Home » News » Recent Articles:

News 12/5/25

December 4, 2025 News No Comments

Top News

image

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.

  • FDA disclosures indicate 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

image

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

image

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

image

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


Announcements and Implementations

image

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. 

image

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

image

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.

image

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


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 12/3/25

December 2, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

A new, 10-year CMS model called ACCESS will test whether an outcome-aligned payment approach can expand access to technology-enabled chronic care management in Original Medicare starting in July 2026.

CMS says that telehealth, wearables, lifestyle coaching apps, and FDA-authorized devices can support clinical consultations, lifestyle support, counseling, patient education, medication management, ordering and interpreting tests and imaging.

The program will focus on four tracks:

  • Early cardio-kidney-metabolic conditions such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, and prediabetes.
  • Cardio-kidney-metabolic conditions such as diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and heart disease.
  • Chronic musculoskeletal pain.
  • Depression and anxiety.

image

Some LinkedIn comments from Christian Pean, MD, MS, executive director of AI and IT innovation at Duke Orthopedic Surgery:

Value-based care just got more real for orthopedics. I’ve sat through countless meetings about the shift from volume to value. It often feels abstract. But the CMS ACCESS Model (launching July 2026) is one of the most tangible signals I’ve seen that the ground is shifting below our feet. For those of us in orthopedic surgery and health tech, CMS says this is a playbook for the next decade. Instead of just paying us to intervene, CMS wants to pay us to manage patients longitudinally. The model introduces Outcome-Aligned Payments, recurring revenue that is contingent on the patient actually getting better … You cannot succeed in this model with a clipboard and a phone call. To manage outcomes at scale, we need AI-enabled Integrated Practice Units (IPUs). We need remote monitoring that feels invisible to the patient but gives the clinical team actionable data.


Reader Comments

From Nasty Parts: “Re: Accuity. I’m hearing that it was acquired by [publicly traded vendor name omitted]. Not announced, but integration is underway.” Unverified. I’ve omitted the rumored acquirer’s name since they are publicly traded.

image

From Ray: “Re: TEFCA. I agree that comparisons between TEFCA and CMS Aligned Networks is confusing. This document may help clarify.” Thanks to Ray Duncan, MD, who has more experience in interoperability and technology than just about anybody, for creating and sending this document.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

A reader’s generous donation, matched with funds from organizations and my Anonymous Vendor Executive, fully funded these Donors Choose teacher grant requests from historically underfunded schools:

  • STEM activities and sensory toys for Ms. A’s elementary school class in Paterson, NJ.
  • Geometric line design tools for Mr. N’s elementary school class in Starkville, MS.
  • Headphones for Ms. Z’s middle school science academy class in Youngstown, OH.
  • Apple pen and accessories for Mr. W’s middle school science academy class in Youngstown, OH.
  • Structural design toys for Ms. S’s middle school class in Jonesboro, GA.
  • Educational marble construction sets for Ms. O’s kindergarten class in Hayward, CA.
  • Literary center shelving units for Mr. V’s elementary school class in Paterson, NJ.
  • Agriculture microbit coding kits for Ms. M’s elementary magnet school class in Pasadena, CA.
  • Equipment for the student-led news project of Ms. M’s elementary school class in Charlotte, NC.
  • Headphones for Ms. M’s elementary school class in Oklahoma City, OK.
  • Graphic design certification peripherals for Mr. W’s high school class in Port Saint Lucie, FL.
  • STEAM supplies for Dr. K’s elementary school class in Port Saint Lucie, FL.
  • STEM activities for Ms. H’s elementary school class in Hemet, CA.
  • English and Spanish books for Mr. H’s elementary school class in Los Angeles, CA.
  • Science experiment kits for Ms. M’s elementary school class in Philadelphia, MS.
  • Jump ropes and hula hoops for recess activities for Ms. C’s elementary school class in Port Saint Lucie, FL.
  • STEM supplies for Ms. H’s elementary school class in Bowen, IL

Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Hospital-at-home company Inbound Health shuts down, citing regulatory uncertainty around reimbursement for its services. It was spun out of Allina Health in 2022 to help health systems develop tech-enabled, home-based care programs and had raised $50 million.

West Virginia University Health System will spend $80 million to roll out Epic across Independence Health System (PA) facilities, which will become a part of WVU’s system next fall.

Avandra, which is developing a federated network for medical imaging and clinical data for pharma and AI innovation, acquires DatCard Systems, which offers DICOM distribution solutions, and Sorna Corporation, whose technology supports automated medical data distribution.


Sales

  • Sauk Prairie Healthcare (WI) will implement Jorie AI’s automated RCM technology.
  • UnityPoint Health (IA) selects Mayo Clinic Platform_Insights to enhance its clinical and operational workflows.
  • Children’s of Alabama, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (NY), and Vancouver Clinic (WA) select Visage Imaging’s enterprise imaging software.
  • Inova Health selects Signal 1’s AI Management Platform for AI tool visibility, monitoring, prompt improvement, and ROI tracking.

People

imagee

Owensboro Health (KY) promotes Bridget Burshears, MD to CMIO.

image

Darrell Keeling, PhD, MBA (Parkview Health) joins Bronson Healthcare as CTO and VP of IT infrastructure and cybersecurity operations.

image

HealthEx promotes Jeremy Schwarz to chief commercial officer.


Announcements and Implementations

Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust launches Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EHR.

Tampa General Hospital (FL) implements Hyro’s voice AI agents within its call center workflows.

image

In Kansas, Gove County Medical Center will transition to Meditech through a new affiliation with HaysMed.

The New York State Nurses Association accuses hospitals of deploying AI without their involvement, specifically the Sofiya AI assistant that is being used in Mount Sinai’s cardiac catheterization lab.

CGH Medical Center (IL) goes live on Epic.

image

KLAS finds that despite better access to external records due to EHR vendor improvements, clinicians remain frustrated because duplicate data, inconsistent formats, and weak mapping limit actionability. The report notes that more APIs do not translate to more data or value, and that mistrust among providers and payers is a bigger barrier to sharing than the technology itself.


Government and Politics

image

House lawmakers pass the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act, which if signed into law, would extend federal reimbursement for hospital-at-home programs through 2030. Funding for such programs was cut off during the federal government shutdown.


Sponsor Updates

  • Altera Digital Health will present at HCTC 2025 December 2-4 in Chula Vista, CA.
  • Black Book Research announces the 2025 rankings for outsourced RCM solutions in laboratory and ancillary healthcare sectors, with XiFin taking top marks.
  • Milliman CareFlowIQ announces expanded medication reconciliation capabilities from Surescripts.
  • AdvancedCare integrates Inbox Health’s automated billing communication and payment technology with its clinical and RCM platform.
  • CereCore releases a new podcast titled “Why Tech Makes Care More Human: Sir David Sloman’s Lessons from the NHS.”
  • Findhelp announces a data-sharing partnership with Manifest MedEx.

Blog Posts


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 12/1/25

November 30, 2025 News 2 Comments

Top News

image

Best Buy’s CFO says in the company’s Q3 earnings call that it record a $192 million asset impairment charge for exiting Best Buy Health, which it says was caused by pressure in Medicaid and Medicare Advantage.

Best Buy paid $400 million for the Scotland-based hospital-at-home technology vendor Current Health in October 2021. It sold the business back to its co-founder Christopher McGee in June 2025 for an unstated price.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

Poll respondents mostly blame Done for its Adderall mess, but plenty join me in faulting the clinicians who eagerly stepped into the company’s marionette strings seeking patient cash rather than patient care.

New poll to your right or here, for providers, as requested by a reader: Which research-only firm do you use most often when buying IT products and services?

I spent dozens of weekend hours watching “Cunk on Earth” and related episodes on Netflix and YouTube. I will proclaim it as the second-funniest series I’ve ever seen, trailing only “Arrested Development” for the number of laughs out loud. I can’t get enough, especially of the truly baffled expressions of the high-profile British academics who ponder Philomena Cunk’s interview questions such as, “When the human body dies, what hole do ghosts come out of, north or south?” Or in her narration, “With its cowboys, guns, and steam train rides, America became known as the land of the free, which must have come as a surprise to all the slaves.” Any of her musings that begin with “My mate Paul” are guaranteed gold.


A Reader’s Notes from the EHealth Exchange and Sequoia Project + Carequality Annual Meetings in Nashville

EHealth Exchange

Statistics

  • 25 billion exchange transactions in 2025, supporting 300+ million patients.
  • Vast majority of transactions are for treatment purposes. A key goal for the future is to encourage more non-treatment exchange.
  • 132.5 million electronic case reporting transactions to APHL AIMS (this number is the total done on behalf of eHealth Exchange, TEFCA, and Carequality, since all of those eCR transactions go through eHealth Exchange)
  • 1.7 billion patient histories retrieved by VA and DoD. 149 million shared back with community providers.
  • 2026 roadmap: heavy focus on FHIR, the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem, and TEFCA

Kim Brandt, CMS Deputy Administrator and COO

  • Key focus area is rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
  • Medicare spending on skin substitutes went from $256 million in 2019 to $10 billion in 2024. Unclear how much of this was a volume increase in skin substitutes versus an increase in prices.
  • $17.2 billion in estimated overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans for 2022. Stepping up oversight of risk adjustment process.
  • $1.9 billion in estimated improper payments for durable medical equipment in fiscal year 2024.
  • 1.8 million Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in hospice care, which is a 12% increase from 2020. Brandt says this is “inconsistent with demographics.”
  • CMS conducted Enhanced Site Visits for hospices and DME suppliers; 60% of the ESVs Nov 24 – Jul 25 resulted in revocations of Medicare enrollment.

Breakout Session on FHIR

  • eHealth Exchange has been investing in FHIR infrastructure. Most of their FHIR-based exchange (which is not much) is for public health purposes.
  • They have a SMART on FHIR app that serves a proxy for other SMART on FHIR apps, basically a container app that allows other apps to run inside of it. Unclear why providers would want to allow this app in their environments, given that the true consumer of the data would be obfuscated.

