Monday Morning Update 3/17/25

Top News

Several private equity firms have submitted bids to acquire revenue cycle management company AGS Health at a valuation of around $1 billion.

The company’s Sweden-based investment firm owner paid $320 million for the company in 2019.

The 14,000 employees of AGS work from offices in India, the Philippines, and the US.

Reader Comments

From Borat: “Re: Epic Research. Who needs the CDC now, Elon? Kidding, but only sort of. You can’t beat the recency of the data versus the 3-4 year delay in CDC reports.” Epic Research enables the rapid sharing of vetted insights that are drawn from Epic’s Cosmos database of the de-identified patient data from customers. As the organization puts it, unlike traditional research and publication as a journal article, “It is designed to make good data available sooner rather than perfect data available too late.” This approach bypasses the lengthy process required for peer-reviewed journal. The CDC has turned to Epic Research for help with urgent public health and pandemic-related issues that couldn’t afford delays. Also, while I’m not sure how the CDC selects its research priorities, their focus likely leans less toward publishing findings that are immediately actionable for health systems. Add in the uncertainty surrounding which CDC projects will be defunded and how many experts it may lose and Epic Research becomes even more appealing. Meanwhile, Larry Ellison has stated that Oracle Health intends to pursue similar real-world evidence research, so it will be interesting to see what they produce. Regardless, the ability to quickly analyze and apply real-world data is an increasingly valuable asset.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents aren’t confident about the 2025 prospects of their employers, with commenters citing federal government dysfunction, potential cuts in Medicaid and Medicare, and the threat of a recession.

New poll to your right or here: What ways have you recently used to reduce the time you spend on unproductive meetings? I didn’t ask how you recognize that a meeting is going to be a waste of time, but here are some signs from years of reading the hospital conference room:

• Nobody seems to know who’s running the meeting, what results are expected, or whether the group has any actual authority.
• The convener starts the meeting late to accommodate tardy invitees, fails to create an agenda with goals, and allows the meeting to end without creating assignments and minutes.
• The attendee count keeps growing because everyone who is affected mistakenly believes that their input is both invaluable and urgently needed.
• Status updates that could have been managed via email become a competitive verbal sport of sounding busy.
• Knowledgeable but quiet attendees let the loud but less-informed attendees dominate.
• Attendees ramble endlessly to make sure that they clock the same amount of suck-up airtime as peers.
• People talk about their feelings or concerns.
• A high-ranking attendee – who may be known for missing meetings, coming in late, or not paying attention – mistakes their trite anecdotes and gut feelings for keen insight that makes it logical for them to override group decisions.
• No actual decisions are made because in hospitals, nobody has the power to say yes, but everyone has the power to say no.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Informa’s annual financial report reveals that it paid $110 million for its July 2023 acquisition of the HIMSS conference. The last pre-COVID HIMSS tax filing from 2019 reported $43 million in conference revenue against $16 million in expenses, suggesting that Informa paid about four times earnings. That would represent about 24% of the total revenue of HIMSS.

People

CTG hires Dan Stoke (Nordic Global) as VP of its US healthcare business. He replaces Christine Blanchard, who is retiring.

Government and Politics

In England, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces plans to dissolve NHS England, which was established in 2013 to oversee NHS funding, policies, and major initiatives like digital health transformation. Its functions will be absorbed by the Department of Health and Social Care, a move the government estimates will save $130 million by eliminating duplicate costs. Of NHS England’s 15,000 employees, 9,000 are expected to lose their jobs as part of the transition.

Government insiders say that White House-mandated HHS cost cutting could reduce ASTP’s headcount from 180 to 30.

Sponsor Updates

• A Black Book Research survey of global health IT buyers and decision-makers outside of the US reveals a growing preference for non-US electronic patient health record providers.
• Optimum Healthcare IT releases a new case study titled “Closing the Workday Skills Gap at OU Health.”
• PerfectServe launches the 2025 Nurses of Note Awards Program with new categories.
• Praia Health publishes a new case study featuring Providence titled “Praia Health delivers standard of digital engagement ROI health systems.”
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, will exhibit at the East Coast CORE Spring Meeting March 19-21 in Tampa, FL.
• TeamBuilder will present at The Millennium Alliance’s Transformation Assembly March 19-20 in Austin, TX.
• WellSky releases a new case study titled “UF Health St. Johns Care Connect: Uniting a community to address social determinants of health.”
• AGS Health, FinThrive, Inovalon, MRO, Nym, SmarterDx, TruBridge, VisiQuate, and Waystar will exhibit at the HFMA Revenue Cycle Conference March 19-21 in San Antonio.

Blog Posts

• How Data Analytics is Transforming A/R Optimization in Healthcare (FinThrive)
• Choosing the Right Medical Billing Software: A Guide for Healthcare Providers (Inovalon)
• A new era in healthcare innovation highlighted at HIMSS 2025 (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Optimizing today, innovating for tomorrow: how dual transformation can enhance Canadian healthcare (Nordic)
• How Do You Find the Budget for Experience Orchestration? (Praia Health)
• Don’t Leave Person Data to Change: Use AI (Rhapsody)
• 5 Guidelines for Researching & Developing Privileging Content (Symplr)
• Reimbursement roundup: Telemedicine, Medicare + reimbursement rate changes in 2025 (Waystar)

Contacts

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

News 3/14/25

Top News

A federal court upholds an injunction that prohibits senior care EHR vendor PointClickCare (PCC) from blocking Real Time Medical Systems (RTMS) from its systems.

The injunction, which was granted in July 2024, found that PCC violated the 21st Century Cures Act by using an unsolvable CAPTCHA to block RTMS’s web-scraping bots that collect skilled nursing data for analytics.

RTMS alleges that PCC took the action after ending discussions to acquire RTMS and instead developed a competing product.

Circuit Court judges agreed that PCC’s actions were anticompetitive and were not justified by its stated cybersecurity concerns.

Reader Comments

From Skeeter: “Re: VA. Is the GAO just beating a dead horse at this point? Yet another report highlights the VA’s failure to follow up on GAO’s previous recommendations related to EHR modernization, which include clarifying the project’s total cost, master schedule, or performance targets.” Meet the new report, same as the old report. Its recommendations are clear and necessary for project completion, even as the VA dodges discussions of cost, timelines, and performance targets that it is unlikely to meet. Oracle Health isn’t going anywhere, thanks to (a) a lack of viable alternatives; and (b) its no-bid selection under Jared Kushner in the first Trump administration, which likely shields it from budget cuts. Oracle has also ingratiated itself with the federal government in ways Cerner never could have, such as making former CMS Administrator Seema Verma the EVP/GM of Oracle Health. Plenty of verbal vaporware has been dispersed from all sides, none of which has scared VA leadership enough to force real commitments or change. Congressional frustration at spending up to $50 billion with little to show for it so far is palpable, most of it aimed at the VA and not Oracle Health, which the DoD implemented just fine.

From AnInteropGuy: “Re: Veradigm. Has performed a RIF, effective Friday. Not sure how many, but the Payer and Life Sciences units have been affected.” Unverified, but entirely likely.

From Barn Burner: “Re: Mark Cuban. Says companies who are buying insurance should hire a healthcare CEO to make benefits decisions rather than allowing an HR leader or insurance broker to run the program.” Cuban observes that healthcare is the only industry where a employer company’s CEO and CFO are blocked from accessing their expense data (such as prescription claims) to help make benefits decisions. Contracts bar executives from discussing pricing or supply with drug manufacturers, who themselves can’t see claims data. He also faults pharmacy benefit managers for not pressuring manufacturers and payers, advocating instead for a pass-through PBM that charges fixed administrative fees rather than profiting from hidden rebates and discounts.

From Slinky: “Re: Epic ERP. I interviewed with Neal Patterson for a position at Cerner in the 1990s. I asked why the company’s plans for Health Network Architecture didn’t include a patient accounting systems. His response was, ‘Why would I want to go spend millions of dollars on a me-too product and think that I can be successful starting with zero percent market share?” That was probably a sound short-term decision as CEO of a publicly traded company, but not so good for future-proofing since patient accounting shortcomings cost Cerner a lot of customers.

From Doggedly: “Re: CHIME. They are taking the HIMSS direction and creating a vendor-friendly media company.” CHIME is looking for a sales pro “with a hunter mentality” to “drive engagement with healthcare technology vendors.” It states HIMSS-like aspirations to “position CHIME as the premier media and research partner for healthcare technology vendors.” I don’t find this objectionable since it’s targeting salespeople. However, it’s a reminder that member organizations love revenue and largely generate it by charging supplier members for access to potential buyer members in publications and conferences, which usually makes “news” synonymous with “PR fluff.” I started HIStalk because HIMSS Media was where seldom was heard a discouraging word about vendors, i.e. the target audience for selling ads and conference booths.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Spare a minute to fill out my reader survey and you’ll be helping me make HIStalk better (or maybe prevent me from making it worse).

Thanks to Dan for letting me know that my “subscribe to updates” option wasn’t working. Fixing the issue changed the link, so click here to get email updates.

I’ve hit a weekly rhythm with these LinkedIn carousels. Let me know if you have ideas for other uses of this fun format.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Infinx. Founded in 2012, Infinx provides scalable, AI-driven solutions to optimize the financial lifecycle of healthcare providers across all functions of patient access and revenue cycle management. Our cloud-based software, powered by AI and automation, is leveraged by experienced consultants and billing specialists across the US, India, and the Philippines. We help 172,000 healthcare professionals across 4,000 facilities capture more revenue, stay ahead of changing regulations and payer guidelines, and focus on patient care. Thanks to Infinx for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s a good Infinx explainer video that I found on YouTube.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

EBook: “7 Performance Benchmarks Every Medical Practice Must Know.” Sponsor: UnisLink. This free EBook lists seven critical KPIs for revenue cycle efficiency, how to calculate each one, steps to improve, and benchmarking data.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

TruBridge announces Q4 results: revenue up 2%, EPS –$0.38 versus –$2.92. TBRG shares have gained 206% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $415 million.

Scotland-based Craneware reports record results, which it attributes to US hospitals refocusing on efficiency following the presidential election.

Sales

• New Mexico Health Care Authority chooses Findhelp to power a statewide closed-loop referral system.
• Citizens Memorial Hospital will implement the closed-loop referral system of Unite Us, which it will integrate with Meditech Expanse.

People

Symplr hires Mike Valli (Optum) as chief commercial officer and Scott Sbihli, MBA (Inovalon) as chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

A new KLAS report on physician message burden notes that 59% of patients are using technology to communicate with their provider’s office before and after visits, which has driven message volume up and EHR satisfaction down. Recommend solutions:

• Have staff triage and manage messages that don’t involve clinical decision-making.
• Provide dedicated time for clinicians to manage charting and messages.
• Limit message length and the number of messages a patient can send in a given time period.
• Don’t let patients send messages if they haven’t had an appointment in more than one year.
• Auto-delete old messages.
• Use a single platform for all message types and improve remote access to charts.
• Provide message search and filter functions.
• Use automated messages to let the patient know their message was received and when they can expect a response.

Government and Politics

Two US representatives reintroduce the Patient Matching and Transparency in Certified Health IT Act of 2025, directing the HHS secretary to convene stakeholders to establish patient matching standards and track match rates. The bill also requires ASTP to develop a minimum data set for patient matching as part of EHR certification.

Sponsor Updates

• CMS approves UnisLink as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry for the 2025 MIPS reporting program.
• Black Book Research’s latest analysis features the top six customer-rated virtual care platforms in 2025.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces that it is integrating its UpToDate clinical decision support solution with the healthcare agent service in Microsoft Copilot Studio.
• Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “Quick HITs” podcast titled “Optimizing Medical Technology: Cost Savings, AI, and the Future of Healthcare with Ramana Sastry.”
• Healthmonix names Emily Krysa-Hobson sales development representative.
• Linus Health announces that its leaders, staff, and affiliates have authored 72 peer-reviewed publications and presented at 75 conferences since 2019.

Blog Posts

• Reflections on HIMSS 2025: Insights, Innovations and the Path Forward (FinThrive)
• Oracle Health EHR Slow? Not So Fast (Goliath Technologies)
• Transforming Stroke Care (Impact Advisors)
• Preventing Harm to Achieve Harmony: How Patient Safety Software Transforms Care (Inovalon)

Contacts

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

News 3/12/25

Top News

Digital physical therapy provider Hinge Health files IPO paperwork.

The company’s most recent funding round in October 2021 raised $600 million, valuing it at $6 billion.

Hinge sells its services to employers and payers. It estimates the direct and indirect costs of back and joint pain at $1.3 trillion per year.

Reader Comments

From Pomme: “Re: Epic ERP. Judy Faulkner used to tell the story of ‘Atalanta and the Golden Apples’’ to represent opportunities that Epic must ignore to stay on mission. It describes how Hippomenes won a race against Atalanta by dropping golden apples that Atalanta stopped to pick up, which slowed her down just enough to allow Hippomenes to win. ERP sounds like a bushel of golden apples. I hope she is just messing with Oracle.”

From Bill Spooner: “Re: Epic ERP.  Developing a full ERP system is not a quick and easy task. Epic needs to decide if this is right for them. It’s hard to imagine it replacing Workday or Oracle, yet it could be a smart play for smaller institutions.”

From  Brendan Keeler: “Re: Epic ERP.  The announcement is not surprising in the slightest. It is concretely related to their Health Grid strategy —  build network effects products to new verticals as a wedge / beachhead and offer a related system of record (CAPS, CTMS, ERP, LIS, pharmacy information system) that natively performs between with those network effects products. Along the same lines, they also announced a clinical trials management system. I predicted this last month.”

From Slow Green: “Re: Greenway Health. The profiles of CEO Pratap Sarker and Chief of Staff Frank Pirantino have been removed from the company’s leadership page.” Verified. The page now lists industry veteran Richard Atkin, who served as CEO from 2018 to 2022, as CEO once again. Atkin is a principal with Vista Equity Partners, which owns Greenway and tried to sell it, apparently unsuccessfully, a year ago.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Drop your knowledge bombs in my reader survey, which you can complete in a minute or two. I haven’t done one since 2021, so it needs a refresh.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Oracle reports Q3 results: revenue up 6%, EPS $1.02 versus $0.85, missing Wall Street expectations for both. The only healthcare-related mention was in Larry Ellison’s response to a question about AI agents. He sounded pretty stoked about it, with these snips from his lengthy answer:

• Oracle’s key differentiator in healthcare is the quality of its AI agents, which include ambient documentation and a pre-visit provider summary.
• The company is also developing an AI-powered prior authorization tool, which Ellison expects to drive healthcare sales by  reducing costs.
• He says, “We’re selling more and more healthcare systems because we have a lot of AI agents embedded in them.”

RLDatix, which offers healthcare governance, risk, compliance, and workforce management solutions, acquires downtime continuity and Meditech-focused professional services company IPeople Healthcare.

Digital health and remote patient monitoring company CoachCare acquires virtual care vendor VitalTech, its eighth acquisition in the last two years.

Virtual orthopedic care provider Vori Health raises $53 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to $103 million.

People

SmarterDx names Jacob Schiftan (Viz.ai) VP of product and Tom Dougherty, MBA (Care Continuity) head of sales.

Agfa HealthCare appoints Omar Sunna, MBA (Microsoft) chief customer officer for North America.

Trent Green, MBA, MHA (One Medical) joins NRC Health as CEO.

