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News 2/6/26

February 5, 2026 News No Comments

Reader Comments

From Banty Rooster: “Re: job changes. Please announce the formation of my new consulting business.” I suspect that readers share my lack of interest when someone exits a long corporate career, often because of a decision they did not make, and announces that they are now a solo consultant. I pass because the industry impact of that “business” is minimal and the audience is mostly personal acquaintances who already know. Many of these entrepreneurial bursts end quietly with a return to salaried work when demand fails to materialize or travel becomes intolerable. Consulting as a skill and business endeavor is not necessarily predicted by a management career, and many shingle-hangers discover that their former influence came from their title, not their personal brand. It’s tough to leave a big paycheck and benefits to start out with no clients, pipeline, or income.

From Sierra Mister: “Re: NavvTrack. Has gone out of business.” The website of the health system fleet management solutions vendor, which was spun out from Henry Ford Health in 2019, goes to 404. LinkedIn shows that co-founder and CEO Daniel Siegal, MD, COO/CFO Heather Grisham, and VP/CTO Pratik Agrawal all left the company in August 2025.

From Nobodyyouknow: “Re: Waystar. Gearing up for another acquisition? A large number of legacy team members are being promoted to VP.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Medcurio. Medcurio helps health systems access and act on their EHR data in real time, without waiting months for integrations or settling for partial interfaces. Its VennU platform installs inside the customer’s environment and gives teams direct, governed access to the data they already own. The result is faster insight, faster action, and fewer workarounds. Unlike traditional interoperability approaches, Medcurio does not rely on slow pipelines, brittle custom builds, or transaction-based APIs. Teams can surface operational, clinical, and financial signals as they occur, not days or weeks later. What typically takes months can be stood up in days.Medcurio is used to power dashboards, alerts, automations, and/or any downstream workflows that depend on complete and timely EHR data. Customers decide what data is accessed, who can use it, and how it is applied, with full auditability and security controls. Nothing leaves the customer’s control. For organizations serious about real-time operations, analytics, and AI, Medcurio provides the data foundation those efforts usually lack. Thanks to Medcurio for supporting HIStalk.

I downloaded Lotus Health’s app to give their 24×7 free primary care service a try. I was waitlisted, but I completed the registration and intake form and gave the chatbot a spin for a made-up medical issue. The process was well designed and the chatbot’s advice and plan were sound even if not much different than what ChatGPT offered. I’ll be interested to see how the most important part works, the handoff from chatbot to human physician when warranted. What I will be looking for: (1) how the service collects medical records; (2) how the lab test and prescription generating process works; and (3) how the video visit feels compared to an in-person one, especially for a continuity of care perspective. I experimented with an online service a few years ago and was underwhelmed because it felt like symptom Whac-a-Mole, where the faceless physician jumped overly quickly to a diagnosis and prescription from the limited set of drugs he was authorized to prescribe for a limited set of conditions. Lotus Health’s LinkedIn shows just nine company employees or contractors, none of them with any medical background, but it claims to be using doctors from Stanford, Harvard, UCSF, and Johns Hopkins. If you’ve used the full Lotus Health service, tell me more. The question of “how does a free service make money” will likely be answered with paid advertising, a freemium model, and partnering with insurers and employers.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: February 18 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “From Blind Spots to Insights: Gaining Real-Time Visibility into Healthcare Risk.” Sponsor: CloudWave. Presenters: Jacob Wheeler, MBA, director of sales engineering, CloudWave; Mike Donahue, chief operating officer, CloudWave. Resilience starts with the ability to see clearly, across every endpoint, cloud workload, user, and clinical system. Join CloudWave’s cybersecurity leaders for an in-depth session on how real-time visibility transforms your ability to detect threats early, respond decisively, and strengthen resilience across the care ecosystem. Attendees will learn the practical steps that hospitals can take to move from reactive defense to resilient action.

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Lotus Health AI, which offers free 24×7 primary care using patient data, AI diagnostics, peer-reviewed evidence and guidelines, and clinician review, raises $41 million.

People

Amit Mathradas, MBA (Nintex) joins Five9 as CEO.

Gozio Health hires Jay Kleinman (TechCXO) as chief revenue officer and Michele Forlenza (Prealize Health) as VP of client success.

Bayhealth hires Thomas “Mac” Marlow, MBA (UT Southwestern Medical Center) as VP/chief digital and information officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Epic releases AI Charting, which uses ambient listening to draft visit notes and suggest orders, as part of its Art AI for clinicians.

A small study finds that primary care physicians who used Eko’s digital stethoscope correctly diagnosed moderate to severe valvular heart disease with 92% sensitivity versus 46% using a traditional stethoscope.

Government and Politics

The federal government awards Accenture Federal Services a 4.5-year contract of unspecified value to support the VA’s implementation of Oracle Health. The company will provide integration services, lead standardization across VA facilities, and oversee federal-community interoperability.

RCM services vendor Gryphon Healthcare will pay $2.9 million to settle claims related to its July 2024 cyberattack that exposed the patient information of one of its customers.

ASTP/ONC posts a draft of USCDI Version 7 for public comment.

ASTP/ONC chooses nine pilot sites to test behavioral and physical health integration data exchange standards.

Former Ole Miss football All-American tight end Rufus French is convicted of fraudulently billing Medicare and the VA $200 million. The Department of Justice says that he used overseas call centers to pressure elderly Americans, including patients with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, to provide their insurance information and consent to receiving unnecessary orthotic braces that were ordered by doctors and nurse practitioners who worked for sham telemedicine companies who never contacted the patients.

Other

A Health Affairs article says that healthcare’s AI bubble needs to burst in a dot-com-like “coming clinical correction,” citing these reasons:

Most enterprise AI pilots fail to deliver financial returns and usually don’t survive beyond pilots.
Health systems are touting AI deployments as innovation, but the projects often involve products from vendors that are surviving only because of investor funding.
Many AI vendors will fail but will continue to operate as zombie operations that bill hospitals under existing contracts, but don’t spend the money to keep their algorithms current, exposing hospitals to liability for errors.
Companies that offer crucial technologies that don’t involve AI are forced to squeeze AI into the products unnecessarily to attract investment.
AI products are being deployed in the absence of evidence.

Sponsor Updates

SlicedHealth posts Episode 1 of its price transparency guide podcast titled “What Hospital Leaders Need to Know About Price Transparency Enforcement in 2026.”
Black Book Research releases findings from its “Q1 2026 Rural Transformation Readiness Survey” of rural, small, and critical access hospitals.
Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Providing the Right Level of Guidance & Expertise in this Business is About as Hard as Driving Change, with Hannan Allen.”
FinThrive promotes D’Wan Grimes to partner success manager.
Health Data Movers will sponsor the NEECO Spring 2026 Conference March 31 in Waltham, MA.
Healthmonix releases its 2026 MIPSpro Enterprise Qualified Clinical Data Registry, approved by CMS for the 2026 performance year.
Infinx will present at the Oregon HFMA 2026 Winter Workshop February 12 in McMinnville, OR.
LiveData will exhibit at the OR Business Manager Summit February 9-11 in Austin, TX.

Blog Posts

OCR’s 2026 Cybersecurity Update to Healthcare: From Risk Analysis to Enforced Risk Management (Clearwater)
Small steps become giant leaps: Reimagining how to approach innovation in healthcare (Altera Digital Health)
‘Best in KLAS for SDoH’: One Year is Potential, Five Years is Proven (Findhelp)
Revenue on Autopilot: How Smarter Denial Management Reduces the Cost to Collect (FinThrive)
Preparation Changes Outcomes In Ransomware Attacks (Fortified Health Security)
Why Specialized Staffing Matters in Healthcare Technology (HCTec)
7 Mistakes to Avoid When Releasing Medical Records (HealthMark Group)
The Digital Front Door Reckoning (Impact Advisors)
The Provider’s Guide to AI Conversations (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

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

News 2/4/26

February 3, 2026 News 1 Comment

Top News

Tenet Healthcare regains full ownership of subsidiary Conifer Health Solutions by unwinding its joint venture with CommonSpirit Health.

Conifer will pay $540 million to redeem CommonSpirit’s 24% stake, while CommonSpirit will pay Tenet $1.9 billion over three years in exit obligations.

CommonSpirit will continue receiving RCM services from Conifer through the end of 2026, after which it plans to transition away from Conifer. Conifer has provided RCM services to CommonSpirit and and its predecessor organization, Catholic Health Initiatives, since 2012.

Tenet had considered spinning Conifer off in 2022 due to lackluster performance, but nixed the idea when business improved.

Reader Comments

From CallMeSuspicious: “Re: Epic ‘research’ posts. I was taken in initially until I started to see odd studies that added little to the knowledge base, and then veered off into questionable junk. A simple search on the named authors (when presented) reveals another carefully concealed attempt at Epic influence, given that they are all authored by Epic employees.” I’ll ask readers to weigh in: are studies that are performed by Epic-employed clinician-informaticists less trustworthy or valuable? Epic Research publications may sometimes support Epic-friendly narratives, especially when they involve Epic software, but the authors don’t try to conceal their connection to the company. Their studies could be construed as less rigorous because they are descriptive rather than hypothesis-based, are not peer reviewed, and incorporate any basis or limitations of using data sourced only from Epic customers, but they have the benefit of directly accessing timely, real-world data and seem free of publication lag time. Criticism is fair, but should focus on study methodology and design. It’s not like studies that are sponsored by drug or device companies, who directly profit from positive studies they sponsor.

