthcare dashboard examples and the metrics they track (Arcadia)
• Arkansas Social Care Summit: Highlights from the Natural State (Findhelp)
• Why Data Security Will Define Cost-Effective RCM in 2026 (FinThrive)
• EHR build sprawl: Why “just in case” is costing you more than you think (Cardamom)
• Meditech staff lead holiday giving for local families (Meditech)
• Leveraging Your EHR to Maximize Reimbursements (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/17/25

Top News

FDA updates its policy to accept de-identified real-world evidence to support drug and device application reviews. This change allows use of registries, insurance claims, and EHR data that were previously excluded because they lacked patient-level confidential information.

FDA says it intends to review the same policy change in its guidance for drug and biologics.

Reader Comments

From Dr.SickandTiredHIT: “Re: Texas versus Epic. Can we all just say the quiet part out loud? A conservative politician, who is running for statewide office and is looking to make a splash, is suing a company led by a liberal in a liberal city. The Texas v. Epic suit is nonsense beyond a politician trying to score points. Why can’t Epic say that?”

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual cardiology company Auxira Health raises $7.8 million in seed funding. Auxira offers cardiology practices remote services that include access to advanced practice providers, care coordination, patient engagement, medication management, and system integration. MedStar Health (MD) launched Auxira in May through a collaboration with Abundant Venture Partners.

Healthcare technology, analytics, and services vendor Sentact acquires event and incident management company Performance Health Partners and Vizient’s Patient Safety Organization. Performance Health Partners founder and CEO Heidi Raines will join Sentact as chief strategy officer.

Lin Health announces $11 million in Series A funding. The company offers an app-based treatment program for the management of chronic pain.

The private equity owners of Netsmart will reportedly seek a buyer for the company for the second time.

Medify Health, which offers remote patient monitoring and chronic care management services for Medicare beneficiaries, shuts down.

Sales

• WellSpan Health will expand its use of Aidoc’s clinical AI beyond radiology to include its nine hospitals and 250 outpatient facilities.
• The Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute (FL) selects Reimagine Care’s virtual cancer care services.
• Mt. San Rafael Hospital and Clinics (CO) will implement Oracle Health, apparently replacing Medhost in the 25-bed hospital.
• Berlin, Germany-based Charité, which is Europe’s largest university hospital at 3,000 beds, will implement Epic in a $235 million project.

People

Rakshay Jain, MBA (Innovaccer) joins DexCare as chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Tebra incorporates DrFirst’s RxInform prescription notification tool into its EHR+ for private practices.

South Gippsland Hospital in Australia implements Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EHR.

Children’s Minnesota will outsource its revenue cycle management to Ensemble Health Partners.

Manifest MedEx will provide the California Mental Health Services Authority with ADT notifications for people who are being seen by county behavioral health organizations.

Health insurer Fallon Community Health plan sues Innovaccer, alleging that the company’s software was worthless, didn’t improve risk adjustment revenue as promised, and was sold under fraudulent misrepresentation.

Government and Politics

PenRad Technologies will pay $530,000 to settle federal allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by inadvertently causing providers to bill Medicare and MassHealth for medically unnecessary breast cancer screenings due to an overlooked software setting. Intelerad Medical Systems acquired PenRad in 2022.

Members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee voice concern over the soaring cost of the VA’s Oracle Health–based EHR Modernization program. The estimate has grown from an initial $10 billion to $37 billion, and the Institute for Defense Analyses projects at least $50 billion. Thirteen facilities are slated to go live next year, with full deployment expected by 2031. Subcommittee chair Tom Barrett (R-MI), a US Army veteran, has a personal stake in the rollout because four Michigan facilities that he uses for care will be the first to adopt the system since the 2023 pause.

An ASTP blog post outlines the similarities and differences between TEFCA and CMS-Aligned Networks.

Other

University of California researchers find that automated outreach to patients offering help with advance care planning significantly increases the number of patients who complete ACP documentation.

Sponsor Updates

• CloudWave names Maria Graham business development manager.
• WellSky and UMed partner to expand home-based patient access to national clinical research registries.
• Wolters Kluwer Health releases a new report titled “Future Forecast: The Growing Impact of PAs in the Healthcare System.”
• Clinical Architecture releases a new episode of “The Informonster Podcast” titled “Inside Informatics with John D’Amore.”
• Linus Health names Julie Wood, MD, MPH senior medical director, clinician engagement.