Emids names Abhishek Shankar, MBA (Tech Mahindra) CEO.

OptimizeRx promotes Steve Silvestro, MLA to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Zoom pilots its new AI-enhanced Workplace for Clinicians technology, which was developed for in-person and virtual appointments.

ECRI lists its most significant threats to patient safety for 2025:

• Dismissing the concerns of patients, family members, and caregivers.
• Lack of governance of artificial intelligence.
• The spread of medical misinformation.
• Cybersecurity breaches.
• Caring for veterans in non-military health settings.
• Substandard and falsified drugs.
• Diagnostic error in cancers, vascular events, and infections.
• Healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities.
• Inadequate coordination during patient discharge.

Government and Politics

In England, former health secretary Steve Barclay says that NHS “spends too much on foreign IT systems” and should prioritize British companies instead.

The US Navy will offer sailors and their dependents free access to digital services from Talkspace as part of a new mental healthcare program that is being piloted at six bases.

Privacy and Security

Therapists at the VA’s clinical resource hubs are protesting being forced to conduct virtual mental health sessions from open cubicles. The therapists, who worked remotely until ordered to return to the office, are housed in facilities that lack private offices. VA leadership reportedly stated that “screen protectors, a white noise machine, and a headset is [sic] sufficient to ensure patient privacy in a large bullpen of cubicles.”

Business Insider reports that some states are requiring Bamboo Health to track the prescribing of abortion pills in their prescription monitoring programs that were designed for opioid tracking. Louisiana has reclassified misoprostol and mifepristone as controlled substances, which requires clinicians to log them into Bamboo’s system. Texas, Indiana, and Idaho are considering similar measures. Bamboo says that it is legally obligated to monitor the drugs in states that require it. Doctors are raising concerns about data access, as the information isn’t protected by HIPAA and can be viewed by state health departments, medical examiners, and law enforcement under certain conditions.

Other

HIMSS26 will be held March 9-12 in Las Vegas next year, according to parent company Informa Connect. ViVE, meanwhile, will take place February 22-25, this time in Los Angeles.

Consultants discover that Health New Zealand, whose annual budget is $18 billion, manages its finances using a single Microsoft Excel worksheet. The health minister recently highlighted HNZ’s fragmented digital infrastructure, which includes 6,000 apps and 100 digital networks.

Sponsor Updates

• AGS Health publishes a new white paper, “The RCM Maturity Framework: A 4-Stage Journey to Digital Transformation and Operational Excellence.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces that Phrase Health will integrate its UpToDate clinical decision support solution with Phrase Health’s EHR workflow optimization software.
• A new Waystar report identifies the top six RCM trends of 2025.
• CereCore releases a new podcast titled “From AI to EHR: How to Approach Healthcare Innovation Today.”
• Black Book Research shares highlights from its recent survey of AMIA members on AI-driven healthcare innovations and interoperability advancements.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “How First-Movers are Taking Control of their Health Plans in 2025, with Jeff Hogan.”
• The “Thriving Practice” podcast features Arrive Health CEO Kyle Kiser in an episode titled “From Hours to Minutes: Transforming Prior Authorizations with Arrive Health.”
• Artera exhibits at AAOS through March 14 in San Diego.
• Censinet releases a new report titled “Choosing the Right Healthcare TPRM and ERM Solution.”
• Clearwater announces new innovations in its Security Operations Center Portal and IRM|Analysis software.
• NHS Ayrshire & Arran in Scotland implements TrakCare as a Service from InterSystems.
• Symplr releases the results of its “2025 State of Healthcare Supply Chain Survey” in a new e-book.
• MRO introduces automated HEDIS data retrieval.

Blog Posts

• People-First Tech Strategy Demands More from EHR and Gen AI (CereCore)
• Digital Health Rewired 2025: A supported, connected and flexible approach from Altera Digital Health (Altera Digital Health)
• Cybersecurity Essentials for Rural and Critical Access Hospitals (CloudWave)
• Glimmers From HIMSS: Announcements, Recognition, and Collaboration Shine Bright in Glittery Las Vegas (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 3/10/25

Top News

The VA will expand its 2026 Oracle Health rollout from four sites to 13.

The VA has faced recent criticism from both Congress and Oracle Health for its slow go-live pace, which it acknowledges will prevent full implementation by the contract’s expiration in May 2028. The EHR won’t be completely deployed until 2031 even with the accelerated schedule.

The announcement’s timing was not optimal as the VA was just coming off a nationwide Oracle Health outage. They are also determining how to lay off 80,000 employees per White House orders.

The VA’s most recent go-live, other than at jointly operated Lovell FHCC, was in June 2022. Further go-lives were paused as the VA addressed system and operational issues that impacted patient safety and staff productivity.

Reader Comments

From Omnibusboy: “Re: Oracle Health. I think Madison VAMC is one of the sites the VA added to its accelerated deployment schedule. Right in Ms. Faulkner’s back yard. It used to be a very well-run hospital, but with few patients. We’d joke the secretaries were MBAs because of all the educated people in Madison competing for jobs. It’s a pretty aggressive move by VA leadership and a huge risk to accelerate deployment with a system so disliked by VA docs, not to mention pushback from a RIF-rattled workforce.” I haven’t seen an announcement of which nine VA sites are being added for 2026 go-lives. I wouldn’t expect Madison VAMC’s location to intersect with anything specific to Epic, but a lot of clinicians there use Epic almost entirely.

From Rucksack: “Re: HIMSS25. Attendance was down again, even after it was sold to Informa. Is it in a long decline?” HIMSS25 drew 28,000 attendees, down from 30,000 in 2024, 35,000 in 2023, and 43,000 pre-COVID in 2019. As Spinal Tap’s manager might optimistically say, “Their appeal is becoming more selective.” Some of the decline likely stems from the HIMSS20 refund fiasco and the infamous no-carpet exhibit hall of 2023, but I would bet that the bigger culprits are ViVE’s steady presence (they’re stingy with numbers, but attendance seemed flat from 2024 to 2025), tighter provider budgets, lackluster keynotes, Las Vegas fatigue, and the lack of federal participation this year. The AI boom probably softened the blow. HIMSS initially reacted to ViVE’s competition by copying its strengths (hosted buyer program, expanded networking), but it probably realized that differentiation is the smarter strategy, especially being the bigger and more broadly focused player that is attached to a membership non-profit. HIMSS has a stronger international presence, deeper coverage and participation of interoperability and health system IT management, and a history of drawing attendees who have buying authority.

From Bebop: “Re: Epic. Deep in its HIMSS press release was a note that they are developing an ERP system, with full integration as a talking point. What do health system readers think of this?” I invite readers to tell me. Building an industry-specific ERP system must be a huge project that, if successful, would expand Epic’s orbit. It would also create new competition with Oracle.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Attention over 35ers – your best option to enhance your health tech career is to earn a master’s degree if you don’t already have one. So say poll respondents, who also credited earning vendor-specific and general certifications for supporting their success. 

New poll to your right or here: How are your employer’s 2025 business prospects looking compared to 2024? You earn bonus karma for leaving a poll comment that explains further.

Please join my democracy of dysfunction by spending maybe two minutes on my reader survey. Your anonymous wisdom helps me understand who’s out there. Nearly every improvement I’ve made over the years came from a good citizen who took the time to weigh in. You won’t get an “I Voted” sticker, but you will have earned my appreciation and the right to complain later.

Reminder: “EST” is hibernating until November – it’s “EDT” because we have all agreed to fool ourselves into thinking that clock tampering creates more hours of daylight. Folks in Arizona and Hawaii saw through the nonsense and will continue to enjoy their sunny days on standard time. Spring officially kicks in the morning of March 20, although meteorologists make it easy by proclaiming that March, April, and May are spring months because of weather rather than astronomy. Meanwhile, those who are south of the equator are about to officially hit autumn.

Readers funded the DonorsChoose teach grant request of Mr. P in Brooklyn, who asked for help with a project for his Brooklyn, NY high school physics and robotics classes. He said when he received the materials in November, “It’s hard to put into words how grateful I am for your donation to my project. I am committed to providing students with a relevant STEM curriculum that develops lifelong skills, and it is inspiring to see so many others that share my vision for education. The tools that you have funded will enable students to engage in engineering process and see their CAD designs come to life. Students are incredibly excited to begin the project.“ Which they did, as the above note from a student reports.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Mednition. KATE is an EHR-integrated AI solution that provides 24/7 real-time clinical risk guidance, starting at triage in the emergency room. KATE significantly improves capacity, which reduces wait times, saves lives, and supports a strong 10x ROI, while empowering emergency nurses to optimize patient flow from the point of entry without adding to their workload. KATE Triage serves as a second set of eyes at triage by automatically identifying, prioritizing, and notifying on high-risk patients, with zero workflow changes. KATE Sepsis identifies more patients with sepsis at your front door (up to 2x greater than current standards and before ordering labs), making an immediate and meaningful impact on patient outcomes. Clinical Data Engine provides real-time analytics and research platform for clinicians to search millions of EHR records in seconds, including dynamic free text search. Thanks to Mednition for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Axios investigates last December’s sale of patient navigation company Memora Health to Commure. It concludes that Memora unloaded at a $30 million fire sale price versus a claimed $430 million valuation, likely because CEO Manav Sevak reportedly had inflated annual revenue of less than $2 million to $20 million. He started the company in 2018 at 21 years old, so he’s still in his late 20s. 

Announcements and Implementations

Researchers warn that large language models will readily generate clinical decision support that resembles the output of a medical device even though they don’t have FDA approval. They also found that the output was clinically appropriate. Click the graphic for FDA’s guidance on when clinical decision support software is functioning as a medical device that requires FDA review.

Government and Politics

Oregon Health & Science University will pay a $200,000 HHS OCR penalty for taking 16 months to fulfill a patient’s medical records request. OHSU was previously non-compliant with an OCR “technical assistance” warning and tried to blame a business associate, Diversified Business Services, Inc.

Sponsor Updates

• Elsevier Health launches the HESI Clinical Practice Readiness Assessment, the first standardized, objective, and reliable assessment for faculty to assess the clinical judgment and practice readiness of nursing students.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Stefanie Simmons, MD.
• Nym publishes a new case study, “Health System Reduces Costs, Improves Revenue Capture, and Stabilizes DNFB with Autonomous Coding.”
• Redox releases a new episode of its “Shut the Backdoor” podcast titled “A Hacker’s Welcome – Benefiting from the Bug Bounty.”
• RLDatix will present at the ACHE Congress March 25 in Houston.

Blog Posts

• The Challenges of Strategy Development and Execution (Impact Advisors)
• The State of Healthcare: How Automation, AI, and Digital Tools Are Shaping Patient Sentiment (Vyne Medical)
• Why AI documentation has the potential to humanize healthcare (Nordic)
• Enhancing Healthcare Quality Insights with Snowflake – A Recap from HIMSS (Prominence Advisors)
• A Clinically Integrated Supply Chain & Value Analysis Maturity Model (Symplr)
• Beyond Technology: Change Management as a Business Imperative in Healthcare (Tegria)
• New telehealth regulations for behavioral health: 3 opportunities for providers in 2025 (WellSky)

Contacts

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

News 3/7/25

Top News

Walgreens reaches an agreement to sell itself to private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $10 billion.

Sycamore is expected to keep the core US retail business and then either spin off or sell segments such as the British drugstore chain Boots and its VillageMD primary care business.

The market value of the 120-year-old Walgreens peaked in 2015 at $100 billion.

Reader Comments

From MrCernerPizzaDriver: “Re: Oracle Health. Appears to be having a nationwide outage today [Wednesday] of the OCI Cloud starting around 2:30 PST. Clients are unable to utilize system functionality that converted to the cloud, including scheduling appointments. Cloud is still down as of 4:45 PST.” The downtime was apparently regional rather than national and systems were restored shortly after. The VA says that all six of its medical centers and 26 community clinics that are live on Oracle Health were affected. Online chatter suggests that the problem was related to the installation of a security certificate. Techies, did Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Autonomous Database save the day here by limiting the impact?

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Conduce Health. Conduce leverages the power of AI and advanced data science to provide the tools that health systems and risk-bearing entities need to deliver value-based specialty care. Conduce’s platform uses a proprietary patient cohorting model to predict and identify patient needs and match patients with the right specialty care intervention or specialist at the right time. Conduce also helps its partners build high-performant and aligned specialty networks, or optimize their existing networks with enhanced access to top-performing specialists. Working with accountable care organizations, value-based primary care, health plans, and health systems, Conduce’s novel approach incentivizes value-based alignment, facilitates care coordination, and ensures timely access to high-quality personalized, and affordable specialty care. Thanks to Conduce Health for supporting HIStalk.

Please complete my quick reader survey, from which I always get ideas for making HIStalk more useful. I’ll post a summary of the results and comments afterward, as I did in the snippet above from a long-ago wrap-up.

Today I learned about the Dead Internet Theory, which claims that most online content is AI-generated, bot-driven, or corporate-controlled to manipulate perception and maximize ad revenue. I would thus propose the Dead Conference Theory, where nobody learns anything at educational conferences because they’re too busy thrusting microphones and cameras at each other, trolling for party invitations, and buffing personal brand.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute; David Clain, chief product officer, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Freed raises $30 million in a Series A funding round. Individual licenses for its ambulatory scribing and documentation solution cost $99 per month and the company offers a live online demo and free trial.

Investment firm General Catalyst loses three managing directors as it expands beyond traditional venture capital and considers an IPO. The company manages $32 billion in assets and is moving into non-venture activities such as acquiring the non-profit health system Summa Health for $485 million. 

Sales

• Honor Health chooses Five9 as the cloud contact center provider for the patient access center’s move from its legacy on-premise solution.

People

Columbus Regional Health (IN) promotes Steve Baker, MBA to president and CEO. He joined the health system as chief technology and information officer in 2016 after holding IT leadership roles at other hospitals, including serving as VP/CIO of East Jefferson General Hospital.

Healthlink Advisors promotes Amber Olsen to VP of Epic services.

Announcements and Implementations

Altera Digital Health announces new solutions at HIMSS25 that include ambient documentation for Sunrise, Paragon Denali, and TouchWorks EHR; the Sunrise CarePath patient portal; and Sunrise Health Record HIM solution for integrating unstructured content.

A Vyne Medical survey of 1,000 US adults finds that 29% of experienced prescription delays due to prior authorization, 33% prefer to sign documents that are sent via email or text instead of in person, and 79% have some concerns about using AI to automate healthcare tasks.

Baxter International-owned Voalte announces a voice-activated badge for care teams.

Government and Politics

Florida’s insurance regulator demands that pharmacy benefit managers submit detailed prescription data, including patient names, birth dates, and doctors visited. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation requested the information in January to verify PBM compliance with a state drug pricing law. However, privacy experts question whether it really needs fully identifiable patient data and why it wants data about prescriptions that were paid for by federal programs such as Medicare.

The VA is planning a reorganization that could cut 80,000 jobs in a White House mandate to return headcount its 2019 level.

Other

The post-HIMSS25 comments on LinkedIn of Innsena CEO Leslie Kirk that she titled “Is HIMSS Back?” resonated with me:

• Everyone has picked a side between ViVE and HIMSS in a rivalry that few care about.
• Hosted buyer programs, where attendees get in free by agreeing to exhibitor sales pitches, add little value since “none of these people are going to buy, and faking a warm lead is dumb.”’
• New executive attendees at HIMSS25 enjoyed the parties but found the conference overwhelming and too time-consuming to prepare for, with most planning to opt for smaller events instead.
• The exhibit hall layout, divided by a sky bridge, likely hurt booth traffic for companies positioned on the far side.