From Cruel Winter: “Re: Wellsoft. It ranks high in Black Book and KLAS, but who is actually using it?” I passed your inquiry along to CareCloud’s media contact and will let you know what they say. Medsphere acquired Wellsoft in early 2019, then was itself acquired by CareCloud in August 2025. Wellsoft EDIS has performed well in KLAS reports for years, but I assume that hospital consolidation and single-vendor strategies may have reduced the pool of standalone ED software.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare Growth Partners publishes its market review. Nuggets:

Near-universal deployment of health IT mostly delivered the expected workflow and data capture benefits, but has done little to influence overall outcomes and cost.
Technology investment mirrors the segment that the company addresses, either value-based care or consumer-directed health.
Health IT deal activity rebounded strongly in 2025, while M&A valuation has settled above pre-pandemic levels.
Divestitures as a percentage of M&A and buyout deals have doubled, as companies realign portfolios that were less focused during COVID-related expansion.
AI is not a valuation driver of most deals, but creates value when its use improves company fundamentals.
HGP summarizes the public market as, “While investors have been eager for the IPO floodgates to reopen, the Health IT market appears to be operating in a longer transition phase. The gates are not shut, but they remain narrow. Timelines continue to extend as late-stage private companies opt to remain on the sidelines, activity remains highly selective, and volumes are muted relative to historical peaks. Confidence, while improving, remains fragile and closely tied to broader macroeconomic conditions and public market stability.”

Sales

Jefferson Health (PA) selects Qualified Health’s AI operations platform.

People

Balajee Sethuraman, MBA (Emids) joins Acentra Health as EVP and chief business services officer.

Viz.ai names Tim Showalter, MD, MPH, MBA (ArteraAI) as its first chief medical officer.

Pieces Technologies founder and former CEO Ruben Amarasingham, MD, MBA joins Smarter Technologies as chief medical officer. Smarter Technologies acquired Pieces last October.

MedeAnalytics appoints Chris Lance, MBA (Avalon Healthcare Solutions) chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin implements Epic’s new AI charting tool, which was first previewed last August at Epic UGM.

Penn Medicine transitions 63 practices to its Penn Medicine OnDemand virtual care service for after-hours and weekend care, eliminating the need for primary care physicians to be on call during those times.

AdventHealth Castle Rock (CO) launches virtual admit nursing using technology from Hellocare.

InterSystems launches Payer Connector, which helps health plans integrate Epic Player Platform with their applications.

NYU Langone offers patients access to Isaac Health’s virtual specialty clinics for brain health and dementia through its neurology program.

MSU Health Care replaces its Athenahealth system with Henry Ford Health’s Epic software as part of a broader, 30-year partnership launched in 2021.

UCI Health implements GW RhythmX’s Get Well Stay patient engagement technology at its new hospital in Irvine, CA.

South Central Regional Medical Center (MS) goes live on Epic.

Oracle Health adds order creation capabilities to its clinical AI agent, which extends the note generation functionality of ambient listening to draft orders for labs, imaging, prescriptions, and appointments.

Government and Politics

VA Secretary Doug Collins again reassures lawmakers that the department is ready to resume implementing its new Oracle Health-based EHR at several sites in Michigan in April. Collins downplayed the spate of concerns and unaddressed recommendations listed in the VA Office of Inspector General’s latest report, noting that the recommendations “were based on a screwed up, backwards system that is not in place anymore. … anything in reference to the OIG report, in all fairness, is like looking at a 1945 novel.”

President Trump signs an appropriations bill that includes a two-year extension of Medicare telehealth flexibilities and a five-year extension of the Medicare Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver.

Other

The Sequoia Project releases “Simplifying Data Access for Better Patient Experience: Best Practices and Implementation Toolkit for Providers,” a draft set of best practices for improving patient access to health data. Feedback is welcome through April 2.

In Canada, nurses express frustration related to the December 2025 go-live of Oracle Cerner Canada at Nova Scotia’s IWK Health Centre. The president of the nurses’ union says that “there’s just so many problems that it’s like putting your finger in a dam” as solving one issue creates another. Project leaders identify the main problems as routing, ambulatory care workflows, and ambulatory care waitlist management, also noting that concerns exist about the system’s overall stability. IWK is the first go-live of a planned province-wide rollout of the $270 million system.

Cedars-Sinai’s Postpartum Hypertension Program sees encouraging levels of patient engagement, with 500 women enrolled in the program, which enables them to conduct and record blood pressure readings at home through a dedicated patient portal that is connected to their EHR. Nearly 75% of enrollees scheduled a follow-up physician visit within six months of giving birth, while 83% did so within 12 months.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research establishes a comprehensive framework to safeguard survey, polling, and satisfaction-based research against emerging risks accelerated by generative AI while using AI responsibly to improve research operations.
CereCore publishes a new case study titled “Mary Rutan Health: Valuable Focus and Confidence Restored with Knowledgeable IT Help Desk.”
Agfa HealthCare offers a new guide titled “Implementing Enterprise Imaging in the Cloud: 5 Strategic Considerations for a Successful Implementation.”
Shenandoah Medical Center will implement Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise Axon for data exchange.
Arcadia publishes a new e-book, “The Art of AI: Blending Innovation with Know-How in Healthcare.”

Blog Posts

Redefining Patient Access: The Strategic Power of Centralization in Healthcare (AGS Health)
How Healthcare Revenue Cycle Analytics Can Improve Financial Performance (FinThrive)
Top 5 Healthcare IT Trends Shaping 2026 (Med Tech Solutions)
Cyber Risk in Healthcare Is Entering a New Phase (Clearwater)
The AdvancedMD 2026 CPT/HCPCS Codebook: Everything You Need for an Efficient, Error-Free Medical Billing Strategy (AdvancedMD)
Giving provider satisfaction a dose of GenAI (Altera Digital Health)
An Investor’s View on Artera: Q&A with Avery Rosin at Lead Edge Capital (Artera)
Aligning Security Investment with Clinical Outcomes: The Strategic Role of Managed SOC and CISO Office as Service (CTG)
DrFirst Mourns the Loss of Thomas E. Sullivan, M.D. (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 2/2/26

February 1, 2026 News 2 Comments

Reader Comments

From George: “Re: Oracle Health. The idea that Oracle might sell the business has no factual basis or sourcing and appears to be little more than investment firm speculation, which is often wrong. I also don’t see who would realistically be able to buy it.” I doubt that Oracle Health will be offered for sale, and even if it is, it’s no longer a clean standalone asset, either financially or technically. Few companies could afford to buy it even a discounted price. The business is too complex and unpredictable for private equity or venture capital. Leidos is large enough and could preserve whatever piece of the DoD revenue flows through Oracle Health, but I don’t see it wanting to jump into the EHR product business, although it might like a piece of Cerner government services. We also don’t know who, if anyone, bid against Oracle for Cerner last time, although it was rumored that one other company showed interest. The underlying logic of this speculation is that Oracle needs capital to address its $125 billion in debt and $1.4 trillion in AI data center commitments, but nothing they could do with Oracle Health would make much of a dent. I think Oracle will pay more attention to broad layoffs, access to borrowing, and protecting share price. Or, rework their data center commitments by stretching timelines or bringing in partners. ORCL share price is up a little bit over the past 12 months and has lost 34% in the past three months, so all of the AI hype seems to have been outweighed by the costs involved.

From Landof10kHITers: “Re: Neil Pappalardo. An absolute giant in the industry. Arguably he is the one who founded the EMR/EHR industry. He doesn’t get near the credit he deserves, though it doesn’t seem he ever wanted that. From the technologies he created that spawned other technologies that are still in use by industry giants today, to the early days help and mentoring with Judy at Epic (as I understand it, Epic functions, in a lot of ways, the same as Meditech — hire new college grads, private company, only promote from within, etc.), and obviously founding and leading Meditech for decades to be a stable software company, and one of the oldest / earliest software companies ever. He will be missed.” Also often missed is that Meditech’s use of his MUMPS programming language spawned another massive business (and another billionaire other than Judy Faulkner) in 2,500-employee InterSystems, which developed its database in 1978. I think that Curt Marble is the only surviving Meditech co-founder – Morton Ruderman, Jerome Grossman, Ed Roberts, and now Neil Pappalardo have passed on.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Just 15% of poll respondents aren’t using AI to some degree or haven’t found it useful for work, but quite a few say that AI has improved their job performance a lot. Mark provided some fascinating details about how he’s using it:

Use case #1: I am creating a guide for others to use, a how to manual for reviewing healthcare vendor contracts. When I documented my parameters, I ended up with a result that shaved hours off the time needed to complete my finished product. Use case #2: I’m not good at creating pretty tables from Excel spread sheets, so I asked Copilot to create one. In under a minute I received output that was nicer and more presentable than anything I could have created on my own. Use case #3: Needed a vendor comparison for a health system with a very complicated set of circumstances. Entered the parameters into the AI tool and received a thoroughly complete analysis from several perspectives. Back when I was a healthcare IT consultant, that kind of effort would have taken weeks to accomplish. Here it was done in minutes.