Panel on Health Data Utilities

  • Craig Behm, President and CEO of CRISP. Numerous state borders in their coverage area means patients are crossing borders often for healthcare. This makes governance the greater challenge, rather than technology. They have to account for all the variation in state laws around privacy, AI, and more.
  • Erica Galvez, CEO of Manifest MedEx. Manifest MedEx powers the infrastructure for electronic lab reporting and electronic case reporting for the entire state of California. Not seeing demand for data through TEFCA. They are participating in TEFCA through the eHealth Exchange QHIN and yet they have practically zero TEFCA exchange.
  • Amy Gleason, Acting DOGE Administrator. She was disappointed to find that rules she helped craft during the first Trump administration won’t come into effect until 2027 (I believe she was alluding to CMS 0057 that introduces API requirements for prior auth and payer-to-payer exchange). Goals of the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem are to promote innovation, build partnerships among participants, experiment, and move faster than government can. Her daughter was diagnosed at age 12 with an autoimmune disease, after 15 months of numerous concerning symptoms, doctor visits, and misdiagnoses. Gleason shared that the final diagnosis was a bit lucky: a provider wanted to do light therapy and the payer said they needed to get a biopsy first, which led to the ultimate diagnosis. “Only time prior authorization ever helped us.” Over the course of her life, her daughter has acquired 47 patient portal accounts. Some are from one-and-done sites of care, like an urgent care, but some are for providers she regularly sees. Gleason is bullish on the potential of AI. She says her daughter was rejected for a clinical trial, so her daughter uploaded her medical records to ChatGPT and asked for any trials she is eligible for. ChatGPT found that she actually was eligible for the original trial. Also cited an instance where her daughter was having side effects and her doctor recommended going to the ED. Daughter consulted ChatGPT and it pointed out she forgot to taper down from steroids, leading her to develop a taper-down plan and avoid an ED visit. A sandbox/proof-of-concept for the proposed national provider directory has been developed and testing is starting. Sounds like initial testing is happening in Oklahoma.

Sequoia Project/Carequality

Amy Gleason and Tom Keane, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy

  • Gleason gave the same presentation from the eHealth Exchange meeting, so nothing new.
  • ASTP priorities: patient control of their data, data liquidity, and deregulation.
  • ASTP is revisiting all EHR certification criteria, with the goal of eliminating some of them, and is planning to revise/reduce info blocking exceptions.
  • No specifics provided, however the currently regulatory agenda hints that ASTP will codify several enforcement discretions previously announced.
  • Dr. Keane said HIPAA (or the interpretation of it) is creating info blocking; they are looking at how to address that.
  • To increase enforcement of info blocking, ASTP is consulting with states for anti-competitive law enforcement and with the FTC.
  • A priority for TEFCA is building out support for research-based exchange.
  • Oracle becomes the 11th designated QHIN under TEFCA

Other Tidbits

  • Clinical Architecture and NCQA are working on a rubric for assessing the quality of FHIR payloads, with the goal of reducing the burden of Data Aggregator Validation/Primary Source Verification.
  • CMS is working on a proposed rule (CMS 0062) to streamline prior authorization of drugs. CMS 0057 covered prior auth interoperability for procedures/services only, not drugs.
  • Sequoia Project and Carequality have worked on aligning and refining definitions and practices to encourage greater transparency. Principals (entities who have signed the framework agreement) must identify all of their authorized delegates in the directory, and delegates must identify the Principal they are requesting data on behalf of.

Reader’s Takeaways

  • Plenty of confusion on how the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem is different from TEFCA. Those who have pledged to the HTE seem convinced they are complementary; those on the outside are less clear/more skeptical.
  • There was at times a level of frustration that bubbled up among attendees. Folks seem to recognize that a lot of spaghetti has been thrown at the wall, and some has stuck, but interoperability is still a struggle and outcomes still aren’t good.
  • HIPAA is becoming a dirty word, viewed as an outdated law that doesn’t fit with the technologies and landscape we have in 2025 and that is misused as an obstacle to data exchange.
  • Payer-provider exchange through the national networks seems unlikely. Not enough trust between the parties, and providers want to get paid for the data they’re sharing.
  • Note that the HTE specifies that payers should be able to query for data related to recent claims and quality measures. Also, currently under the TEFCA SOP for Operations, TEFAC participants must respond to queries for data related to HEDIS, quality measures, and care coordination starting 2/16/26. Whether these actually come to fruition is TBD.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Brown University Health psychiatry fellow Bhargav Patel, MD, MBA sues health AI company Sully.AI and several of its executives for firing him as chief medical officer. His lawsuit says that the company didn’t pay him, classified him as an independent contractor, and fired him for raising concerns about its lack of compliance with HIPAA and FDA requirements. The lawsuit claims:

Plaintiff joined a call with Defendant Nasser and a prospective hospital customer to whom Defendants were attempting to sell an AI radiologist. Patel was told that the product was basically a ChatGPT wrapper, but on the call, Defendant Nasser claimed Defendants were utilizing an FDA approved AI model. When the hospital’s representative responded that their own research failed to discover the existence of an FDA approved AI radiologist model, Defendant Nasser became upset and abruptly ended the call … Patel also expressed the same concerns to co-founder Henry Duong (“Duong”), stating, “I think we should be a little more careful with those things. Don’t want to expose ourselves to legal liability when it comes to compliance/FDA approval type things.”

I’m enjoying the latest HealthVC newsletter from European fund partner Martyn Eeles, who explains to startups how to keep pilot projects from becoming a slow death sentence:

  • Buyers will commit only to those metrics that they already track, not to ones invented by their vendors.
  • Harmless-looking discounts become psychological anchors that block a clean path to commercial pricing.
  • The most valuable part of a pilot is the evidence, which lives in operational data that buyers control unless founders negotiate data rights upfront.
  • Strong pilots often fail to expand because missing renewal language forces the entire negotiation process to restart.
  • Founders expect product performance to speak for itself, which it never does. Enterprise relationships are built on cadence, visibility, and trust, not performance alone.


Announcements and Implementations

An auditor’s report finds that New South Wales left key costs out of its $650 million USD Epic-powered Single Digital Patient Record project, such as integration work.


Government and Politics

Three big insurers ask the federal government to limit their liability for potentially catastrophic claims that involve AI.

Digital health executive Tarun Kapoor, MD, MBA says that health tech conferences are failing – and he skips the presentations anyway – because panels can’t touch podcasts that dive deeper while costing zero in time and money. He adds that health system leaders who participate in the panels upend the conference “ladies drink free” business model by dodging vendors to head home at first opportunity.

image[10]

Chillicothe VA Medical Center (OH) introduces EHRnie the Eagle, who accompanies its Change Leadership Team to talk with staff and veterans about the VA’s EHR deployment.


Other

Advocate Health paid its CEO $26 million in 2024, up 49% from the previous year.

image[6]

NEJM AI describes a fast track manuscript review process that combines AI and human reviews to accelerate acceptance within seven days of submission, conditional on making requested revisions.


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 11/26/25

November 25, 2025 News 7 Comments

Top News

image

New Zealand’s health minister announces a 10-year investment plan to convert the 65% of hospitals that use paper records to digital systems.

The plan calls for a single national digital medical records system, remote patient monitoring, a national radiology system, and stronger cybersecurity.


Reader Comments

From GoBeyond: “Re: HIMSS. Please investigate whether HIMSS was technically insolvent when it sold the global conference to Informa. Also, who does it count as a ‘member’ in announcing a big increase?” On the latter issue, only HIMSS can answer how it counted its announced 75% membership increase over the past eight years. I wonder about HIMSS organizational affiliate memberships, the all-you-can-eat plan where an organization pays one price for unlimited individual members. For example, health systems can sign up unlimited individual members for a total annual cost of just $5,000. On the first issue, a non-profit’s financial health can be ascertained only from its 990 tax forms or audited financials and I haven’t seen those. Here’s some background:

  • A 501(c)(6) trade association like HIMSS is required to file a Form 990 every year, although IRS backlogs (which IRS has confirmed) can affect the visibility of those filings.
  • IRS records show no timely HIMSS Form 990 filings for fiscal years 2022, 2023, and 2024. HIMSS has also not provided recent returns upon my multiple requests as required by federal disclosure rules.
  • The organization’s fiscal year change to a December year-end for 2021 explains a one-time shift in timing, but not a multi-year absence of posted filings.
  • HIMSS announced a global headquarters in the Netherlands in 2023 and sold its conference operations to Informa in the same year. The global headquarters change does not relieve HIMSS of the obligation to file 990s for its US operation.
  • I don’t know who HIMSS uses as an external auditor in the absence of 990 filings. HIMSS CFO Annemarie Tuzik left the organization in October 2025 after two years and an interim is in place. She was hired at the same time as its general counsel, who left after just over one year and does not appear to have been replaced.
  • Without 990s or audited financials, an organization’s financial health can be assessed only through observable behaviors such as persistent late filings, refusing to provide disclosure, downsizings, executive or board turnover, selling core revenue-generating assets, a reduction in membership or sponsorship levels, office relocations, program cancellations, and major operational shifts.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

My aggravation of the day: news websites that force me to turn off my ad blocker, then dump me off to paywall anyway.

It’s nearly Thanksgiving, which means that tens of thousands of people will pack their heavy coats and turkey sandwiches for Chicago and RSNA, where the already cold weather will worsen under a forecast winter storm. Exhibitors love adverse weather that keeps attendees in the exhibit hall.

image

Subject-verb agreement matters, at least to me. Removing those first three words fixes the problem and shortens the headline as a bonus.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Canada’s competition bureau is investigating Well Health Technologies over concerns that its recent acquisitions, including Healwell AI and Orion Health Holdings, are reducing competition in the AI transcription market. The former yoga studio operator now operates 227 medical clinics and has announced plans to take its software subsidiary Wellstar public next year.


Sales


Announcements and Implementations

RapidAI obtains FDA clearance for five new imaging modules in its Rapid Enterprise Platform.


Government and Politics

The White House launches the Genesis Mission, a national effort to use AI to transform scientific research.