Meanwhile, HIMSS25 attendees, send me your thoughts – best part, worst part, trends that changed since HIMSS24, the impact of not having federal employees involved, and the good rumors or scandalous gossip that your heard.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare IT Leaders staff work with United Way of Southern Maine to prepare food for distribution through school pantry programs.
• Altera Digital Health publishes a new client story, “Phoenix Children’s Hospital extends its reach of care with Altera Digital Health.”
• FinThrive publishes a new case study, “How a Large Massachusetts Health System Streamlined EHR Consolidation and Claims Management.”
• Health Data Movers names Aimee Steel (Nordic) recruiter and Abbi Haering (TEKsystems) account manager.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advises Compliatric on its sale to Ntracts.

Blog Posts

• Tackling Clinician Burnout (Medicomp Systems)
• Integrated Social Care Data: The Key to Unlocking Community Health (Findhelp)
• Looking for a Healthcare RCM Automation Vendor? Start Your Search with These Top Questions. (FinThrive)
• The State of IT Staffing in Healthcare: Trends for 2025 (HCTec)
• The Future of Healthcare Security: Understanding the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that Would Make Significant Changes to HIPAA (Impact Advisors)
• How Meditech is making AI work in healthcare: Practical applications and key lessons (Meditech)
• Could IT Co-Management Solve Your “Great Resignation” Woes? (Med Tech Solutions)
• Risk Adjustment: How to ensure fair compensation for payers and providers (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 3/5/25

Top News

Clearlake Capital acquires a majority stake in specialty-focused health IT vendor ModMed from Warburg Pincus in a deal that values the company at $5.3 billion.

Warburg Pincus first invested in ModMed eight years ago and considered selling its stake in 2022, the same year in which the vendor paid $45 million to settle a 2017 whistleblower lawsuit.

Reader Comments

From Joyful Noise: “Re: HIMSS25. Hal Wolf reports 28,600 in attendance, 11,000 of them non-vendors.”

From Dr. Anton Phibes: “Re: health stations. Here we go again. Is anybody making money off these or improve patient access or care?” Predictmedix AI launches Smart Health AI Stations for the US market, hiring an outside marketing firm to sell devices that don’t yet exist while hoping to generate interest in demos of the 10 units it apparently hasn’t yet built (thus no photos, even a mock-up). The company seems too busy to post product details — or even its own press release — on its website. Its marketing partner, best known for car fleet management, has also dabbled in COVID-19 disinfection tech and pharmacogenomic testing for seniors. The market has repeatedly expressed its lack of interest in these health telephone booths, even when sold by companies with far better odds than this one.

From No HIMSS For Me: “Re: HIMSS25. The federal government has cancelled all travel, and by extension, participation in HIMSS. This follows the abrupt ‘retirement’ of the DHA director that was announced the same day.” Army Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, MD, MPH, MS, the top official in the Defense Health Agency, retired (reportedly not voluntarily) after 32 years in Army Medicine. She oversaw the MHS Genesis rollout.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Please take a couple of minutes to fill out my anonymous HIStalk Reader Survey. It’s the only way I can understand my audience, plus I always get good content ideas from the ideas of respondents.

Get in touch: become a sponsor, receive email updates, or contact Mr. H.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Live Webinar: March 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “How to Improve Clinical Workflows with AI Chart Summaries and Risk Predictions.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenter Scott Cullen, MD, senior advisor, Health Data Analytics Institute. Learn how the EHR-embedded HDAIAssist tool is transforming the ability of clinicians to pull insights out the mountains of data that have accumulated in the EHR, quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively. HDAlAssist, which is part of HealthVision, the intelligent health management system, combines AI chart summaries and granular risk predictions to quickly inform care planning decisions, especially for the most complex, high-risk patients.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The board of 23andMe rejects the take-private proposal of CEO Anne Wojcicki, who had reduced her proposed price from last month by 84%. Shares dropped hard on the news,taking the company’s market cap down to $37 million.

CareCloud acquires Mesa Billing as it restarts its acquisition strategy for aggressive expansion.

Sales

• Summa Health (OH) will adopt Clearsense’s 1Clearsense data-enablement platform.
• League will add longitudinal patient data from Arcadia to its healthcare consumer experience platform.
• Signature Healthcare (MA) selects Health Catalyst’s Ignite data and analytics software.
• LucidHealth (OH) will replace its legacy PACS system with Visage Imaging’s Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform.
• Suki will incorporate Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate clinical decision support capabilities into its ambient clinical documentation assistant.
• Emory Healthcare chooses Atropos Health to generate evidence from real-world data.

People

Ellkay promotes President Ajay Kapare, MBA to the additional role of CEO.

Volpara Health Chief Customer and Financial Officer Craig Hadfield will become CEO April 1.

Dan Zamansky, MBA (Amazon) joins Amwell as chief product and technology officer.

EHealth Technologies names Ken Wolf as chief commercial officer.

DirectTrust names Lisa Nelson, MS, MBA (ADVault) chief technical officer.

Inovalon names Adam Kansler, JD (S&P Global) CEO.

HHS/ASTP appoints Steven Posnack, MS, MHS as acting head of ASTP/ONC.

Augusta Health (VA) promotes Leigh Williams, MHIIM to VP/CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Beginning next week, NYU Langone Health patients will be able to verify their identity upon check-in using Amazon One palm-scanning technology integrated with the hospital’s Epic software. The health system is the first healthcare organization to deploy the technology. It plans to implement the feature across its facilities by the end of the year.

Harmony Healthcare IT announces GA of ClearWay, an AI-based solution that automates the abstraction and submission of clinical registry data.

Microsoft launches Microsoft Dragon Copilot, a clinical workflow assistant that combines the capabilities of Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot. Capabilities include ambient note creation, AI-powered medical information searches, and automation of tasks such as referral letters and after-visit summaries.

Stryker announces a badge communication device for care team members. The company acquired Vocera for $3 billion in early 2022.

Emory Healthcare (GA) pilots Atropos Health’s evidence-generation platform as part of a new clinical decision-making tool.

AvaSure launches Virtual Care Assistant, which receives and routes inpatient requests for assistance.

Cisco will integrate Webex Contact Center with Epic.

InterSystems launches IntelliCare, which brings AI capabilities to its TrakCare EHR that is sold outside the US.

Government and Politics

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H) selects Planned Systems International to support the design of a new electric vehicle-based care delivery platform that incorporate networked medical devices and virtual care capabilities to improve healthcare access for rural patients.

Sponsor Updates

• Waystar launches Auth Accelerate to automate the authorization submission process.
• CliniComp wins a Platinum Pinnacle Award in the trailblazer in healthcare technology category.
• Meditech introduces new intelligent workflows to its Traverse Exchange interoperability network.
• A new FinThrive survey highlights the top three actions that healthcare organizations are taking in light of an escalation in industry cyberattacks.
• Symplr launches its SymplrAI Evidence Analysis chatbot as a part of its new Operations Platform.
• Frost & Sullivan honors DrFirst with its Enabling Technology Leadership Award.
• Meditech collaborates with Google Cloud to bring the latest advancements in multimodal AI to its Expanse EHR.
• Surescripts publishes its “2024 Annual Impact Report,” noting that it exchanged patient clinical and benefit information 27.2 billion times, a 14.2% increase over the prior year.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Medicare Star Ratings: Updates, How Judi Helps, and More, with Angela Kalantarova, PharmD.”
• Philips Capsule Surveillance wins a User Experience Design – IF Design Award.
• Clearwater will sponsor McDermott Will & Emery’s HPE Miami 2025 March 5-6.
• CloudWave announces it is using Google Security Operations to enhance its managed Cybersecurity as a Service and Medical Device Security offerings.
• Elsevier announces enhancements to ClinicalKey AI clinical decision support solution, including new integrations with Epic and DrFirst’s IPrescribe software.

Blog Posts

• Why Integrated Reporting Is a Game-Changer for Small Hospitals and Rural Providers (Tegria)
• Meditech Expanse Oncology: How to Enable Personalized Care (CereCore)
• Agfa HealthCare Achieves Triple KLAS Wins and Excels in PACS Radiology & Cardiology Ratings in USA! (Agfa HealthCare)
• Embracing the Future State of AI and Automation in Revenue Cycle Management (AGS Health)
• Digital systems underpinning NHS transformation: The role of electronic patient records (Altera Digital Health)
• Effective Patient Scheduling: Techniques to Improve Engagement and Prevent Readmissions (Artera)
• What We’re Looking Forward to at HIMSS25 (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 3/3/25

Top News

Ireland’s Health Service Executive launches a health app that allows patients maintain a medical list, store health-related ID cards, access vaccination records, and search for HSE services.

Planned enhancements for this year include appointment scheduling and checking referrals and wait times.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

The majority of poll respondents say that prescribers, regardless of the terms under which they earn a telehealth paycheck, are most to blame for irresponsible prescribing. I’m finishing the Pulitzer-winning novel “Demon Copperhead” and its depiction of opioid overprescribing and harm in Appalachia – not to mention that of the foster care system – supports the “people suck” argument.

New poll to your right or here: Which of the following items did you earn after age 35 that has been most valuable in your career? It’s perfectly fine to choose the “N/A” option if you didn’t earn one of the listed choices. I’ll run a variation next week titled, “Which of your credentials has provided the least career benefit relative to the time and effort required?”

It’s HIMSS25 week, where the official tagline of “where visionaries unite to revolutionize healthcare” translates to “I would stay home if it wasn’t for the parties and personal networking that my employer pays for;” AI will once again fix everything; and meaningful improvements in cost and outcomes are, like “free beer tomorrow,” always a year away. Attendees, half of whom will be hosting or guesting in a podcast or video, will see highs in the low 60s, lows in the mid-40s, and zero rain (because, desert). Peruse my guide for HIStalk sponsor presentations, parties, and private meeting options. Last year’s event pulled in 26,800 registrants and 971 exhibitors, and my rough exhibitor count for HIMSS25 is 940. I wish you safe travels and achievement of whatever HIMSS25 goals you are pursuing.

Expect a minimal dribble of news items Monday (and now, in fact) as vendors sit on their announcements until the HIMSS exhibit hall opens on Tuesday.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 4 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Securing a competitive edge in value-based care with AI: Data-driven strategies for enhancing returns across MA, ACO and Commercial programs.” Sponsors: Navina, AMGA. Presenters: Dana McCalley, MBA, VP of value-based care, Navina; Ron Rockwood, executive director of value-based care, Jefferson City Medical Group; Jonathan Meyers, CEO, Seldon Health Advisors. As value-based care models evolve, healthcare organizations must leverage AI to stay competitive and drive better financial and clinical outcomes. This webinar offers data-driven strategies for improving risk adjustment accuracy, optimizing risk stratification, and streamlining clinical and administrative workflows. You’ll walk away with proven techniques for measuring and quantifying the impact of your value-based care initiatives across your organization

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Microsoft will retire Skype in May. Skype users can log in to Microsoft Teams for free using their Skype login, which will import their Skype chats and contacts. Skype usage peaked in 2016 with 300 million users, but 90% of those have since moved on. Hopefully the Teams switchover will be smooth for any remaining providers who have been using Skype to deliver virtual visits.

Sales

• AdventHealth will implement Hellocare.ai for in-room virtual care.
• Alaska Behavioral Health chooses Netsmart CareFabric and will adopt its Bells AI ambient documentation solution.

People

Jackson Hospital and Clinic (AL), which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, names Maureen Gaffney , DHSc, MS, RN (Gaffney Consulting Group) as CIO.

SureTest promotes Phillip Furukawa to chief revenue officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Epic will hold a one-day Open@Epic conference on its Verona campus on September 25. Anyone who wants to connect an app or service to Epic is invited. Sessions will cover FHIR, standards, and an overview of Epic’s interoperability programs and roadmap.

HIMSS recognizes Mednition’s KATE AI’s nurse-empowering patient flow solution as “Best in Show” in its hospital capacity innovation challenge.

Preventive health and diagnostics clinic Biograph launches, offering a range of diagnostic and longevity-focused tests. Core members pay $7,500 annually for lipid testing, body composition analysis, hereditary screenings, and neurocognitive assessments. The $15,000 Black membership adds dementia risk assessment, sleep apnea screening, coronary angiography, and personalized exercise and nutrition coaching.

Salesforce announces pre-built healthcare AI agents that include provider search and scheduling, care coordination, benefits verification, and customer service.

Privacy and Security

Canada’s Island Health is investigating an hour-long outage of its Oracle Health-hosted EHR on Tuesday. Oracle Health was recently named in a leaked chat log of a Russian ransomware hacker group.

Other

Hospital ED doctors tell a San Francisco man who had been in a biking accident that he needs to be checked out by a trauma center, which requires a six-mile ambulance ride. Trauma doctors found no need for further treatment and sent him home. He was billed $13,000 for the out-of-network ride from AMR, which is owned by a private equity-backed parent company that runs ambulance, fire, and air transport services. Complaints and media attention led to his share of the cost being waived, but the article notes that the federal No Surprises Act excludes ground ambulances.

Sponsor Updates

• Inovalon announces that its Patient Payment Management and Patient Statement Management solutions are now available on the PointClickCare Marketplace.
• Nym becomes a sponsor of the Tennessee Health Information Management Association.
• Optimum Healthcare IT expands its CareerPath program into Canada.
• Redox releases a new episode of its “Shut the Back Door” podcast titled “The final logoff: Streamlining secure departures.”
• Rhapsody secures HITRUST e1 certification.
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company, offers a new e-book, “Why Tokenization is Essential for Protecting Patient Payment Information.”
• Waystar will exhibit at Experity Urgent Care Connect March 3-6 in Louisville.

Blog Posts

• What the Trump Administration will mean for health policy (Altera Digital Health)
• Why strong clinical governance is essential for successful digital health transformation (Nordic)
• Clinical Perspectives Part Two: Centralized Scheduling Enhances Care Team Coordination (QGenda)
• HIMSS 2025 preview: How Redox + Microsoft are powering AI solutions with real-time streaming (Redox)
• Nurses’ Corner: 6 ways to improve staff adoption (Sonifi Health)
• AI in Healthcare: Streamlining Operations & Reducing Costs (Symplr)
• Key Takeaways From ViVE 2025 (Tegria)

Contacts

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

News 2/28/25

Top News

A White House executive order requires hospitals to publish their actual prices for 300 shoppable services online. A similar order that was issued by the Trump administration in 2019 has been largely ignored.

The Secretaries of Treasury, Labor, and HHS are tasked with enforcing compliance.

The White House projects up to $80 billion in healthcare savings and cites a report that suggests that price transparency could lower employer costs by 27% for 500 common healthcare services.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Please support HIStalk’s sponsors at HIMSS25 by exploring their activities and connecting with them if you’re interested.

I might be the only person who finds it grating when someone writes “Vegas” instead of the city’s actual name. Maybe they’re from Diego or Angeles. 