New poll to your right or here: What statement most strongly indicates that a company is in trouble? I’m honoring the art of spinning a negative into a positive, like Spinal Tap’s manager declaring that the band is still a hot commodity, but “their appeal is becoming more selective.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

People

Andrew Golden (Experian) joins Hyro as RVP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

Meditech posts a tribute to founder and chairman A. Neil Pappalardo, who died Tuesday at 83. Read and leave thoughts and memories here.

A Surescripts survey finds that more than half of of patients have experienced delays or disruption in getting their prescriptions filled, and 77% would use digital prescription pricing tools.

An Epic Research study finds that early blood pressure treatment by telehealth is as effective as in-person visits as long as blood pressure is measured and recorded.

Government and Politics

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posts an anticipated future contracting opportunity for a correctional EHR for ICE detainees, estimating its cost at $50 million to $100 million.

Other

Snow day / slow day dreams. The widow of IDX founder Rich Tarrant sells the Hillsboro Beach, FL estate they built in 2007 for $36.5 million.

Sponsor Updates

Beauregard Health System integrates Artera’s AI-powered patient communication platform and DrFirst’s prescription engagement solution with its Meditech Expanse system.
Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper titled “From Vendor to Vital Partner.”
Findhelp pledges to CMS that it will help states prepare for and implement Medicaid community engagement requirements enacted through the Working Families Tax Cut legislation.
Waystar will exhibit at Traumasoft UGM February 2-4 in Orlando.

Blog Posts

How MCP Creates Safer, More Useful AI for Clinicians and Developers (Medicomp Systems)
9 HIMSS Attendee Survival Tips (Med Tech Solutions)
HFMA WRS 2026: Leading Now in Healthcare Finance (FinThrive)
Accelerating Cash and Optimizing the Revenue Cycle Post-Epic (Impact Advisors)
Health Benefits 101: Service Excellence & Scaling an Award-Winning Call Center Model (Judi Health)
How to Transform Communication with PALTC Providers and Patients (Netsmart)
Breaking the cycle: reducing costs in NHS re-procurement (Nordic)
New TrustCommerce Features in Practice Fusion: Streamlined Payments for a Better Patient Experience (TrustCommerce)
What 1,007 Patients Told Us About the Prescription Experience—And What We’re Doing About It (Surescripts)

Contacts

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

News 1/30/26

January 29, 2026 News 3 Comments

Top News

Sword Health acquires Germany-based digital MSK and pulmonary care company Kaia Health for $285 million. Sword will sunset Kaia’s MSK product in the US in favor of its own platform.

Sword plans to raise $500 million in Q1 for expansion and acquisitions.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Reader donations funded the Donors Choose teacher grant request of Mr. S, who teaches high school in Greenwood, DE and asked for help buying chemistry lab supplies and learning tools. He reports, “My students and I were able to experience chemical reactions like never before with a hands on approach rather than watch a video of someone on the internet … This experience allowed me to see the spark for learning that my classroom has been missing. By me engaging the students in the classroom this one time might create the next great chemist or inventor, and for that I cannot thank you enough.”

Amazon will lay off 16,000 employees while “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” which translates to firing rank-and-filers because of an org chart that executives built, tolerated, and now blame. How about starting with the belatedly enlightened suits who created those layers and bureaucracy in the first place? Our industry is littered with “Now we get it” announcements in which so-called rightsizing that somehow always spares the people who did the wrongsizing. Pro tip: ignore anyone quoted in statements like these who has been with the company for two or more years and thus helped create the mess that we are now supposed to believe they have magically fixed by jettisoning worker bees. It is a useful reminder that feel-good Kumbaya capitalism about being a family and valuing associates is performative BS that is touted when times are good and then dumped emotionlessly when knee-jerk cost cutting is required to line the pockets of investors and executives.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual OCD provider NOCD acquires trauma self-help platform vendor Rebound Health and renames itself to Noto.

Premise Health and Crossover Health, which offer primary care and occupational health services, will merge. Crossover was co-founded in 2010 by ED physician Scott Shreeve, MD, who had co-founded Medsphere and will remain with the merged organization.

An investment firm speculates that Oracle may undertake mass layoffs and sell its Oracle Health business unit to fund the $156 billion in capital that it needs to build data centers for OpenAi.

People

Woman’s Hospital hires Glynis Cowart, MPA (Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall) as SVP/CIO.

CloudWave promotes Brian Pruitt to CTO.

Clearwater announces the hiring of Davis Chaffin, MBA (Load One) as CFO and Krissy Safi, MBA (Protiviti) as SVP of consulting services, and the promotion of Dave Bailey, MBA to VP of consulting solutions and strategy.

Meditech founder, chairman, and former CEO Neil Pappalardo died Tuesday. He was 83. Pappalardo and four MIT-educated co-founders launched Meditech in 1969 to create hospital software using the MUMPS program language that he and fellow founder Curt Marble developed at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Announcements and Implementations

Humana’s healthcare services business CenterWell goes live on Athenahealth’s AthenaOne at 350 senior primary care locations in 15 states.

Virtual primary care and healthcare navigation company Included Health creates a health plan and provider network that it will offer to employers.

AEYE Health, which offers fully autonomous AI-based diabetic eye exams, integrates its product with Epic.

EMurmur earns FDA clearance for its telehealth-capable heart murmur detection software for digital stethoscopes. Companies can integrate the technology with their own software and hardware without requiring additional FDA clearance.

A UK study reports that use of Eko’s AI stethoscope failed to improve detection of heart failure, atrial fibrillation, or valvular heart disease in primary care as adoption fell steadily, with 40% of practices dropping it within a year despite its effectiveness because of workflow friction that was driven by poor EHR integration. The AI stethoscopes whose use physicians resisted increased detection of heart failure by 2.3 times, atrial fibrillation 3.5 times, and VHD 1.9 times.

Government and Politics

The VA will spend $1 billion in FY2026 to maintain its EHRs and to prepare for implementing Oracle Health in new facilities.

ASTP/ONC posts an RFI that seeks public input on accessing and exchanging diagnostic images to inform possible rulemaking.

Privacy and Security

DataBreaches.net reports that “digital helper” AI care coordination vendor Lena Health stored audio recordings that contain patient information, most of it from Houston Methodist, on unsecured web servers. A security group that is working with law firms to coordinate a class action lawsuit summarizes:

Listening to these confused patients talking to Lena, this company’s “digital helper,” about their private medical issues is a deeply disturbing and uncanny experience. They repeatedly ask Lena what’s wrong with her, why she sounds so weird, but even worse somehow are the patients who do not seem to notice they are not speaking with a human. It is deeply dehumanizing, and profoundly depressing to hear these elderly people … discussing their most personal medical issues with what they think is a compassionate human coordinator, but is actually an LLM trained to extract information so a hospital can save a few pennies on hiring a real human.

Sponsor Updates

Altera Digital Health announces GA of Sunrise Medical Photography documentation tools, powered by True-See, within its Sunrise platform.
Clearwater names Davis Chaffin (Load One) CFO.
WellSky announces new AI-powered referral management workflows aimed at helping home health and hospice providers.
Findhelp welcomes new partners Colorado Access and Wauwatosa Neighborhood Association Council.
Healthcare Growth Partners releases its “January 2026 Health IT Market Review.”
Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “Quick HITs” podcast featuring Scott Becker.
Healthmonix’s MIPSpro and ACO Impact receive 2026 CMS Qualified Registry approval.
Meditech offers a new customer success story titled “Palo Pinto General Hospital Increases Google Reviews, Reduces No-Shows With Expanse Patient Connect.”
Judi Health releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “A Quick Government Programs Update: The IRA & MPPP, Managing D-SNPs, and More, with Jason Barretto.”

Blog Posts

The Smarter, Faster Way to Bring Clinical Intelligence to Life (Medicomp Systems)
Performance to empower confidence: Why responsive technology makes all the difference (Altera Digital Health)
Impact and challenges of large language models in healthcare (Arcadia)
Begin Your NextGen AWS Migration Early With MTS (Med Tech Solutions)
2026 Healthcare & Health IT Predictions (First Databank)
How Midsize Healthcare Orgs. Are Cutting Costs with AI-Powered RCM Solutions (FinThrive)
Healthcare Data Privacy: What Industry Signals Reveal About Deeper Cybersecurity Risk (Fortified Health Security)
OBBBA Compliance: What Healthcare Providers Need to Know About Qualified Overtime Reporting (Healthcare IT Leaders)
The CEO Playbook: Medical Group Growth in a Hyper-Competitive Environment (Impact Advisors)
Are you still charting like it’s 2010? What’s changed with ambient AI (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 1/28/26

January 27, 2026 News No Comments

Top News

Bloomberg reports that the valuation of prior authorization technology vendor Tandem Technology has reached $1 billion, with an anticipated $100 million in new funding.