Blog Posts

• AI Clinical Assistant from AdvancedMD: AI Innovation to Help Healthcare Providers Prioritize Patient Care over Paperwork (AdvancedMD)
• Climbing higher together: A look inside our 2025 client successes (Altera Digital Health)
• 28 Healthcare analytics companies fueling insights in 2026 (Arcadia)
• Patients Save Over 88% with Real-Time Prescription Benefit (Arrive Health)
• AI in Healthcare Compliance: How Artera is Setting the Standard (Artera)
• The Cyber Risks of Legacy Applications for EHRs and Why Action Cannot Wait (CTG)
• How Healthcare Organizations Use Analytics to Improve Outcomes (Dimensional Insight)
• Survey reveals challenges physician assistants face: AI, insurance, and technology (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 12/15/25

Top News

A GAO report says that the VA must address several previously raised issues to support its accelerated Oracle Health rollout. Among them:

• Produce an updated cost estimate and schedule.
• Implement change management activities and conduct an independent assessment of the EHR’s user suitability and effectiveness.
• Document a change management strategy to drive user adoption.
• Develop change readiness scores before future deployments.
• Assess whether enhanced VA and Oracle Health training has been effective.
• Establish user satisfaction goals.
• Monitor trouble ticket resolution within established goals.
• Postpone deployment in new locations if critical test issues have not been resolved.

Reader Comments

From Jacinto: “Re: Dr. Craig Joseph’s comments about packaging AI as cuddly robots to improve behavior change. This is blazingly insightful. I can think of quite a few examples where words on a screen or delivered by a faceless voice would be more effective.” His company blog post made me think about the patient care value of anthropomorphized AI speech that is delivered by a comforting, universally understood form factor (which also happens to be inexpensive). As he says, “People don’t struggle with anxiety or diabetes or rehab exercises because they are missing the right paragraph of text.” Potential uses that I can see:

• Deploy virtual avatar-powered staff extenders that engage with patients instead of being used in the factory robot model of making deliveries and lifting. This would be especially powerful if connected to humans who could seamlessly take over the conversation or look at real-time video as needed. Such use would be beneficial in any care setting, but especially in staff-stretched skilled nursing facilities.
• Use a human-like robot to coach exercise or rehabilitation routines, with real-time personality tuning to adapt to whatever style works best for each patient (drill sergeant versus cheerleader).
• Monitor and coach hospital-at-home patients, providing nudges and a sense that caregivers remain involved and invested in their outcomes.
• Reassure children during pre-op coaching, MRI prep, and medication / injection administration and teaching.
• Support patients who are experiencing agitation, dementia, or withdrawal symptoms and provide ongoing reorientation about place and situation.
• Perform real-time language translation for informed consent, discharge instructions, and staff communications.
• Conduct pre-rounding conversations that AI then turns into a clinician-ready daily narrative.
• Allow distant family members to deliver verbal patient support via the comforting form factor.
• This is way out there, but empathetic, carefully guardrailed robots could be used to reduce clinician burnout by debriefing them about the emotional weight of caring for distressed or critically ill patients or delivering bad news to families. Clinicians may lack social support or may avoid sharing concerns with peers. Studies show that people are often more candid with technology.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents are still trying to figure out if having a C-level AI advocate provides clear benefit.

New poll to your right or here, from the discussion above: Will socially assistive AI robots outperform chatbots when the goal is patient behavior change? I expect a lot of respondents to punt with the “need more evidence” option, but let’s see votes and comments from those who have firmer opinions.

A generation donation from Bill, amplified by matching funds from outside sources and my Anonymous Vendor Executive, fully funded these Donors Choose teacher grant requests:

• Cricut tools for STEM projects for Ms. N’s middle school class in Paterson, NJ.
• Compassion corner furnishings for Ms. H’s elementary school science academy class in Youngstown, OH.
• Science supply cabinets for Mr. T’s middle school class in Paterson, NJ.
• STEM design supplies for Ms. P’s elementary school class in North Miami Beach, FL.
• A microscope and STEM activities kits for Ms. Y’s elementary school class in Van Nuys, CA.
• A document camera for Ms. R’s elementary school science academy class in Austintown, OH.
• Headphones for Ms. S’s middle school class in High Point, NC.
• Magnetic stick building blocks for Ms. O’s elementary school class in Hayward, CA.
• Flexible seating and STEM kits for Dr. H’s elementary school class in Forest Park, GA.
• Science club supplies for Ms. S’s middle school in Utica, NY.
• Science and engineering expo supplies for Ms. S’s elementary school class in Lorton, VA.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A report by The Information says that new fundraising by OpenEvidence values the company at $12 billion.

Mass General Brigham spins out AIwithCare, an AI-powered tool that matches patients to clinical trials.