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 4 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Securing a competitive edge in value-based care with AI: Data-driven strategies for enhancing returns across MA, ACO and Commercial programs.” Sponsors: Navina, AMGA. Presenters: Dana McCalley, MBA, VP of value-based care, Navina; Ron Rockwood, executive director of value-based care, Jefferson City Medical Group; Jonathan Meyers, CEO, Seldon Health Advisors. As value-based care models evolve, healthcare organizations must leverage AI to stay competitive and drive better financial and clinical outcomes. This webinar offers data-driven strategies for improving risk adjustment accuracy, optimizing risk stratification, and streamlining clinical and administrative workflows. You’ll walk away with proven techniques for measuring and quantifying the impact of your value-based care initiatives across your organization

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health reports Q4 results: revenue down 1%, EPS -$0.28 vs. -$0.17, meeting revenue expectations but missing on earnings. BetterHelp segment revenue dropped 10% year-over-year. Shares plunged Wednesday and Thursday on the results and lowered revenue guidance. TDOC shares are down 38% over the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1.6 billion. From the earnings call:

• The company added 4 million members and increased visit volumes by 6% in 2024.
• It will launch technology that will enable external partners to integrate with its data to support longitudinal care.
• BetterHelp stabilized its number of paying users, but revenue per user declined due to lower international pricing.
• Health plan sales have slowed due to the upcoming end of Affordable Care Act subsidies, uncertainty about Medicaid expansion, and inflation.
• Weight management remains a growth driver, but employers are still defining their GLP-1 strategies and working to capture the rebates that typically go to pharmacy benefit managers.
• BetterHelp is a variable margin business, so revenue growth is key to maintaining economy of scale.

SimCare AI, which creates AI patients for clinician training, raises $2 million in seed funding. Use cases include residency training, practicing social work interventions, and testing job applicants.

Bias Capital cancels its $25 million Series A investment in EHR vendor Parker Health after its due diligence raises concerns of fraud. The investment was announced in July 2023.

A study finds that cancer care quality declined after HCA acquired Mission Health in Asheville, NC. Under HCA, the hospital has faced staffing shortages, inadequate resources, and poor management, leading to service cutbacks. All of its oncologists resigned, the oncology pharmacy closed, and a local oncology group stopped using the hospital for inpatient therapy due to understaffing, lab delays, and a lack of chemotherapy-trained pharmacists. The lead author states, “In the view of many observers, HCA aims to maximize profits while maintaining quality just high enough to avoid legal and regulatory issues and retain business.”

Sales

• New Mexico Health Care Authority chooses Findhelp for its rollout of a statewide social care closed loop referral system
• Inova Health selects Abridge for ambient documentation.
• Sacramento County Department of Health Services will launch Sacramento Health Connect, powered by Innovaccer’s GHAAP.

People

Wolters Kluwer Health CEO Stacey Caywood, MBA will succeed Wolters Kluwer CEO Nancy McKinstry when she retires in February 2026. The health division provides software and information solutions as part of its $6 billion parent.

Medlogix hires Alan Horton as chief growth officer.

Connexall names interim CEO Sandy Saggar to the permanent position.

Karen Thomas-Smith (Parata Systems) joins Arcadia as chief marketing officer.

Announcements and Implementations

CliniComp introduces Intrinsic AI, which adds clinician-centric workflow tools to its cloud-based New Era EHR solution suite.

Meditech announces the Expanse Outreach Portal, which enables hospitals to connect with nursing homes, urgent care centers, and medical practices that use the hospital’s lab service.

MassHealth launches a statewide solution to expedite psychiatric inpatient admissions using PointClickCare’s platform.

Inbox Health launches a support service that it says resolves 90% of patient billing inquiries with a 95% satisfaction rate.

China-based Ping An Good Doctor will provide 24×7 health consultations using an AI-driven digital avatars. Its Renowned Doctor AI Medical Assistant was trained on the company’s own medical databases, with additional resources and tuning provided by the doctor that the avatar represents. The company says that the tool improves family doctor efficiency by 30%.

Government and Politics

Stat confirms an HIStalk reader’s previous report that federal officials won’t be attending HIMSS25 due to a travel freeze.

The US military successfully tests treating deployed sailors through video virtual visits, although network latency remains a challenge.

The FDA reinstates an unspecified number of employees who oversee medical device safety and AI software just days after their termination under the White House’s DOGE program. Lawmakers and trade groups had warned that the layoffs could create a backlog of medical device reviews and disrupt the medical supply chain. Many of the affected employees were funded by manufacturer fees rather than taxpayer dollars.

Former VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD calls for a relaunch of the VA’s Oracle Health implementation with these principles:

• Use the updated software instance.
• Set clear goals and timelines at each site.
• Accelerate deployment, as only six of 164 sites are live.
• Limit change orders, given the 1,800 requests filed in the current instance, as noted in a GAO report.
• Update the project budget and hold leaders accountable to it.
• Thoroughly test pharmacy, referral, and behavioral health modules to ensure veteran safety.

In England, a 30-year-old NHS supply chain system that was originally provided by ISoft (now CSC) is found to have caused shipping delays in 2024 due to 35 high-priority computer alerts.

In Canada, Alberta’s health minister is challenged for firing Penny Rae, the CIO of Alberta Health Services amidst a provincial government healthcare restructuring.

Other

A Nebraska father struggles to get authorities to correct the birth record name of his daughter, to whom a hospital assigned a temporary name of Unakite Thirteen Hotel that was never updated. He learned that he was the father of an abandoned two-year-old girl, gained custody, and named her Caroline. Then he found that her birth record was wrong, she hadn’t been issued a Social Security number, and her birth certificate is unusable because it was stamped “for government use only.”

Sponsor Updates

• Frederick Health launches precision medicine integration between Meditech’s Expanse Genomics and GenomOncology’s Precision Oncology, which will provide clinicians with enhanced decision support. 
• Arcadia, Inovalon, InterSystems, Ellkay, Linus Health, MRO, and Navina will exhibit at RISE National 2025 March 11-14 in San Antonio.
• Black Book Research releases its 2025 rankings of top-rated vendors in population health and value-based care solutions, giving top marks to Elsevier (patient education) and Inovalon (population health reporting, analytics and benchmarking for payers and employers).
• WellSky drives momentum with new innovations and breakthrough growth in 2024.
• ServiceNow recognizes Optimum Healthcare IT as its partner of the year.
• Impact Advisors releases a new episode of the “Impactful AI” podcast, titled “Escaping Pilot Purgatory.”
• The Medicomp Systems “Tell Me Where It Hurts” podcast features Altera Digital Health VP of Policy and Public Affairs Leigh Burchell.

Blog Posts

• Karen Dierker Ranks Among the Top 50 Women Leaders in Healthcare Technology (Capital Rx)
• HIMSS25: Our thoughts before the global conference (Altera Digital Health)
• 5 Lessons Learned from the 2024 Healthcare Cyberattack, One Year Later (Availity)
• Enhancing clinical excellence at Midland Health (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Transfer DRGs 101 (FinThrive)
• Workday Accounting Center: What Every Healthcare CFO Needs to Know (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Boost patient collections, improve patient relations with an early out billing cycle (Inbox Health)
• Cracking the Code to Patient Safety Structural Measures: A Strategic Approach to Compliance (Inovalon)
• How healthcare practices can empower care partners to improve cognitive outcomes (Linus Health)

Contacts

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

News 2/26/25

Top News

Lawmakers warn the VA of their concerns about its Oracle Health implementation in a House hearing:

• An independent analysis predicted a total project cost of $50 billion, but that was before program changes and delays that warrant producing a new estimate.
• Recent staffing cuts that were mandated by the White House included the firing of eight probationary employees of the EHR modernization project and the resignation of another 16 under the deferred resignation program.
• The Oracle Health contract expires in May 2028, but its system is live in just six VA facilities with 164 to go, and go-lives won’t be started until mid-2026. The VA acknowledges that it won’t be finished by the contract’s end.
• Oracle Health EVP/GM Seema Verma stressed that “The totality of updates, enhancements, investments, and innovations to the EHR show that this is a dramatically improved system from what was originally deployed in Spokane in 2020.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Thanks to long-time HIStalk sponsor AGS Health and CEO Patrice Wolfe for stepping up as a Founding Sponsor. Those coveted Founding slots, which are limited to two, have become available only 2-3 times over many years, and only when one of those sponsors was acquired. Here’s a refresher on what the company does:

AGS Health is more than a revenue cycle management company — we’re a strategic partner for growth. Our distinctive methodology blends intelligent automation with award-winning RCM services and high-touch customer support to deliver peak end-to-end revenue cycle performance and an empowering patient financial experience. We employ a team of 13,000 highly trained and college-educated RCM experts who directly support more than 150 customers spanning a variety of care settings and specialties, including nearly 50% of the 20 most prominent U.S. hospitals and 40% of the nation’s 10 largest health systems. Our thoughtfully crafted RCM solutions deliver measurable revenue growth and retention, enabling customers to achieve the revenue to realize their vision.

We’ve been longtime Costco members, but I kept hearing about Sam’s Club’s superior technology and its stress-free, line-free shopping, and unlike Costco, an app and website that allow checking prices and inventory levels. In my first Sam’s trip this week, I used Scan and Go to ring myself up, paid instantly, and then bypassed checkout entirely and just sauntered out the door as AI-powered cameras verified my cart. No waiting in line to pay, no door-check bottleneck. I can see making a quick stop at Sam’s for just a handful of items, whereas the cupboard has to be pretty bare to be worth Costco trip anxiety. I’ll keep both memberships since Sam’s wins on prices, store layout, and produce, but Costco still leads on clothes, wine, and regular rollout of new items that I don’t need.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 4 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Securing a competitive edge in value-based care with AI: Data-driven strategies for enhancing returns across MA, ACO and Commercial programs.” Sponsors: Navina, AMGA. Presenters: Dana McCalley, MBA, VP of value-based care, Navina; Ron Rockwood, executive director of value-based care, Jefferson City Medical Group; Jonathan Meyers, CEO, Seldon Health Advisors. As value-based care models evolve, healthcare organizations must leverage AI to stay competitive and drive better financial and clinical outcomes. This webinar offers data-driven strategies for improving risk adjustment accuracy, optimizing risk stratification, and streamlining clinical and administrative workflows. You’ll walk away with proven techniques for measuring and quantifying the impact of your value-based care initiatives across your organization

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

OpenEvidence, which offers a clinical decision support chatbot for providers, announces $75 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. It recently signed a content agreement with The New England Journal of Medicine.

EXA Capital acquires human services-focused EHR and care management software vendor PrecisionCare.

Clinical documentation software company Retrieve Medical will acquire Curatus, which specializes in AI-powered provider data management.

HealthStream reports Q4 results: revenue up 5.2%, EPS $0.16 versus $0.15. HSTM shares have gained 24% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Sales

• Mass General Brigham (MA) will implement the Philips Capsule Medical Device Information Platform, Philips Clinical Insights Manager, and Philips Capsule Surveillance technologies.
• Hartford HealthCare (CT) will use K Health’s agentic AI-based virtual primary care software to power its new HHC 24/7 virtual care service.
• ECU Health (NC) selects Pep Health’s patient experience analysis software.

People

Eric Talbot, MBA (MedFuse) joins CheckedUp as chief data and analytics officer.

Troy Tazbaz, the former director of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence, returns to Oracle as SVP of data center planning – corporate development.

Guidehouse names Erik Barnett and Brian Smit (R1 RCM) partners in its health and managed services practices, respectively.

MGMA hires Julia Rosen, MBA (Pera Healthcare) as SVP of IT.

Jeff Surges (RLDatix) joins Brighton Park Capital as partner.

Eve Cunningham, MD, MBA (Providence) joins Cadence as chief medical officer.

Clinical Architecture names Laura Nixon, MBA (Nixon Strategic Consulting) as VP of interoperability solutions.

Announcements and Implementations

MyMichigan Health implements QGenda’s provider credentialing software.

Corti adds Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate clinical decision support content to its AI-powered Assistant app for clinicians.

Lumeris announces GA of Tom, an AI-powered clinical workflow tool for primary care.

Ray County Hospital and Healthcare (MO) works with OCHIN to replace CPSI (now TruBridge) and EPowerDoc with Epic.

Altera Digital Health integrates Medicomp’s Quippe AI engine with its TouchWorks EHR. Medicomp also releases Quippe Alchemy that applies AI to problem list cleanup.

Inovalon launches an AI-powered, EHR-integrate clinical trials recruitment tool.

Government and Politics

The White House says that former health tech executive Amy Gleason is serving as acting administrator of Elon Musk’s DOGE cost reduction program.

Privacy and Security

Malware researchers find that a China-based hacker group is disguising its malware as a Philips DICOM viewer.

Other

Technical.ly profiles the University of Maryland Medical System’s AI-powered remote fetal monitoring program, which launched last year using technology from PeriGen. Sixteen nurses work at the Neonatal Outcomes Impacted by Escalation Safety Telemetry (NEST) center, monitoring labor and deliveries across seven hospitals in real time. Nurse Manager Christine Haas, RN points out that the nurses have often been quicker to catch abnormalities than the AI: “This program is fundamentally the nurses’ brains with the AI counterpart, just really sort of being a reinforcement and a help for them.”

Sponsor Updates

• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Pharmacy Benefits 101: Stop-Loss Insurance, with Mike Miele, FSA, MAAA.”
• Agfa HealthCare announces that several hospitals within the Osakidetza Basque Country healthcare network in Spain have successfully transitioned to its Enterprise Imaging for radiology and molecular imaging.
• Philips Capsule participates in the IHE North America Connectathon 2025 in Toronto.
• CloudWave publishes a new guide titled “The Strategic Value of Managed Cloud Services in Healthcare.”

Black Book Research’s list of top, physician-rated health IT for rural and critical access providers includes the following HIStalk sponsors:

• TruBridge and Meditech Expanse – rural and CAH inpatient EHRs
• Redox – rural healthcare interoperability and HIE vendors
• Inovalon – population health, rural healthcare management, quality and safety solutions

Blog Posts

• Celebrating 15 years of innovation and impact in healthcare (Nordic)
• How to Transform Patient Scheduling: 7 MEDITECH 2.2 Features (CereCore)
• Pharmacy Benefits 101: Building an Award-Winning Call Center from Scratch (Capital Rx)
• HIPAA is More Than Keeping Medical Records Secure (AdvancedMD)
• Agfa HealthCare Shines at ViVE 2025 with Incredible KLAS Triple-Award Win (Agfa HealthCare)
• 2025 New CPT Codes to Capture Evaluation and Management Telemedicine Services (AGS Health)
• EHR System Speed and Reliability – The Foundation for EHR Success (Goliath Technologies)
• Advancing interoperability: Altera at the IHE North America Connectathon (Altera Digital Health)
• 3 actionable steps to turn healthcare data into action (Arcadia)
• Inside Healthcare’s Cybersecurity Battle: A Q&A with Availity’s CISO (Availity)
• Managed services in healthcare: Balancing efficiency, stability, and growth (Cardamom)
• 8 Easy Ways to Prepare for an OCR HIPAA Compliance Audit (Clearwater)
• The Growing Importance of Population Health in 2025 (Direct Recruiters)
• Wintry Weather Can’t Dampen the Vibe at ViVE 2025 (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 2/24/25

Top News

A short-selling investment firm claims that mental health therapists in Teladoc Health’s BetterHelp business are using ChatGPT to respond to patients during therapy sessions without the patient’s knowledge.