Tandem founder and CEO Sahir Jaggi was previously a director at insurance company Oscar Health.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

It’s that time of year when LinkedIn is flooded with graphics posted by proud show-uppers. The HIMSS ones are also piling up. I’m only slightly annoyed at pitches by scheduled presenters who are trying to drum up attendance, but just being in the convention center is not newsworthy. It won’t be long before the “influencers” start posting their mandatory ViVE-fawning posts (three before, three during, three after) to pay for their free badge and accompanying sense of self-importance.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

People

HURC names Kevin Coloton, MPT, MBA (Reveleer) CEO.

Elissa Baker, RN (American Telemedicine Association) joins Nesa as president and chief clinical officer.

MedeAnalytics names David Figueredo (Experian) chief innovation officer.

Nicholas Testa, MD (CommonSpirit Health) joins Sentact as chief clinical officer.

Sevaro Health names Carl Dugart (Medically Home) CTO and Vineet Agrawal, MBA (DocSpera) head of growth.

Artera promotes Tom McIntyre, MS, MBA to president, Michael Jensen to CFO, Zach Wood, MBA to chief product and strategy officer, and Emily Coy to VP of communications and integrated marketing.

Dartmouth Health hires Randa Perkins, MD, MBA (Moffitt Cancer Center) as CHIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Qure.ai secures a multi-million dollar Gates Foundation grant to develop AI-powered point-of-care ultrasound tools that are aimed at detecting tuberculosis and pneumonia in low-resource settings. The project also includes building an open, multimodal data platform to support global lung health research and deployment at scale. The company’s products are being used by 4,800 sites in 105 countries.

Health Gorilla says that the lawsuit that Epic Systems and several health systems filed against it contains unfounded allegations about the company’s role in data exchange. Health Gorilla says that it suspended the disputed connections of some of its clients and accuses Epic of using litigation to stifle competition in interoperability. Health Gorilla says that it operates in conformance with all laws and requirements and accuses Epic of using litigation as a weapon so it can “monetize clinical data exchanges for their own benefit.” An Epic spokesperson provided this statement:

Health Gorilla enabled their customers to sell identifiable patient medical records to class-action law firms without patients’ consent or health systems’ knowledge. They had an obligation to protect patients’ intimate health information. Instead, they violated the privacy of hundreds of thousands of people. Epic and health systems together filed this lawsuit to hold Health Gorilla and other bad actors accountable and to stop further abuse and misuse of patients’ sensitive information.

Midwives at some NHS hospitals that use Epic are given the option to record the gender identity, sexual orientation, and pronouns of newborns, but according to a midwife quoted in The Times, lack a dedicated field to record biological sex in the same workflow. An executive of a sex rights charity criticized the configuration, saying, “The concept of babies having a gender identity is farcical, whereas a baby’s sex is essential medical information,” and argued that some trusts have prioritized ideological preferences over clinical clarity. A spokesperson for the One Devon Electronic Patient Record project says that any claims that Epic requires information about the gender identity or sexual orientation of newborns are incorrect, and the only mandatory entries are date of birth and legal sex. Epic has not publicly commented on the article.

Government and Politics

The VA Office of Inspector General’s annual report lists information systems and innovation among the top five management and performance challenges facing the department, particularly highlighting its beleaguered EHR modernization efforts. The Oracle Health-based program will restart this April at four sites in Michigan.

Other

The Connecticut College of Emergency Physicians develops a public dashboard that displays ER boarding trends across hospitals throughout the state to gain insight into ED overcrowding. State lawmakers passed a law in 2023 that requires hospitals to annually report their boarding data through 2029.

Nassau University Medical Center sues seven former executives, including its CIO, alleging that they received $1 million in improper payouts when they resigned in May and later refused to give the money back. Many of the hospital’s executives quit after the state took over the financially struggling hospital’s board. The hospital filed a $10 million lawsuit against the former hospital CEO who authorized the payouts. Her name is Meg Ryan, should you have a surplus of “When Harry Met Sally” Katz’s Delicatessen scene bon mots.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research publishes its Trust Framework, a formal standard that defines how the firm designs research programs, benchmarks performance, and recognizes high-performing healthcare technology and services providers.
Optimum Healthcare IT posts a new white paper titled “From Vendor to Vital Partner.”
Cardamom is recognized as the “#1 Best Place to Work” in the Madison area by Madison Magazine.

Blog Posts

A Guide to the Use of AI in Healthcare: Deploying a Realistic Approach (Med Tech Solutions)
Health system size impacts AI privacy and security concerns (Wolters Kluwer Health)
The reality of cyberthreats: Why preparing for a breach is your best defense (Altera Digital Health)
Advancing Rural Health Transformation: Reflections from a JPM Health Week Roundtable (Arcadia)
AI Voice Agents in Healthcare: Inbound vs. Outbound (Artera)
Looking back, leaping forward: Healthcare AI predictions for 2026 (Cardamom)
JPM 2026 Takeaways: Cybersecurity in Healthcare PE Diligence (Clearwater)
What 14 Ironmans, 50+ Marathons, and 30 Years in Healthcare IT Have Taught Me About Leadership (Divurgent)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 1/26/26

January 24, 2026 News No Comments

Top News

Epic and 63 health systems ask The Sequoia Project to centralize vetting and ongoing monitoring of organizations that exchange medical records via Carequality and TEFCA. The letter recommends the following changes:

Replace applicants’ self-attested business descriptions with validation using public records, NPIs, and criminal history checks.
Require organizations to formally attest to their business purpose and exchange use cases and submit those attestations to HHS, creating potential federal liability for false representations.
Implement active monitoring to detect potentially fraudulent exchange behavior.
Shift responsibility for TEFCA dispute resolution and monitoring to the federal government, with federal consequences for misstatements or omissions.
Create a public directory of all data exchange participants, including their business description and stated exchange purpose.
Publicly report the number of records each participant contributes and receives, along with the stated purpose of exchange.
Require intermediaries to disclose their data retention policies and publish them on a public website.
Establish a joint federal and state task force, including federal agencies and state attorneys general, to target false documentation, identity impersonation, and high-volume data harvesting.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents say that Kaiser Permanente’s affiliates, like many health systems, were playing the Medicare Advantage game within the rules as designed.

New poll to your right or here: How has your use of AI improved your job performance? You’ll see a “comments” link after voting, which you can click to tell us more about your answer. I’m especially curious about AI use that has increased your effectiveness by 50% or more, which is likely a unicorn but still worth asking.

If you are socked in by snow or ice, cheer yourself up with a photo of Ms. O’s kindergarten class in Hayward, CA working with the STEM magnetic building sets that were fully funded by reader donations to Donors Choose, along with matching funds from my Anonymous Vendor Executive and outside groups. She reports, “This project has been so important because giving students a strong foundation in math and literacy in their first year of school makes a big difference by giving them a good start in their academic careers.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Medical records and coding vendor Rapid Care acquires DeepDoc, whose AI-driven system summarizes unstructured medical records for law firms and insurers.

Healthcare technology services vendor Healthcare Triangle will acquire Spain-based Teyame AI, which offers AI-powered contact center solutions, for a reported $50 million. HCTI shares have lost 99.9% over the past 12 months, valuing the company at $3 million.

People

CTG promotes Tom Niehaus to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

State-owned UNC Health will acquire independently operated UNC Campus Health Services, likely moving Campus Health from EClinicalWorks to Epic.

A Wolters Kluwer Health survey finds that use of “shadow” AI is widespread in health systems, mostly by users who want to speed up workflows. Half of the respondents say they frequently use AI tools or rely on them for their work.

Other

Mark Cuban warns that insurers will find new ways to make money as their pharmacy benefit management companies, the top three of which fill 80% of US prescriptions, come under increasing scrutiny.

Sponsor Updates

Netsmart staff donate 500 books to their local libraries in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a case study titled “How Celerate Developed a Secure, Clinician-Ready AI Chatbot for Neurologists.”
Judi Health launches The Judi Group, a healthcare benefits advisory firm.
PerfectServe announces that it has been recognized as both highest in execution and furthest in vision in the “2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Clinical Communication and Collaboration.”
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust in England goes live on Altera Digital Health’s EPrescribing and Medicine Administration technology.
Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Anita Vanka, MD and Robert Stern, MD.
“The Achieve Podcast” features Switchboard Health co-founder and CEO Derek Baird.
Tegria publishes a new case study titled “Integrated Meditech Implementation, Hosting, and Application Support Transform Operations.”
WellSky releases a new report titled “Addressing today’s healthcare workforce challenges: Results from a national study.”
Zen Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper titled “The CMS ACCESS Model: What Health Technology Leaders Need to Know.”

Blog Posts

CIO Forum Focus Group Recap: Overcome Healthcare IT Resource Gaps with Meaningful Managed Services (Med Tech Solutions)
Governing the Digital Front Door: Why Hospital Boards Must Lead Digital Governance and Organizational Alignment in the Next 5 Years (Impact Advisors)
Shadow AI: Providers are using unapproved tools to improve workflow (Wolters Kluwer Health)
We measure everything in healthcare… except what matters (Nordic)
3 Steps to Autonomous Coding Success: Assessing Your Organizational Challenges (Before You Talk to Vendors!) (Nym)
From Friction to Orchestration: How Top Health Systems Are Reimagining the Consumer Experience (Praia Health)
Epic Space Bridge™ – An HL7 Interface Message Transformation Solution (CereCore)

Contacts

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

News 1/23/26

January 22, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

ECRI publishes its “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2026,” with misuse of chatbots topping the list.