A new reach for private equity tentacles shows up in software for volunteer fire departments. PE-backed ESO Solutions bought the $795-per-year system that is used by Norfolk VFD, shut it down, and offered a $5,000 replacement. Norfolk found a cheaper option, but ESO then acquired that vendor, too. ESO now serves 20,000 of the nation’s 30,000 fire departments, and its two largest rivals are also PE-backed. ESO’s majority owner is Vista Equity Partners, which also holds positions in Greenway Health, SimplePractice, and TigerConnect. Its president and CEO is Erick Beck, DO, MPH, who left his president / COO role at University Hospitals to join ESO in June 2022.

Announcements and Implementations

Investment banker and former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD says in a JAMA Health Forum article that AI has not boosted healthcare productivity because the industry depends on labor-intensive work that is better measured by outcomes than output. He predicts that AI will raise productivity by taking over some cognitive and physical tasks, which will free physicians to focus on work that requires human judgment. He argues that FDA should replace its static device framework with one that permits safe, iterative AI updates without full reapproval unless performance standards are violated. He adds that adoption lags because Medicare does not pay for technology directly and must remain budget-neutral, which forces any new payments to be offset by cuts to physician reimbursement.

Private equity firm Geneva PE launches the development and funding of NXXIM, an AI-powered enterprise medical imaging platform. The announcement provides few details, such as naming the “world-class leadership team of industry veterans” who are involved.

Other

A San Francisco woman gives birth in the back seat of a Waymo driverless car that she had hailed for a ride to the hospital. The car noticed “unusual activity” and called emergency services en route.

Interesting: HIMSS members who participate in any of its volunteer committees, task forces, and workgroups are prohibited from recording the content (that’s reserved for HIMSS to package as its own content) and can’t use any AI devices or software to record or transcribe the meeting.

Not health tech related (yet), but fascinating. Google upgrades Translate so that users can hear real-time translations in their earbuds. It also translates the user’s speech into the other person’s language. The Gemini AI enhancement auto-detects the languages being spoken, filters ambient noise, and preserves the original speaker’s intonation and pacing. I can’t imagine traveling internationally without Translate and Maps on my IPhone’s homepage.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast episode featuring Matthew Trowbridge, MD.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper titled “Strategic Transformation in the AI Era: Turning Innovation into Impact.”
• The “Lead the Team” podcast features RLDatix North America CEO Dan Michelson in an episode titled “The CEO Who Saw What Success Hid.”
• Switchboard Health offers a new case study titled “Large Health System Cuts Provider Message Touches by 42% with Switchboard, MD.”

Blog Posts

• Redefining pharmacy: As the role of hospital pharmacists evolves, drug decision-making requires a new approach (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Empowering Pharmacists to Prevent Opioid-Related Harm: A Patient-First Prescription (First Databank)
• The Reality of Incident Response Readiness in Healthcare (Fortified Health Security)
• Build or Buy? Choosing the Right Path for Effective Member Outreach (ReferWell)
• How Riverside County is Driving Connected Care (Netsmart)
• Cutting Through AI Hype: The 3 Tiers of Medical Coding Automation (Nym)
• 5 Trends Shaping Healthcare in 2026 (and 3 to Leave Behind) (PerfectServe)
• A Rural Hospital’s Guide to Revenue Recovery (Sliced Health)
• Tegria’s Biggest Event Takeaways From 2025 (Tegria)
• Harnessing AI for post-acute RCM: How leaders can build a smarter revenue cycle (Waystar)
• The Biggest Shift in Health Tech Regulation Since HITECH (And What It Means for Your Organization in 2026) (Zen Healthcare IT)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/12/25

Top News

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton files an antitrust and consumer protection petition alleging that Epic maintains monopoly power. It says that Epic controls more than 90% of US patient records, locks in hospitals through extreme switching costs, restricts competitor access to data, and imposes no-hire restrictions on employees. The petition also argues that Epic delays or limits access to medical records for providers and patients who are outside Epic’s system. 

The lawsuit further accuses Epic of misleading Texas children’s hospitals about its parental access rules, which is likely the key issue of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief to restore competitive conditions, civil fines, and court costs.

An Epic spokesperson provided this company response:

The action taken by Texas is flawed and misguided by its failure to understand both Epic’s business model and position in the market and the enormous contributions our company has made to our nation’s healthcare system illustrated by products like MyChart —software that tens of millions of Americans depend on every day. Every month, we improve quality of care by helping providers see a more comprehensive picture of their patient through over 725 million record exchanges—more than any other electronic health records vendor—and over half of these are with non-Epic systems. Health systems using Epic shared information with almost 1,000 patient-facing apps 2 billion times in the past year. Epic does not determine parental access to children’s medical records. Decisions about parental access to children’s medical records are made by doctors and health systems, not by Epic.

