News 7/11/25

Top News

Canopy Health drops its May 2025 lawsuit against Commure and will take over customer management of Commure’s Strongline Pro panic button system.

Canopy had alleged that Commure used its insider knowledge as a Canopy reseller to develop a competing product.

In mid-May, a federal court ordered Commure to stop marketing and selling Strongline Pro until the case was resolved.

Sponsored Events and Resources

July 22 (Tuesday) 1 ET. “Innovating the Consumer Experience Beyond the EMR with Open Standards.” Sponsor: Praia Health. Presenters: Ryan Howells, principal, Leavitt Partners and program manager, The CARIN Alliance; David LaBine, VP of software engineering, Providence Digital Innovation Group; Robin Monks, CTO, Praia Health; Kristen Valdes, CEO, b.well. As healthcare faces rising consumer expectations and tighter regulations, the high cost of maintaining fragmented, proprietary systems is no longer sustainable. While patient data access has improved, the lack of open standards continues to hinder innovation, drive up integration costs, and limit the potential of digital health beyond the EHR. This webinar will discuss how open standards like OIDC,  HL7 FHIR, and open technology requirements are essential for reducing integration burdens, accelerating development, and lowering maintenance costs. Panelists will describe how every closed integration represents a lost opportunity and will offer practical strategies for leveraging open technology as a competitive advantage that improves efficiency, ensures compliance, and strengthens patient trust.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Hearst-owned QGenda acquires New Innovations, which offers medical residency management software.

Palantir EVP Louis Mosley criticizes British doctors who oppose the NHS’s use of the company’s software, saying “our software is going to make lives better” and accusing dissenting physicians of “choosing ideology over patient interest.” The British Medical Association passed a motion last month that opposed the NHS’s decision to award Palantir a $450 million contract to provide its Federated Data Platform.

Diligent Robotics, which sells the Moxi hospital robot, hires two executives from a robotaxi firm as it moves into other industries.

Sales

• Hackensack Meridian Health integrates DrFirst’s AI tools with Epic to give clinicians faster access to patient medication histories and insurance coverage details.

People

Population health management software vendor Zyter TruCare hires Sundar Subramanian, MBA, MS (Strategy&) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

HL7 launches an office that will establish healthcare AI standards. Daniel Vreeman, PT, DPT, MS, the organization’s chief standards development officer, will serve as chief AI officer.

A new KLAS report on oncology systems finds that many independent oncology practices have been acquired by health systems. They have also increased their use of cloud technology.

Government and Politics

Curacao’s trade commission rules that an after-hours primary care group that holds a 70% market share abused its market position by requiring doctors to use a specific software system to use its services. The government will order the group to create and fund an open API connection to competing systems.

Sponsor Updates

• CTG staff volunteer with the United Way of Buffalo & Erie County during its Day of Caring at Buffalo River Fest Park.
• Altera Digital Health selects MedAllies as its QHIN partner for its Paragon Denali EHR.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “The Benefits You Probably Didn’t Know You Have, with Marsha Perry.”
• Black Book Research announces its 2025 rankings of RCM vendors serving physician practices, with HIStalk sponsors FinThrive and Waystar achieving top marks in several categories.
• Agfa HealthCare achieves HITRUST i1 Certification.
• Navina and Nabla partner to deliver real-time support across clinical encounters.
• “The Big Unlock” podcast features Arcadia Chief Strategy Officer Aneesh Chopra in an episode titled “Reimagining Healthcare From Meaningful Use of Data to AI-Driven Equity.”
• Censinet releases a new episode of the “Risk Never Sleeps” podcast titled “The Startup Prescription for Healthcare IT – Part 1, with Elevsis Delgadillo, SVP of Customer Success at KeenStack.”
• A new Black Book Research survey of inpatient EHR users reveals meaningful disparities in satisfaction across major inpatient EHR platforms.

Blog Posts

• Overcoming Patient Access Challenges: 4-Step Approach to Centralization (AGS Health)
• Recognizing Common HIPAA Violations and How to Prevent Them (AdvancedMD)
• Prioritizing patient–provider connections in a digital age (Altera Digital Health)
• Branded Messaging: The Secret to Greater Response Rates and Trust in Healthcare (Artera)
• Breaking Free! Scaling Virtual Nursing Beyond Pilots (AvaSure)
• MUSE 2025: Innovation, Connection, and Giving Back (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Cutting Through the Noise: How Healthcare Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Prioritizes What Matters (CloudWave) 
• Speed Matters: Why Companies Lose Top Talent—And How to Fix It (Direct Recruiters)
• Understand What Clinicians Actually Experience Using Epic Hyperdrive (Goliath Technologies)
• Live from New York: How SCNs Connect 1.5 Million Patients to HRSN Services (Findhelp)
• AI in UK Healthcare: Empowering Better Patient Experiences Through Digital Transformation (Five9)

Sponsor Spotlight

FDB (First Databank) delivers clinically robust, workflow-integrated drug knowledge that is patient-specific and actionable, enabling more precise medication decisions. Trusted for quality, clinical expertise, and collaboration, FDB helps improve patient safety, operations, and outcomes. FDB’s drug databases and medication decision support solutions power information systems used by the majority of hospitals, physician practices, pharmacies, payers, and beyond, impacting millions of clinicians, business associates, and patients every day. Follow FDB on LinkedIn. (Sponsor Spotlight is free for HIStalk Platinum sponsors).

Contacts

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Morning Headlines 7/10/25

Vytalize Health raises fresh $55M and eyes deals

Value-based care practice management company Vytalize Health reportedly raises $55 million, bringing its total funding to over $230 million.

HL7 International Launches AI Office to Set Global Standards for Healthcare’s AI Revolution

Open standards organization HL7 establishes an AI office to develop foundational standards for the use of AI in healthcare.

QGenda Announces Acquisition of New Innovations

Healthcare workforce management software vendor QGenda acquires residency management software company New Innovations.

News 7/9/25

Top News

Samsung Electronics will acquire digital health integration company Xealth.