ECRI says that unregulated chatbots give users expert-sounding responses, but have offered incorrect diagnoses, recommended unnecessary tests, promoted questionable supplies, and based answers on body parts they made up.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Companies exhibiting at ViVE and/or HIMSS, you are about to spend a small fortune on a well-lit, carpeted rectangle that you will occupy for a few exhausting hours while handing out geegaws. For a tiny fraction of that spend, you can claim a different rectangle, this one virtual and this one lasting 365 days, on HIStalk. It is read obsessively by the people who buy, influence, complain about, and occasionally approve health IT purchases. Black Book Research, in a health tech media analysis that found this amateurish and cynical site to be #1 for industry trust and influence, puts it this way: “HIStalk stands out for its influence, independence, and continued relevance to the decision-makers shaping the future of health IT.” Contact Lorre, who has a soft spot for new sponsors that sometimes leads her to offer perks that she glosses over when telling me.

Listening: Porcupine Tree, a 40-year-old English progressive rock band whose “In Absentia” popped up at me.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Harmony Healthcare IT acquires Meditech solutions provider Blue Elm.

OpenEvidence confirms earlier reports that it recently raised $250 million in a Series D funding round that values the company at $12 billion. The company says that physicians used its system to treat 100 million patients last year and requested 18 million clinical consultations in December 2025 alone.

People

Health data management platform vendor Health Chain names Eric Rosow, MS (Conduce Health) as CEO and Reed Perry, MBA (Availity) as chief commercial officer.

Valerie Mondelli, RPh, MBA (Iodine Software) joins DrFirst as chief commercial officer.

Announcements and Implementations

VectorCare launches Smart on FHIR as a Service, which incudes a no-code workflow builder and developer tools for building and deploying EHR-embedded applications.

The Washington Post covers Epic’s lawsuit that alleges that Health Gorilla knowingly provided treatment access to patient records by law firms that were looking for malpractice plaintiffs.

In England, Slingshot AI takes its therapy chatbot down over uncertainty about its compliance with medical device regulations. The company launched the therapy bot Ash in mid-2025.

Government and Politics

The federal government’s Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) will resume its meetings on February 19 following a year-long hiatus that was imposed by the White House. Both co-chairs of HITAC, which advises ASTP/ONC, resigned last week. The committee is scheduled to meet four times in 2026.

Epic files an answer to a Texas lawsuit that alleges that the company is a monopoly and violates Texas laws by blocking parents’ access to their child’s Epic medical records. In its response:

Texas has not substantiated its claim that Epic is a monopoly.
The state’s presumption that antitrust laws require Epic to provide free API access to any company, including competitors, is not supported by law.
Antitrust laws do not prohibit Epic from sharing its software update plans with customers, as the lawsuit alleges.
Despite a six-month investigation by State Attorney General Ken Paxton, the complaint relies on dated press releases, blog posts, and excerpts from Particle Health’s lawsuit against Epic.
Epic created a guide that told its customers how to comply with the new Texas law about parental access, but ultimately those customers control access to patient records.
The lawsuit does not identify any Epic customer that has not complied with the law.
Epic’s response concludes, “What appears to be going on here is that the State has decided to target Epic over a politicized issue regarding proxy access that Epic does not belong in the middle of. The State confirms as much in its press release, calling Epic a ‘woke corporation’ that supposedly “undermines” parents’ rights. That simply is not true.”

Sponsor Updates

Springhill Medical Center goes live on Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise 25.1.
Black Book Research releases two new reports to help rural hospitals and critical access hospitals convert state awards into audit-ready implementation and accelerate vendor selection.
Ellkay sponsors the 2026 AdvancedMD Sales Kickoff.
Meditech announces Expanse Outpatient Therapy.
Findhelp adds mental and behavioral health provider data company MiResource to its Behavioral Health Network.
Fortified Health Security will host a roundtable dinner focused on current healthcare cybersecurity trends and patient protection strategies January 27 in Cincinnati.
Health Data Movers will sponsor the CHIME Innovation Summit February 4-6 in Orlando.
MRO releases a new report titled “2026 State of the Industry: Navigating Health Policy and Market Shifts with Smarter Data.”

Blog Posts

Innovation starts with strong digital foundations (Altera Digital Health)
Why Enterprise Healthcare Faces Different EHR Challenges in 2026 (Bizmatics)
C-Suite Briefing: Top Health IT Trends and Takeaways from the 12th Annual HIT Industry Outlook Report (Med Tech Solutions)
Epic Space Bridge – An HL7 Interface Message Transformation Solution (CereCore)
What Healthcare Providers Need to Know About Qualified Overtime Reporting (Healthcare IT Leaders)
Ensuring Success During Your Epic Refuel Project (Impact Advisors)
Finding the Right Balance for Operating Room Utilization (LiveData)
VBC under pressure: Five insights from the front lines (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 1/21/26

January 20, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

A preliminary VA Office of Inspector General report finds that the Veterans Health Administration doesn’t properly oversee its use of generative AI chatbots, potentially compromising patient safety. The report looked at the department’s use of its internally developed VA GPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot chat, both of which depend on clinical prompts. Neither tool has access to web searches, which means their knowledge bases are not current.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The preview of my ViVE Guide on what HIStalk sponsors will be doing at the conference is live. More companies will be added as they complete the information form, so check back for updates.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Australia-based 4DMedical raises $100 million in funding, which it will use to accelerate US adoption of its FDA-cleared, software-based lung imaging system that is used by several major US health systems.

People

Clearwater promotes David Bailey to VP, consulting solutions and strategy.

AdventHealth promotes Sarah Myers to regional CIO for AdventHealth Mid-America Region.

Sonney Sapra, MBA (Samaritan Health Services) joins UVA Health as CIO.

US Army veteran Elder Granger, MD joins MedSync as EVP for medical affairs and CMO.

Ovatient promotes Yasir Tarabichi, MD to head of digital; Jamie Carracher to head of growth and brand; and Amy Lukowski, PsyD to VP of operations and integration.

Announcements and Implementations

Nurses at Children’s Mercy (OH) use the Helen app to route non-clinical tasks to a dedicated concierge team.

BioticsAI gains FDA clearance for its AI-drive fetal ultrasound product.

Aultman Health System (OH) implements Nabla’s AI-based clinical documentation software.

In England, three Norfolk hospitals will delay go-live of their $118 million Meditech Expanse project, citing factors that include the work that is required to adapt the system for the NHS.

A Baltimore theater will host a March 19 screening of “Suck it Up, Buttercup,” a documentary that calls out the dysfunctional US healthcare system that is driven by “corporate greed that’s filling coffers and coffins.” Both executive producers are physicians.

Other

Cleveland Clinic opens the Rubinstein Family Hospital Care at Home Suite, which serves as a technology command center for its hospital-at-home programs in Florida and Ohio. The suite was developed using a grant from Jon Rubinstein, an investor and technology executive who helped spearhead development of the iPod and iMac.

AdventHealth will enhance its virtual care capabilities by installing an additional 800 cameras in patient rooms at its hospitals and urgent care centers in Colorado over the next several months.

University of Nebraska Medical Center researchers determine that embedding a standardized glucose management protocol into its EHR helps perioperative care teams better control the blood sugar levels of diabetic patients.

A Michigan Medicine study of 800 clinicians finds that those who disengage from work-related apps during non-working hours report feeling less stressed than those who don’t. Those who reported lower levels of stress were advised to turn on out-of-office replies to email and reduce screen time or delete work apps from their personal devices during their time away from work.

Sponsor Updates

AdvancedMD announces that Software Advice has listed its EHR technology in its “Best Ophthalmology EMR Software of 2025” report.
Linus Health reflects on its successes in advancing brain health in 2025.

Blog Posts

5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Can Improve Clinical Denial Management (AGS Health)
AdvancedMD Top Predictions for AI in 2026: More Time with Patients, Less Burnout and Improved Personalized Care Models (AdvancedMD)
Looking back, leaping forward: Healthcare AI predictions for 2026 (Cardamom)
CIO Forum Focus Group Recap: Overcome Healthcare IT Resource Gaps with Meaningful Managed Services (Med Tech Solutions)
Increasing healthcare access through expanded nurse mobility and simplification of licensure (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Better, faster, stronger: How Paragon is leveraging AI internally (Altera Digital Health)
Top 5 Ambulatory EHR Vendors That Clinics Trust (Bizmatics)
Elevating the patient experience: They’re already telling you how (Cardamom)
Healthcare IT in 2026: Why Cloud Migration Matters for AI Adoption (Concord Technologies)
Optimizing Healthcare IT Scaling: A Strategic Model for Resource Augmentation and Project Acceleration (CTG)

Contacts

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

HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026

January 20, 2026 News Comments Off

Agfa HealthCare

Booth 2203

Contact: Steven Wilkes, senior director of sales
steven.wilkes@agfa.com
859.302.1903

Agfa HealthCare is a global leader in enterprise imaging, helping health systems simplify complexity while scaling imaging across the enterprise. At ViVE 2026, Agfa HealthCare will showcase its cloud- and SaaS-enabled Enterprise Imaging Platform, designed to support long-term flexibility, operational efficiency, and clinical collaboration. Built for today’s CIO priorities, the platform enables organizations to consolidate imaging and modernize architecture without disruption. Attendees should seek out AGFA HealthCare to explore practical strategies for managing imaging at scale across departments, service lines, and care settings. The team brings deep experience partnering with large, complex health systems navigating digital transformation. Visit Agfa HealthCare at booth 2203 to learn how enterprise imaging can become a strategic asset — not a burden.