Reader Comments

From Dr. Herzenstube: “Re: HELP committee’s inquiry into the American Medical Association. It sounds as if there are some very specific alleged practices around CPT codes that they are investigating.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA) seeks information from organizations that have licensed CPT about their price structure, AMA’s willingness to negotiate contract provisions, and any other areas outside CPT in which AMA collects royalties.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Oracle announces Q2 results: revenue up 14%, EPS $2.10 versus $1.10, exceeding earnings expectations but falling short on revenue. ORCL shares fell 11% on Thursday over investor concern about rising AI infrastructure costs. Co-CEO Mike Sicilia said in the earnings call that 274 customers are live on Oracle Health’s clinical AI agent and that its new AI-based ambulatory EHR is generally available.

Nashville-based virtual clinic Joi + Blokes acquires women’s-health startup HerMD, creating one of the largest virtual care platforms for menopause, sexual health, and hormone therapy. HerMD previously raised $40 million in venture capital, then closed its five physical locations to focus on virtual care.

Sales

• Val Verde Regional Medical Center will implement Commure Ambient AI.
• Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust selects UpToDate Enterprise Edition from Wolters Kluwer Health.

People

Healthmonix hires Bill Marella, MS, MBA (HealthShare Exchange) as COO.

Announcements and Implementations

OpenAI’s “State of Enterprise AI” report names healthcare as one of the fastest-growing business sectors for ChatGPT use, with eightfold growth in  customers in the past 12 months.

Included Health expands its care navigation platform with an intelligent AI assistant that uses personalized medical, claims, and benefits data to guide employer-based members. It also nudges them toward preventive screenings and better benefits use.

A Microsoft review of 37 million Copilot conversations finds that it is most often used to answer health questions.

A new KLAS report on IT planning and assessment services finds that Chartis, Impact Advisors, Healthlink Advisors, Nordic, Deloitte, and Optimum Healthcare IT are the firms that are most frequently considered and selected.

Government and Politics

More than 100 provider groups and medical societies ask HHS to withdraw its proposed cybersecurity rule that would expand HIPAA requirements, and instead collaborate with industry to develop practical, actionable, and less-burdensome cybersecurity standards.The 393-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would require providers, business associates, health plans, and clearinghouses to implement specific safeguards, perform annual compliance audits, document deeper analysis of technology assets, and maintain written documentation. Mandatory technical controls include encryption of EPHI at rest, multi-factor authentication, vulnerability scanning, and network segmentation.

Other

Nordic Chief Medical Officer Craig Joseph, MD says healthcare is betting on the wrong AI horse in embracing purely digital chatbots, which have been found to be less effective in improving outcomes than packaging the same LLM as an inexpensive socially-assistive robot. He says that digital health apps aren’t good at improving behavior change and engagement because they can’t provide the emotional experience and physical presence that engages the brain. Excerpts:

Behavior change is not a content-delivery problem; it is an emotional-experience problem. People don’t struggle with anxiety or diabetes or rehab exercises because they are missing the right paragraph of text. They struggle because doing hard things alone is deeply, intrinsically difficult … humans need accountability, presence, encouragement, and social cues to persist when something feels uncomfortable. Motivation is not downloaded; it’s co-created … The truth is that healthcare already understands the importance of presence. Physicians know that the 30 seconds spent sitting instead of standing changes the perceived quality of a visit. Nurses know that touch conveys trust in ways chart messages never will. Behavioral health clinicians know that therapy is not powerful because of what is said, but because of who is saying it, how they are saying it, and where the interaction occurs. Embodied AI doesn’t replace this relational wisdom. It simply extends it into new settings where humans cannot always be.

Eli Lilly says that a clinical trial of its next-generation, three-hormone GLP-1 drug for obesity and diabetes shows that participants with obesity and arthritis lost an average of 29% of their body weight, about 71 pounds, which exceeds the results reported for Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. Participants also saw major improvements in their arthritis symptoms. Demand for Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs has driven the company’s valuation to $1 trillion.