Sponsor Updates

  • Health Gorilla’s Chief Medical Officer Steven Lane, MD, MPH and Altera Digital Health Chief Medical Officer Laura Kohlhagen, MD, MBA will co-present at the Harris Customer Training Conference in San Diego on “A New Dawn: Data Exchange in Sunrise via TEFCA” December 3 in San Diego.
  • Wolters Kluwer Health adds Lexidrug to its UpToDate Expert AI.

Sponsor Spotlight

image

AGFA HealthCare returns to RSNA 2025 with fresh insights, cloud-powered innovation, and a “Clinician-First” approach to transforming the imaging experience. Attendees can explore interactive demos, join expert-led Lunch & Learn sessions, and participate in peer-to-peer conversations with AGFA HealthCare’s imaging leaders who are shaping what’s next in radiology. From streaming workflows to smart reporting and deep integrations, AGFA HealthCare’s RSNA lineup offers a first look at how enterprise imaging is evolving. Discover the full schedule and reserve your spot. (Sponsor Spotlight is free for HIStalk Platinum sponsors).


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 11/24/25

November 23, 2025 News No Comments

Top News

image

GE HealthCare will acquire medical imaging company Intelerad for $2.3 billion in cash.

London-based private equity firm Hg Capital, whose healthcare portfolio also includes HHAeXchange and Rhapsody, acquired intelerad in 2020 for a reported $500 million. It then made several acquisitions and increased the company’s revenue by 3.5 times.


Reader Comments

From Former HIMSS Manager: “Re: HIMSS. Hal Wolf held a five-minute call to announce layoffs, ended with ‘be well,’ and hung up. The entire membership team was eliminated. Factors were that HIMSS has missed financial targets for years, doesn’t have much to show from selling the annual conference to Informa, and has experienced constant executive turnover. I can confirm that Hal hired Deloitte to restructure and push analytics. Coincidentally, we were recently ranked among the lowest by the Global Digital Health Partnership. HIStalk, please investigate and share what is happening. Your reporting is one of the few independent voices.” Unverified, except to note that HIMSS indeed didn’t perform well in the September 2025 report that the reader cites. I received an unsigned response to my inquiries from HIMSS, which I greatly appreciate even though I don’t know who sent it from their generic press email address. They (someone) said, and I quote:

  • The number of team members impacted was much less than stated. HIMSS is making changes based on the evolving needs of our 125,000+ members, including the growing demand for our thought leadership and expertise in the areas of analytics solutions, professional development, and media offerings. In response to those needs, we have made thoughtful adjustments to our organization, including the redesign or elimination of certain roles. These decisions were made with the utmost care and respect for the talented colleagues who have contributed to the HIMSS mission.
  • HIMSS does not provide public comment on internal financial matters.
  • HIMSS follows the IRS process and timing for completing and submitting HIMSS 990 forms. We will continue to abide by IRS policy for public disclosure as more recent 990s are completed and filed.

The response confirms that HIMSS hasn’t filed recent 990 forms, but doesn’t say why. It also confirms the reader’s report that analytics will be a focus, although it doesn’t say what kind. HIMSS sold the data portion of the provider analytics business of HIMSS Analytics to Definitive Healthcare in early 2019 while keeping the Adoption Model part of the business.

From Former HIMSS Employee: “Re: HIMSS. I left voluntarily a while back. Here’s what I learned from several people who were terminated this week.” This reader entrusted me with their identity, so I can confirm that this came from a former employee.

  • Deloitte advised on layoffs and reorganizations, resulting in the termination of 40 staff members last week. 
  • Middle management is gone across analytics, media, marketing, engagement, and membership.
  • Marketing and HIMSS Media were significantly downsized.
  • Engagement strategies and membership teams were eliminated.  
  • The 2025 goal was to increase membership, and that was accomplished. Now the membership team has been eliminated. Corporate membership went down after Informa bought the conference since it sells booth space directly to vendors, which was previously available as HIMSS corporate membership perk.
  • HIMSS seems interested in trying to become a consulting firm since it is charging for previously free consulting for the maturity models they sell.
  • A meeting with chapter leaders on Monday confirmed that the focus will be on content, professional development, and the HIMSS Analytics maturity models, advisory services, and validations.

From Sepulchre: “Re: survey. You did a weekly survey in 2019 about which services such as KLAS and Black Book provider decision-makers use when making a buying decision. It’s budget time for 2026 and I’m looking for input on planned investments.” I will run that as next week’s poll.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

Most poll respondents haven’t experienced a provider’s AI chatbot, and three-fourths of those who have say it wasn’t useful.

New poll to your right or here: Who is most responsible for Done’s online Adderall prescribing misconduct? I acknowledge the easy out that an “all of the above” option would offer, but think harder.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Drug maker Eli Lilly becomes the first healthcare company to be valued at $1 trillion, buoyed by sales of its blockbuster weight loss drug that it sells as Zepbound and Mounjaro. That injection is expected to be the top-selling drug of 2025 as it constantly erodes the market share of Novo Nordisk’s less-effective Ozempic and Wegovy. Lilly is working on an oral version of its products and is testing another possibly better GLP-1. A $10,000 investment in LLY shares when current CEO Dave Ricks took over in early 2017 would be worth $144,000 today.

Memorial Sloan Kettering reports a $62 million loss on $1.2 billion in Q3 operating revenue, which a spokesperson attributes to the budgeted cost of implementing Epic. The hospital spent $169 million on the project in the year’s first three quarters. It began the implementation in 2022 and went live in February 2025.


People

image

Vermont Health Information Exchange, VITL, hires Randy Farmer, MS, MEd (Delaware Health Information Network) as president and CEO.


Announcements and Implementations

Penn Medicine authors describe the organization’s self-developed tool that automates integrating data from inbound faxes into the EHR. They report that it has saved significant staff time and improved staff satisfaction since its rollout in 2002.

image

AMA profiles and interviews Elise Boventer, MD, MPH, medical informatics strategist for Northwell Health. Her comments cover the need for physician informaticists, the importance of female representation in the field, and the value of mentorship. She finishes up with an insightful comment about AI:

It’s been surprising how often I’ll see an idea or an algorithm, either from industry or research, where there clearly wasn’t much thought about how to integrate it into the workflow or the impact it has on physicians. For example, if there is a new generative AI tool that summarizes data, I’d ask: How many pages long is the output that the physicians are now expected to read? When in the care process are they expected to read it and what is the liability if something is missed? And how does reading the output change management?

A Navina study finds that using ambient AI alone to generate clinical documentation for chronic disease management performs poorly compared to approaches that integrate patient-clinician conversations with the patient’s medical history.

Findhelp launches a solution that allows states, payers, and providers to manage new work requirements for Medicaid eligibility within a single workflow.

A study of 26 cancer clinics finds that 88% believe that team-based supportive care model will improve care, versus 25% who favor a technology-first model.

A meta-analysis concludes that most smart watches perform well at detecting atrial fibrillation, with sensitivity and specificity in the 96-99% range, but Google’s Fitbit performed poorly at 66% and 79%. The top performer was Amazfit, model unspecified, with 99% on both. The $65 Amazfit Bip 6 watch provides fitness tracking, AI coaching, 14-day battery life, GPS navigation, and real-time monitoring of heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, and stress. Amazfit is owned by China-based health technology Zepp Health. Thanks to Paulius Mui, MD for mentioning the article on LinkedIn.


Government and Politics

Vohra Wound Physicians Management will pay $45 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that it billed Medicare for unnecessary surgeries, overtreated patients to increase procedure volume, and submitted claims for non-billable services. Federal investigators say the company pushed physicians to perform debridement at as many visits as possible, then altered its EHR to automatically bill Medicare for higher-paying surgical excisions and generate false supporting documentation. The settlement also requires an independent review of its EHR. Founder Ameet Vohra, MD said recently that the company has 300 physicians and 50 nurse practitioners serving 3,000 skilled nursing facilities.

The VA will implement ambient AI in all of its medical centers in 2026 following a 10-VAMC pilot that started last month. The pilot project vendors are Knowtex and Abridge.

Cancer registries that receive funding from the CDC or the National Cancer Institute will be required by a White House directive to record patient sex only as male, female, or unknown.


Other

image

A Tucson woman who was scheduled to have her tongue and larynx removed because of mouth cancer uses AI to preserve her commonly used phrases for use after she permanently loses her voice. She recorded “Happy birthday,” “I’m proud of you,” and a string of essential curse words. She also recorded a dozen children’s books for future grandchildren. She types messages into the free, open source text-to-speech app Whisper, which speaks them aloud using her AI-generated voice. When insurance refused to cover the $3,000 cost, she said through the app, “Apparently, having a voice is not considered a medical necessity.” Her daughter summarizes, “She got her sass back. When we heard her AI voice, we all cried, my sister, my dad, and I. It’s crazy similar.”


Sponsor Updates

  • Vyne Medical offers a new guide titled “Machine Learning vs. RPA in Healthcare: Finding the Right Automation for Intelligent Data Processing.”
  • Praia Health releases a new case study titled “Platform Results: 3 Years of Impact at Providence.”
  • SmarterDx publishes a new white paper titled “Metrics that matter for AI in RCM.”
  • TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, collaborates with Complete Clinic Software to bring clinics a smarter, more seamless way to manage payments.
  • Waystar offers a new e-book titled “The ROI of AI in healthcare payments: Which metrics matter?”

Blog Posts


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 11/21/25

November 20, 2025 News Comments Off on News 11/21/25

Top News

image

Ruthia He, founder and CEO of ADHD-prescribing site Done, is convicted on federal charges of illegally distributing Adderall, committing healthcare claims fraud, and conspiring to obstruct justice. The company’s clinical president, David Brody, MD, was also convicted on the distribution and fraud counts.

HHS OIG’s deputy inspector general calls it “one of the most egregious abuses of telehealth that we’ve seen.”

Prosecutors say the billion-dollar startup raised investor money by offering frictionless access to 40 million doses of Adderall and other stimulants and spent $40 million on social media ads during the pandemic to target drug seekers and convince people that they had ADHD.