Some BetterHelp therapists who were confronted by their patients admitted that they use AI tools because of heavy workloads and company bonuses that are tied to the number of words that a therapist types.

TDOC shares dropped 9% on Friday. They have lost 24% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $2 billion.

Teladoc Health paid $4.5 million in 2015 to acquire BetterHelp, which generates $1 billion in annual revenue, representing up to 40% of Teladoc Health’s total revenue. However, declining BetterHealth revenue caused Teladoc to take a $790 million impairment charge in mid-2024.

Reader Comments

From Placater: “Re: agentic AI. What does that even mean and why should I care?” AI began as a simple chatbot that answered user questions, sometimes even correctly. Over time, it improved by learning to analyze, correct its mistakes, and respond based on context to please its master. We’re now at agentic AI, which can take keyboard actions like placing an Amazon order or prescribing medication. This is the step that will start killing jobs, although software developers were already ripe for reduction by the last phase. The next short step is AI-powered robots performing human-like tasks, which is really just another output of agentic AI that is limited more by robotics maturity than AI itself. Self-driving cars already showcase AI’s ability to make better decisions than distracted human drivers. With each leap, fewer people benefit — while tools like ChatGPT help the masses, only industry titans and their investors will gain when robots replace human workers.

From Monetary Magnet: “Re: health tech conferences. I’m thinking about attending HIMSS next year as a frustrated patient. Will software vendors listen, or am I wasting my time? Didn’t you sponsor several patient advocates to attend HIMSS years ago?” I did, but that experience didn’t encourage me to repeat it. Reasons:

• Health tech vendors create products that the market wants, and that market isn’t patients. Consumers don’t see 99% of the available software and their complaints usually relate to how it is used, not how it was designed.
• Software vendors can’t fix the problems that are inherent with our dysfunctional US healthcare system. I eat at restaurants occasionally, but I would add zero value by attending a restaurant software convention. That’s a cleaned up version of my initial cynical healthcare thought, which is that having patients at health tech conferences would be like inviting livestock to attend a slaughterhouse software convention (that came to mind because I have a friend who is an executive in exactly that business).
• Healthcare is not a retail market. Patients aren’t the ones paying and often don’t have a say in major decisions that affect them as a result.
• Conferences like HIMSS and ViVE are designed for industry experts, and any patient representation is likely symbolic at best or tokenistic at worst. Their emotional keynote anecdotes get us all worked up, but we walk out of the conference room with nothing actionable.
• It’s easy for patient advocates to become overwhelmed by conference parties and booth giveaways. A lack of relevant education sessions would probably leave them to wander the exhibit hall.
• Healthcare is fragmented by geography, demographics, provider choices, and medical needs. A single patient’s experience and viewpoint don’t necessarily represent that diversity.
• Vendor input on patient needs is more effectively gathered from their provider customers who write the checks. Those providers should be talking with their patients / customers and choosing software that supports whatever strategies the providers choose. Blame providers for bad patient experience.
• The bottom line is that we’re all patients, just not at the same time, but what we think as patients doesn’t necessarily move markets. Change would need to come from providers, politicians, insurers, and life sciences firms that are pretty happy with the profitable status quo. Patients might better invest their time by engaging with people from those organizations.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Three-fourths of poll respondents don’t believe that their job performance can be entirely measured by objective metrics. Question: if that’s the case, what is your boss using instead, especially if you work remotely? I assume subjective criteria such as peer feedback, customer satisfaction, and the maddeningly vague areas of responsiveness, collaboration, problem-solving, and worth ethic, all of which might be heavily influenced by likeability or brown-nosability.

New poll to your right or here: Who is most responsible when a telehealth company regularly prescribes drugs that patients want in the absence of clear medical need? I admit that I don’t understand why companies are punished for fraud, opioid overuse, and prescribing without adequate clinical due diligence, but the clinicians who actually generated those prescriptions for cash aren’t even named, much less punished. Would you as a patient want to know that your doctor has willingly agreed to rent their license to the highest bidder? The concept probably extends to health systems – aren’t doctors supposed to represent the best interest of the patient rather than of their corporate bosses?

I’m testing a weekly, 60-second LinkedIn carousel that lists my picks of the week’s most important health tech news stories for the TL;DR types. I’ll post a new one each Wednesday morning to see how it goes.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

HIMSS25 Guide: HIStalk sponsors can provide conference participation details by February 24 to be included in my guide.

Survey Opportunity: Healthcare AI Purchasing. Responses from health system and imaging center readers to this short survey will trigger a Donors Choose donation from Volpara Health plus matching funds.  

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Waystar reports Q4 results: revenue up 19%, EPS $0.11 versus –$0.12, beating analyst expectations for both. WAY shares have gained 104% since the company’s June 2024 IPO, valuing the company at $7 billion.

Sales

• Akron Children’s will implement Abridge for ambient documentation.
• Blessing Health System (IL) will implement Epic, replacing Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise.

Announcements and Implementations

Mass General Brigham researchers develop an Epic tool that identifies frail patients who are at risk for higher rates of hospital readmission and death. The tool works even when primary care visit data is not available.

Government and Politics

Website operator Gregory Schreck pleads guilty to federal charges that accused him of tricking Medicare patients into giving up their personal information so they could be sent “free” medically unnecessary items like braces and pain creams that were then billed to federal insurance programs. The scheme led to $1 billion in false Medicare claims, with Medicare and insurers paying out more than $360 million. Schreck was a VP at DMERx, the Internet platform that was used to generate the false prescriptions. He was also VP of HealthSplash, which advertised its service as helping payers, providers, and suppliers share data.

Other

The UK’s medical exam administrator admits to sending incorrect scores to September 2023 test-takers. It mistakenly told 222 internal medicine doctors they had passed when they had actually failed, while 61 who passed were told they had failed. The British Medical Association warns that those who were wrongly told that they passed now face an uncertain future, while some of the 61 who were incorrectly failed may have already left the profession as a result.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research publishes a free report, “2025 Black Book of Rural and Critical Access Healthcare IT Solutions.”
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Doug Turner, MBA.
• Nym names Yaara Libai and Bella Sirota clinical data annotators, Ariela Krumgals VP of HR, Yiftah Sasson product manager, Shiraz Tov junior backend engineer, and Hadar Yehezkeli NLP research engineer.

Blog Posts

• Meditech customers create efficiencies to address emergency department utilization (Meditech)
• IDD Workforce Empowerment: 3 Takeaways from the IDD Summit Expert Panel Discussion (Netsmart)
• Same-day visits: Will you be the leader to make it happen in your organization? (Nordic)
• The New Patient Priority: Why Healthcare Payment Flexibility is No Longer Optional (TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company)
• The role of AI in modern healthcare: Striking the balance between progress and accountability (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

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

News 2/21/25

Top News

Vanity prescription vendor Hims & Hers acquires Trybe Labs, an at-home lab testing provider that process customer self-collected blood samples.

The company says the acquisition will allow it to offer whole-body testing and give it de-identified health data for AI training.

HIMS shares rose on the news are are up 350% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $15 billion.

Reader Comments

From Hal2k: “Re: HIMSS25. Federal employees, including those from ONC / ASTP, have had to drop out. What will be the downstream impact? I heard lower turnout overall – they had to cancel a couple of hotels.” Unverified. I gave the conference website a quick look, with the only surprise being that Hal Wolf will be doing a fireside chat with Oracle Health EVP/GM Seema Verma on improving patient-centered care, which seems questionable for several reasons.

From Tired Sales Gal: “Re: ViVE. My perspective is that its attendance was down from previous years. Not sure if the weather played a part or not. Attached is an attendee list. The majority were vendors versus providers and payer representatives. Fewer investors attended. I question whether the list might not have included those attendees who registered through CHIME, but that might only be another 500 folks.” The list has about 4,000 vendors versus 900 providers, and some of those provider folk don’t have a title that suggests purchasing influence (podcast host, professor, administrative fellow, etc.) I’ve never heard of quite a few of the companies on the list. Maybe if I decide that I care enough I’ll compare the ViVE and HIMSS exhibitor lists.

ViVE Conference Day 3 and 4 Observations from an Attendee

• Tuesday felt like the busiest day; lots of activity across the floor as folks tried to wrap up before the snow.
• Simply based on my perceptions from walking around, it felt like sessions on the four primary stages were sparsely attended. One-on-one and small group meetings seemed to be the dominant activities throughout the conference.
• Nashville got about 1.5″ of snow, so on the low side of expectations. On Wednesday there were lots of flight delays but relatively few cancellations, and major roads were in decent shape.
• I’d estimate only ~2,000 folks were around on Wednesday. Probably one-third of booths had no one, and many started packing up early.
• ViVE should’ve had a scavenger hunt to find all the booths that don’t have AI mentioned somewhere in their display or marketing materials. Practically every company is trying to say they have or use AI, but how real it is is unclear to me.
• I want to give a shout-out to Streamline Flow. They were demoing until the very end, and in an industry of bad software, their product seems attractive, intuitive, clinician-friendly, and easy to use. It’s early, but looking forward to seeing how they progress.
• Now the hard work begins. Companies that had a good conference and generated valuable leads are only on first base; there is a lot remaining to do to get to home plate. We feel good about how ViVE was for us but how we execute in the coming weeks and months will determine whether it was worthwhile.

Sponsored Events and Resources

HIMSS25 Guide: HIStalk sponsors can provide conference participation details by February 24 to be included in my guide.

Survey Opportunity: Healthcare AI Purchasing. Responses from health system and imaging center readers to this short survey will trigger a Donors Choose donation from Volpara Health plus matching funds.  

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A remarkably fine MedCity News investigative piece (it’s well worth clicking over) by Arundhati Parmar looks at Transcarent:

• Founder Glen Tullman had said previously that care navigation companies are as obsolete as travel agents. Transcarent then acquired care navigation company Accolade for $621 million last month at what was seen as a fire sale price.
• Insiders say that Transcarent wildly missed its 2024 sales targets, booking $60 million instead of the expected $175 million, and earned most of its big clients via its acquisitions or from Tullman’s executive connections.
• Another insider says that 70 employer navigation RFPs were issued last year and Transcarent not only failed to win any of them, it wasn’t even considered in any.
• Accolade’s prospects were fading after being dropped by big customers, trading as a penny stock, and being shopped to potential buyers.
• A CEO who has known Tullman for years criticizes the strategy of Transcarent selling directly to executives who tend to perform less due diligence than benefits consultants: “I think Glen preys on the benefits buyers who do not have a ton of resources to understand that there is nothing under the veneer that he is presenting. There is no Transcarent model. They have no NCQA designation, no URAC designation. They have no hard standard accreditation for care management. He invests a lot of money in political connections and in being part of CEO clubs that give him access to board members that don’t know much about benefits.”
• A healthcare CEO who passed on acquiring telemedicine vendor 98point6 after reviewing its financials said of Transcarent’s $100 million acquisition of the company: “They were losing 60 cents for every dollar of revenue they made. Glen has a pattern of taking distressed, low-quality assets and then slapping a bunch of tech together.”

Therapy Brands, which offers EHR/PM software for mental health and therapy providers, expands its Fusion rehab therapy product to the adult market.

Venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners merges two of its population health management technology companies, Azara Healthcare and I2i Population Health. The announcement is coy about what name the combined businesses will use.

Hummingbird Healthcare raises $20 million in a Series B funding round.

Walgreens shares jump Tuesday following a report that its potential acquisition by private equity firm Sycamore Partners could be back on the table.

IRhythm Technologies announces Q4 results: revenue up 24%, EPS –$0.04 versus -$1.26. IRTC shares are down 1% over the past 12 months, valuing the ambulatory ECG solution vendor at $3.5 billion.

Sales

• Cleveland Clinic will roll out ambient documentation from Ambience Healthcare.
• Inspira Health announces that it will replace Oracle Health with Epic, as a reader reported here last September.

Announcements and Implementations

WellSky launches a patient scheduling and workforce management solution for home care agencies. 

Availity launches Rapid Recovery, a solution that is designed to swiftly restore critical healthcare operations after large-scale catastrophic events, including cyberattacks. Key features include a five-day recovery objective, an air-gapped recovery environment, comprehensive backups, and third-party certification.

Epic will expand its 11,400-seat Deep Space underground conference center by 23,000 square feet with a new 750-seat auditorium and a dining facility. The expansion is intended to accommodate the company’s user group meeting and is scheduled to open before UGM 2026 next August.

Government and Politics

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) presses Paul Lawrence, PhD at his confirmation hearing for VA deputy secretary:

EHR started in 2018 under President Trump and in 2020, it deployed to two Washington state VA hospitals. Instead of helping to improve our veterans’ health care, the rollout ending up being a complete disaster, and it endangered veteran patients. Unfortunately, the system still is not working the way that the VA doctors and nurses need, and veterans are continuing  to suffer. Last month, the VA announced that it would be moving forward with pre-deployment activities at the next four sites for this Electronic Health Record. You will oversee the EHR program, so if confirmed, I want to know what you are going to do differently to hold Oracle accountable and to make sure we get this system right for our veterans?” Lawrence responded that he will figure out an accountability plan, to which Murray said, “We have heard that answer from every VA person that’s come before this committee for a number of years now. Everybody’s looked at it, everybody’s considered it, everybody’s talked about it, everybody’s convened panels. It is not working.”

Other

I saw this after reading Dr. Jayne’s piece on tech for seniors and thought it looked interesting. The free version turns an old tablet into a companion device that serves as a smart picture frame, text and photo messaging tool, and task manager. A $10 per month subscription adds auto-answer video calls, auto-join of Zoom meetings, AI activities and check-in, and connection of multiple family members. Onscreen Joy was announced last month at CES.

In the Netherlands, a man buys five 500GB hard drives for $5 each at a flea market and discovers that they contain patient medical records, apparently from the defunct healthcare software vendor Nortade ICT Solutions.

Sponsor Updates

• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Judi Health: Going Beyond Pharmacy and into Medical Claims, with AJ Loiacono and Dr. Sunil Budhrani.”
• BNH Hospital in Thailand implements the TrakCare EHR from InterSystems.
• A Surescripts analysis projects more than $3.76 billion in healthcare savings could be realized if care managers leverage Surescripts Medication History for Populations technology.
• First Databank publishes a new white paper, “Empowering Consumer Choice with EPrescribing.”
• Findhelp welcomes new customers Cone Health (NC), Help at Home (IL), and Marion County Commission on Youth (IL).
• FinThrive will present at the Idaho HFMA Spring Conference March 3 in Boise.
• Five9 announces its global availability on Google Cloud Marketplace.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advises Insight Partners on its investment in Azara Healthcare and I2I Population Health.
• Inbox Health partners with Lighthouse Lab Services.
• MRO achieves HITRUST CSF certification for its Exchange Services platform.

Blog Posts

• Signs it is time to change your PBM vendor, and how to overcome common hesitations (Capital Rx)
• 5 Healthcare IT Trends Shaping the Industry (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• AI in Enterprise Clinical Imaging: Capitalizing on the Value Proposition (Impact Advisors)
• HEDIS MY 2026 Public Comments: Highlights for Quality Teams (Inovalon)
• Full speed ahead: Interoperability at MEDITECH enters a new era (Meditech)

Contacts

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

News 2/19/25

Top News

Abridge raises $250 million in a Series D funding round.

The company says that its ambient documentation product is being used by 100 health systems.

Abridge’s valuation has been reported as $2.5 billion.