Xealth announced an undisclosed amount of funding from Morningside Ventures earlier this year. The company spun out of Providence in 2017 to sell its platform that allows providers to prescribe digital health programs and tools.

Samsung says the acquisition will help it reach more health systems and digital partners through connected care.

Reader Comments

From Abacab: “Re: the VA. They posted an RFI on July 3 titled ‘Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) Systems Integration Support to the EHRM Integration Office.’ If they proceed, it most likely strips Oracle Health of the prime integration responsibility and shifts it to a traditional government systems integrator. Oracle has had notable failures with its Oracle Health rollout. Shifting it to an SI who has similar experience at least brings risk down substantially.”The RFI seeks input on selecting a system integrator to support the VA’s enterprise-wide rollout of Oracle Health, covering implementation, integration, management, and sustainment. My initial, non-expert assumption was that Oracle Health would remain the prime contractor, with funding and operational responsibility shifting to the integrator. Leidos seems to be a likely frontrunner given its role as prime contractor for the DoD’s Oracle Health rollout. However, a reader who has deep federal contracting experience believes that the VA may actually be looking to replace Oracle Health as the prime, not just add an integrator. They noted it never made sense for Cerner – who had never installed its system for the government and never served as prime contractor on a big federal project as far as I know — to receive a no-bid contract for both software and responsibility as prime, which of course let it keep most of the money.

From Dropsy: “Re: Becker’s Health IT & CIO Report. Amenities Health founder and CEO Aasim Saeed, MD, MPA rips them on LinkedIn for running an Epic blog post as its lead story.” I agree that it’s not real journalism to run a lead story that summarizes a vendor CEO’s company blog post. News is always sparse right after a holiday, but surely this was the most questionable choice from the 10 stories listed.

Sponsored Events and Resources

July 22 (Tuesday) 1 ET. “Innovating the Consumer Experience Beyond the EMR with Open Standards.” Sponsor: Praia Health. Presenters: Ryan Howells, principal, Leavitt Partners and program manager, The CARIN Alliance; David LaBine, VP of software engineering, Providence Digital Innovation Group; Robin Monks, CTO, Praia Health; Kristen Valdes, CEO, b.well. As healthcare faces rising consumer expectations and tighter regulations, the high cost of maintaining fragmented, proprietary systems is no longer sustainable. While patient data access has improved, the lack of open standards continues to hinder innovation, drive up integration costs, and limit the potential of digital health beyond the EHR. This webinar will discuss how open standards like OIDC, HL7 FHIR, and open technology requirements are essential for reducing integration burdens, accelerating development, and lowering maintenance costs. Panelists will describe how every closed integration represents a lost opportunity and will offer practical strategies for leveraging open technology as a competitive advantage that improves efficiency, ensures compliance, and strengthens patient trust.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health and human services technology company VitalHub acquires patient flow software vendor Novari Health for $32 million. Canada-based VitalHub’s recent acquisitions include Induction Healthcare (patient engagement and virtual care), MedCurrent (clinical decision support), and Strata Health (care coordination).

People

PointClickCare promotes James Yersh to president.

Kumar Murukurthy, MBBS (Altais) joins Optimum Healthcare IT as chief clinical officer.

Announcements and Implementations

La Paz Regional Hospital (AZ) goes live on Meditech Expanse.

Lifepoint Health and Community Health Systems implements Cadence’s new Proactive Care Engine for Advanced Primary Care Management of Medicare patients.

Hannibal Regional Healthcare System (MO) will go live on Epic this week.

Black Book Research surveys clinicians to measure how their input shapes AI product design, using eight qualitative KPIs that are tied to workflow fit, usability, and trust. Top-scoring vendors are Epic, Signal 1, Aidoc, Suki AI, Notable, and Viz.ai.

A new KLAS report on EHR clinical optimization names Nordic and Chartis as the top-performing firms.

Government and Politics

KLAS surveys 169 health system executives to understand how they are dealing with the uncertainty of federal policy, with the largest expected impact being cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. It concludes that financial pressures are forcing the organizations to “plan through the fog” by taking action now even without clear direction. A summary:

• Payment reforms are forcing organizations to reconfigure themselves, not just cut expenses, as they scale back services and expand high-margin service lines. This survival strategy creates implications for patient access.
• Most organizations plan to shift IT spending to vendor partnerships that offer quick ROI rather than cutting their IT budgets.
• Nearly 40% of the organizations are betting on AI as a way to reduce administration costs, but few have progressed beyond pilot projects.
• The organizations are reevaluating payer partnerships, Medicare Advantage growth, and contract performance. This is influencing broad organizational strategy.
• Smaller organizations are reacting similarly, but without the resources needed, leaving them with little margin for error in retooling their strategies.
• Few organizations are optimistic about government policy changes and are already being hit by financial policies and tariffs.

Other

The New Jersey Department of Health and Department of Human Services works with RWJBarnabas Health and the New Jersey Health Information Network on a pilot project that automates the filing and creation of birth certificates via data exchange between hospital EHRs and the state’s Vital Statistics Birth Registry.

Sponsor Updates

• Kyruus Health staff volunteer with Seeds of Hope in Portland.
• Healthcare IT Leaders publishes “The State of Oracle Health in 2025,” which analyzes Oracle Health’s platform and strategy using commentary from the company’s leadership and customers.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “A Look at What’s Really Driving Drug Spend, and How it Impacts Us, with IQVIA’s Michael Kleinrock.”
• The “HITea with Grace” podcast features First Databank SVP of strategy and product management Virginia Halsey in an episode titled “Virginia Halsey Spills the Tea on Smarter Medication Decision Support.”
• Fortified Health Security names Hannah Cook product manager for advisory services and Eli Herran security compliance analyst.
• Health Data Movers will sponsor the Northern Ohio HIMSS Charity Golf Classic & Collaboration Summit August 5-6 in Highland Heights.
• HIStalk sponsors Arcadia, TruBridge, Waystar, FinThrive, VisiQuate, and Infinx earn top rankings for AI-powered RCM applications based on Black Book Research’s latest survey.
• Impact Advisors partners with Montage Health on its Workday financial management and Workday supply chain management go live.
• Infinx releases a new episode of its “Revenue Cycle Optimized” podcast titled “RCM Insights – AI Agents Transform Claim Status Checks.”
• Linus Health advisors author a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease titled “Precision neurocognition: An emerging diagnostic paradigm leveraging digital cognitive assessment technology.”
• Nordic collaborates with GoHealth Urgent Care in Atlanta on its Epic implementation.
• Redox releases a new episode of its “Shut the Backdoor” podcast titled “The Healing Network – CISO Relationships in a Ransomware Era.”
• SmartSense by Digi will exhibit at the Association for Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine’s annual conference July 27-31 in Chicago.
• The G2 Summer 2025 Grid reports recognize Symplr’s access, clinical communications, provider, talent management, and workforce solutions.