The founder of online mental health platform BetterLyf is arrested after he allegedly started a fire at a California winery, threw a wine bottle at employees, intentionally crashed his Tesla into two cars while fleeing, and then locked himself in his car and refused to surrender until police officers pepper sprayed him. Vikram Beri was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore offers a new e-book titled “The Buyer’s Guide to IT Managed Services: Your Guide to Smarter Healthcare IT Decisions.”
• Findhelp and AIDA Healthcare announce an integration partnership to transform post-acute care referrals.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a white paper titled “Strategic Transformation in the AI Era: Turning Innovation into Impact.”
• Goshen Health (IN) goes live on Meditech’s redesigned Expanse Pathology software.
• Inbox Health partners with Encoda to help physician practices capture revenue.
• Epic adds WellSky CarePort Community Referral Network solution to its Toolbox in the Community Resource Network category.
• Judi Health releases a new episode of its “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Health Benefits that Work for Everyone: Aligning Incentives & Focusing on Members’ Needs, and with Susana Villegas Spillman.”
• RxLogic’s new Formulary & Benefit Connect capability uses eligibility and formulary technology from Surescripts.
• The American Board of Medical Specialties Portfolio Program will use Wolters Kluwer Health’s Ovid Synthesis to streamline the continuing certification credit process and fast-track patient improvement initiatives.
• WellSky’s CarePort Community Referral Network solution is now part of the Epic Toolbox category for Community Resource Network.

Blog Posts

• How Predictive Analytics and Reporting Increase Healthcare Revenue (AGS Health)
• Connected for Better Care: How Strategic Partnerships are Transforming Lab Connectivity (Ellkay)
• Why Drug Knowledge Delivery Must Evolve (First Databank)
• Empowering Value-Based Care in Outpatient Rehab Therapy (Netsmart)
• The CMS TEAM Mandate: What Hospital Leaders Must Know to Be Ready for the 2026 Performance Year (ReferWell)
• Clinically meaningful evidence in the age of AI (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Consistency in Action: What Industry Recognition Means for Healthcare Progress (FinThrive)
• Five9 Celebrates CRN 2025 Products of the Year Awards (Five9)
• CISO Brief: A Look Back at Healthcare Cybersecurity in 2025, A Year Defined by Disruption (Fortified Health Security)
• Key Regulatory Updates and Compliance Deadlines for 2026 (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/10/25

Top News

Global investment firm EQT seeks $1 billion for its 40% stake in CitiusTech.

EQT sold its majority stake in AGS Health to Blackstone for a similar amount in August.

CitiusTech, a global healthcare IT business, acquired Health Data Movers at around that same time.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Reader donations and matching funds provided Ms. O’s kindergartners with marble run sets for STEM learning. She reports, “By playing with building sets, my students are learning how to build all kinds of different structures. They are also learning engineering skills. That is STEM learning at its best! This project has been so important because giving students a strong foundation in math and literacy in their first year of school, makes a big difference by giving them a good start in their academic careers.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Spare Tire raises $3 million in a Series A funding round. The startup offers on-demand access to inpatient historical data for workflow continuity during unplanned EHR downtime.

Clinical trial software and services vendor Paradigm Health acquires Flatiron Health’s tech-enabled clinical research solutions. The companies will also partner on integrating Paradigm’s capabilities with Flatiron’s OncoEMR.

Patients report that hospitals are charging them for self-administered questionnaires. Novant Health bills the patient or insurer $5 to $10 for a screening questionnaire about social determinants of health. A patient says that a questionnaire that was asked to complete during online check-in resulted in a $17 bill for a “brief emotional and behavioral health assessment.”

Sales

• Springfield Memorial Hospital (IL) will implement virtual sitting technology from CareView Communications.

People

ReferWell names Rich Smith (Axion Contact) SVP of sales.

UC San Diego Health promotes Alexander Khalessi, MD, MBA to chief innovation officer.

Smarter Technologies promotes Mike Gao, MD to CEO.

HaloMD names Nirnay Patel (Simplify Healthcare) chief data officer and Dan Heinmiller (Health Catalyst) VP of data integration and operations.

Announcements and Implementations

VHC Health in Washington, DC begins offering virtual urgent care services from HealthTap.

Bamboo Health announces GA of Bamboo Bridge, which assists providers and payers in connecting patients with the right level of behavioral healthcare.

A Joint Powers Authority arrangement between Palomar Health and UC San Diego Health will give Palomar clinicians access to UC’s Epic system.

Kontakt.io launches Access Agent, an AI tool designed to help outpatient clinics better anticipate and manage the allocation of exams.

Researchers determine that off-the-shelf AI tools such as ChatGPT can successfully de-identify EHR patient data without training, potentially reducing the cost and time required for preparing clinical data for research.

Donate Life America presents its Courage Award to Epic in recognition of its donor registration program that was launched in May 2025.

Government and Politics

ASTP and its partners release a Standard Operating Procedure document that outlines using TEFCA to check an individual’s eligibility for Social Security disability benefits.

Other

A study of newborn EHR data in Epic’s Cosmos database finds that 5% aren’t being given a vitamin K injection to prevent bleeding, doubling the 2017 rate. Pediatricians say that parents decline vitamin K either because they confuse it with a vaccind or distrust authority. Hospitals are reporting an increased number of cases of infant bleeding, which can be fatal in severe cases.