Altera Digital Health

Meeting Cube 350

Contact: Heewon Shin, segment marketing manager
heewon.shin@alterahealth.com

A global healthcare IT leader, Altera Digital Health develops and elevates technology to bring next-level healthcare within reach. Altera’s approach to our solutions is changing the way healthcare is delivered. We see the summit of what healthcare can be, but rather than total transformation, we’re focused on helping organizations take the steps they need to get there.

At ViVE, we’re excited to showcase how Altera is addressing the top challenges healthcare providers and payers are facing today by enabling interoperability and data-sharing, strengthening financial stability, and leveraging AI to help alleviate clinical and administrative burden. Stop by our meeting cube (#350) to meet with our experts and learn more about how Altera can help you deliver next-level care. Click here to schedule a meeting. For more, visit www.alterahealth.com.

Artera

Booth V-835

Contact: Adrianna Hosford, chief communications officer and head of marketing
adrianna.hosford@artera.io
833.234.9355

Artera is the proven agentic healthcare company, leveraging a decade of deep expertise to support 2 billion patient communications annually. Our solutions empower humans and AI agents to work together to fix patient communications across text, phone, and web, unifying the entire patient journey – from scheduling and intake to billing and more. Trusted by over 1,000 healthcare organizations (including specialty groups, FQHCs, large IDNs, and federal agencies), Artera directly increases staff efficiency, boosts patient engagement, and improves the provider bottom line, helping patients get the care they need with simplicity and speed.

Join us at ViVE to experience our fully autonomous AI Agents in action. We’ll demonstrate how these agents manage a range of complex workflows (scheduling, FAQ resolution, appointment management, and more) to reduce staff burden and improve the patient experience. Stop by our booth to connect with our experts and explore strategies for optimizing patient access, implementing AI-driven patient communication, and much more. Plus, receive a $25 Amazon gift card when you schedule and attend a meeting with an Artera team member. As an added bonus, you’ll be entered to win an iPad Pro in our post-event raffle. Schedule a meeting with our team here.

Cardamom

Contact Adam Dial to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Adam Dial, chief customer officer
adam@cardamom.health
608.469.6154

Cardamom is a minority-owned, technology-forward health IT professional services company serving healthcare providers, payers, and health IT organizations. With a team-based, AI- and automation-first approach focused on committed outcomes, Cardamom helps customers more effectively use data, analytics, AI, and applications to improve care quality, reduce costs, and enhance patient and provider experiences. Cardamom is also committed to growing industry talent by hiring high-potential team members without prior health IT experience and providing comprehensive training and mentorship to deliver industry-leading results. For more about Cardamom, visit https://cardamom.health.

Team Cardamom is excited to attend ViVE! Join us and Vitea for cocktails and appetizers on Monday, February 23 from 6:00-8:00pm in the Pico Boardroom (8th floor) at the Moxy Hotel. We can’t wait to connect!

CereCore

Booth 1154 in the Club CHIME Lounge

Contact: Phil Sobol, CCO
Phil.Sobol@CereCore.net
615.344.4169

CereCore works behind the scenes to empower hospitals and health systems with IT services around the nation and globe. Looking for IT and application support, technical professional and managed services, strategic IT consulting and advisory services, or EHR consulting? Let’s meet so we can help you find EHR experts to maximize your investment, tap into support desk solutions that will result in happier users and providers, supplement your technical and support teams, and connect you with the right talent so you can better manage IT operations. Find meaningful change with CereCore’s healthcare IT managed services. See you in the Club CHIME Lounge at ViVE26.

Clearsense

Booth 1741

Contact: Kära Freeman, senior director, revenue operations
kfreeman@clearsense.com
612.747.2134

Gartner’s “2026 CIO and Technology Executive Survey” shows cost optimization is the number one priority shaping CIO objectives over the next two years.

Join us live on the Palm Stage at ViVE on Monday, February 23 at 4:30pm for the CHIME-curated case study panel, “IT Cost Optimization and Enterprise Strategy.” This featured session brings together Clearsense CEO Jason Rose with Trinity Health Chief IT Strategy Officer Mike Prokic and CTO and VP of Product Engineering Nick O’Connor for a candid discussion on how application decommissioning can be transformed into a scalable financial strategy. Trinity Health will share its roadmap for eliminating nearly $80 million in recurring operating expenses, offering a practical blueprint for any health system looking to drive cost optimization while protecting its workforce — without compromising patient care.

Clearsense will also be available for one-on-one discussions throughout the event. For health systems looking to reduce financial waste, manage merger-related complexity, or advance digital transformation initiatives, this is an opportunity to explore one of the most powerful — and underused — levers available to health systems today.

Visit us at booth 1741 or schedule a meeting in advance using our booking link.

About Clearsense
Clearsense is a healthcare data-enablement platform designed to help health systems optimize operating costs while revitalizing access to data. The 1Clearsense Platform enables large-scale decommissioning of redundant legacy applications using a disciplined, assembly line–style approach that prioritizes speed and cost impact. By retiring legacy systems while preserving access to historical data through active archiving, Clearsense helps organizations eliminate ongoing costs tied to licensing, infrastructure, and support while establishing a stronger data foundation for analytics, AI, and research. Learn more at clearsense.com.

Clearwater

Booth 618 in the Cybersecurity Zone

Contact: Lisa Munro, director of marketing
lisa.munro@clearwatersecurity.com
205.767.9141

Clearwater is healthcare’s largest pure play cybersecurity and compliance firm helping organizations across the healthcare ecosystem move to a more secure, compliant, and resilient state so they can achieve their missions. We provide a deep pool of experts across a broad range of cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance domains; purpose-built software that enables efficient identification and management of cybersecurity and compliance risks; managed cloud services; and a 24/7 Security Operations Center with managed threat detection and response capabilities.

Visit us in the Cybersecurity Zone to experience our latest innovations and connect with our team about the future of cybersecurity, data integrity, and digital resilience in healthcare. Be sure to catch our presentations in the Cybersecurity Data Innovation theater:

Wearing Two Hats: A CIO/CISO Case Study in Cyber Resilience (Monday, February 23, 1:35-1:55pm)
When ransomware struck and key security leaders departed, Enloe Health faced the reality many community hospitals know well – limited resources, expanding risk, and one leader wearing multiple hats. In this candid discussion, Enloe Health’s CIO and CISO will share how the organization rebuilt its cybersecurity program, regained leadership trust, and strengthened resilience without overextending staff. Attendees will walk away with practical insights for navigating cyber incidents, staffing constraints, and executive accountability in small-to-mid-sized healthcare environments.

When the Cloud Becomes the Attack Surface (Tuesday, February 24, 10:05-10:25am)
Healthcare organizations are moving fast to the cloud, but security models haven’t always kept pace. In this fireside chat, a healthcare cloud security architect and healthcare security leader will unpack the most common cloud misconfigurations, identity mistakes, and visibility gaps hospitals encounter and why they’re so hard to detect. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to manage cloud risk across complex, multi-cloud environments without overwhelming internal teams.

Clinical Architecture

Booth 1241

Contact: Marck DuBois, chief revenue officer
marck_dubois@clinicalarchitecture.com
317.580.8400

Meaningful outcomes start with high-quality data. Our data quality solutions give you the ability to objectively assess and improve patient information, normalize and uplift data, and transform message formats. Visit booth 1241 to learn more about the PIQXL Gateway, our implementation of the PIQI framework, which allows you to measure the quality of patient information and pinpoint the root cause of issues for improvement.

EFax by Consensus Cloud Solutions

Booth 1918

Contact: Alyssa Stephens, events
alyssa.stephens@consensus.com
844.804.1234

Visit the EFax by Consensus Cloud Solutions booth at ViVE to see how we’re turning healthcare’s biggest data bottleneck into your greatest clinical advantage. We’re going far beyond traditional faxing by using AI, NLP, and machine learning to transform static, unstructured documents into structured, HL7-ready data. Don’t let critical patient insights stay trapped in digital scans — learn how our automated data extraction slashes administrative burden, accelerates treatment, and drives revenue for providers and payers alike. Stop by booth 1918 for a free latte and watch a live demo of your data in motion to see why the future of the continuum of care is no longer unstructured.

CTG

Booth 1125 & Booth 318 in the Cybersecurity Zone

Contact: Sarah Blafer, marketing team lead, demand generation
Sarah.Blafer@ctg.com
860.942.2180

CTG, a Cegeka company, delivers IT and business solutions that enhance digital agility. Over the last 35-plus years, we’ve supported more than 1,000 healthcare organizations, empowering them to modernize systems, improve performance, and advance digital initiatives with innovative services and technologies. Our expertise spans EHR implementation and managed services, cybersecurity, ERP, cloud, infrastructure, IT/application support, and clinical optimization. Visit CTG at booths 1125 and 318 to learn more.