Blog Posts

• The power of putting the patient on the care team (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Kansas City Social Care: Trusted Networks Support Community Wellbeing (Findhelp)
• HFMA Annual 2025: Exploring Bold Innovations in Healthcare Revenue Intelligence (FinThrive)
• Understanding and Managing Shrinkage in Contact Centers (Five9)
• Why IT Hardware Lifecycle Management is Critical for Ambulatory Clinics (HCTec)
• Medicaid Budget Cuts Test Risk Adjustment Program Readiness (Inovalon)
• The Critical Need for EHR Coaching: Ensuring Providers Can Maximize Their Systems (Med Tech Solutions)
• Leveraging FHIR and Interoperability to Transform CHRISTUS Health’s Revenue Cycle Operations (MRO)
• Digital health tech creating ‘connective tissue’ to link care settings, clinicians, and evidence (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Reducing Denials With Autonomous Medical Coding (Nym)
• Azure Virtual Desktop in Practice: What Healthcare IT Leaders Can Learn from Early Adopters (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Driving Change With Purpose: Key Takeaways From HFMA 2025 (Tegria)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 7/7/25

Top News

Symplr acquires the Smart Square staff scheduling system from AMN Healthcare for $75 million.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A majority of poll respondents attribute Best Buy’s exit from its Current Health business as being due to its underestimation of healthcare’s complexity.

New poll to your right or here: Will insurers follow through on their pledge to streamline prior authorization? My take: only if it makes them more money. What I expect:

• They will use FHIR to quickly render only those PA decisions that involve high-volume, inexpensive items since they get an immediate labor reduction payback.
• Complex but urgent items will still require review by their own clinicians, whose relevant credentials may be skimpy and whose job is more to say “no” than “yes.”
• Policies related to patient transitions between insurers will be loaded with exceptions.
• Note that insurers pledged to address PAs in 2018 by (a) reducing PA requirements for providers who have a good performance history and who demonstrably adhere to evidence-based medicine, and (b) automating the process using national standards.
• CMS issued a rule in January 2024 that required payers to publish a prior authorization API by January 1, 2027, although the insurers will be given three days to respond to urgent requests and seven calendar days for standard requests.

Sponsored Events and Resources

July 22 (Tuesday) 1 ET. “Innovating the Consumer Experience Beyond the EMR with Open Standards.” Sponsor: Praia Health. Presenters: Ryan Howells, principal, Leavitt Partners and program manager, The CARIN Alliance; David LaBine, VP of software engineering, Providence Digital Innovation Group; Robin Monks, CTO, Praia Health; Kristen Valdes, CEO, b.well. As healthcare faces rising consumer expectations and tighter regulations, the high cost of maintaining fragmented, proprietary systems is no longer sustainable. While patient data access has improved, the lack of open standards continues to hinder innovation, drive up integration costs, and limit the potential of digital health beyond the EHR. This webinar will discuss how open standards like OIDC,  HL7 FHIR, and open technology requirements are essential for reducing integration burdens, accelerating development, and lowering maintenance costs. Panelists will describe how every closed integration represents a lost opportunity and will offer practical strategies for leveraging open technology as a competitive advantage that improves efficiency, ensures compliance, and strengthens patient trust.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

England-based healthcare software vendor Agilio acquires Blue Stream Academy, which offers healthcare e-learning services.

The Villages Health, which offers healthcare services to the 150,000 residents of The Villages retirement community in Florida, files Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will sell itself to Humana’s CenterWell health services business. TVH reportedly owes the federal government nearly $400 million in Medicare overpayments.

People

Franciscan Alliance promotes Joseph Schnecker, MD, MMM to CMIO.

I missed this earlier. Nebraska Medicine promotes Michael Ash, MD to CEO. Ash, who is also a pharmacist, was chief medical officer for Cerner for 11 years and chief transformation officer of the health system for eight years.

Announcements and Implementations

Researchers find that prescription costs for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries didn’t go down following implementation of a real-time prescription benefit tool.

Other

OpenAI hires a forensic psychiatrist to assess the emotional impact of ChatGPT use. Mental health experts have raised concerns about people relying on AI as a therapist, pointing to cases in which chatbots were linked to mental breakdowns and suicides.

Contacts

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

News 7/2/25

Top News

RCM technology vendor VisiQuate acquires Etyon, whose technology optimizes revenue cycle workflows.

Reader Comments

From Dark Daze: “Re: Sharp HealthCare. Cut 315 FTEs yesterday, 150 of them from IT, which is a 25% haircut.” Unverified, although the local TV station reports that IT was one of the departments affected and Redditors claim that IT was the hardest-hit area.

From Isthmus: “Re: Sharp HealthCare. Laid off most of their Epic IT staff with plans to have their Epic system supported by a third party.” Unverified.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Premier acquires IllumiCare, which adds a financial component to clinical decision support, and will market it under its Stanson Health brand.

Sales

• Valley Health System (NJ) will use technology and services from Inbound Health to launch a hospital-at-home program.
• Emory Healthcare (GA) selects Aidin’s post-acute care transitions software.

People

Ralph Porpora (Grand View Health) joins Deborah Heart and Lung Center (NJ) as VP of IS/CIO.