Sponsor Updates

• Hospital cybersecurity leaders identify non-negotiable domains to fund by 2028 in a new analysis from Black Book Research.
• Dimensional Insight announces that it has been recognized in the “KLAS 2025 Consistent High Performers Report” for its continued excellence in healthcare analytics.
• Nordic announces that it has been named a Major Contender in Everest Group’s “Healthcare Specialists IT Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2025.”
• Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Best of ’25! – Solving Pharmacy Benefits: Inside the RFP Process, with Josh Golden & Nic Bolitho.”
• Agfa HealthCare releases a new white paper titled “Enterprise Imaging 2030: From Data to Insight, From Insight to Impact.”
• CloudWave offers a new resource guide titled “Navigating Healthcare Cybersecurity with AI.”
• CTG releases a new client success story titled “CTG Helps Medical Center Accelerate and Streamline Testing With Eggplant DAI.”

Blog Posts

• Three Revenue Cycle Management Strategies to Navigate Uncertainty (AGS Health)
• Looking back on 2025: Bringing our vision to life (Altera Digital Health)
• All Talk, No Walk? The ACCESS Model is Here to Find Out (Arcadia)
• Patients Save Over 88% with Real-Time Prescription Benefit (Arrive Health)
• How to Maintain HIPAA & SOC2 Compliance in 2026 (Bizmatics)
• Why Tech Makes Care More Human: Sir David Sloman’s Lessons from the NHS (CereCore)
• Why Web & Mobile App Pen Testing Is Critical in Healthcare (Clearwater)
• Unifying Medical and Pharmacy Benefits: The Blueprint for Better Employee Health and Wellness (Judi Health)
• Four Critical Factors for Selecting a Business System Hosting Partner (Med Tech Solutions)
• Why Physicians Spend Hours Pre-Charting—and How Navina Solves It (Navina)
• Empowering Value-Based Care in Geriatric Health (Netsmart)
• The Human Side of Interoperability (Surescripts)
• The Real ROI of Modernizing Contract Management in Healthcare (Symplr)
• Clinical experts-in-the-loop are essential for AI trust (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Own the Outage: Smart Cloud Strategies for Healthcare (CloudWave)
• What the 2× Weight Drop Means for CAHPS and How to Stay Ahead (ReferWell)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 12/8/25

Top News

HHS plans to expand its use of AI, primarily to improve administrative efficiency, and also to deliver real-time patient guidance by analyzing medical records.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Three-fourths of poll respondents consult a research-only firm when making buying decisions, most often KLAS.

New poll to your right or here: Will health systems meaningfully benefit from adding an C-suite AI job, such as chief AI officer?

Reader donations and matching funds provided Ms. M’s NC-based student-run school news program with audio and video equipment. She reports, “This is such a blessing to our student news team! They are so excited to bring the school news to our school, but we are struggling to make it work with limited technology. These items, such as the microphones, will be SO helpful so that we are able to be heard around the building! We have such ambitious, funny, bright students who are excite to bring something school wide.”

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor FinThrive. The Plano, TX-based company helps 3,200 healthcare organizations increase revenue, reduce costs, improve patients financial experience, and ensure regulatory compliance across their entire revenue cycle continuum. Its SaaS-based RCM Platform delivers the industry’s widest breadth of capabilities, including integrated workflows supporting patient access, revenue integrity, claims management, contract management, and collections management teams within a centralized work environment. The company helps its customers bring modern digital experiences to their patients, including self-scheduling, virtual check-in, price estimations, patient payments and payment plans, and ongoing SMS-based secure communications.  – with no app downloads required. Its platform also leverages machine learning, robotic process automation, end-to-end RCM analytics, and billing and coding education resources to increase efficiency and drive sustained ROI. Thanks to FinThrive for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Lightbeam Health Solutions acquires Syntax Health, whose platform supports value-based care contracting.

Nova Scotia’s IWK Health goes live on Oracle Health, the first hospital to do so under the province’s One Person One Record project.

India-based Healthify expects to add more GLP-1 drug makers to its patient support program, which offers metrics tracking and coaching, following its new contract with Novo Nordisk. The company says that it has 45 million global users.

Announcements and Implementations

OpenEvidence releases a free dialer program that allows physicians to contact their patients without exposing their personal phone number. It integrates with the Visits portion of the company’s app to allow users to automatically create a clinical note from the call.

Government and Politics

The FDA launches a pilot that creates a risk-based regulatory pathway for chronic disease digital health devices, giving manufacturers enforcement discretion while they gather and publish real-world performance data.