Divurgent

Club CHIME

Contact: Danny Arnold, EVP of growth and strategy
Danny.Arnold@divurgent.com
518.495.2594

Divurgent is a full-service, healthcare-focused/HIT consulting firm led by people you actually want to work with. We’re one of the only firms out there that has your back for the whole journey. We can help you select an EHR or tool, implement it, staff it, bring you live, optimize it, and more. Three-hundred sixty degrees. Most of our focus is on EHRs, but we do much more than that. We think beyond the system and below the surface. Think workflow, digital strategy, operational readiness, change management and more. Sure, we can help augment your talent or get boots on the ground, but we’re most excited by helping you solve your most complex challenges. Our consultants have worked for health systems, so they’ve been in your shoes and understand operations and clinical demands. Give us a problem and we’ll solve it together. And before we do any of that, we listen.

Ellkay

Booth 1516

Contact: Morgan Hassell, marketing director of communications
morgan.hassell@ELLKAY.com
602.663.0529

Ellkay is a trusted healthcare data enablement partner helping payers, providers, labs, and health IT companies simplify interoperability and build AI-ready data foundations. Through our modern platform and deep healthcare expertise, we help organizations connect, manage, and optimize data across their ecosystem — without adding complexity.

At ViVE, meet with Team Ellkay to learn how we help organizations:

Streamline workflows and reduce operational friction.
Simplify data exchange across systems, partners, and networks.
Build scalable, secure data strategies that support innovation.

Why stop by? If you’re navigating fragmented data, legacy systems, or growing interoperability demands, Ellkay brings both the technology and the expertise to help you move faster with confidence.

Special Events
Join us for Happy Hour at booth 1516 — both days! Stop by to connect with our team, enjoy a drink, and see how Ellkay is powering seamless interoperability behind the scenes.

Want to plan ahead? Set some time with us here. Let’s connect — and raise a glass to better healthcare data.

Elsevier’s ClinicalKey AI

Booth 1041 in the AI @ ViVE Zone

Contact: Meg Maguire, events manager
m.maguire@elsevier.com

Discover how ClinicalKey AI can support clinical decision-making at the point of care. Visit booth 1041 in the AI @ ViVE Zone and join our expert speaker session. Physician Executive Claudine Lott, MD will present on implementing AI at scale on Monday, February 23, and CTO Rhett Alden will present on API-enabled AI content integration on Tuesday, February 24. See how trusted content and AI can streamline workflows and elevate patient care.

Five9

Booth 2049

Contact: Roni Jamesmeyer, senior healthcare marketing manager
roni.jamesmeyer@five9.com
972.768.6554

Five9 provides a comprehensive suite of CX solutions, powered by Five9 Genius AI, to elevate customer experiences that deliver better business outcomes in the cloud contact center space. The New CX redefines how brands connect with customers through seamless and efficient AI-driven journeys that anticipate and meet each customer’s unique needs. Our unified cloud-native offering enables AI and human agents to create hyper-personalized customer experiences, so every customer interaction is more connected, effortless, and personal. Trusted by 3,000+ customers and 1,400+ partners globally, Five9 brings together the power of our AI, our platform, and our people to drive AI-elevated CX. For more information, visit www.five9.com.

Get-to-Market Health

Contact Steve Shihadeh to arrange a meeting

Contact: Steve Shihadeh, founder and CEO
steve@gettomarkethealth.net

We partner with healthcare technology leaders to accelerate growth, strengthen go-to-market execution, and build lasting customer relationships. Whether navigating post-investment expansion or launching new solutions, GTMH helps companies market, sell, and scale in ways that drive sustainable success. “Driving Growth in Healthcare Technology”

Health Data Movers

Contact Brooke Foster to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Brooke Foster, marketing coordinator
Brooke@HealthDataMovers.com
847.404.0326

Health Data Movers (HDM) is a healthcare technology services firm. We are trusted partners to healthcare organizations, biotechnology companies, and digital health enterprises through our services – data management, integration, project management, and clinical and business applications. We are the smart choice for creating unique solutions that empower patients and providers by unleashing the potential of healthcare data and technology.

Find us at our focus group, “Conversions without Chaos: Strategic Planning for High Stakes Healthcare Data Migration,” on Sunday, February 22 at 4:15pm.

Join Health Data Movers and CitiusTech on Tuesday, February 24 from 6:00-9:00pm for Data & Drinks After Dark at ViVE! RSVP here, space is limited!

We Make IT Happen! Visit www.healthdatamovers.com.

Impact Advisors

Contact John Stanley to arrange a meeting.

Contact John Stanley, chief growth officer
john.stanley@impact-advisors.com
562.243.4937

Impact Advisors is a leading healthcare management consulting firm committed to solving the industry’s emerging and evolving challenges through tech-enabled operations performance improvement. Our high-performing team of clinical, financial, operations, and technology experts collaborate to architect quality solutions and deliver measurable value for our clients. We are the most awarded consulting firm in healthcare, with services recognized among Best in KLAS for 18 consecutive years and a culture deemed a “Best Place to Work” by Modern Healthcare for 16 years.

Med Tech Solutions

Contact Kaitlyn Nelson to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Kaitlyn Nelson, director of account solutions and development
knelson@medtechsolutions.com

Stoltenberg Consulting, a leading healthcare technology consulting firm and proud Med Tech Solutions (MTS) brand, helps hospitals and health systems maximize the value of their EHR systems. With deep clinical and financial module expertise across Epic, Oracle Cerner, Meditech, NextGen, eClinicalWorks, and Veradigm, Stoltenberg’s EHR-certified consultants bring an average of 15+ years of real-world hospital experience to every engagement. Earning 3x Best in KLAS recognition for Partial IT Outsourcing, Stoltenberg specializes in EHR implementation, managed services including help desk and legacy system support, go-live command centers and ATE support, and flexible staffing solutions. Focused on reducing EHR burden, lowering support costs, and improving clinician and patient experience, Stoltenberg partners with healthcare organizations nationwide to drive meaningful, measurable outcomes for EHR improvement. No matter where you are in your EHR journey, partner with Stoltenberg and the MTS family of brands to help you make the most of your technology investment.

Director of Account Solutions and Development Kaitlyn Nelson and Chief Client Officer Imran Siddiqui will be on site at ViVE26. Please submit meeting requests here.

Medicomp Systems

Booth 2329

Contact: James Aita, director of business development and strategy
info@medicomp.com
703.803.8080

Medicomp delivers the industry’s only physician-curated universal data foundation, transforming healthcare data into trusted intelligence through its evidence-based Clinical Intelligence Engine, Quippe. Quippe connects information across domains, normalizes every input, and validates AI outputs to ensure accurate, interoperable insights at the point of care — fueling innovation, improving accuracy, and unlocking the full value of clinical data.

Medicomp will be showcasing entirely new functionality that streamlines clinical workflow, combining technologies like ambient listening, natural language processing (NLP), Model Context Protocol (MCP), and leveraging its universal data foundation and knowledge graph to deliver the efficient, intelligent clinical workspace that clinicians have been craving.

The gap between data and understanding is probably costing you – in denied claims, compliance penalties, technology ROI, clinician burnout, and patient safety risks.

Stop by the Medicomp booth to learn how your systems can benefit from:

Clinically validated LLM outputs.
Diagnostic intelligence that understands context, is evidence-based, and makes disparate data computable.
Clinical grade agents based on a universal data foundation.

Solve the data reliability problem with diagnostically intelligent clinical data solutions.

To learn more, visit Medicomp.com.

MRO

Booth V-330

Contact: Brad Hawkins, VP of payer solutions
BHawkins@mrocorp.com
601.405.2470

MRO is “The Single Source for Smarter Data” – driving a new era of clinical data intelligence where data is connected, structured, and transformed into actionable insights. The result – confident decisions, operational precision, accelerated research, and most importantly, better patient care. This innovative model for clinical data management is built for speed and scale, combining FHIR-native connectivity, deep clinical expertise, and advanced automation to turn a fragmented healthcare ecosystem into a connected pathway where every data point delivers impact. The outcome is a faster, smarter, more secure platform for managing enterprise clinical data that drives better outcomes and creates revenue-generating opportunities for our client partners, while enhancing security, compliance, and clinical integrity. With 24 years of trusted solutions and partnerships, MRO knows that a stronger healthcare ecosystem begins with smarter data, leading to data-driven decisions and better performance. Learn more at www.mrocorp.com.

Nordic

Meeting Room 547

Contact: Rebecca Whaley, SVP of marketing
Rebecca.Whaley@NordicGlobal.com

Navigating the flux of the healthcare landscape takes a seasoned partner who can envision technology’s role in your organization’s success and execute the right plan.

With a singular focus on healthcare and proven experience, Nordic understands the big picture and is ready to take on your toughest technology and business challenges.

Connect with us at meeting room 547 to discuss our end-to-end solutions and how they can help you solve for today and tomorrow. Reserve your spot!

Nordic is also proud to sponsor CHIME’s ViVE Welcome Reception for CHIME members. Connect with members of our team on Sunday, February 22, from 5:30-7:00pm at the JW Marriott Los Angeles.