Pager Health names Ken Yamaguchi, MD (Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine) chief medical officer.

BayCare (FL) names Patrick Brown, MD (Centra Health) VP/CMIO and Philip Karp, MS (NYU Langone Health) VP/CTO.

Medical error prevention pioneer Lucian Leape, MD died Monday at 94. He was involved in the Harvard study that resulted in the landmark 1999 report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.”

Announcements and Implementations

Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (SC) implements precision medicine technologies from 2bPrecise.

Microsoft’s AI team claims that one of the company’s diagnostic tools can outperform physicians in solving the toughest cases, correctly identifying 85% of 304 real-world cases that had been published weekly in the New England Journal of Medicine, four times the success rate of doctors. This is an interesting test, with these caveats:

• The research involved published cases, so physicians were barred from using electronic medical records, care guidelines, textbooks, colleagues, and other LLMs that could have accessed the answers.
• NEJM cases are “pedagogically curated” rather than real-world examples.
• Nobody knows whether commercial LLMs were trained on the actual published case studies, which would have given them an unfair advantage.
• The physicians who were involved had a median experience of 12 years, but still diagnosed correctly just 20% of the time, raising questions of the validity of the hypothetical cases.
• The NEJM cases are created to be interesting, challenging, and pathology-focused. They may contain red herrings and often involve obscure diagnoses. They require the reader to make a diagnosis without having access to the patient’s medical record, without being able to examine the patient or ask them questions, and without the benefit of observational findings.
• The study is an interesting proof of concept, but should not be taken to mean that doctors can’t diagnose correctly 80% of the time or that AI can do a better job in clinical situations.

Government and Politics

CMS approves Eko Health’s Sensora digital stethoscopes cardiac algorithm for payment under the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment system.

The Washington Post provides details from court documents of the federal government’s Operation Gold Rush, a massive fraud takedown where Medicare was billed $10.6 billion for medical devices that were not medically necessary or actually delivered to patients:

• Prosecutors say the schemers used stolen identities of 1 million Americans to flood Medicare with bogus claims, including 1 billion urinary catheters.
• The fraud was funneled through 30 Medicare-approved medical supply companies that the perpetrators had quietly acquired.
• HHS and CMS teams blocked 99% of the attempted Medicare payments, signaling a shift from the traditional “pay and chase” model to one of proactive prevention.
• Despite that success, the scammers still collected $1 billion from Medicare supplemental insurers.
• Most of the accused reportedly never set foot in the United States.
• Medicare received 400,000 complaints from patients questioning why companies like Pretty In Pink Boutique were billing for catheters they neither needed nor received.

Privacy and Security

Central Maine Healthcare restores its IT systems and resumes normal operations after a June 1 cyberattack forced it to downtime procedures.

Other

In South Africa, the Gauteng health department denies reports that a hospital morgue was backed up with two weeks’ worth of bodies because it couldn’t print death certificates due to a shortage of printer cartridges.

Sponsor Updates

• A new analysis from Black Book Research reveals a sharp escalation in state-level legislative actions that are reshaping revenue cycle management frameworks.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring UXonSpec founder and CUO Randolph Bias.
• CereCore releases a new podcast episode titled “Building Trust: From Expanse Rollout to High Reliability Organization.”
• Vyne Medical releases a new case study titled, “How Mayo Clinic Reduced Lab Data Entry Time by 50% While Increasing Data Volume.”
• AdvancedMD adds health insurance contracting and consulting services firm NGA Healthcare to its partner integration marketplace.
• Agfa HealthCare releases a new guide titled “Purchasing a Cloud-Hosted Enterprise Imaging Solution.”
• Clinical Architecture releases its “2025 Healthcare Data Quality Report.”

Blog Posts

• Enhancing Clinical and RCM Efficiency with Coding Automation (AGS Health)
• 4 Takeaways from Rooted in Purpose: Advancing Whole-Person Care for Individuals with IDD & Autism (Netsmart)
• New Nursing Charge Automation Adds $45K in Weekly Revenue (CereCore)
• EPRs at the heart of urgent and emergency treatment centres: Delivering safer, faster care (Altera Digital Health)
• How Vanderbilt University Hospital Tackled Readmission Rates By Leveraging Artera for Post-Discharge Communication (Artera)
• Set the foundation: How to prepare your data for AI transformation (Philips Capsule)
• From Texas to Wisconsin, Cardamom’s David Gibson shares his winding journey in health IT (Cardamom)
• MUSE 2025: Innovation, Connection, and Giving Back (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Why It’s Time to Rethink Prior Authorization—Especially for Specialty Medications (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 6/30/25

Top News

CMS announces a six-year pilot in six states to test tech-enabled prior authorization for traditional Medicare, which has traditionally avoided prior authorizations.

Participating organizations will be paid based on reducing inappropriate utilization. CMS is looking for companies that have implemented AI-powered PA programs for other payers.

CMS says that no new provider documentation will be required, but information must be submitted in advance.

CMS calls the program WISeR, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model.

Reader Comments

From Lou Lazuli: “Re: hospital sterilization methods. What’s your take on UVC light augmenting other methods for battling MRSA and VRE outbreaks? Is there a market need?” I’m far from an expert, but hospitals seem to be interested in using it to disinfect rooms after normal cleaning, where it reduces the transmission of superbugs. Hospitals are the target market due to the clinical and financial cost of hospital-acquired infections, which include CMS financial penalties. UVC robots like the one developed by Xenex might be an attractive offering if a business case can be made to offset the increased cycle time and capital investment that is required. It would be an easier sell if UVC replaced existing methods instead of augmenting them, but the expensive machines could be selectively deployed for use in vacated isolation rooms, surgery and procedure areas, and critical care units where any HAI could be especially disastrous.

From Chart Thief: “Re: VA scheduling and Oracle Health. It’s a management failure, not a tech problem, if the VA can’t implement the system it bought and instead continues to run legacy ones.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents aren’t too worried about AI encroaching on their employment.