Privacy and Security

BJC HealthCare calls out a “misleading” social media post that claims that the health system revokes parental access to their children’s records. It clarifies that its MyChart portal changes parental access from full to limited access when their child turns 12, but parents can still obtain records through its release process, all of which complies with federal and state privacy laws.

A US Embassy official assures Kenyans that their identifiable health records will not be shared with the US government under a new $150 million security agreement between the countries. A Kenya-based whistleblower claims that the deal grants full US government access to patient records, calls for sharing data with drug companies, and places Kenya’s data rights at risk by putting the agreement under US law.

Other

An Asheville, NC-based news site says that the soaring share price of hospital operator HCA Healthcare has boosted the net worth of co-founder and major shareholder Thomas Frist, Jr., MD to $42 billion, with the $15 billion jump so far this year making him the 47th richest person in the world.

Sponsor Updates

• Judi Health staff volunteer with Nourishing Hope and sponsor 7,500 meals for Chicago families in need.
• Black Book Research’s latest survey finds that RCM leaders feel that AI ambitions are running into data quality, governance, and integration barriers.
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, and Qure4u partner to streamline and secure integrated patient payments.
• Altera Digital Health offers a new client story titled “Horizon Health System continues driving better care with the help of Altera’s Paragon 24.1.”
• WellSky releases its fourth annual “Evolution of Care” report.
• HCTec publishes a new case study titled “Epic Implementation/ Go-Live Support with Staffing and Direct Hire for a Leader in Urgent Care Services.”
• CHIME recognizes several Meditech customers with its 2025 Digital Health Most Wired designation.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Anna Schoenbaum, DNP and Srinath Adusumalli, MD.
• Optimum Healthcare IT achieves AWS Generative AI Services Competency.
• RLDatix will exhibit at IHI Forum 2025 December 7-10 in Anaheim, CA.

Blog Posts

• The future of integrated healthcare workflow: Delivering on the promises of the EHR dream (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Building an ambient AI scribe for the real world (Altera Digital Health)
• Care management software: Overview and 10 options for 2026 (Arcadia)
• Boost Call Quality with Five9’s Support for Microsoft Multimedia Redirection (Five9)
• Inside a Healthcare Ransomware Battle: How Preparation Saved Patients (Fortified Health Security)
• Navigating the 2025 Telehealth Policy Cliff: Why a Care Access Platform is No Longer Optional (Kyruus Health)
• International impact: How healthcare technology helps deliver high-quality patient care across the globe (Meditech)
• Which Cloud Service is Right for Your Organization? (Med Tech Solutions)
• Rethinking HEDIS and Stars: Building a quality-first culture (Navina)
• 5 Ways Automation Is Transforming Human Services Workflows (Netsmart)
• When to Use Modifier 25 vs. Modifier 59 (Nym)
• How to Improve Ambient Temperature Monitoring in Hospitals (SmartSense by Digi)
• Understanding Payment Card Fees in Healthcare Payments (TrustCommerce, a Sphere company)
• Access is an Outcome: Eliminating Coverage Uncertainty Across the Patient Journey (Surescripts)
• CHIME Fall Forum 2025 Insights for Healthcare CIOs (Symplr)
• Why Coding Teams Are Moving Toward Single Path Coding (TruBridge)
• Connect care to payment: The value of combining clinical + financial data in one platform (Waystar)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

News 12/5/25

Top News

The Spokesman-Review and The Washington Post say that the VA remains on track to expand its Oracle Health EHR rollout to 13 more medical centers in 2026 despite the problems that clinicians reported at all six go-live sites.

• VHA data indicates that the system was involved in 4,600 cases of patient harm, including six deaths.
• Former VA Secretary David Shulkin says that the VA’s implementation was botched after he left in 2018 by trying to implement the system top-down from Washington instead of involving users.
• Reported problems at the initial sites include disappearing notes, incorrect medication doses, and total system outages.
• Staff reported alert fatigue due to a steady stream of email alerts from VA technical support about system problems.
• Providers complain of increased burnout, reduced patient time, and fear of harming veterans due to system complexity and instability.
• An internal VA study showed that system go-live was associated with a 30-40% drop in primary care visit volume, and increased wait times have not resolved.
• The project’s $16 billion estimated cost is now at $33 billion, with one GAO official predicting that the final cost will be “hundreds of billions.”
• A VA spokesperson said in a statement, “Biden political appointees’ mismanagement of VA’s electronic health record modernization effort resulted in a program that was nearly dormant for almost two years. The Trump administration won’t repeat those same mistakes and is already moving quickly to accelerate deployment of the system and bring the project to completion as early as 2031.”
• The spokesperson says that staff satisfaction with the system is improving and that five of the original six sites report increased productivity compared to pre-implementation.

