Monday Morning Update 10/2/23
Top News
The American Hospital Association asks Congress to withdraw HHS OCR’s December 2022 rule that prohibits hospitals from tracking their website users using third-party technology.
AHA says the rule violates HIPAA, harms patients and public health, and incorrectly extends HIPAA to cover website visitors who aren’t patients.
The organization says that third-party web user tracking tools such as Google Analytics and YouTube give health systems insight into community problems and website navigation issues, allow them to offer of educational videos, and help patients find service locations.
AHA says that Congress should change HIPAA to preempt state requirements as a uniform, nationwide standard, but otherwise shouldn’t make major HIPAA revisions since changes would “create more challenges than benefits.”
Reader Comments
From System CIO: “Re: Altera Digital Health. Like many Paragon customers, we’re switching to Epic. Altera say they won’t renew our maintenance agreement that we need until go-live in many months. I’ve switched EHRs many times in my long career and this is a first.” Unverified. I don’t understand why a vendor would reject another year or more of support revenue, other than just to be petty over being displaced. The upside is that they justified your decision.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Poll respondents, presumably mostly health technology insiders, aren’t broadly convinced that technology will significantly improve US healthcare, and few of them expect it to reduce healthcare spending. Steve says its better than we think, as “innovation seems to progress glacially when you’re living it,” while Frank says that capital expenditures always increase costs.
New poll to your right or here: What is the single best reason that Epic dominates its markets? I’m not giving you the intellectually relaxed option of choosing more than one answer, so feel free to further elaborate in the poll comments after voting for the one best choice.
I was looking for a lazy way to compare various lists of my sponsors, so I tried ChatGPT instead of trying to remember how to do it in Excel or Word or finding an old source code comparison tool. Of course it works, leading me to consider downloading an archived copy of HIMSS23 exhibitors and comparing it to the HIMSS24 version to see which companies are new or dropping out. I then played around with downloading an AHA list of hospitals and cities in Alabama, pasting it unformatted into ChatGPT, and asked it which ones are in Birmingham, and then which ones are in the northern part of the state. It figured the answers and properly formatted the list with just the hospital names. However, it wasn’t able to tell me which ones are within 50 miles of Gadsden because it doesn’t have access to mapping services.
For the ladies who are optimizing their shoe wardrobe for the conference season, my little AI friend likes Clarks Un Loop Slip-On Shoe, Naturalizer Samantha Pointed Toe Flat, Skechers Cleo Bewitch Ballet Flat, New Balance 877 V1 Walking Shoe, and ECCO Soft 7 Tie Sneaker. However, when pressed to choose a potential winner for conference shoe contests, ChatGPT favors United Nude’s Mobius Hi (above), which seems like a good choice for Orlando and is not wildly expensive at $175 after discounts.
Webinars
October 25 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “AMA: The Power of Data Completeness.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenters: Jason Prestinario, MSME, CEO, Particle Health; Carolyn Ward, MD, director of clinical strategy, Particle Health. Is your healthcare organization looking to drive profitability and scale quickly? Our experts will explore how comprehensive clinical data can revolutionize the health tech landscape. This engaging discussion will cover trending topics such as leveraging AI and data innovation to enhance patient care and outcomes, real-world examples of organizations leading the charge in data-driven healthcare, overcoming challenges in data completeness and interoperability, and visionary perspectives on the future of care delivery.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
The New York Times reports how analytics firm Palantir is aggressively lobbying to win an NHS patient data system contract that could be worth $590 million. The company has also hired away NHS officials and enlisted the help of politicians to support its selection for the Federated Data Platform. Civil liberties groups have raised concerns about turning over patient data to a for-profit company whose products have been used for government surveillance, also labeling the selection process as a farce because of the company’s existing connections from its previous no-bid contract award and its advantage in a short procurement window. The bid winner is expected to be announced this month.
Biotech firm Biogen shuts down Biogen Digital Health and lays off 150 employees as the company cuts costs and restructures. The business was formed in 2021.
People
Wolters Kluwer Health hires Rafael Sidi, MA (Clarivate) as SVP/GM of its Health Research segment.