New poll to your right or here: What is the remote patient monitoring takeaway of Best Buy’s divestiture of Current Health?

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Sales

• Trinity Health (ND) will implement Epic, replacing Oracle Health.
• QHIO SacValley MedShare joins the KONZA Health QHIN.

Announcements and Implementations

Optum launches an AI marketplace of products developed by the company and its third-party partners.

Former grocery store bagger turned self-styled medical entrepreneur and disruptor Ryan Egypt El-Hosseiny asserts that he has resurrected the lab testing firm Theranos after validating the fraudulent claims of former CEO and federal inmate Elizabeth Holmes. He made the announcement at a Miami nightclub, where he was flanked by rappers, fake cops, and a Holmes impersonator wearing an orange jumpsuit. El-Hosseiny, who is pushing RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again platform and lobbying for President Trump to pardon Holmes, calls himself “the Steve Jobs of medical labs” and is among the Grade D actors who appear in his cringeworthy YouTube film titled “Just Blood: The United States vs. Elizabeth Holmes,” where his fake mustache appears to be summiting his external nares and his fellow thespians are repeatedly caught by the camera trying to suppress grins of participatory embarrassment. Records indicate that the Theranos trademark was abandoned when the company dissolved in 2018, so I assume he’s a squatter.

A new KLAS – Arch Collaborative report finds that ambient speech is improving provider EHR satisfaction and allowing more face-to-face interaction with patients. It is also boosting the EHR experience metrics of Epic-using ambulatory care providers. However, most users say that they aren’t willing to squeeze in more patient visits to justify the technology’s cost, preferring instead to improve patient care or their own work-life balance.

Government and Politics

Federal prosecutors indict 11 members of a Russia-based crime ring who allegedly used stolen information from 1 million Americans to bill Medicare $11 billion for medical equipment that was never ordered or delivered, netting $300 million.

Other

SCAN Health Plan President and CEO Sachin Jain, MD, MBA describes what he calls the “value-based delusion”:

Every conference deck, consulting proposal, and startup pitch has claimed to be “bringing value to healthcare.” But let’s be honest: in most cases, very little has actually changed in how care is delivered. Instead of reimagining the patient experience, many organizations have simply reengineered their revenue models. Networks get narrowed. Risk gets shifted. Coding intensity rises. But does care feel more human, more seamless, more dignified for patients? Too often, the answer is no.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research announces a revamped RCM KPI framework that incorporates critical areas like AI integration, transparency, and automation.
• Surescripts VP of information security and CISO Judy Molenaar joins the DirectTrust Board of Directors.
• Nordic announces its ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems certification in Europe.
• Nym names Aya Weinstein VP of product, Amir Cohen senior software engineer, Alvera Abouseif customer success manager, Michal Attias bookkeeper, and Debra Whitley senior manager of product and coding compliance operations.
• Redox welcomes Ferry Health to the Redox Connection Network.
• Rhapsody Health offers a new customer story titled “Qventus achieves 10X performance and reduces customer onboarding time by 50%.”
• VitalChat announces the availability of a ProConnections Conversion Kit for those providers left with unsupported virtual care infrastructure following the closure of tele-ICU vendor ProConnections.

Blog Posts

• Spotting the Red Flags in Your Analytics and How to Fix Them (FinThrive)
• How Mobile Scheduling Software Solves Healthcare Staffing Chaos (Inovalon)
• From Pilot to Practice: 10 Keys to AI Adoption in Behavioral Health (Netsmart)
• Simple, obvious, ignored: The real work of improving patient experience (Nordic)
• Preparing Your Staff for a Cerner-to-Epic Conversion in 5 Key Steps (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• For patient education, place evidence at the center of care (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• When Not to Automate: Lessons from the Front Lines (VisiQuate)
• Healthcare Integration for Startups: A Scalable Guide to EHR Interoperability (Zen Healthcare IT)

Contacts

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

News 6/27/25

Top News

Best Buy sells remote patient monitoring technology company Current Health back to its co-founder and CEO Christopher McGhee (formerly known as Christopher McCann). 

Best Buy acquired the company in October 2021 for $400 million and has struggled with its in-home healthcare business since, including taking two write-downs totaling nearly $600 million this year.

McGhee left Best Buy in March 2024. I interviewed him in April 2022. Several former Current executives will return to the company with him.

Best Buy’s CEO said in its most recent earnings call that hospital-at-home solutions business was advancing more slowly than it had expected.

Reader Comments

From Blew Button: “Re: AI strategy. Everyone is pushing for faster adoption. How are health systems balancing that with validation, integration, and project priorities? We can’t skip the hard parts just because execs and the board are believing the AI hype.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Microsoft’s retirement of Skype pushed me to use Teams instead for my weekly English sessions with my Ukrainian student. Teams has been unreliable, slow, and maddening (why can’t I test my camera and microphone without connecting to a meeting?) Teams repeatedly froze the connection this week, so we tried WhatsApp, which had better quality and reliability for at least those few minutes. I will confirm next week after we try our full-hour session on WhatsApp.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Mandolin, which uses AI agents to manage specialty drug intake, benefits, prior authorizations, and RCM, raises $40 million in seed and Series A funding.

Veradigm reaffirms its intention to have its shares relisted in 2026. The company said in its earnings call that it is gaining new provider business in specialty practices, value-based care, and especially in revenue cycle. Revenue is flat as the company expected, however, and it continues to see attrition among larger clients.

Provider data management vendor Certify raises $40 million in a Series B funding round. Founder and CEO Anshul Rathi, MS started the company in 2021 after managing network data for Oscar Health.

Arine, which offers an AI-powered medication optimization platform, raises $30 million in a Series C funding round. CEO Yoona Kim, PharmD, PhD worked in pharma and at Proteus Digital Health before she co-founded the company in 2017.

People

Evidently hires Chris Cowart (Xsolis) as head of growth.

Tony Murdoch (Bamboo Health) joins Zus Health as VP of business development and partnerships.