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare AI agent developer Artera raises $65 million in growth investment.  

Sales

• Ob Hospitalist Group will implement Commure Autonomous Coding at 200 care sites.

People

AdvancedMD hires Nupura Kolwalkar-Rana, MS, MA (DNAnexus) as chief product and technology officer.

LiveData promotes Jeff Forbes, MBA to VP of commercial healthcare sales.

Announcements and Implementations

Medical kiosk maker OnMed will implement its CareStation clinic-in-a-box at 30 charter schools in a pilot project with 22Beacon, which provides real estate development, financing, and advisory services to charter schools. OnMed announced in October 2025 that it plans to go public via a SPAC merger.

Aetna lists the milestones it has achieved in its strategy to simplify healthcare experiences for providers and patients, which include combining prior authorizations for prescriptions and procedures into a single clinical review, introducing collaborative care models for Medicare Advantage members, and rolling out conversational AI solutions. 

A new KLAS and Arch Collaborative report on clinician turnover finds that problems with organizational leadership top the list of causes, often triggered by a bad EHR experience. One clinician says that IT leadership pay should be pegged to patient satisfaction just as theirs is, while another says that IT protects its fiefdom and shows little interest in clinician needs.

Privacy and Security

Kaiser Permanente’s health plan will pay $46 million to settle a class action lawsuit that involves its 2024 use of web tracking technology.

Other

I ran across the Substack of Helen Lu, RN, MSN, clinical director of informatics and analytics at Community Health System, who is also a family nurse practitioner, insightful health tech analyst, and AI fan. She questions on LinkedIn why she can stream Netflix in 4K, yet downloading a diagnostic quality image takes 30 minutes. She says that the technology exists, but hasn’t been adopted:

• Cloud-based imaging that is faster than on-premise servers.
• Smart pre-fetching that occurs before the chart is even opened.
• Progressive image loading that allows starting reading immediately instead of waiting for a full download.
• Vision-language AI models that can choose the most relevant views upfront.
• Networks that prioritize imaging over less-important traffic.

A BMJ article says that social media influencers shape public perception of medical guidance by promoting oversimplified or misleading advice that often conflicts with evidence-based recommendations. Influencers often lack expertise, are motivated by financial conflicts, and overgeneralize their personal beliefs. The authors add that official statements and fact-checking aren’t effective at countering misinformation because they lack the immediacy, appeal, and reach of influencers. They outline possible countermeasures, but say that no single approach is likely to work.

Sponsor Updates

• Agfa HealthCare shares its experience at RSNA 2025.
• Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in England enhance pediatric care by integrating digital growth charts within its Sunrise EHR from Altera Digital Health.
• The “What Fuels You” podcast features Arrive Health CEO Kyle Kaiser.
• Optimum Healthcare IT posts a new case study titled “NGHS Achieves Cloud First Vision With Epic on AWS.”
• Black Book Research offers its free “2026-2027 Boardroom Playbook for Hospital Health IT Approvals.”
• The US Department of Labor honors Clearwater with the 2025 Gold HIRE Vets Medallion Award.
• Findhelp welcomes new customers TimelyCare, Adventist Health, Pear Suite, and InCharge Education Foundation.
• HCTec offers a new case study titled “Scaling Excellence: How HCTec Became a Prominent Academic Health System’s Go-To Epic Go-Live Partner.”
• Healthmonix welcomes Georgia Cancer Specialists as a new customer.

Blog Posts

• Best Practices for Success with Agentic AI Implementation (AGS Health)
• The empowerment evolution: Three ways health IT is enhancing patient engagement (Altera Digital Health)
• Top 8 healthcare analytics tools and tips for selecting one (Arcadia)
• Patients Save over 88% with Real-Time Prescription Benefit (Arrive Health)
• Healthcare Cybersecurity in the Age of AI: Navigating the Opportunities and Challenges (CloudWave)
• Optimizing EHR Performance and End-User Adoption in the Era of AI (CTG)
• How to Evaluate Healthcare Analytics Platforms: What “Best” Really Means (Dimensional Insight)
• 5 Questions Every Health System Should Ask Before Choosing a Drug Database for Your EHR (First Databank)
• Five9 CX Summit 2025: A Community That Redefined What CX Can Be (Five9)
• When Cyber Threats Hit Rural Hospitals: Lessons from the Front Lines (Fortified Health Security)
• Strategic EHR Transitions: Unifying Healthcare Data (Health Data Movers)
• How do you offer payment plans for patients? A guide for medical practices (Inbox Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.