The company required clinicians to rush first visits, paid nurse practitioners up to $60,000 per month to refill prescriptions without patient contact, and barred clinicians from discharging patients even when families reported Adderall-induced psychosis.

The obstruction charge stems from He moving the company’s operations to her home country of China to hinder evidence discovery. Each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.


Reader Comments

From IT Networker: “Re: HIMSS. Insiders say that layoffs started with managers on Monday and non-management on Wednesday. Entire teams were eliminated in some cases, while others were downsized to minimal staff. Hal reportedly used a top tier consulting firm to make the staff reduction and reorganization decisions, but those who remain still aren’t clear on direction.” Unverified, in the absence of a response to my inquiries from HIMSS. People who are better LinkedIn users than I am could probably find some newly available names. A reader’s notes from the Georgia HIMSS annual meeting last month quoted Hal Wolf as saying that membership has increased 75% over the past eight years. It’s shocking, shocking I say, that the hard-hitting, HIMSS-owned Healthcare IT News has shared no investigative reporting on the topic. Email me if you are an insider who has details and I’ll keep you anonymous.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Last chance to sign up as a new or returning HIStalk sponsor to get year-end spiffs. Contact Lorre.

It’s going to be mighty quiet in health tech land starting right about now, so I’ll probably skip some updates between now and New Year’s Day.  


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

WellBeam, which facilitates information exchange between the EHRs of acute care providers and those of post-acute care providers, raises $10 million in Series A funding.

Arbiter launches with $52 million to offer AI solutions that automate administrative healthcare tasks like appointment scheduling, follow-up, and referrals.

Ember, an AI-powered denial prevention software startup, announces $4.3 million in seed funding.

image

Function, which offers lab test memberships, raises $298 million in a Series B funding round that values the company at $2.5 billion. 


People

image

LiveData hires David Owen (Symplr) as chief product officer.


Announcements and Implementations

image

Sheer Health rolls out an app that lets consumers compare their medical bills to their insurance coverage so that they can understand deductibles, co-pays, and benefits. The app uses AI and human reviewers to answer questions, and the company offers billable services to contest denied claims and out-of-network determinations.

image

Trilliant Health publishes a machine-readable dataset of the negotiated prices of 5,000 hospitals, which it obtained from hospitals that are required to publish them by the Hospital Price Transparency rule.

The American Medical Association will develop and disseminate AI learning tools for medical schools and provide CME to upskill practitioners.


Privacy and Security

image

In Ontario, Canada, an AI-powered bot sends confidential patient details from an unnamed hospital’s grand rounds meeting to 65 invitees, 12 of whom no longer worked there. A doctor who had left the hospital a year earlier sent an Otter.ai “meeting agent” to attend the virtual meeting in his place. The tool then emailed the transcript, including full details on seven patients, to everyone on the invitee list.


Sponsor Updates

  • Optimum Healthcare IT will partner with non-profit solution provider Celerate to develop a chatbot for neurosurgeons.
  • Visage Imaging will showcase innovations, including AI, to its Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform at RSNA.
  • Vyne Medical offers a new case study titled “How Automation is Shaping the Future of Document Management at VHC Health.”
  • Artera promotes Michael Jensen to CFO.
  • Altera Digital Health adds Sunrise Thread AI, its new ambient scribe and note generation assistant, to its Sunrise EHR.
  • Kyruus Health publishes a new report titled “”From Crisis to Control: Executive Insights to Transform Care Guidance with Data and AI.”
  • Ellkay offers a new success story featuring West Feliciana Hospital titled “Empowering Rural Healthcare: From Integration to Enterprise Data Management.”
  • Findhelp will host a Washington Social Care Summit December 4 in Seattle.
  • Five9 introduces updates to its Genius AI Suite, introducing AI across routing, quality management, and analytics.
  • Visage Imaging propels AI optimized enterprise imaging at RSNA 2025.
  • Healthcare Growth Partners advises Tonic Health on its sale to Luma Health.
  • InterSystems establishes a public sector subsidiary.
  • AdvancedCare launches Inbox Health’s billing communication and payment technology across its provider network.
  • Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “Quick HITs” podcast titled “Advancing Community Health Through Innovation with Alex Romillo & Oscar Perez.”
  • Healthmonix welcomes Akira Health of Fresno and Akira Health of Los Angeles as new customers.
  • Infinx releases a new case study titled “How an Academic Health Network Achieved a 70% Revenue Growth & 88% Increase in Charge Volume.”
  • CommonWell Health Alliance completes its technical migration to Ellkay.
  • Linus Health will present new evidence validating its AI-enabled tools for early detection and trial readiness at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference December 1-4 in San Diego.

Blog Posts


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 11/19/25

November 18, 2025 News Comments Off on News 11/19/25

Top News

image

A federal jury orders Apple to pay Masimo $634 million for violating the company’s blood oxygen reading patents in Apple Watch’s workout mode and heart rate notification feature.

The legal battle between the companies has involved numerous lawsuits over six years, with the federal government instituting a ban in 2023 on imports of select Apple smartwatches because of the technology infringement.

Apple subsequently introduced an updated, import-friendly version of its technology.


Reader Comments

From Funicular: “Re: HIMSS. Staff tell me that layoffs started Monday as part of a 30% workforce reduction.” Unverified. I asked HIMSS to comment as I always do, which resulted in the usual lack of response. They have also not responded to my repeated requests for their updated nonprofit tax filings, the most recent of which that I have seen is from 2021.

From AccelerateHIMSS: “Re: HIMSS. Heading toward a 60% workforce reduction by year’s end. Did they spend the HIMSS20 insurance payout and rumored $150 million sale of the annual conference on the failed Accelerate instead of refunding attendees and exhibitors, which would have allowed them to thrive?” Unverified.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

MRO acquires Clinetic, which uses EHR data to help providers and life sciences companies find, screen, and enroll patients for clinical trials.


Sales

  • University of Illinois Health and EFW Radiology in Canada select enterprise imaging technology from Agfa HealthCare.
  • Advanced Radiology Management will implement Visage Imaging’s Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform in a five-year, $29 million contract.

People

image

Divurgent names Vitalize Consulting Solutions co-founder Danny Arnold EVP of growth and strategy.

image

Penn State Health (PA) names Dennis Sutterfield (SUNY Downstate Medical Center) VP/CIO.

image

Brandon Theophilus (NextGen Healthcare) joins Basata as SVP of growth.

image

Unite Us appoints Sean Burke (Ascend Learning) president.


Announcements and Implementations

Humana goes live on Epic’s Coverage Finder and Digital Insurance Card Exchange capabilities for its 800,000 Medicare Advantage members, which provides insurance verification and streamlined check-in.

Edifecs introduces a member consent management solution for health plans.

A CHG Healthcare survey of physicians finds that 82% are not highly engaged in their workplaces, 59% don’t trust their executive leaders, and 60% say their leadership doesn’t ask for their input.

Healthcare technology consulting and staffing services firm ROI International renames itself Quoris.

image

Early users of Oracle Health’s Clinical AI Agent for ambient documentation give the product a 94% “would recommend” in a new KLAS report, with strong integration, flexible cost, and product accuracy being its key strengths.


Privacy and Security

An Illinois school superintendent is charged with felony misconduct after ordering a county health nurse to share information about students who were diagnosed with hand, foot, and mouth disease. The superintendent and two IT employees were arrested for violating student privacy laws.


Other

The family of a university freshman who died by suicide files a wrongful-death lawsuit against telehealth firm Hims & Hers Health Inc. for allegedly prescribing an antidepressant that is known to increase suicide risk without proper patient evaluation. Also named in the lawsuit is a fraternity that the lawsuit alleges hazed the student and contributed to alcohol misuse. The family says that Hims & Hers targeted their son through an Instagram ad, prescribed him a 90-day supply of antidepressants with only text messaging contact, and doubled his dose 30 days later.

image

Northern Maine Medical Center launches its Comprehensive Patient Assessment & Specialist Support program to offer critical care and pulmonology patients bedside virtual consults with specialists. The hospital will add neurology and cardiology to the COMPASS program next year.


Sponsor Updates

  • Arcadia will exhibit at NAMD Fall 2025 November 19-21 in National Harbor, MD.
  • Artera will exhibit at ModMed Momentum November 21-23 in Orlando.
  • Linus Health will present new evidence validating its AI-enabled tools for early detection and trial readiness at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference in San Diego December 1-4.
  • Black Book Research releases the “2026 Health System & Hospital AI Governance Resource Guide.”
  • KLAS recognizes Impact Advisors as best positioned to meet specific organizational needs in theKLAS Healthcare HIT Professional Services Outlook 2025 Report.”
  • Agfa HealthCare, Concord Technologies, Elsevier, PerfectServe, Rhapsody, Wolters Kluwer Health, and Visage Imaging will exhibit at RSNA 2025 November 30-December 3 in Chicago.

Blog Posts


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 11/17/25

November 16, 2025 News Comments Off on Monday Morning Update 11/17/25

Top News

image

House Rx, which provides technology and expertise to support specialty clinics performing in-clinic “medically integrated dispensing” instead of sending prescriptions to specialty pharmacies, raises $55 million in Series B equity.


Reader Comments

From Unicode Bandit: “Re: Dr. Jayne and emojis. If my clinician’s note ends with an 👍emoji instead of ‘signed,’ I’ll know the AI bot finally took over. 👀” 


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

Most poll respondents chose one of these two items as cause for health tech sales concern.

New poll to your right or here: Have you seen or used what seems to be an AI chatbot on a provider’s website? I usually try to make those that annoyingly pop up on any website go away immediately, the online equivalent of pressing 0 for a human to escape the time-consuming phone tree that was designed to keep paying customers like me from bothering the company’s cheap overseas call center contractor. Next thing you know that chatbot will ask me to please hold while it transfers me to a more advanced model.

I had an ultrasound at a small local hospital last week. The tech told me the results would hit MyChart quickly and she was right, the alert landed before I even got back to my car. Moments later, my Direct Primary Care doctor emailed me, showing full awareness of my knowledge level and my preference for brevity with a subject line of “Ultrasound,” and body of “Negative.”