Reader Comments

From Dr. Anon: “Re: Oracle Health. We keep hearing about the ‘excitement’ of Oracle shifting ‘to the cloud,’ but I’ve still not been able to get a straight answer on what will happen to all of our custom build when that occurs. And we have tons of custom build based on the old PowerForm / PowerNotes features that supports all of our regulatory reporting requirements. Unfortunately the workflow mPages and dynamic documentation features, on which the cloud implementation will be based, has yet to include key features despite a decade of Cerner / Oracle knowing what is needed.”

From Aca-Doc: “Re: work metrics for physician productivity. My prior chairman was big on metrics for bonuses. As the CMIO, I had to develop reports to show who was at 75th percentile or above on RVUs. Because we’d had problems with people submitting charges without writing a note, the metrics also incorporated a requirement that 95% of notes had to be completed within seven days of the visit. People figured out workarounds. They would sign a blank note on the day of the visit and then go back later and fill in the details. On the other hand, patient satisfaction and outcomes are not necessarily a good indicator of work effort or quality, so it’s not really fair to hold clinicians accountable for these variables over which they have no control.” 

From ViveRant: “Re: ViVE. Now there’s wristband for ‘additional security.’ This is required wear in addition to the badges that now include a picture of the attendee. As when airlines started requiring picture ID, the point was to remove the thriving secondhand market for unused plane tickets. Like CES, ViVE realized that badge pictures are suboptimal since scanning thousands of people is impossible. Adding a wristband that cannot be removed without breaking is possibly easier to spot, but for most, it remains invisible and adds the frustration of unnecessary lines each morning to get a new wristband unless you like wearing a post-shower, now-sodden cloth wristband.” Being cynical, I would wonder what kind of attendee tracking the badge enables, like the RFID that HIMSS planned to use at HIMS11 (also RSNA) so that exhibitors could “derive a more accurate score of a visitor’s buying potential and send a booth alert when a key prospect approaches.” As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the tech company that HIMSS hired for that attendee tracking later incorporated facial recognition and also added a feature that HIMSS didn’t use — value-based booth pricing, so getting stuck in exhibit hall Siberia at least cost less. Also, did the ViVE wristbands have ads?

ViVE Conference Day 1 and 2 Observations from an Attendee

• 10,000 attendees (2,500 more than ViVE 2023 in Nashville), 30% are C-Suite-level. 725 provider and payer organizations represented. 5,000 scheduled meetings over the course of the conference.
• Nashville has not been spared from the latest Arctic blast. There were snow flurries falling during the (partially outdoor) opening night reception.
• The show floor feels both active and quiet; there’s definitely a lot of people and a lot of activity, yet nothing feels frenetic or chaotic. It feels like everything flows and runs smoothly.
• The layout of the show floor is different in notable ways from two years ago. There is less empty space. Every inch is used in a way that’s compact but doesn’t feel cramped.
• It feels like there are a lot more vendor booths, and they’ve cut back on some of the free space as a result. Also, the primary stages at each corner of the show floor have much less seating compared to two years ago.
• 99% of the booths seem to be taken. I’ve only seen three booths and one meeting cube on the floor plan showing as unfilled.
• AI is definitely a core focus and some of the biggest booths are heavily AI-oriented.
• Vendors I’ve noticed who have a diminished or no presence (smaller booth, much fewer attendees): Health Gorilla, Graphite Health, Moxe, eClinicalWorks, Interfaceware, Quest Diagnostics. I’m sure there are others.
• I continue to question how valuable a booth is. If you have a catchy brand or offering that’s likely to attract the attention of a wanderer, I can see it helping. If you’re meeting- and one-on-one-focused, I feel like a meeting area is a better investment.
• The Provider and Payer Connect Lounge, where vendors have scheduled meetings with provider and payer orgs, is huge this time around, with at least 170 small tables for meetings. The Investor Connect Lounge feels smaller and anecdotally, I haven’t run into nearly as many investors.
• Being a repeat ViVE attendee, I feel my organization has a much better game plan for the conference. I’m clearer on who to meet with and how to make connections happen. I’m more realistic about who actually attends and how to find them. I think vendors coming to ViVE need to understand that it is focused on doing business with investors and health system/health plan prospects. The days are heavily structured around meetings and more curated interactions with providers, payer, and investors. Some folks are here to learn or explore, but many are on a mission and will treat everything tangential to that mission as a distraction. If you are a B2B company, like a professional services org, you need to hit every aisle of booths and seek out partnerships or prospects. You have to have the right strategy to make the conference worthwhile, and for some it probably isn’t the right fit.
• Nashville is expecting one to four inches of snow starting late Tuesday night, so there is a lot of chatter about folks changing flights and abandoning town. I’m expecting Wednesday to be dead, and I’m surprised the ViVE organizers haven’t addressed the elephant in the room and given guidance on whether they’ll even keep Day 4. I feel bad for those slated to hold key meetings or to present on the final day. Though the weather’s unusual, it isn’t unheard of in Nashville in February. ViVE should really stick to March.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

HIMSS25 Guide: HIStalk sponsors can provide conference participation details by February 24 to be included in my guide.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Keebler Health raises $6 million in seed funding. The Durham, NC-based company’s software performs medical records review to help providers assess and adjust risk under value-based care contracts.

I missed this from mid-January. A private equity firm acquires ComplexCare Solutions, a carve-out from Inovalon. The company offers an independent health assessment and member engagement platform.

Avandra, which operates a medical imaging data network, raises $17.75 million in funding.

Sales

• Community Hospital Corporation will deploy CarePilot’s AI scribe solution. Founder and CEO Joseph Tutera, Jr. ran unsuccessfully for governor of Kansas in 2017 at age 16, then started a business early in the pandemic buying respirator masks and COVID tests from Asia and reselling them to US customers.
• MultiCare Connected Care will use Tuva Health’s open-source technology to manage and analyze data for 375,000 patients and has taken an ownership stake in the company through its investment arm.
• Montefiore Health System selects Amazon Web Services as its cloud provider and will transition Epic to AWS.

People

Germany-based medical inhaler digital therapy vendor VisionHealth promotes Peter Shadday to CEO. He replaces founder Sabine Häussermann, PhD, who will move to chief scientific officer.

Oncology software vendor OncoHealth hires Jon Maack, MBA (Definitive Healthcare) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Innovaccer launches telephone-based AI voice agents for patient scheduling, protocol intake, referral, authorization, care gap closure, HCC coding, and patient access.

DrFirst enhances its IPrescribe electronic prescribing app with a feature that lets providers call patients from their personal phones while displaying their practice’s name as the caller ID.

Healthcare accreditor URAC announces plans to release a healthcare AI accreditation program later this year and seeks advisory committee members to help develop standards.

DirectTrust opens a 60-day public comment period for draft criteria for its new Identity Provider and UDAP Identity Provider programs.

Arcadia launches new solutions for modeling care networks, managing value-based care contracts, identifying care gaps, and developing AI models to identify disease progression and risk.

Symplr announces an AWS-powered platform that integrates 28 applications in a unified user experience.

MultiPlan changes it name to Claritev and announces its intentions to broaden its product lines beyond reducing payments for out-of-network provider claims.

Clarigent Health, a Cincinnati Children’s startup that developed an AI-driven tool for schools to analyze counseling session recordings for suicide risk, shuts down. The company had received $1 million in NIH funding, but a 2023 newspaper investigation found no evidence supporting its claims and raised accuracy concerns due to the AI being trained on recordings from a majority-white population.

Government and Politics

HHS appoints Clark Minor, a software executive at Palantir, as CIO. The intelligence data firm won a contested $415 million NHS contract in 2023, drawing criticism over sole-source awarding and full NHS data access. HHS, a Palantir client, has paid the company $300 million over four years.

Stat reports that FDA has laid off many AI and digital health employees who were involved in AI regulation.

A new Ohio law forces hospitals to comply with the widely ignored federal price transparency rule by prohibiting non-compliant hospitals from collecting patient medical debt.

Sponsor Updates

• Cordea Consulting introduces its Innovation Lab video series.
• Clinical Architecture joins the CHIME Foundation to collaborate on healthcare IT innovation.
• Optimum Healthcare IT achieves Amazon Web Services Healthcare Competency status.
• CloudWave will present at the North Carolina Healthcare Association Winter Meeting February 20 in Raleigh.

Blog Posts

• AI and healthcare: What clinicians need to know (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• How Cybersecurity Ambassador Programs Strengthen Your First Line of Defense (CereCore)
• Navigating the Current State of AI and Automation in Revenue Cycle Management (AGS Health)
• Looking toward the future of healthcare: Altera leaders’ predictions for 2025 and beyond (Altera Digital Health)
• Seven Habits of Client-Focused Companies (Clearsense)
• Powering Pharmacogenomics: Clinical Architecture’s Role in Advancing Personalized Medicine in the NHS (Clinical Architecture)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 2/17/25

Top News

A JAMA commentary piece notes that patients don’t trust how health systems will use AI, but then again, they don’t trust health systems in general.

A cited study found a mean health system overall trust score of 5.23 on a 12-point scale. Only 40% of respondents expressed high trust, down from 72% pre-pandemic.

The author, Vanderbilt informatics professor Jessica Ancker, MD, MPH, recommends that health systems clearly disclose AI interactions, specify who can access AI-generated data, and inform patients when AI is used to influence clinical decisions.

She also notes that people tend to be wary of technology they haven’t personally experienced, such as self-driving cars, but usually warm up to it once they see it for themselves.

Reader Comments

From Peds MD: “Re: Epic’s Care Everywhere. Responding to the HIStalk post last fall where Care Everywhere failed to match a critical newborn, Epic relaxed its requirements to make matches if you have the patient’s Care Everywhere number (from the place you are querying) and two other matching demographics. Today we had a patient who had “some kind of heart surgery” as a child in 2001, and it was medically important to know exactly what was done. Because they had moved across the country, I couldn’t match the patient using regular demographics — everything had changed except their name, sex, and date of birth — but when I obtained and entered the Care Everywhere number from the other hospital’s HIM department, the match came back immediately. We are still working with Epic on improving matching, but I think it’s important to recognize progress, as it made a big difference in this patient’s care. Kudos to HIStalk for helping in this.” I posted the reader’s original problem description last year. Thanks for the update and thanks to Epic, which I can say always responds quickly and personally to address issues that readers have reported here.

From Silken: “Re: Epic and SaaS. I’ve seen online commentary about the benefit of Epic moving to SaaS model. What do you and your readers think?” For me, I see the possible customer advantages of running a SaaS versus on-premise and cloud-hosted products. However, technical punditry and wishful thinking aside, you have to assume that Epic is like all companies in being most likely to take whatever path benefits it most. Thoughts:

• Big, Epic-using health systems aren’t visibly demanding a SaaS model, at least when it comes to voting with their dollars, which is the only vote that counts. They have already invested in Epic-driven infrastructure, IT expertise, and long-term budgets. These are sunk costs that shouldn’t influence future decisions, but hospitals are generally risk-averse and don’t relish major disruptions like retraining and workflow changes, especially in the absence of a clear business benefit.
• Even though Epic’s maintenance costs are high, SaaS wouldn’t necessarily be cheaper over time since it’s still up to Epic to set prices.
• Many health systems already operate a de facto SaaS model by hosting Epic for affiliated hospitals and clinics. This may be more cost-effective than Epic offering SaaS directly to an ever-decreasing number of unaffiliated small hospitals and practices.
• SaaS benefits include scalability and faster onboarding of acquisitions, but drawbacks include a reduced ability for customization, forced upgrades on Epic’s schedule, and tighter vendor lock-in.
• The Change Healthcare breach heightened concerns about reliance on a single vendor, possibly making CIOs skeptical that Epic SaaS would be more secure or resilient than their own IT capabilities.
• SaaS would increase health system dependence on Epic, with unknowns about what a post-Judy Epic looks like.
• Oracle Health talks up cloud-native ambitions but lacks market momentum, industry focus, and credibility to provide much of a medium-term threat. Health systems care less about technology compared to business results, proven ROI, and vendor responsiveness and stability. Oracle’s commitment, performance, and retention of internal healthcare expertise remains unproven, and customers have been historically burned by big tech outsiders who barged into (and then out of) healthcare. 
• A full Epic rewrite is unlikely unless the reward to Epic clearly outweighs the risk. Few vendors have pulled this off. Meditech did it seemingly effortlessly with Expanse and Cerner (as a publicly traded company) sweated through many bad years until Millennium was fully baked. Otherwise a lot of vendor-touted technology improvement is pig lipstickery, and sometimes that’s all customers care about anyway.
• Epic dominates the market and will eventually run out of deep-pockets health systems to sell to. It doesn’t need to chase new customers by teasing their CTOs into an advanced state of technical arousal.
• Potential drivers for change are Oracle Health rebounding as a serious competitor; a demand for cloud-native AI and analytics; and regulatory pressures around interoperability and cybersecurity (which seem to be lessening by the day).

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents book their medical appointments by telephone or patient portal. Some say they do it at the check-out desk at the end of their visit, which I’ve seen almost universally with dentists but commonly with doctors, although that experience probably involves routine chronic condition management.

New poll to your right or here: How much of your job performance can be measured using objective metrics?This came to mind while reading an article about how much of a pay cut office employees would take to work fully remotely. The article noted that managers who oppose WFH often oversee employees whose performance isn’t easily quantified by output metrics, which forces them to rely on in-office proxies such as hours worked, enthusiasm, and the perceptions of colleagues and customers. Another question might be that if your job performance isn’t being mostly measured by metrics, then why not? Is your work inherently unquantifiable, or is it that managers haven’t created the right metrics and instead rely on direct observation?

HIStalk sponsors: fill out this form to tell me about your HIMSS25 plans by February 24 and I will include you in my guide, which will look like the one above from last year..

Readers provided microphones and speakers for students in Ms. B’s elementary school classes in Kinston, NC. She reports:

You would not believe how student engagement has changed in our classroom!!! We faithfully use the devices during our math lessons. Students love when they are able to clearly share their thinking, using the microphone, as they give explanations while solving rigorous word problems. Being in the spotlight, they aren’t shy to speak out for all to hear. The Bluetooth speaker sits stationary in the center of the room so all voices are projected throughout. I love the range and how I’m able to walk around freely without even realizing that it’s still on. The students are able to hear me no matter if I’m in the front of the room or in the back of the room.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

ProPublica examines the history of Zolgensma, a taxpayer- and charity-funded gene therapy for a rare nerve disease in infants whose rights were acquired by a startup. The chief scientist gained partial ownership, the startup went public, and Novartis later bought it for $8.7 billion, netting the scientist $400 million, an investor $315 million, and the CEO $190 million. Novartis then priced the drug at a record $2 million per dose. Medicaid spent $309 million on it over four years, while Novartis made $6.4 billion. The article notes that 10 gene therapy products now cost more than $2 million per dose once Novartis set the price bar so high.

People

WellSpan Health SVP/CIO Hal Baker, MD announces that he will retire in July. He encourages those who might want to succeed him to apply for the York, PA-based job, telling me that “We have a fantastic team, are doing some very cool cutting edge stuff in AI, and I think my 30 years working for a single employer says about as much as one can about how good the opportunity is.”

Announcements and Implementations

Meditech signs its 100th Meditech as a Service client.

Epic integrates organ donation registration capabilities into MyChart in collaboration with the non-profit Donate Life America.