Other
A review of “Fragmented: A Doctor’s Quest to Piece Together American Health Care,” a new book by Stanford oncologist Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD, describes how “missing data kills” as patients are repeatedly asked to recite their medical history to new providers who can’t get it using technology. Snips:
- Technology-driven treatments have advanced dramatically, but doctors are still “operating in an era of oral history or as archeologists” in being forced to review CD-ROMs, faxed records, and the patient’s interpretation of important medical details “as though she were piercing together potsherds at a dig site.”
- The families of patients work as “unpaid secretarial assistants” to keep records and coordinate care that providers should be doing.
- Hospitals don’t often notice or report harmful errors that are caused by a lack of provider coordination.
- The doctor takes more time with patients than the insurance-paid 15 minutes “to prepare them to be living medical charts,” estimating that half of the primary care part of her job is unpaid work that happens outside the patient’s room.
- The review notes that Estonia requires use of compatible EHRs gives patient ownership of their chart, where they grant or revoke provider access and share data with family members without paying for copies.
A second hospital in England reports that large numbers of digital documents weren’t sent to doctors and patients because a computer issue prevented them from being noticed for approval. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust found 411,000 documents that remained unreviewed after several years, of which 23,000 contained action items for patients or doctors.
A 30-year-old woman sues Disney for negligence, claiming that her trip down a Typhoon Lagoon water slide left her with an “injurious wedgie” that required gynecologic treatment and denied consortium for husband, who is also suing. I am hereby announcing plans to add “injurious wedgie” to common business lexicon for describing layoffs.
Sponsor Updates
- Care.ai sponsors a new podcast series titled “The Smart Care Team Spotlight,” hosted by former Microsoft Chief Nursing Officer Molly K. McCarthy, MBA, RN.
- EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story, “Unlock Healthcare Benefits with Healow.”
- A new survey from KeyCare finds that consumers prefer virtual visits over in-office care for several types of visits.
- Meditech announces new AI use cases at a recent customer leadership event.
- NeuroFlow releases a new Bridging the Gap Podcast featuring BCollaborative founder and CEO Lili Brillstein.
- Nordic releases a new Making Rounds Podcast, “Under new (data) management podcast.”
- PMD reaffirms its commitment to health data security by passing the SOC 2 Type II evaluation.
- Ronin Chief Scientific Officer Christine Swisher will keynote the virtual NLP Summit October 4.
- Symplr adds Survey Management capabilities to its Compliance platform.
- Lindsay Zimmerman, PhD VP of Upfront Healthcare’s Bartosch Patient Activation Institute, wins three prestigious industry awards.
- West Monroe releases a new report, “The Digital Disconnect: Linking Vision to Real-World Execution.”
- Ellkay, HealthMark Group, Linus Health, Nuance, Sphere, and Surescripts will exhibit at Athenahealth’s Thrive conference October 9-11 in Austin, TX.
Blog Posts
- Navigating Digital: A Roadmap for Rural Hospitals (ReMedi Health Solutions)
- Look beyond the hype to find responsible AI solutions in healthcare (Meditech)
- Manage the Multi-Platform Dilemma with Fewer and Better Communication Tools (Mobile Heartbeat)
- Successful Value-Based Care Models Require Rich Data Insights into the Care Continuum (NeuroFlow)
- Chatbots vs conversational AI – what’s the difference? (Notable)
- Exploring quality assurance for AI diagnostic decision support technologies: Key takeaways (Nuance)
- 5 Questions for Receiving Community Connect (Optimum Healthcare IT)
- The Compounding Benefits of a Proactive Approach to Denial Management (RCxRules)
- Future-proof your healthcare strategy with a FHIR data store (Redox)
- The Difference a Day Makes: Accelerating Specialty Medication Access for Patients (RxLightning)
- How to Fax Without a Fax Machine (Surescripts)
- 5 Steps to Improve Contract Management in Healthcare Organizations (Symplr)
- 3 achievable strategies from Piedmont for healthcare collection success (Waystar)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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FYI, that whole wedgie thing is actually brutal to read about, and it led to some extremely serious injuries for…