Announcements and Implementations

Altera Digital Health launches Sunrise CarePath, a mobile patient engagement platform that is integrated with its Sunrise EHR. It offers secure messaging, self-scheduling, patient notifications and appointment reminders, and billing integration.

Researchers describe ECGFounder, an ECG foundation model that was trained on 11 million ECGs and their cardiologist notations. They theorize that its expert-level diagnostic performance could provide useful in analyzing ECG data from wearables.

KLAS surveys C-level health system executives about their technology vendor expectations. Recommendations to companies:

• CEO: address big-picture value of the platform; back up claims with real-world metrics from other health systems; be prepared to pitch at a board level.
• CFO: provide contracting transparency; be flexible in negotiations; show line-item cost implications; partner to perform post-implementation financial impact reviews.
• CDO: provide integration playbooks; provide change management toolkits; partner in developing data governance frameworks.
• CIO: address how the solution fits into the broad IT strategy; provide proactive support from implementation through optimization; partner on rationalizing legacy technology and vendor sprawl.
• CISO: provide risk documentation and real-world threat models; provide easily deployed security tools; include advisory services in the engagement model.
• COO: provide turnkey dashboards that integrate operations, finance, and quality; provide industry benchmarks and advisory services; provide quick-win use cases and tactical automation.
• CTO: provide architecture diagrams, threat models, and deployment recipes; include stakeholders in roadmap previews, especially when dependencies or APIs will change; share reference implementations and provide a sandbox to prove extensibility claims.
• CMO/CMIO: involve them in roadmap development; showcase measured clinical outcomes and provider satisfaction benchmarks; provide tools to help build consensus with clinical leaders.
• CNO/CNIO: shadow nurses to map workflows; provide real-time, around-the-clock support; get nurses involved in roadmap designs using clinical councils or pilots.

Government and Politics

Digital health companies Whoop, CoachCare, and Epic testify before the House Ways and Means health subcommittee about the benefits of wearables and remote patient monitoring. Their timing was ideal given HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s recent call for every American to wear a device within four years, but less so given lawmakers’ focus on a proposed reconciliation bill that would strip coverage from 16 million people through Medicaid and ACA coverage cuts.

Privacy and Security

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust tells a patient’s family that a cyberattack contributed to his death. Pathology provider Synnovis was hit by a ransomware attack on June 3, delaying the patient’s critical test result.

Other

Microsoft profiles how 365 Copilot is used by the chief digital officer of a hospital in Brazil. He says it helped him improve his no-nonsense email style to be more polite and “really cute.” He adds that it has reduced his email management time by 70% and allows quicker decision-making by summarizing long email threads.

Sponsor Updates

• An unnamed Southern health system selects Vyne Medical’s Trace Platform to process inbound orders in its patient access department.
• Black Book Research poll-takers name the leading EHR-native patient accounting systems for 2025, including HIStalk sponsors Meditech and TruBridge.
• CereCore earns a five-star rating and “Best Practice” designation as an Infrastructure as a Service provider by Securance Consulting.
• Findhelp welcomes new customers City of Kansas City, MO; DSR Public Health Foundation; and Careforth.
• Five9 releases a new customer success book titled “Aeroflow Health Improves Efficiency with Automation.”
• Healthcare IT Leaders releases a new “Leader to Leader” podcast episode titled “From Technical Debt to Transformation: The Cloud Journey Healthcare Needs.”
• Meditech releases a new customer success story titled “Sierra View Medical Center Unleashes the Power of Data with Meditech’s Analytics Solution.”

Blog Posts

• How We Did IT: Oracle Health EHR Speed & Reliability Score Increased 17% (Goliath Technologies)
• Recent Enforcement in Healthcare Price Transparency: What You Need to Know (FinThrive)
• How Managed XDR Strengthened Cyber Defense at a Vermont Hospital (Fortified Health Security)
• Simplifying chronic care: What you need to know about APCM codes and MIPS MVP reporting (Healthmonix)
• 5 Strategies to Build a Motivated Healthcare Workforce (Inovalon)
• Advancing Data Integrity: DAV Cohort 10 Reflects KONZA’s Continued Leadership (Konza)
• How Orthopedic Practices Are Streamlining Patient Disability and FMLA Form Management with MRO (MRO)
• 5 key takeaways from our VBC initiatives roundtable (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 6/25/25

Top News

Ambient documentation vendor Abridge raises $300 million in a Series E round, boosting its valuation to $5.3 billion.

The company raised a $250 million Series D round just five months ago at a valuation of $850 million.

Abridge’s annual revenue has been reported as $175 million.

Reader Comments

From Justa Bill: “Re: insurers fixing prior authorization. I can’t wait until they’re done so that I can get my medically unreasonable denials in real time.”

From Pinky: “Re: AI taking jobs. It will also enhance or create some healthcare positions.” Probably so, although most of those jobs will be pretty small in number and will require specialized education or experience, such as clinical informaticists, data architects, compliance leads, and cybersecurity experts. Consulting could go either way, where AI might replace some entry-level analysis and document work, but top performers will use it to rise even faster. We’re already seeing this with attorneys, where the junior folks are using AI to analyze documents and mine the firm’s vast data assets to perform higher-level work, and with investment pros who use AI to monitor markets and parse sentiment in real time. Regardless, surveys show that executives in all lines of work expect AI to lower their costs by allowing them to eliminate employees, a self-fulfilling prophecy that will make companies look successful regardless because they have enough fat to work around the dearly and forcibly departed.