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Sales

  • Marshall Browning Hospital (IL) will implement Oracle Health CommunityWorks and Oracle Health Clinical AI Agent. The 25-bed hospital appears to be replacing Meditech.

People

image

Jonathan Steinhouse (Strike Health) joins ClearBalance Healthcare as VP of business development.


Announcements and Implementations

image

Stanford Cancer Institute describes Oncoshare, a data sharing project that connects EHR data from Stanford and Sutter Health with the California Cancer Registry for research.

image

A new KLAS report finds that 80% of healthcare CIOs plan to maintain or increase their spending on professional services over the next 12 months. Their top targets are EHR optimization, cybersecurity, and AI and automation. Impact Advisors ranks first in mindshare, while Huron, Nordic, and Chartis are frequently mentioned. CIOs choose which firms to invite based on relationships and peer reputation, then score RFPs on confidence and clarity.


Other

image

Elon Musk says that robots, more specifically his Optimus Tesla Bot, will transform global healthcare by giving everyone access to “the best surgeons.” He says that great doctors and surgeons do not grow on trees, but will eventually be built in factories. He also claims that Optimus could replace prisons by assigning criminals a robot that “just gonna follow you around and stop you from doing crime.” Optimus was announced in 2021 and targeted for a 2023 release, yet despite reaching Generation 2, it still has not made it to market. Musk drew criticism in October 2024 when he had Optimus mingle with conference attendees and mix drinks without disclosing that it was being operated by a human.


Sponsor Updates

  • WellSky publishes a new report on AI and technology as healthcare recruitment tools titled “Addressing today’s healthcare workforce challenges.”
  • Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Eve Cunningham, MD.
  • PerfectServe publishes a new report titled “Clinician Survey: Why Clinician Wellness Starts with Operational Wellness.”

Blog Posts

Sponsor Spotlight

image

Praia Health is the patient experience orchestration platform for health systems. We help health systems attract, engage, and retain patients by supercharging their portals and digital tools with seamless, personalized journeys in one platform. The result is higher retention, lower costs, and measurable ROI. In just three years, Providence has realized over $87M in measurable, attributable ROI from the platform. Click here to explore three years of operational data following deployment at Providence. (Sponsor Spotlight is free for HIStalk Platinum sponsors).


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 11/14/25

November 13, 2025 News 4 Comments

Top News

image

RCM vendor R1 sells Tonic Health to patient access, engagement, and intake technology vendor Luma Health.

Tonic Health offers a mobile patient intake, survey, and payments platform.


Reader Comments

image

From Gaucho Marx: “Re: Adventist Health Portland. After investing $20 million to convert from Cerner to OHSU’s instance of Epic, it will join the enterprise instance in September 2026. This is surprising, since there is a good deal of benefit to AH Portland to remain a part of OHSU Health’s large patient network, such as more negotiating power with payers and the ease of transferring and referring patients. Adventist Health will bring all hospitals except AH Portland live on September 1, 2026 in a $500 million project. Portland was out of scope because of their business agreement involving tens of millions of dollars in loans from OHSU, which has had a tough time with financial losses and layoffs.”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Trivia: I asked ChatGPT to name the 10 best US cities to live in, which it calculated from multiple, evidence-based sources. Which was the only state to have two cities on the list? Which city was #1?


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Oracle’s reorganization under co-CEOs has left 64,000 of the company’s employees, or 40% of its workforce, reporting up to CTO, co-founder, and chairman Larry Ellison. Co-CEO Mike Sicilia oversees the largest headcount at 84,000 workers, which includes Oracle Health.


Sales

  • Cigna Healthcare will offer Headspace’s meditation and sleep app at no cost to seven million people who receive behavioral health services through their employer.
  • Smart infant monitoring technology vendor Owlet chooses Rhapsody for EHR integration of its pulse oximeter.

People

image

Marc Probst, MBA (MF Probst Strategic Advisory) rejoins Ellkay as CIO advisor.

image

MRO hires Lidia Bernik, MHS, MBA (Flatiron Health) as president of Curation Solutions.


Announcements and Implementations

image

A PerfectServe survey of 350 clinicians finds that three-fourths spend time dealing with manual aspects of scheduling, more than half say that waiting for calls takes time away from patient care (it was the #1 time-sapping task), and 60% say that existing systems aren’t much help in prioritizing urgency.

image

KLAS names its 2025 Consistent High Performers.


Government and Politics

image

The deal to end the federal government shutdown will extend Medicare’s coverage of telehealth through January 30 and will pay providers retroactively for virtual services that they provided since October 1. The Senate package also  provides $3.4 billion to the VA for its Oracle Health rollout work in FY2026, contingent on it providing Congress with a revised timeline and cost estimate. 

The VA awards Accenture Federal Services a six-month, $7.7 million contract to support its Oracle Health implementation, including program management, support, and data integration services, with options to extend the work for four additional one-year periods and one six-month period.


Other

The family of a two-year-old sues University of Florida Health, alleging that a physician’s decimal error caused a fatal tenfold overdose of electrolyte replacement. The lawsuit claims that pharmacists did not catch the error even though their computer system generated a Red Flag dose warning.

image

Caring Brands either just pulled off the biggest capital raise in human history or it needs to hire a more careful headline writer.


Sponsor Updates

  • Netsmart will integrate ScribePT’s documentation system with its TheraOffice PT and rehab EHR/PM.
  • CTG’s parent company Cegeka earns Microsoft Partner of the Year award for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain.
  • Arrive Health names Alison Bechtel senior director of marketing.
  • AvaSure announces that its Virtual Care Platform has achieved designation in Epic’s Toolbox for the Inpatient Virtual Care category.
  • Findhelp welcomes new customers Hospital in Your Home, Allied Behavioral Health Solutions, and the Tennessee Department of Veterans Services.
  • HCTec offers a new case study titled “HCTec Technical Managed Services Elevate the End-User Experience.”

Blog Posts


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 11/12/25

November 11, 2025 News 2 Comments

Top News

image

SymphonyAI Group combines its holding Get Well (formerly known as GetWellNetwork) patient engagement business with its AI-powered precision care company, RhythmX AI, to form GW RhythmX.

RhythmX AI founder and CEO Deepthi Bathina will lead the new company, while Get Well founder and CEO Michael O’Neil will serve as vice chair.


Reader Comments

From PagingDrLeftOnHold: “Re: CMS requirement that telehealth doctors list their actual location. A health system spending $1 million a year to confirm that doctors are at home feels like a perfect American healthcare story.”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

2025-11-11_08-22-56 (1)

More fun with the Opal AI app builder. I made Interview Grader, which evaluates any HIStalk interview against a 10-item rubric that I developed and then assigns letter grades for each item and overall. It has no practical use other than as an experiment.

image

PR and marketing people: I then applied that rubric to make an interview prep sheet. I also generated a promotional plan for an interview that uses my most recent one as an example.

image

Thanks to our veterans and their families for the quiet sacrifices they have made on behalf of the rest of us. The impact of your service, from basic training to separation, continues long after the uniform comes off.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Investment holding company Emergence acquires RCM technology vendor MedEvolve, which sold its RCM services business a month ago.

TruBridge announces Q3 results: revenue up 2%, EPS $0.88 versus –$0.21, beating analyst expectations for both.

image

NextSense raises a $16 million Series A round to market its wireless earbuds that monitor EEG patterns and use auditory stimulation to enhance slow-wave sleep. The device costs $399 plus a $15 monthly subscription.


People

image image

Vitalchat promotes Brady Keeter to SVP of product and Mackenzie Laughridge to SVP of people.

image

MPulse names Eileen Cianciolo (Clarity Software Solutions) chief product officer. MPulse acquired payer-focused Clarity in August.

image

Rutland Regional Medical Center CMIO and medicine chair Rick Hildebrant, MD, MBA, MA is appointed commissioner at the Vermont Department of Health.

image

The American Telemedicine Association promotes Kyle Zebley to CEO. He replaces Ann Mond Johnson, who has retired.


Sales

  • Baraga County Memorial Hospital (MI) will implement Oracle Health CommunityWorks and expand its use of the vendor’s clinical AI agent.
  • AdventHealth Manchester (KY) will launch virtual care smart rooms using technology from HelloCare.
  • DRH Health (OK) selects Commure’s Ambient AI clinical documentation software.
  • Saudi Health Holdings will implement RapidAI’s imaging AI system.

Announcements and Implementations

CalmWave develops Alarm Insights to give clinical device managers visibility into bedside monitor alarm functionality and patterns.

CTG will offer Hippocratic AI consulting services and will co-develop solutions with the company.

image

UF Health (FL) goes live on Epic’s MyChart Central, giving patients the ability to log in to their medical records from across participating organizations using a single sign-on.


Other

OpenAI is reportedly considering entering the consumer health market, such as creating a personal health assistant or health data aggregator.

image

Nemours Children’s Health will expand its new advanced care at home program, which offers remote patient monitoring and virtual support, to its hospital in Delaware. Launched in June at the health system’s hospital in Orlando, the program has helped families avoid 91 emergency department visits and prevented 27 readmissions.


Sponsor Updates

  • The American Medical Informatics Association inducts Clinical Architecture Senior Informaticist and Clinical Architecture Anand Kulanthaivel, PhD into the Fellows of the AMIA.
  • Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “The Survey Says: Inflation is a Problem, and Change is Imminent, with Business Group on Health’s Jim Winkler.”
  • AvaSure achieves Epic Toolbox designation for inpatient virtual care.

Blog Posts


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 11/10/25

November 9, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

image

Microsoft forms an MAI Superintelligence Team to develop AI that exceeds human capability, with medical diagnostics being its first focus area.

The blog post was written by Mustafa Suleyman, who joined Microsoft as CEO of AI in March 2024 after co-founding DeepMind and Inflection AI.


Reader Comments

From VectorPilot: “Re: ChatGPT. It’s one thing to say ‘see a professional’ when asked for clinical advice. It’s another when it will still give a fully formed management plan if you fool it by saying it’s for an article or screenplay you are writing. Nobody can guardrail everything that AI does. For health systems, this is a governance test since this change doesn’t eliminate liability, it just migrates it to health systems. These are uncredentialed clinicians, not toys.”