Mayo Clinic will pilot VoiceCare AI’s voice AI agent in three areas for pre-authorization and benefit confirmation.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence deploys the first batch of 200 tablets to Air Assault Forces medics, who will use them to document frontline care in the military’s self-developed Electronic Primary Medical Records system. The tablets were donated by the Come Back Alive foundation, which supports members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Other

In England, a trade union raises concerns about a hospital’s plan to use license plate recognition software to impose fees and fines. The website of technology provider ParkingEye says that the advantages are to “increase parking revenue, reduce car park abuse, and improve customer satisfaction,” also noting that 30 NHS trusts already use its systems. Complaints abound, mostly about being erroneously told by someone on site that it was free to park or to get validated, having their credit card hit with a huge charge with no response to appeals, and angry excuses of the “I was only a little over the time limit and it wasn’t my fault” variety.

Sponsor Updates

• Health Data Movers hires Andrew O’Hara as a health IT recruiter.
• TruBridge announces its selection as a preferred partner to healthcare services company Cibolo Health.
• Visage Imaging General Manager, North America Brad Levin recaps the first Sharp HealthCare Spatial Computing Health Care Summit in San Diego.
• Contessa Health (TN) works with Netsmart to develop and configure the first application in a suite of tools that is its new population health management platform for palliative care at home.
• Nym publishes a new case study, “Transforming Medical Coding at Inova.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper, “Improving Efficiency & Meeting User Demand with ITSM Practices in Healthcare.”
• Praia Health announces it has been granted a second patent for its account and experience orchestration technology.
• QGenda offers a new case study, “North American Partners in Anesthesia Achieves Faster, More Accurate Payroll with QGenda’s Schedule-Driven Time and Attendance Solution.”
• Waystar earns top rankings for its payment solutions in eight categories, according to Black Book Research’s latest analysis of AI-powered RCM software platforms.
• WellSky publishes an EHR checklist for behavioral health facilities.

Blog Posts

• Best Practices for Collaborating with Payers (FinThrive)
• CMS TEAM is coming: Why CIOs must act now on EHR optimization (Nordic)
• Top Physician Communication Frustrations (PerfectServe)
• The Cost of Doing Nothing (Praia Health)
• How Redox and Databricks are transforming prior authorization through interoperability (Redox)
• Powering the Prior Authorization Transformation (Surescripts)
• How a Healthcare Platform Transforms Patient Care & Operations (Symplr)
• How to Align Operations + Technology to Improve Patient Access (Tegria)
• Value-based care requires creativity and technology partnerships (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

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

News 2/14/25

Top News

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, JD, LLM is sworn in as HHS secretary.

He will manage a $2 trillion budget and will oversee CMS, CDC, FDA, NIH, the Public Health Service, HHS OIG, AHRQ, Office for Civil Rights, and ASTP.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Inbox Health. Inbox Health directly addresses one of the fastest-growing problems in healthcare — the challenge of patient A/R. Built for healthcare revenue cycle leaders, Inbox Health automates patient billing and patient payments and modernizes the patient support experience. Inbox Health improves patient engagement by providing clear medical bills immediately after service; choice of payment methods and communication channels; and fast, empathetic support through the phone and live chat. By improving the patient experience, practices see an increase in profitability, cash flow, and collection speeds. With Inbox Health, customers report a 60% increase in collection speeds in the first 60 days. Inbox Health provides an automated, streamlined platform that increases revenue, saves time, and reduces costs. Inbox Health serves over 3,000 healthcare practices and more than 2 million patients a year. Headquartered in New Haven, CT, Inbox Health was recently named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America. Thanks to Inbox Health for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CVS Health reports Q4 results: revenue up 4%, EPS $1.30 versus $1.58, beating expectations for both and sending battered shares up 15%. Executives emphasized plans to boost margins in its Aetna insurance unit, which was hit by high utilization costs, and refine drug pricing models.

Revenue cycle automation vendor Candid Health raises $52.5 million in a Series C funding round.

No-code healthcare workflow automation and integration platform vendor Keragon raises $7.5 million in seed funding.

Vitalchat, which offers an AI-powered inpatient virtual nursing and procedural telehealth platform, raises $6 million in a Series A funding round. CEO Michael Raymer, Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Haas, and board member Peter Neupert spent time at Sentillion / Microsoft and the executive team has deep health tech experience in general.

Half-year results of Pro Medicus, Visage Imaging’s Australia-based parent, report a 35% jump in revenue from North America.

Oracle EVP and lobbyist Ken Glueck fires off another unhinged rant against Epic and CEO Judy Faulkner after his initial diatribe last spring. Snips:

• “We set on a path to build a modern EHR Cloud, focused on innovation while Epic built a yellow brick road to nowhere. At Epic, product demos were replaced by campus tour.”
• He spends most of his 21 paragraphs accusing Epic of favorably editing its own Wikipedia page, although he (a) admitted that it’s possible that nobody associated with Epic actually did this; and (b) didn’t elaborate on why Epic would find Wikipedia pages important enough to justify “a more sophisticated, coordinated, and sustained effort.” 
• Glueck says that Epic has run a smear campaign against Oracle EVP/GM Seema Verma, who he says riled Judy by pushing interoperability in her former role as CMS administrator. (note: Verma’s Wikipedia page is certainly an interesting read without any Epic embellishment).

Oracle Health employees reacted negatively on Reddit:

• “Childish and stupid. Truly embarrassing.”
• “Who the hell is Ken Glueck and is this external for clients to read? That’s totally embarrassing. Also, Feinberg said Epic isn’t our competitor anyway, so what’s the problem?”
• “I am not sure I have witnessed a more profound ass kissing. How the hell does a professional organization let a piece like that out the door?”
• “To paraphrase Steve Jobs, real wizards ship.”

Sales

• Cordea Consulting brings Jupiter Medical Center (FL) live on Epic on Amazon Web Services.

People

RWJBarnabas Health hires Roshan Hussain, MBA, MPH (UK HealthCare) as SVP/chief data and analytics officer.

Mark Amey, MBA (Alameda Health System) joins Ellit Groups as COO.

CloudWave promotes Tina Brown, MBA to VP of cloud operations; Tony Rienzo to VP of service delivery; and John Duffy to VP of cloud infrastructure.

Evidently hires Kai Romero, MD (By The Bay Health) as head of clinical success.

Jay Volk, JD, LLM, MA (EtherFax) joins Weave Cloud Solutions as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Medicomp System announces support for USCDI Version 3 and Version 4 for its Quippe platform, which gives its partners access to SDOH screening tools and export capability to FHIR.

Surescripts announces Touchless Prior Authorization.

Apple adds heart rate monitoring to its new $250 Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds.

Meditech renames its patient portal to MyHealthHub.

.

Apple launches the Apple Health Study in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which will use the Research app to explore how data from Apple devices relates to health.

In England, Fordcombe Hospital goes live on Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EPR.

Government and Politics

Politico reports that three HHS / ASTP technology executives who were hired into newly created positions four weeks ago appear to no longer work for the organization – Meghan Dierks, MD (chief AI officer); Alicia Rouault (CTO); and Kristen Honey PhD, MA (chief data officer).

Other

Former Theranos CEO and federal inmate Elizabeth Holmes tells People that she is still filing patents and plans to re-enter healthcare technology after her scheduled release in 2032. Critics say that the article might indicate that she is angling for a sentence reduction or possibly a White House pardon by creating sympathy for her children, ages 2 and 3, who were born during her fraud trial. She says that her newfound passion is to become an advocate for reforming the US criminal justice system.

Sponsor Updates

• Digital Health New York inducts Capital Rx into its inaugural Hall of Fame as part of a cohort of companies that have built the foundation of New York’s Digital Health ecosystem.
• Black Book Research publishes its first comprehensive industry review of AI applications in revenue cycle management.
• TruBridge names Jerry Canada and Dris Upitis to its board as a part of cooperation agreements with Pinetree Capital and Ocho Investments.
• Clearsense announces a strategic rebrand, the relocation of its headquarters to Nashville, and the addition of new features to its 1Clearsense data-enablement platform.
• Jack Squires (WellSky) joins Healthmonix as sales executive.
• Riverside University Health System – Behavioral Health (CA) adds Netsmart’s CareRouter mobile dispatch tool to improve the efficiency of its Mobile Crisis Response Program.
• WellSky launches a new patient panel, available in the WellSky CarePort Connect solution, that will equip providers with critical and holistic knowledge of their patient population.
• Health Data Movers hires Andrew O’Hara as a health IT recruiter.
• Inovalon releases an eight-episode podcast, “INOvators 2025 Forecast.”

Blog Posts

• 5 Tips for Achieving 2025 Readiness in the IDD Industry (Netsmart)
• 211 Day: Celebrating Innovation Meeting Impact (Findhelp)
• Healthcare Insurance Discovery: How It Works and Why Providers Need It (FinThrive)
• Riding the Wave Into 2025: Top 5 Highlights From Five9 SKO (Five9)
• The Importance of Migrating from Your Legacy ERP to a Modern Cloud-Based Solution: Doing Nothing is Not a Strategy (Impact Advisors)
• How MyHealthHub elevates the patient experience (Meditech)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
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News 2/12/25

Top News

Doximity reports Q3 results: revenue up 25%, EPS $0.40 versus $0.26, beating analyst expectations for both and sending shares up nearly 40% on the news.

DOCS  shares have gained 170% in the past 12 months, valuing the physician professional network company at $14 billion.

Co-founder and CEO Jeff Tangney holds shares worth nearly $5 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Check out what HIStalk sponsors will be doing at the ViVE conference in Nashville next week. 

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Symplr. Symplr is a leader in enterprise healthcare operations software and services with a first-of-its-kind operations platform. Trusted in nine of 10 US hospitals and 400+ US health plans, Symplr optimizes operations and maximizes care powered by its cloud-based workforce, quality, provider data management, and spend solutions. Gain efficiencies, reduce complexity, and improve outcomes where it matters most. Thanks to Symplr for supporting HIStalk.

I found this Symplr explainer video on YouTube.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “Successfully Navigating Post-Acute Rev Cycle Challenges.” Sponsors: Inovalon and KanTime. Presenters: David Swenson, senior manager of sales engineering, Inovalon; Lucy Lopez, VP of product management, KanTime. Learn how to speed up your revenue cycle processes and avoid the common RCM and eligibility errors that cause delays and denials. Discover strategies to boost your bottom line: streamline eligibility verification, simplify complex processes, and optimize denial management for improved cash flow.

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

Survey: “Data Quality Survey 2025.” Sponsor: Clinical Architecture. This annual survey measures the perceived quality of the data in healthcare, the impact of data quality on individual and collective objectives, and the factors contributing to poor quality. We do this across different healthcare market segments since each segment creates, collects, uses, and disseminates the data differently. Responses are welcome and appreciated from those who are associated with providers, payers, life sciences, public health, academia, value-based care, analytics vendors, EHR vendors, and consultants.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Sales

• Columbus Community Hospital (NE), Pipeline Health System (CA), Sioux Falls Specialty Hospital (SD), and West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital (LA) will roll out Altera Digital Health’s Paragon Denali EHR.
• Vizient selects Andor Health’s ThinkAndor virtual care collaboration software.
• Southern Illinois Healthcare will implement Counterpart Health’s AI-powered physician enablement and patient insights software.
• The VA awards Planned Systems International a contract to support the EHR Modernization Integration Office’s software testing and evaluation as Oracle Health is rolled out to additional facilities.
• AdventHealth will implement care coordination software from Aidin at its hospitals in nine states.
• Door County Medical Center (WI) will replace Meditech with Epic in February 2026.
• Doctors Hospital (FL) selects virtual care technology from CareView Communications.
• Virtua Health (NJ) will use Unite Us software to standardize its Health-Related Social Needs referral process.

People

LeanTaaS promotes Tim Vasil, MS, MBA to CTO.

Episcopal Health Services (NY) names John Rossi (Stamford Health) VP and chief digital information officer.

Upfront Healthcare promotes Lisa Rhind, MA to SVP of client services.

Industry long-timer Tom Griga (The HCI Group) joins Divurgent as SVP of client service. 

OncoHealth names Jon Maack, MBA (Definitive Healthcare) as CEO.

Todd Dunn, MBA (The Innovators Journey) joins Accuryn Medical as chief transformation officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Lincata introduces LincTV, an HDMI plug-in device that enables Epic MyChart Bedside to run on existing TVs. The device supports virtual nursing and patient monitoring by connecting to cameras, microphones, and motion sensors. Chairman and CEO Tom White, MBA is an industry veteran who previously co-founded Vocada and Phynd, which were acquired by Nuance and Symplr, respectively.

AdvancedMD releases its first major enhancements to its EHR, PM, and patient engagement platform since the company was acquired by Francisco Partners last fall. Updates include redesigned Patient and Responsible Party cards, a population health reporting system, and clinical notes auto-save.

Backline by DrFirst, Five Wishes, and MyDirectives launch ACP Complete, an advance care planning solution that guides patients via virtual consultations.

A new Black Book Market Research report names Clearwater as the leading healthcare cybersecurity firm.

KLAS’s inaugural report on revenue cycle optimization ranks Guidehouse, Chartis, and Tegria as top performers for Epic users; Signature Performance for Oracle Health; and Huron for Meditech. Huron, Chartis, Healthrise, and Impact Advisors lead in identifying high-value optimization opportunities.

Other

Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister for e-health and digital transformation says that Seha Virtual Hospitals is using advanced AI to analyze images and screen people for chronic conditions. It is connected to 200 hospitals via the country’s HIE.

Three Germany-based university hospitals saw no significant change in inappropriate imaging ordering following their implementation of a clinical decision support system. Those orders made up  5% to 8% of the total.

Sponsor Updates

• Availity sponsors the Wolfson Children’s Challenge to support Wolfson Children’s Hospital (FL).
• Healthcare IT Leaders appoints CEO Ben Hilmes, MHA to its board.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast, “Interview with Aaron Neinstein, MD.”
• Vyne Medical announces that its hosted Trace Platform and Refyne Denials Management solutions have earned certified status by HITRUST for information security.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast,: “Selling Pharmacy Benefits: Relationships, Rebates, GLP-1s, and More, with Bridget Mulvenna.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new white paper titled “Improving Efficiency & Meeting User Demand with ITSM Practices in Healthcare.”
• Clearwater will present at the University of Louisville’s ISACA Kentuckiana Chapter’s Secure Digital Conference February 14.

Blog Posts

• Denial Remediation: Preventing Denials (AGS Health)
• The journey toward better healthcare is underway: A look at Sunrise (Altera Digital Health)
• CIO Insights: Seizing Big Tech Opportunities for Greater Impact (CereCore)
• Extreme Usability in Post-Acute Care: Technology That Works the Way You Do (Netsmart)
• “This is how I do it”: uncovering gaps in data-driven clinical workflows (Philips Capsule)
• Overcoming Capacity Management Challenges in Patient Access (Tegria)
• Our 11th Best in KLAS: Leading the Future of Healthcare Analytics (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
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Monday Morning Update 2/10/25

Top News

The FDA warns users of diabetes devices — including continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, and automated insulin dosing systems — that critical alerts may be missed due to their phone settings.

Reported issues include misconfigured app permissions, use of “Do Not Disturb” or focus modes, apps going to sleep from inactivity, Bluetooth connections altering volume settings, and OS updates that are incompatible with the device’s app.