From Cut Me Mick: “Re: Ascension acquiring AmSurg. How much overlap exists in the markets they each serve?” Not much, based on ChatGPT’s analysis of the maps I sent it. AmSurg locations are in red, Ascension hospitals in blue (note that I showed only the eastern part of the country. The biggest areas of new opportunity are in Central and South Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and California, areas where AmSurg is strong and Ascension is absent. Indiana, Alabama, and Tennessee show more overlap that would be conducive to vertical integration. But if Ascension wants to compete as a value-based care challenger without trying to build or buy hospitals in the back yards of entrenched competitors, those AmSurg-heavy states offer better upside in high-growth, high-margin markets. I think we can skip over the obligatory “mission” and “compassion” part of the announcement’s verbiage and assume that Ascension saw the chance to buy higher-performing, already-scaled assets to diversify beyond legacy hospitals. Recall also that AmSurg was until recently under the leaky umbrella of hospital physician services outsourcer Envision Healthcare, whose bankruptcy and asset stripping under the leveraged buyout oversight of PE firm KKR ran up $7 billion in debt for Envision and the forced sale of its only real surviving asset to Ascension at about half the typical per-center cost. UPDATE: I’ve updated the graphic above to show more area. And I blame ChatGPT for drawing it to incorrectly look like Wisconsin is west of Austin, TX

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor VitalChat. Vitalchat offers a flexible audio and video platform for powering virtual nursing and intelligent hospitals — bringing the right presence into the room at the right moment —  without adding complexity to care. Whether it’s a virtual nurse providing reassurance after surgery, monitoring vitals remotely, or coordinating with the bedside team in real time, the platform enables care that feels connected, responsive and organized. With powerful, behind-the-scenes technology and an intuitive, clinician-friendly design, Vitalchat helps hospitals extend their teams, support their patients, and deliver meaningful touchpoints throughout the care journey. Thanks to VitalChat for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Therapy EHR vendor Prompt Health acquires PredictionHealth, which offers an ambient AI scribe for therapists. PredictionHealth’s co-founders Pedro Teixeira, MD, PhD and Ravi Atreya, MD, PhD met while earning dual MD and biomedical informatics degrees at Vanderbilt.

Remote care company CoachCare acquires MD Revolution, which offers remote care software. Investor-backed CoachCare, which was founded in 2013 by former private equity investors, has made nine recent acquisitions. MD Revolution was formed in 2011 to help providers bill Medicare for monthly chronic care condition management services.

SuperDial, which develops AI agents that manage provider phone calls to insurers, raises $15 million in a Series A funding round. Its platform supports benefits verification, prior authorization, claims follow-up, and credentialing.

Population health management technology vendor Jaan Health secures $25 million in funding.

Shares of telehealth provider Hims & Hers drop 35% after Novo Nordisk halts Wegovy sales to the company, which it accuses of illegally selling cheaper compounded versions of its weight loss drug alongside its own branded product. The CEO of Hims & Hers accuses Novo of trying to force it to steer patients toward the branded product.

Sales

• Inspira Health selects DrFirst’s system migration platform to transition medication data from Oracle Health to Epic.

People

Symplr names Theresa Meadows, MS, RN (Cook Children’s Health Care System) as CIO in residence.

Leidos hires Andrew Burchett, DO (Meditech) as VP/chief technology and innovation officer.

Announcements and Implementations

FinThrive announces Fusion, an RCM platform, and will deploy agentic AI digital agents to enhance its RCM products.

Virtual care infrastructure company Wheel embeds Amazon Pharmacy’s medication access solution into its white-labeled solutions for digital health companies and health plans.

Government and Politics

A GAO report warns that the VA’s Oracle Health stalled rollout has left its schedulers juggling multiple VistA versions as well as the new system. GAO says that the VA’s May 2024 modernization timeline is “not reliable” by the GAO and has not been updated with a new plan. The VA cancelled its $624 million scheduling contract with Leidos and Epic in 2018 after three years when it chose Cerner.

HHS lists the details of the newly announced pledge of some health insurers to streamline prior authorization:

• Standardize submissions by using FHIR.
• Reduce the number of services that require PA.
• Honor existing authorizations during transitions of care.
• Enhance transparency of authorization decisions and appeals.
• Provide real-time responses for most requests by 2027.
• Have all clinical denials reviewed by a medical professional.

Taiwan accuses China-sponsored “cyber armies” of launching cyberattacks on its hospitals to humiliate the country, which Taiwan says is in preparation for an eventual takeover.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tells House members that he wants every American wearing a health tracker within four years, with HHS planning a massive ad campaign to promote adoption. He cites continuous glucose monitors, which are priced at $100 to $300 per month, as a bargain for weight loss compared to GLP-1 drugs, and hints that federal subsidies may follow. An example I found for non-diabetics is Dexcom’s Stelo, which costs $80 per month for 14-day patches that pair with a smartphone.

Sponsor Updates

• Kyruus Health team members volunteer with Cradles to Crayons Massachusetts during their Community Day.
• CereCore earns five stars and a “best practice’ designation for its Meditech hosting from the Securance Consulting technology assessment firm.
• Rhapsody names Shannon Matthews manager of brand and communications.
• Black Book Research survey-takers rank Waystar as the top end-to-end RCM software vendor for large hospitals and health systems, and academic medical centers with clinics and outreach; and TruBridge the top vendor for small and rural hospitals.
• Waystar releases the results of a new study titled “AI in Healthcare Payments Software: A Strategic Imperative.”
• UZ Brussel University Hospital in Belgium selects enterprise imaging from Agfa HealthCare.
• Artera releases a new study titled “How Vanderbilt University Hospital Tackled Readmission Rates By Leveraging Artera for Post-Discharge Communication.”
• Clearsense and Nordic will collaborate to offer an end-to-end solution for application portfolio management.
• The latest episode of Censinet’s “Risk Never Sleeps” podcast features Siskin Hospital CIO and CISO Shane Pilcher.
• Clinical Architecture releases a new episode of “The Informonster Podcast” titled “Unpacking AI and Interoperability Trends with Joerg Schwarz.”