From Over Easy: “Re: UnitedHealthcare’s decision to stop paying for most RPM because evidence is lacking. The real question isn’t what will be reimbursed, but rather who will fund the next wave of evidence generation when the payer says, ‘show me value now or vanish.’”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image[8][3]

Most poll respondents see a conflict when a health system pitches a product from one of its portfolio companies.

New poll to your right or here: Which recent development will hit health tech sales the hardest?

Listening after YouTube pushed it on me: Netherlands-based Focus. Forget that 1970 musical albatross “Hocus Focus” that wears out the welcome of excellent playing with manic yodeling and fluting and instead enjoy some decent 1970s prog rock, although keyboardist, flute player, and vocal gymnast Thijs van Leer looks like a coked up Dr. Frasier Crane attending to the Hammond B-3 organ. The two remaining original members still make pretty good music for appreciators of the genre, who also number about two.


image

I’m experimenting with Google’s experimental no-code mini-app builder Opal, where you simply describe what you want your app to do and it creates it. I made a little app where I provide a link to a company’s earnings report and it extracts the specific details that I track, retrieves share performance and market cap data from Yahoo Finance, compares results to analyst expectations, and calculates the 12-month share price change. Emboldened by immediate gratification, I build a second app that accepts a company’s website URL and then summarizes what the company does, the name and previous job of the CEO, the three latest news headlines, and the year the company was founded.

image[5][3]

Lastly, I used a sample blog writing app to create an article about OpenAI’s throttling of ChatGPT’s medical advice capability. It did a great job, including generating an Internet-standard cheesy clickbait graphic.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cancer diagnostics company Lunit retires the Volpara Health Technologies brand, integrating its AI breast health technology under the Lunit name.


Announcements and Implementations

image

A New York Times article calls around-the-clock fetal monitoring “the worst test in medicine,” saying that it drives unnecessary C-sections despite its inability to reliably predict fetal distress. The article says the use of the technology stems from malpractice fears, hospitals running centralized remote monitoring centers to cut labor costs, and software vendors such as PeriGen that make unsupported claims. One obstetrician concludes, “We may be the only specialty that continues to do major abdominal surgery without a shred of evidence of benefit.”

WellSky launches a patient engagement solution that allows providers to deploy two-way text and chat campaigns for refill assessments, infection services, and onboarding.


Government and Politics

CMS chooses six vendors to participate in the six-year, six-state WISeR pilot program to automate prior authorization with AI: Cohere Health, Genzeon, Humata Health, Inovaccer, Virtix Health, and Zyter.

image

A large health system estimates that it will spend $1 million per year to comply with a new CMS rule that requires telehealth physicians to list their actual location, such as a home address, rather than their office address. The American Telehealth Association warns that hospitals would need to verify hundreds of addresses to stay compliant, and the health system says it may instead require remote clinicians to conduct telehealth sessions from the hospital.

India’s supreme court rules against a hospital that sought to move its lawsuit with a technology vendor into arbitration. The court affirmed earlier findings that although a contract section was titled “Arbitration,” it did not create an arbitration agreement since it required any unresolved disputes to be decided in civil court.


Other

Judy Faulkner says in her latest post in Epic’s “Hey Judy” series that she’s glad she didn’t get an MBA because she would have been taught to court outside investors, plan an IPO, issue impressive job titles, set and follow departmental budgets, and hire via interviews, none of which the company does. The company’s budget policy is “buy it if you need it,” Epic hires mostly based on test results, and she encourages employees who are attending conferences to just make up a job title. I’m curious to hear from anyone who made up an interesting Epic job title.

Police in South Korea charge four doctors and dozens of patients with faking medical records to collect $340,000 in insurance payments. The scheme collapsed when an insurer checked the address of the supposed inpatient facility and found it was a luxury hotel.


Sponsor Updates

  • CereCore joins Oracle’s partner program.
  • Netsmart will exhibit at the 2025 APTA Private Practice Annual Conference November 12-15 in Orlando.
  • Symplr CIO in Residence Theresa Meadows, RN joins the CHIME Foundation board of directors.
  • KLAS highlights Tegria’s Clinical Optimization Services in its “2025 Consistent High Performers Report” for achieving an overall performance score of 95+ for three years in a row.
  • Wolters Kluwer Health will exhibit at the AMIA 2025 Annual Symposium November 15-19 in Atlanta.
  • Censinet will present at AIMed25 November 11 and 12 in San Diego.
  • Altera Digital Health, AvaSure, CereCore, Clearsense, Clearwater, Divurgent, Ellkay, Health Data Movers, InterSystems, Meditech, Nordic, Optimum Healthcare IT, RLDatix, and Symplr will exhibit at the CHIME Fall Forum November 10-13 in San Antonio.

Blog Posts


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 11/7/25

November 6, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

image

From Informatics MD: “Re: UnitedHealthcare. Changing its payment policy to eliminate coverage of remote patient monitoring in most emerging uses. This is likely to have an adverse effect on future development and growth of evidence.” The insurer says that starting January 1, 2026, it will cover RPM only for heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Googling “remote patient monitoring + insurance” lists a lot of RPM companies whose business model of being paid by a cut of increased provider billings just went poof.

The insurer says that evidence is lacking for conditions such as COPD, depression, and diabetes, and with revenue for those services dropping to zero, nobody will spend the money to generate new evidence.

One might also call out providers who were happy to bill for RPM but paid no attention to the alerts it generated, adding zero value except to their wallets. Patients might as well buy a smart watch and monitor themselves.


Reader Comments

image

From Dirk Dongler: “Re: the CarPlay dongle you bought for $16.99. It’s now $29.99. You are driving markets, like NYT Wirecutter or Kim Kardashian!” Tip: ask Amazon’s Rufus AI chatbot on the item’s page to “show price history.” Not only will it provide a graph of the item’s historical pricing from this seller, you can also ask it to compare the item with similar ones, where it will display a table and a summary of “Best Value” and “Most Reviews.”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor SlicedHealth. SlicedHealth is a healthcare technology company that is transforming contract management through intelligent automation and hands-on support. Driven by SlicedIQ, our AI-assisted engine equips hospital leadership with the tools they need to model and optimize contract performance, streamline operations without adding additional staff, and maximize revenue recovery. From claim estimation and business intelligence to a robust price transparency module built for compliance, SlicedHealth empowers all hospital leaders to recover revenue lost to denials and underpayments, because revenue you can’t see is revenue you’ll never collect.

image

Speaking of SlicedHealth, the company just announced SlicedIQ, an AI-powered revenue cycle optimization platform for rural hospitals. I noticed from the announcement that industry veteran and pharmacist Reed Liggin, MBA (McKesson, RazorInsights, Athenahealth, and EasyScripts Technology) is co-founder and CEO of the company. 


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual healthcare company LifeMD, which just made headlines for selling its WorkSimpli document management platform, delays its Q3 earnings report as it corrects prior revenue recognition issues.

CareCloud reports Q3 results: revenue up 9%, EPS $0.07 versus –$0.28, meeting earnings expectations and beating on revenue. Shares jumped 20% on the news, valuing the company at $125 million.

Huron acquires the payer consulting services division of Axiom Systems.


Sales

  • Mount Sinai Health System will implement Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot for ambient documentation.

Announcements and Implementations

image

The American Red Cross releases a resuscitation app that provides access to code and reference cards, protocol cards for all of its life support programs, compression and drug timers, and real-time documentation forms.


Other

image

Former health tech executive Chris Klomp tells Politico that he took his current job of running Medicare for CMS because he felt guilty for making a lot of money as a health tech entrepreneur. He adds that even though he founded Collective Medical to coordinate care and then sold it to PointClickCare for $650 million in December 2020, he found when he moved to DC that getting his kids’ medical records to their new pediatrician “involved fax machines and paper releases, and my wife sat and said, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you built a company that, like, fixed this whole interoperability thing.’”


Sponsor Updates

  • Fortified Health Security launches its Incident Response Program Module within its Central Command platform to ensure organizations can access their complete incident response resources directly from mobile devices even when networks are down.
  • Infinx will sponsor, present, and exhibit at the HIMSS Iowa Fall 2025 Conference November 12-13 in Altoona.
  • Navina offers a free, three-day online course on value-based care that begins November 18.

Blog Posts


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 11/5/25

November 4, 2025 News 10 Comments

Top News

image

Healthcare AI agent vendor Hippocratic AI announces $126 million in Series C funding, bringing its total raised to $404 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion.

The company, which launched in 2023, will use the investment to globally scale its software and pursue mergers and acquisitions.


Reader Comments

From Rude Boy: “Re: Wellsoft. After CareCloud’s acquisition of Medsphere’s assets, they declined to offer positions to key Wellsoft staff, which will effectively sunset the Wellsoft product. Whether this is CareCloud’s intent is TBD.” Unverified. Medsphere acquired the ED EHR vendor Wellsoft in early 2019, also bringing on founder and CEO John Santmann, MD as CMIO. CareCloud closed its acquisition of Medsphere in August 2025.

From AzDave: “Re: Clinisys. Laying off as we speak!” Unverified. But honestly, are there any health tech companies that aren’t laying people off? The best you can hope for is that they hold off until after New Year’s, though I can’t remember a year when at least one cluelessly desperate outfit decided that it wasn’t beneath them to ruin the holidays for its allegedly valued associates and their shocked families.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

My aged car has a CarPlay-capable touch-screen entertainment system that works with my phone only if it is connected via a standard Lightning-to-USB cable. The phone then maddeningly disconnects at the worst possible navigational moments with the slightest jostling in its drink holder home, which probably means that either the port or the car unit itself is flaky. Enter this $17 dongle that takes about 30 seconds one time to pair with the phone via Bluetooth, after which the CarPlay panel comes up every time the car is started, the phone can remain pocketed, the cable can be retired, and I don’t forget to repocket the phone from the aforesaid drink holder upon egress. The gadget might fall just shy of being a change-your-life solution, but it’s close enough for $17.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Healthcare consulting firm Canopii Collaborative acquires Anchor Healthcare Consultants. Anchor co-founder and CEO Joe Galea will become principal of Canopii’s provider solutions segment.