Learn more about what Nordic is doing at ViVE 2026 here.

Optimum Healthcare IT

Booth 2202

Contact: Larry Kaiser, CMO
lkaiser@optimumhit.com

Optimum Healthcare IT is a Best in KLAS healthcare IT digital transformation and consulting firm based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Optimum’s comprehensive service offerings include Enterprise Application Services, Digital Transformation, and Workforce Management, which features our Optimum CareerPath skill development program. Backed by a leadership team with extensive expertise, we deliver tailored healthcare consulting solutions to diverse organizations.

Optimum Healthcare IT has the right pit crew at the right time for your organization. We prepare you for the track and keep you on the track with each of our specialized crew members. You have desired and required outcomes; we make sure you meet them.

Make a Pit Stop at:

Booth 2202
CHIME Stage on February 24 at 3:30pm – From Tune-Up to Top Speed: How 2 Major Health Systems Achieved Cloud Success
Sunset Stage on February 25 at 9:25am – Reducing Clinician and IT Burden with Just One Click

PerfectServe

Booth 1665

Contact: Jenn Corcoran, senior marketing manager
jcorcoran@perfectserve.com
802.379.5352

Struggling with after-hours coverage, missed handoffs, or “who’s on call?” confusion? At ViVE, PerfectServe is offering complimentary 15-minute workflow reviews for healthcare leaders who want to identify gaps in their communication and scheduling processes – and leave with clear, practical next steps. In 15 minutes, we’ll:

Walk through any visitor’s current communication and scheduling workflow.
Identify failure points that create delays, burnout, or risk.
Highlight opportunities to simplify, automate, or integrate with the EHR.
Share how peers are addressing similar challenges.

Visitors will leave with a clearer picture of where things break down, practical ideas to take back to teammates, and a benchmarked perspective from other health systems.

Who should book time? This is ideal for CMOs, CIOs, and COOs; clinical operations leaders; IT leaders responsible for clinical communication; physician and nursing leadership; and scheduling managers. Book a review here.

Why PerfectServe?
PerfectServe helps health systems accelerate speed to care by bringing communication and scheduling into a single, EHR-integrated platform. We help organizations create a single source of truth for staff scheduling; enable secure, role-based care team communication; power a reliable clinical contact center; and, finally, answer, with confidence, “Who’s on call right now?”

Praia Health

Contact Scott North to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Scott North, VP of partnerships
scott.north@praiahealth.com

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.

TeamBuilder

Booth 1667

Contact: Taylor Bockweg, VP of sales
taylor@teambuilder.io

TeamBuilder is the Operational Intelligence platform for healthcare scheduling, purpose-built for ambulatory care. Traditional scheduling tools rely on static rules, staffing ratios, or forecast-only models that fail to reflect how care is actually delivered. TeamBuilder takes a fundamentally different approach. Its intelligence evaluates multiple operational signals — including appointment complexity, provider mix, staffing capabilities, throughput constraints, and available clinical space — to understand true demand and capacity. By modeling supply as capability rather than headcount and continuously re-optimizing as conditions change, TeamBuilder enables predictive scheduling for both staff and space. This allows healthcare organizations to move from reactive schedule management to proactive operational planning. The result is clearer visibility into capacity, improved access, and reduced labor inefficiency across clinics, specialties, and regions.

Monday Morning Update 1/19/26

January 18, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

A McKinsey report predicts that healthcare services and technology will continue as the fastest-growing segment in healthcare. It expects providers and payers to increase outsourcing to tech and platform companies.

McKinsey projects that nearly half of healthcare profits by 2029 will come from software, platforms, data, and analytics, with traditional admin and consulting services growing slowly or shrinking.

The authors expect federal funding for the Rural Health Transformation Program to drive adoption of telehealth and AI tools.

Payers that saw margins drop due to higher utilization and regulatory actions will face a decline of up to 30% in EBITDA from their ACA and Medicaid segments due to disenrollment driven by ACA subsidy expiration and impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents say that hospitals, like all other investors, put their money down primarily because they expect it to grow.

New poll to your right or here: What is the top industry takeaway from Kaiser Permanente’s settlement of Medicare Advantage overbilling allegations? These settlements always make me wonder whether a health system clearly violated the law, or whether vague coding rules come bundled with the unreasonable expectation that health systems will just forgo extra revenue to be responsibly nice.

The paucity of recent health tech news suggests that everybody is on hold while they digest never-ending federal government changes that affect payments, a shifting regulatory environment, and having thunder stolen by AI froth. I’m not paid by the word or column-inch, so today’s short post gifts you free time.

HIStalk sponsors who are participating in the ViVE conference can send me your information to be included in my online guide. New this year: for more exposure and less work for me, I will post the guide immediately and update it as additional sponsors submit their details, which also creates an incentive to respond early.

Ms. G from Hope Mills, NC sent over this unpacking photo of the science kits that her fifth graders received courtesy of reader donations to her Donors Choose project. She reports, “We have officially received the science kits, and they have already made a huge impact in our classroom. The moment the boxes arrived, my students were buzzing with excitement and could not wait to explore what was inside. As they opened the kits, they eagerly examined the materials, asked questions, and started making connections to what they already know about science … Thank you for helping bring hands-on, joyful science learning into our classroom.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

People

Linus Health promotes Curt Thornton, MBA, MHS to president, Connected Care and names Chief Customer and Administrative Officer Leah Ray to the additional role of president, US healthcare.

Announcements and Implementations

SmartSense by Digi launches SmartSense One, a modular, scalable IoT operations platform that merges the capabilities of SmartSense and its acquired Jolt for unified monitoring, compliance, safety, and workflow management.

Other

Cerner co-founder Cliff Illig and his family sell a majority stake in the Major League Soccer Sporting KC for a record valuation of $700 million. He bought the team in 2006 with a group of six local investors, which also included his Cerner co-founder Neal Patterson, for a reported $20 million.

Two women who were fired by businesses owned by a Huntsville, AL doctor file a sexual harassment lawsuit, alleging that the doctor forced them on multiple occasions to shave his legs. One of the plaintiffs notes in the complaint that “he was wearing lime green underwear.”

Sponsor Updates

Altera Digital Health promotes Lindsey Honig to marketing communications manager.
Black Book Research releases its “2026 Physician Practice Management Solutions Report.”
Impact Advisors releases a new success story titled “Building a Scalable Quality Reporting Framework.”
Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Steve Peltzman and Tim Woodward.
ReferWell will exhibit at the Medicare Advantage Leadership Innovations conference January 21-22 in Buena Vista, FL.
Symplr releases a new case study titled “Health First & Nebraska Methodist: A Blueprint for Value Analysis Excellence.”
TruBridge will host its National Client Conference April 7-10 in Dallas.
Waystar will exhibit at EClinicalWorks Day January 21 in Houston.

Blog Posts

A Guide to the Use of AI in Healthcare: Deploying a Realistic Approach (Med Tech Solutions)
Power to the people: Why digital healthcare transformations fail without effective change management (Nordic)
Healthcare PMO Expert Answers Top Project Management Questions (Optimum Healthcare IT)
The Opportunity Cost of Your Old Hospital Switchboard (PerfectServe)
Patients Win with Prescription Price Transparency (Surescripts)
Elevating the patient experience: They’re already telling you how (Cardamom)
All-payer OASIS documentation & accuracy: What home health agencies need to know (WellSky)
CEO Letter: Reflecting on 2025 and Building the Infrastructure for 2026 (VectorCare)
5 Things Health Tech Leaders Need to Know About ACCESS (Zen Healthcare IT)

Contacts

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

News 1/16/26

January 15, 2026 News 2 Comments

Top News

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

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

Reader Comments

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

Sales

Advanced Health chooses 1upHealth’s data interoperability platform.

People

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

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

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

Komodo Health names Amit Sangani (Meta) as CTO.

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

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

Government and Politics

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

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

Privacy and Security

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

News 1/14/26

January 13, 2026 News 3 Comments

Top News

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

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

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

Reader Comments

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sales

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

People

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

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

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

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

Announcements and Implementations

HCA Healthcare implements Meditech at 43 hospitals.

Waystar adds agentic AI to its revenue cycle solutions.

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

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

Other

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

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

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

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 1/12/26

January 11, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

People

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

Other

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

News 1/9/26

January 8, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

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

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

Reader Comments

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

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

Sales

Lifepoint Health chooses ambient documentation from IScribeHealth.

People

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

Imprivata promotes Tom Shapiro to VP of cybersecurity sales.

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

Government and Politics

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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News 1/7/26

January 6, 2026 News 4 Comments

Top News

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

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

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Sales

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

People

InterSystems promotes Don Woodlock to president.

MDAudit promotes Nisheet Goenka, MSEE to CTO.

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

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

Atropos Health promotes Kevin Smith to chief growth officer.

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

Government and Politics

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

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

Other

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Monday Morning Update 1/5/26

January 4, 2026 News Comments Off

Top News

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

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

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

Reader Comments

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

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

People

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

Other

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

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News 12/31/25

December 30, 2025 News 7 Comments

Top News

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

Reader Comments

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

People

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

Government and Politics

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

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

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

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