Reader Comments

From P.S. “Re: MyChart. A friend was looking for results for her daughter from a hospital that went live on MyChart in February. MyChart pulled up another patient’s records with their name, birthdate, and medical record number. Has anyone seen this or is it a one-off? I am interested because we are moving to Epic soon at my hospital.” I’m guessing that it’s a problem with the source system that sent the results to Epic rather than Epic itself. I say that because Googling “mychart wrong patient” brings up a few examples, most commonly attributed to an outside lab or practice and a hospital error in patient matching. Readers, have you ever seen someone else’s information in your MyChart?

From Adhesion: “Re: Oracle Health non-compliance with Section 508 disability requirements. How did the VA miss that federal requirement?” The VA should have been aware of Section 508 compliance given its long history with its previous patient portal My HealtheVet, which it boasted was fully compliant. However, federal software accessibility compliance is often more aspirational than fully realized because it’s a lot of work to retrofit support for assistive technologies and keyboard-only operation. Supposedly around 75% of software that is used by the federal government isn’t fully compliant. Related: Epic was sued a few years ago by a blind advocacy group who said that disabled people could no longer perform their jobs when their employer went live with Epic, but the case was dismissed and it addressed only employees, not outside users. Epic demonstrated Nuance-powered voice navigation at HIMSS17 that it said would meet the requirements for Section 508 compliant self-scheduling, but that was part of the VA’s MASS scheduling system that the VA walked away from in choosing Cerner.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Sore throat probably wasn’t a great choice for a treatment venue preference poll given the strep swab confounder, not to mention that self-managing symptoms is also an option.

New poll to your right or here: How did you schedule your most recent non-emergency, in-person medical encounter? I listed the options that I could think of, but it’s likely I missed some.

A long-term sponsor will soon be vacating the stratospheric ad aerie way up there at the top of the column because they’ve been acquired. New or upgrading sponsors, get in touch with Lorre to move up there to the penthouse, even in time for the HIMSS conference if you are ready.

Dr. H from Bronx, NY provided an update to a reader’s donation that funded his Donor’s Choose request for help covering the $150 cost of having a PBS documentary filmmaker conduct a virtual workshop and screening for his early college class. He says, “The presentation and workshop have made an incredible impact in the classroom. The students have been working on short films of their own creation and direction. Students have also been composing their own film music on keyboards. Students computer literacy has improved with greater exposure to the workshop. We will have a screening in May where every student screens their film shorts for the entire school and local community.” Health system executives, technologists, and radiologists can help fund similar projects by completing this quick AI purchasing survey, which triggers a donation from Volpara Health.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “Successfully Navigating Post-Acute Rev Cycle Challenges.” Sponsors: Inovalon and KanTime. Presenters: David Swenson, senior manager of sales engineering, Inovalon; Lucy Lopez, VP of product management, KanTime. Learn how to speed up your revenue cycle processes and avoid the common RCM and eligibility errors that cause delays and denials. Discover strategies to boost your bottom line: streamline eligibility verification, simplify complex processes, and optimize denial management for improved cash flow.

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed. 

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health shares popped on Thursday and Friday after an analyst gave it a glowing recommendation as a back door AI play, noting that shares have shed 96% of their 2021 value because of lower growth but the company still enjoys high margins and cash flow. I was surprised to learn that Teladoc has 5,600 employees.

Sales

• Tanner Health will implement Abridge’s ambient documentation.

People

Bamboo Health hires Ross Armstrong, MSHA, MBA (Biofourmis) as chief commercial officer.

Stephen Fischer, MD, who developed the SpringCharts primary care EHR 25 years ago, died last week at 68.

Government and Politics

Health tech is represented on Elon Musk’s DOGE team. Industry long-timer Amy Gleason most recently worked for primary care operator Main Street Health and the White House’s US Digital Service. Brad Smith is chairman and CEO of Main Street Health, co-founder and former CEO of Aspire Health (sold to Anthem / Elevance in 2018), and co-founder and former executive chair of CareBridge (sold to Elevance in October 2024 for $2.7 billion). Smith also ran CMS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation from 2020 to  2021.

Sponsor Updates

• Vyne Medical announces the expansion of its cloud fax services and email-to-fax technology in a major academic medical center.
• Nordic celebrates its 15th anniversary.
• Hearst Health-owned care and membership management software vendor MHK will integrate its CareProminence platform with Findhelp’s closed-loop social services referral system.
• Nym publishes a new guide, “10 Questions to Ask Autonomous Medical Coding Vendors.”
• Prominence Advisors will sponsor CDO Healthcare Exchange 2025 February 11-13 in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
• Redox prepares to launch its Shut the Backdoor Podcast about healthcare security.
• Sectra releases a new episode of its “Let’s Talk Enterprise Imaging” podcast, “Greater Manchester’s path to AI in chest x-ray imaging.”
• Primary Venture Partners recognize SmarterDx co-founders Michael Gao, MD and Josh Geleris, MD as startup honorees at the NYC Tech Awards.
• Waystar will exhibit at the EClinicalWorks Day Show February 12 in Dallas.
• The Overland Park Chamber of Commerce honors WellSky Chairman and CEO Bill Miller with its Nova Award for fast-growing and innovative companies.

Blog Posts

• 2025 Readiness: 8 Enhancement Considerations for Human Services & Post Acute Teams (Netsmart)
• Addressing cybersecurity challenges in rural healthcare (Nordic)
• Top 2025 Healthcare Trends and Predictions (PerfectServe)
• Should You Build or Buy Your Consumer Experience Orchestration Platform? (Praia Health)
• Building Better Community Care with Tailored Solutions (TruBridge)

Contacts

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

News 2/7/25

Top News

Teladoc Health will acquire Catapult Health, a virtual checkup provider that sells to employers and health plans, for $65 million in cash, valuing the company at 2x annual revenue.

Teladoc plans to apply its technology to identify at-risk individuals and encourage them to enroll in its chronic condition management programs.

TDOC shares, which have lost 42% in the past 12 months, rose slightly on the news, valuing the company at just under $2 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Nym. Nym is the leader in transforming clinical language into actionable information, which can remove inefficiencies that add billions to the cost of care. By combining industry-leading technology with clinical expertise and a deep understanding of medical language, Nym is able to accurately decode medical charts in a way that is fast, explainable, and compliant across multiple specialties in both outpatient and inpatient care settings. Nym’s autonomous medical coding engine translates provider notes within patient charts into diagnostic and billing charge codes in a matter of seconds, with over 95% accuracy and absolutely zero human intervention. Nym’s engine also delivers audit-ready, traceable documentation for every code it generates, ensuring total visibility into coding rationale. The solution can be quickly deployed and scaled based on volume and workflow needs, easing administrative burdens and allowing clinical teams to spend more time focused on patient care. This autonomous approach to medical coding enables healthcare organizations to optimize their revenue cycle operations while maintaining the highest levels of compliance and accuracy. Based in New York City with R&D capabilities in Tel Aviv, Nym is building an interdisciplinary team of specialists including technologists, physicians, mathematicians, computational linguists, engineers, and medical coders. The company’s innovative approach to autonomous medical coding has attracted investment from leading healthcare and technology investors, including PSG, Addition, GV, Bessemer Venture Partners, Dynamic Loop Capital, and Tiger Global. Thanks to Nym for supporting HIStalk.

Health system executives, technologists, and radiologists — Volpara Health will make a significant donation to Donors Choose for your response to this quick survey. You will be supporting teachers as readers did for Ms. H in Yonkers, NY, who reported this week along with the photo above, “With the new headphones, our students are now able to engage with the AI-powered curriculum in a focused, distraction-free environment. The built-in microphones allow them to interact with the program, practicing pronunciation, fluency, and comprehension in real time, tailoring lessons to their individual needs. This technology is making a huge difference by adapting to each student’s pace, providing immediate feedback, and allowing them to work independently. Our students, many of whom come from diverse backgrounds, are now building confidence and critical literacy skills, thanks to the opportunity to engage deeply with the curriculum.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “Successfully Navigating Post-Acute Rev Cycle Challenges.” Sponsors: Inovalon and KanTime. Presenters: David Swenson, senior manager of sales engineering, Inovalon; Lucy Lopez, VP of product management, KanTime. Learn how to speed up your revenue cycle processes and avoid the common RCM and eligibility errors that cause delays and denials. Discover strategies to boost your bottom line: streamline eligibility verification, simplify complex processes, and optimize denial management for improved cash flow.

Instant Access Webinar: “How AI Addresses Resource Constraints Within Identity Data Management.” Sponsor: Rhapsody. Presenters: Lynn Stoltz, MS, director of product management, Rhapsody; Drew Ivan, MS, chief architect, Rhapsody; Michelle Blackmer, chief marketing officer, Rhapsody. Discover how to overcome the toughest challenge in identity data management: resource constraints.  The presenters will cover how Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot solves resource challenges like limitations in time, talent, and budget; Reduces costs and risks associated with inaccurate data; and boosts identity data accuracy through 98% decision-making precision.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed. 

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Germany-based Avelios Medical raises $31 million in a Series A funding round, the proceeds of which it plans to use to market its hospital information system to users of SAP’s patient management product, which will be retired by 2030.

Health insurer software vendor EnGen, which is a subsidiary of HIghmark Health, lays off 207 employees.

Virtual family mental health provider Little Otter raises a $9.5 million funding round.

People

Goliath Technologies hires Ryan Oliver (KLAS Research) as SVP of healthcare solutions.

Care coordination technology vendor Watershed Health promotes Effie Carlson to CEO, replacing founder Chip Grant, MD.

Pat Henson, MBA (The HCI Group) joins IMethods as EVP of healthcare solutions.

Avia Health hires Clay Holderman, MBA (UnityPoint Health) as CEO.

Aaron Fenton, MBA (Fenton Consulting) joins Equum Medical as chief growth officer.

Access TeleCare hires Kris Kistler, MS as CISO.

Announcements and Implementations

AMA launches a $12 million program to apply AI and other technologies to the educational programs of medical schools, residency programs, and CME to personalize content and goals to learners. 

Oracle Health EVP/GM Seema Verma lists some general features of the company’s newly developed EHR:

• Conversion of Millennium is not needed and customizations and configurations will remain in place.
• It will offer conversational search and voice-driven navigation.
• It will present clinicians with real-time information about medication options, evidence-based protocols, and research study results.
• AI-supported summaries will organize patient information by condition, role, and care setting to provide quick chart review.
• It will integrate with Oracle Clinical AI Agent and Clinical Data Exchange to manage prior authorization.
• It will feature a new patient portal.

KLAS posts its Best in KLAS 2025 report, which contains a few interesting nuggets:

• Epic beat Oracle Health with a performance score of 89 versus 65 in the Overall Health System Suite category.
• Athenahealth handily topped NextGen Healthcare and Greenway Health in the Independent Physician Practice Suite category.
• Chartis topped the Overall IT Services Firm and Healthcare Management Consulting Firm lists, but its competitors were close behind.
• Earning Most Improved were Agfa HealthCare, Inovalon, Nimble, and Clearwater.

Bloomberg’s editorial board says that the US has spent $35 billion on immature EHRs that doctors and patients hate. They say this about the Meaningful Use program:

Anxious to meet the subsidy deadlines and avoid penalties, providers adopted what software was available. Inferior products — developed hastily, with little thought for patient safety and user experience — became an entrenched and detested feature of medical practice. Lawmakers, once dazzled by the notion of data beaming between nodes of an interconnected health-care system, eventually realized they’d overlooked the industry’s disincentives to share lucrative patient information with their competitors.

Canada’s CAN Health Network of health system operators and health tech vendors urges Canadians to commercialize and adopt Canada-built health technologies as a response to threatened US tariffs.

This is for Dr. Jayne, since she has provided medical services to some Boy Scout camps. CampDoc, which sells an EHR for camps, will collaborate with Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts) software provider CouncilWare.

Government and Politics

The VA restarts its Oracle Health implementation by making a $330 million payment to Oracle to support planned 2026 deployments at four Michigan sites.

Meanwhile, the VA acknowledges that disabled veterans can’t access their own medical records because the patient portal does not meet Section 508 federal accessibility requirements. The VA’s initial contract with Cerner called for its system to be Section 508 compliant, but the VA didn’t test its accessibility and later requested an exemption.

Elon Musk says that his DOGE group is analyzing data in CMS’s payment and contracting systems, looking for fraud and waste.

Other

UnitedHealth Group’s defamation litigation attorney demands that breast reconstruction plastic surgeon Elisabeth Potter, MD take down her social media posts that described how UHG denied her cancer patient a post-surgical overnight stay. A United rep called her during surgery even though they had already approved the procedure, demanding patient information that the insurer already had. United denied the stay anyway. The law firm’s letter claimed that the doctor had made an error in her patient orders and demanded that she delete the posts and issue a public apology, both of which she declined to do.

Sponsor Updates

• Sonifi Health names Michelle Allen (Ametek) general manager.
• Black Book develops 18 enhanced key performance indicators to evaluate client satisfaction, return on investment, and overall experience with healthcare IT consulting firms.
• Vyne Medical publishes a new case study, “How a Tennessee Health System Leveraged Automation for Success.”
• First Databank parent company Hearst Health announces that submissions for the 2025 Hearst Health Prize will accepted via the online application portal through February 14.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advises Envision Technology Partners on its sale to InductiveHealth.
• Healthmonix names Jake Parlow sales development representative.
• Impact Advisors releases a new “Impactful AI” podcast, “Generative AI in Healthcare: Promise Unfulfilled?”
• NeuroFlow releases a new podcast, “How the Consolidated Appropriations Act is Reshaping Healthcare Benefits and Employer Responsibilities.”

Blog Posts

• 5 Ways AI is Revolutionizing IDD Care (Netsmart)
• From Errors to Efficiency: Transform Your Charge Capture Process (FinThrive)
• Embrace the future of health IT and the power of MEDITECH Expanse at HIMSS25 (Meditech)
• The New CX: Redefining What’s Possible (Five9)
• Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)Security: Why Healthcare Must Act Now (Fortified Health Security)
• 4 Key Enhancements to Plan for in the New Oracle Health EHR (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• AI Isn’t Taking Your Job – It’s Changing It (Inovalon)
• Building EHR user confidence with robust training resources (Meditech)
• HEDIS Preparation Guide: 3 Essential Steps (MRO)

HIStalk Sponsors Named Best in KLAS

• Agfa HealthCare – universal viewer; vendor neutral archive; most improved software product.
• Clearwater – most improved services solution.
• Dimensional Insight – data and analytics platforms.
• Findhelp – social determinants of health networks.
• FinThrive – insurance discovery.
• Fortified Health Security – security and privacy managed services.
• Impact Advisors – financial/clinical improvement consulting.
• Inovalon – most improved software product.
• Meditech – acute care EHR and patient accounting: small.
• MRO – release of information.
• Navina Technologies – clinician digital workflow.
• Nordic – clinical optimization.
• Optimum Healthcare IT – IT planning and assessment.
• PerfectServe – clinical communications: ambulatory / post–acute care; scheduling: physician.
• Rhapsody – integration engines.
• Sectra – PACS large; PACS small.
• Tegria – IT consulting services (payer).
• Waystar – claims management and clearinghouse; patient access.
• WellSky – homecare / personal care services and private-duty nursing.
• Wolters Kluwer – infection control and monitoring; patient-driven care management; patient education.

Contacts

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