Popai Health, which offers AI-powered care coordination call technology, announces $11 million in new funding.

Risk adjustment and clinical quality solutions vendor Vatica Health acquires Cozeva, which offers value-based care enablement software. Both companies are #1 rated in Best in KLAS in their respective categories.

Remote robotic surgery company Sovato closes a Series B funding round that increases its total raised to $41 million.

Virtual primary care provider LifeMD sells its majority ownership of WorkSimpli Software for $22 million in cash plus performance incentives. LifeMD paid $1.25 million for its stake in the PDF and signing solutions vendor starting in 2018.

image

AI clinic employee management platform vendor Planbase announces its launch and $2.1 million in funding.

HealthStream announces Q3 results: revenue up 4.6%, EPS $0.20 versus $0.19, beating expectations for both.


People

image

Veradigm names Tehsin Syed (AWS) chief product and technology officer.


Announcements and Implementations

Netsmart launches an AI-powered clinical coding solution for post-acute and human services providers.

Intelerad will deliver a cloud-native medical infrastructure that uses Amazon Web Services HealthImaging. The AWS-hosted system will consolidate PACS, VNA, and image sharing workflows into a single back-end system.

Mayo Clinic announces Mayo Clinic Platform_Insights, which gives healthcare organizations access to its AI-driven clinical and operational expertise for digital solutions implementation.

image

Athenahealth introduces an AI-native EHR clinical encounter for AthenaOne that includes an ambient scribe and a clinical co-pilot.


Other

Orlando Health’s South Lake Hospital launches a wearables pilot program for COPD patients using devices and software from B-Secur, Whoop, and Sensr.

image

University Medical Center (NV) opens an Online Care Connection Center to help patients access virtual care in the rural area of Laughlin.

MaineHealth Patient Financial Services mistakenly sends letters to 531 living patients announcing their deaths and offering their next of kin instructions on how to settle accounts. The health system has attributed the correspondence to a software malfunction.


Sponsor Updates

  • CereCore releases a new podcast titled “Better Implementation: Northwest Specialty Hospital CEO’s Strategy On Innovation.”
  • Arcadia releases a new report titled “From Insight to Impact: How Top Health Systems Use Data to Make Healthcare Financially Sustainable.”
  • Black Book Research’s latest analysis highlights the importance hospital IT operations leaders will place on AI, interoperability, and cyber resilience in 2026.
  • Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Some [Healthcare] Data Visualization Treats, with Andrew Tsang.”
  • Great Lakes Consulting Services will leverage VisiQuate’s Harmoni Data Intelligence Platform to unlock insights and efficiencies across the revenue cycle.
  • CliniComp offers a new real-time results case study titled “Real-Time ICU Liberation Bundle Reporting Improves Recovery & Transforms Veteran Care.”
  • Netsmart adds an AI-powered ICD-10 coding tool and a companion virtual assistant to its Alpha RCM platform.
  • Inovalon announces the winners of its 2025 Impact Awards.

Blog Posts


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 11/3/25

November 2, 2025 News 3 Comments

Top News

image

Waystar reports Q3 results: revenue up 12%, EPS $0.17 versus $0.03, beating expectations for both.

WAY shares are up 73% since its June 2024 IPO, valuing the company at $7 billion.

CEO Matthew Hawkins said in the earnings call that Waystar’s $1.25 billion acquisition of Iodine Software in October 2025 extends its data coverage across all RCM phases and will enable development of AI-based products that autonomously manage revenue cycle functions.


Reader Comments

image

From Decent Undercarriage: “Re: Epic consulting. Redditors are discussing a LinkedIn post that says Epic is calling out certified analysts who are billing multiple clients, aka double dippers.” A since-removed LinkedIn post claims that Epic is sending quarterly reports to health system executives that list employees and consultants who are using multiple logins across organizations. The author says some of those folks have been terminated without a chance to explain their situation, even when their extra hours were legitimate, such as moonlighting. The post also refers to individuals who are billing 160 or more hours per week.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

I think most poll respondents recognize the achievement of earning a doctorate in anything. However, more than half say that hospitals should limit the title’s use to medical doctors.

New poll to your right or here: Do health systems create a conflict of interest by promoting or using technology from for-profit companies that they partly own? I’ve noticed a trend of posting glowing press releases about successful technology rollouts at major health systems, only to find in the fine print that the health system is also an investor in the company and thus unlikely to utter a discouraging word.  


image

It’s that annual time when I pretend to be a performative marketer instead of a hospital IT nerd lifer whose hobby is spending part of every day filling blank computer screens. If your company has been meaning to sponsor HIStalk “someday,” this is your nudge to do so before December 31. You get free months, startup perks, and a special nod if you are a former sponsor who returns to my little fold. Email Lorre while I’m briefly focused on feeding the financial beast of keeping HIStalk running instead of obsessing over writing it.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virginia Commonwealth University pursues the purchase of a 450,000-square-foot former tobacco company building to house drug and cancer research and to increase the capacity of its public health and pharmacy programs.

Health insurers will fight profit-sapping medical costs by using AI to counter what they say is the AI-driven aggressive claims coding of providers.

image

You may be unaware that private equity firms own an increasing percentage of US hospices. You may be unsurprised that their hospices make the most money, spend less on patient care, and shift care to nursing facilities whenever possible to push medical costs onto someone else.


Announcements and Implementations

image

A Black Book Research survey of health tech vendor executives finds that health system cash worries, many of them triggered by the federal government’s shutdown, are prompting project pauses, RFP delays, and a shift toward revenue-producing initiatives. 

A study finds that asynchronous, text-based depression therapy is just as effective as real-time video sessions. Most insurers don’t cover it, however.

OpenAI says that it will deliver an AI intern-level research assistant by September 2026 and a fully capable scientific researcher by 2028, also predicting that deep learning systems will reach superintelligence — systems that are smarter than humans — within the next decade.


Privacy and Security

Yale New Haven Health System will pay $18 million to settle a class action lawsuit related to a March 2025 cybersecurity breach that affected 5.5 million patients. The health system has not confirmed reports that the attack involved ransomware.


Other

image

Dilbert creator Scott Adams will ask President Trump to intervene in his quest to obtain chemotherapy for prostate cancer. A course of Pluvicto costs about $300,000. Clinical trials showed that it extended average survival from 11 months to 15 months, although other studies found that the drug had no impact on lifespan.


Sponsor Updates

  • Black Book Research releases new reports on the state of healthcare laboratory information for Europe and North America.
  • Netsmart adds Rectangle Health’s payment software to its TheraOffice EHR and practice management software.
  • Agfa HealthCare will exhibit and present at RSNA 2025 November 30-December 4 in Chicago.
  • Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Will Morris.
  • Nym publishes a new case study titled “Genesis HealthCare System’s Autonomous Coding Success Story.”
  • Inovalon will showcase expanded platform capabilities and feature enhancements at its annual Empower healthcare summit November 2-4 in Washington, DC.
  • WellSky will exhibit at the America’s Physician Group Fall Conference November 5-7 in National Harbor, MD.

Blog Posts


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 10/31/25

October 30, 2025 News 2 Comments

Top News

image

CVS Health reports Q3 results: revenue up 7.8%, adjusted EPS $1.60 versus $1.09, beating analyst expectations for both.

The company took a $5.7 billion impairment charge for its Oak Street Health business that focuses on Medicare Advantage primary care patients and value-based care.

An executive said in the earnings call, “And lastly, our operating platforms, a tremendous amount of credit goes to our leadership in this business is driving to a much more tech-driven AI native platform that’s driving and really taking a lot of the work out a lot of operations and something that was one of the most complex parts of healthcare, which is effectively trying to drive these medications into the patients’ homes.”


Reader Comments

From The Chart Whisperer: “Re: AI-free periods for physicians. Let’s lock the autopilot and see if they still know how to fly. Spoiler: some don’t, so then what?”

From MarginMatters: “Re: hospital innovation. The biggest threat isn’t a lack of technology, it’s misaligned incentives. Every tool that improves quality but reduces billable volume fights a losing battle with the revenue cycle. That’s why most planned uses of AI involve cranking out bills, reducing costs, or increasing widget volume (visits).”


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Teladoc Health reports Q3 results: revenue down 2%, EPS –$0.28 versus –$0.19, beating analyst expectations for both. Its BetterHealth virtual behavioral health business continued its slide with another revenue drop. TDOC shares have lost 8% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1.5 billion versus its $45 billion market cap in early 2021 shortly after it acquired Livongo for $18.5 billion.

Thermo Fisher Scientific will acquire clinical trials software vendor Clario from its private equity owners for $9 billion in cash. The company’s analytics software was used in 70% of US drug approvals.

image

Telemedicine kiosk maker OnMed will go public via a SPAC merger.

PeaceHealth will reduce its workforce by 2.5%, with 13 informaticist positions and chief health information officer job listed as eliminated positions.


Announcements and Implementations

Health insurer EmblemHealth and Prime Therapeutics launch a pharmacy benefit model that uses Judi Health’s cloud platform and Amazon Pharmacy to deliver transparent drug pricing, real-time savings alerts, and digital prescription management. The partnership aims to make specialty drug access simpler, faster, and more affordable for members.

image

Healthmonix launches Prism, a unified quality-reporting and interoperability platform that supports healthcare organizations through shifting CMS models such as MVPs, TEAM, and ASM.

Altera Digital Health launches CareInTelligence, a cloud-native data platform that unifies fragmented healthcare data for payers, providers, and community outreach organizations, enabling actionable insights, custom reporting, and governance controls to advance care delivery and outcomes.

WellSky enhances its Specialty Care EHR with ambient listening using Suki’s solution, which it found reduces documentation time and after-hours work by 40%.


Government and Politics

Updated Affordable Care Act pricing on Healthcare.gov shows that premiums will increase an average of 26% for 2026, with a 114% increase if Congress fails to extend ACA tax credits.

In Canada, Saskatchewan’s health minister orders the health authority to stop using the staff scheduling module of the AIMS system, whose implementation has faltered several times since its 2021 launch, and revert back to the system it replaced. The AIMS project, which will cost triple its original budget at $175 million USD,  has been relaunched multiple times due to pay and scheduling problems. The province will continue to use the software’s payroll and supply chain modules.  


Other

image

The New York Times covers the use of fall detection and prevention technology in assisted living facilities, mentioning vendors Foresite Healthcare and SafelyYou. It notes the privacy concerns of residents and the occasional deployment of such systems without obtaining informed consent.


Sponsor Updates

  • Medicomp Systems releases a new episode of its “Tell Me Where IT Hurts” podcast featuring Alwi Yunus, clinical director of health informatics at Institut Jantung Negara in Malaysia.
  • Symplr partners with Cartwheel to automate billing and improve efficiencies for healthcare staffing firms.
  • New data from Five9 and PanTerra Networks reveals that AI is making healthcare more human by alleviating administrative burdens.
  • Wolters Kluwer Health introduces Ovid Synthesis Expert AI as an optional add-on to its Ovid Synthesis platform.
  • Black Book Research’s latest analysis finds a shift by US hospitals and health systems away from traditional offshore RCM outsourcing and toward software-led, AI-enabled, and on-shore operating models into 2026.
  • Consensus Cloud Solutions, Ellkay, Waystar, and DrFirst will exhibit at NextGen Healthcare’s user group meeting November 2-5 in Nashville.
  • HCTec will exhibit at the NJDV HIMSS 2025 Fall Conference November 4-6 in Atlantic City.
  • Healthcare IT Leaders will exhibit at UKG Aspire November 4-6 in Las Vegas.
  • Impact Advisors publishes a new success story titled “Epic Analysts Deliver High-Quality and Cost-Effective Services.”
  • Infinx will exhibit at the AAMC Annual Meeting November 1-5 in San Antonio.
  • MRO will exhibit at the SAOE Annual Meeting November 5-7 in Chattanooga.
  • Navina will present at the American Physicians Group Fall Conference November 6 in National Harbor, MD.

Blog Posts


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 10/29/25

October 28, 2025 News Comments Off on News 10/29/25

Top News

Google will launch the public preview of its AI-powered personal health coach for its Fitbit Premium subscribers ($80 per year) on Wednesday.


Reader Comments

From Nine Mile: “Re: non-physician use of the Doctor title with patients. Totally agree, and I would also point out the misleading, rampant practice of MA introducing themselves as Doctor X’s ‘nurse’. Patients get the wrong idea and accept some of the things they say as coming from a professional-level person. Also they see them performing only low-level tasks, which skews their view of what nurses bring in terms of assessment and clinical skills.”


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

image

Back-office AI agent software startup Honey Health raises $7.8 million in seed funding.

UnitedHealth Group announces Q3 results: revenue up 12%, adjusted EPS $2.92 versus $7.15, beating analyst expectations for earnings but falling short on revenue. The company reported quarterly revenue of $113 billion and increased guidance. 


Sales

  • In England, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will implement TrakCare EHR software from InterSystems next year.
  • WellStar Health (GA) expands its use of Clear’s patient check-in technology to 150 facilities.
  • The VA will implement Knowtex’s AI clinical documentation software across its health system.
  • Sound Physicians will implement WellStack’s Unified Data Model, RCM Decision Hub, and ACO Decision Hub.

People

image

Thomas Tsang, MD, MPH (Valera Health) joins Omada Health as chief medical officer.

image

J. Marc Overhage, MD (TriAxia Health) will become CEO of the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability in January.

image

Unite Us promotes Taylor Justice, MBA to CEO. He replaces co-founder Dan Brillman, MBA, who has been named CMS deputy administrator for Medicaid and CHIP. 


Announcements and Implementations

Kaleida Health (NY) will use a new state grant to replace its 13 EHRs with Epic, as initially reported here as a reader rumor in November 2024. The health system went live on its $125 million Cerner / Oracle Health system in February 2019.

Cleveland Clinic implements Axuall’s Sync provider data management technology.


Government and Politics

Six VA facilities, all now live on the Oracle Health-based Federal EHR, implement the Oracle Health Community Care offline-capable app to support their home-based primary care teams.

image

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence, PhD tours the VA Northern Indiana Health Care System as it prepares to transition to the Federal EHR next August. He observed that system leadership is focused on scheduling and training, scheduling fewer meetings, providing more hands-on experience, and sharing best practices.


Other

image

A conservative group’s report accuses Epic and Oracle Health of configuring their EHRS to promote gender transition discussions with minors by including questions about preferred pronouns, sex assigned at birth, and gender with which they identify. The publication says that clinicians, who they call “predators,” use those responses to steer minors toward puberty blockers, hormone replacement, and surgery. The report also accuses health systems of blocking parental access to the records of their children after age 13. The report concludes that providers should not restrict parental access to the records of their minor children beyond what federal or state law allows because it undermines parental rights and endangers children by concealing information about gender transition care.


Sponsor Updates

image

  • Cardamom employees volunteer at Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens during the company’s annual Giveback Day.
  • AdvancedMD publishes a new e-book titled “Bridging the Gap between Primary Care and Behavioral Health.”
  • Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a white paper titled “4 Strategies To Create a Better Patient Engagement for All.”
  • Agfa HealthCare names Jean Barrette, MBA (Christie Innomed) regional VP of sales, Canada.
  • Arcadia celebrates customer success, innovation, and new AI-driven solutions at Aggregate 2025.
  • Bizmatics publishes a new Prognocis case study titled “Growth Without the Pains: How a Multi-State Clinic Expanded Operations by 178%.”
  • Censinet releases a new episode of “The Risk Never Sleeps Podcast” featuring HLTH’s Robbie Dorius.
  • Clearwater offers a new Healthcare Regulatory Compliance Crosswalk and Mapping Tool.
  • In Canada, Oak Valley Health, Southlake Health, and Stevenson Memorial Hospital upgrade their shared Meditech EHR.

Blog Posts


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 10/27/25

October 26, 2025 News 3 Comments

Top News

image

Humana and Providence launch a scalable data exchange collaboration that will use HL7 FHIR standards and modern APIs to reduce administrative burden, enhance interoperability, and support value-based care.

The payer-provider collaboration’s first deliverable, which provides member attribution for Humana’s Medicare Advantage members, goes live this month.


Reader Comments

From SkepticalMD: “Re: using the Doctor title. Let’s be honest, the Doctor title outside of medicine is mostly a vanity project. Patients don’t care about your dissertation on 18th-century poetry or leadership theory, they just want someone who can diagnose their chest pain. Using Doctor in a clinical setting when you’re not a physician confuses patients, inflates egos, and cheapens a title that should mean something. Sign your name with your non-medical degree or have it embroidered on your lab coat if you must , but don’t use it to play doctor.”

From Data Diva: “Re: AI tools. Hospitals don’t need them as much as they need fewer executives who pretend to understand them. Every ‘AI strategy’ announcement sounds like a board trying to cosplay as tech bros while nurses drown in administrivia. How about automating leadership bloat before automating bedside care?”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

image

Most poll respondents use some form of social media, most commonly the platforms above. You could probably infer the median age of respondents by their heavy use of Facebook and near-zero involvement with TikTok and Snapchat. For me personally, I’m most often on YouTube (commercial-free with an invaluable Premium subscription) and Reddit, but when I’m doing HIStalk work it’s probably LinkedIn to grab someone’s credentials and headshot. I’ve mostly abandoned X and its cesspool of toxicity and ignorance, which are way worse on Facebook but at least easily avoidable.

New poll to your right or here, extending my previous rant: should holders of non-medical doctorates introduce themselves to patients as “Dr. Smith?” Thinking beyond that question, since patients call hospital people whatever name they are given, should those doctorate holders instead refer to themselves as “Mr. Smith” or “John?” (I’ve never heard a hospital employee, other than nurses of a certain age, use courtesy titles). We have some weird title conventions in the US – addressing cooks with no specific education or certification as “Chef,” calling the airline employee who flies the plane “Captain” as though they were in the military, and rent-a-cops who title themselves “Officer” despite being associated with no office.


Sponsored Events and Resources

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CVS Health will close 16 Oak Street Health Centers, 7% of the company’s senior care locations, due to high medical costs in the Medicare and Medicare Advantage market. CVS paid $10.6 billion in cash to buy Oak Street Health in May 2023.


Sales

  • Heritage Medical Associates will implement Epic via an Epic Community Connect agreement with Vanderbilt Health.

Sponsor Updates

image

  • Wolters Kluwer Health team members volunteer with the Chicago Park District.
  • Altera Digital Health publishes a new client story titled “Leading the way: Reducing police callouts and prioritizing patient safety at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.”
  • Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Balancing Technology and a Human Touch in Member Service, with Lisa Ellerhorst and Sonia Pettis.”
  • Black Book Research offers an analysis of provider plans for TEFCA onboarding in 2026.
  • TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, Chief Product Officer John Welch joins PAX Technology’s Steering Committee’s Technology & Innovation group.
  • Waystar will exhibit at the NJ/Metro Philadelphia HFMA Annual Institute October 28-31 in Atlantic City.
  • WellSky will exhibit at the 2025 AMRPA Fall Educational Conference & Expo through October 29 in Philadelphia.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

Text Ads


RECENT COMMENTS

  1. I dont think anything will change until Dr Jayne and others take my approach of naming names, including how much…

  2. I love the community health center that serves as my medical home, but they regularly ask me to sign forms…

  3. My mom was admitted to the hospital from the ED after she was diagnosed with multiple pelvic fractures. Two different…

  4. Many medical practices have become assembly lines, prioritizing throughput instead of personalized attention. In this case, patients are the widgets…

  5. Typical Big Health System experience. But the fraudulent charting is quite something. The higher-ups would care if they found themselves…

Founding Sponsors


 

Platinum Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSS Webinars

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.