Blog Posts

• Rethinking the EHR: Behavioral Health at the Center of FQHC Technology (Netsmart)
• Inpatient vs. Outpatient Facility Coding: Breaking Down the Key Differences (Nym)
• How Better Job Descriptions Can Help Senior Living and Post-Acute Organizations Hire Faster and Smarter (Symplr)
• Preparing Your Staff for a Cerner-to-Epic Conversion in 5 Key Steps (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Empower clinicians and patients with AI in primary care (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Healthcare Cybersecurity Expert on Tactics for Rural Resilience (CereCore)
• A different kind of SPA: How Altera Cloud helps bring peace of mind to organizations (Altera Digital Health)
• CloudWave and BlueOrange Compliance: Setting a New Standard in Healthcare Cybersecurity (CloudWave)
• What to Know About Your Transition from Windows 10 to 11 (CTG)
• How to Attract and Retain Millennial and Gen Z Healthcare Technology Talent (Direct Recruiters)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 6/23/25

Top News

Major US health insurers pledge to improve prior authorization practices. They aim for 80% real-time decisions by 2027, fewer procedures that require approval, and 90-day care continuity for patients who switch plans.

Insurer trade group AHIP says that it understands patient frustration. It did not mention mounting regulatory and political pressure.

Insurers blame half of PA delays on providers who submit requests via mail, phone, or fax. They say that they will help those providers transition to electronic submissions.

Reader Comments

From Frank: “Re: AI. Is a vendor’s platform AI-enabled just because the junior PR person used ChatGPT to write the press release?” AI-crafted announcements and lengthy punditry articles on social media – which are easily recognizable, by the way – are starting to get annoying. The AI versions are just a bit too polished, soulless, and peppered with em dashes and overly dramatic recitation of background facts that often contain hallucinations.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Few poll respondents think more highly of Oracle Health now than in the pre-acquisition days when it was Cerner. I ran this same poll one year ago and the numbers were identical, so at least they’re holding steady. It has been three years since EVP Mike Sicilia promised the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that it would “start over” in rewriting Cerner’s pharmacy module in 6-9 months.

New poll to your right or here: How concerned are you that AI will diminish or eliminate your job within five years? The poll results may be tricky to interpret. People who are convinced that their role requires their unique insight, nuance, or relationship skills are possibly like medical transcriptionists in failing to see what’s coming. I might get more objective responses if I instead asked if AI could eliminate the job of co-workers or direct reports. I’ll predict with admittedly superficial insight that the first health tech jobs to be affected will be prior authorization specialists, records retrieval and chart abstracting folks, RCM coders, marketing staff, and call center / help desk people.

The onset of summer means that we offer incentives for companies who can take their minds off vacations and beach weekends and make the decision to sponsor HIStalk. I don’t discount normal sponsorship cost because that wouldn’t be fair to existing sponsors, but we will usually offer one-time extra months, webinar exposure, or email messages, not to mention special offers for startups or former sponsors who rejoin the fold. Contact Lorre.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Business Insider describes the “New Mountain special” for VC firms, as private equity firm New Mountain Capital is acquiring and rolling up health tech AI companies that are unlikely to IPO or be acquired. The firm operates more like a venture studio, targeting higher-risk innovation with larger investments, minimal debt, and a focus on long-term value creation. Some of its big deals involve Datavant from its acquisition of Ciox Health and its recent combination of Access Healthcare, SmarterDx, and Thoughtful AI to create RCM technology vendor Smarter Technologies.

Ohio’s attorney general conditionally approves the $485 million acquisition of Akron-based Summa Health by a business venture that is owned by VC firm General Catalyst.

Non-profit, money-losing Ascension will acquire Amsurg, which runs 250 ambulatory surgery centers in 34 states, for $3.9 billion. Bring on those facility fees.

People

SmarterDx hires Kit Kieling, MD (Orderly Health) as CMIO. He is an Air Force veteran and US Air Force Academy graduate who volunteered to serve as a pediatric ICU director for host-national children in combat field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan with the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Operations Squadron.

Dan Phippen (R1 RCM) joins Evergreen Healthcare Partners as chief growth officer.

AdventHealth hires Erica Williams, MBA (Ascension) as VP/divisional CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

UnitedHealthcare announces AI-powered provider search for members.

Epic summarizes some of the main points it made in its response to HHS’s RFI on health tech interoperability and infrastructure.

Humanate Digital pilots its AI front desk receptionist. The assistant checks patients in for clinic visits and adjusts its tone based on patient facial expressions. Other versions handle medical records requests and billing.

Government and Politics

Every newborn in England will have DNA screening within 10 years to allow NHS to predict and prevent disease and personalize treatment.

Other

Hartford HealthCare installs an OnMed CareStation in Bradley International Airport, the first such device to be placed in a US airport. The health system hopes to attract six patients per day to the CareStation, which accepts insurance and cash payments.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare IT Leaders staff volunteer at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
• Capital Rx releases a new e-book titled “Why Savings Don’t Materialize: The Truth About Pharmacy Benefit Procurement.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT releases a new episode of its “Visionary Voices” podcast featuring Mike Mosquito.
• Rhapsody offers a new white paper titled “The 5 Most Common Interoperability Missteps—and How to Avoid Them.”

Blog Posts

• Why Healthcare Needs a Different Kind of SOC (Fortified Health Security)
• Rethinking the EHR: Behavioral Health at the Center of FQHC Technology (Netsmart)
• ProFee vs. Facility Coding: Key Differences, Challenges, and the Autonomous Solution (Nym)
• Reflections from Databricks Data + AI Summit 2025 (Redox)
• 5 Ways Improving Care Access for Members Is a Force Multiplier for Engagement and Outcomes (ReferWell)
• The Ultimate Guide to Cloud Payments: Features, Benefits & Real-World Applications (TrustCommerce, a Sphere company)
• What is a CVO? A Step-by-Step Guide for Successful Credentialing (Symplr)
• Tegria at the IPMI Healthcare IT Institute: Insights on Cloud-Enabled Digital Evolution (Tegria)
• SIIM 2025 | Visage’s Top Five (Visage Imaging)
• Harnessing tech to combat drug diversion (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

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

News 6/20/25

Top News

Commure raises $200 million in growth financing to advance its RCM, ambient documentation, and practice management tools.

The company now calls itself “the fast-growing enterprise AI healthcare technology company,” which is a phrasing shift from previous press releases that described it more generically as “a leading healthcare technology company” or “a leader in healthcare technology innovation.”

Reader Comments

From Significant: “Re: Commure. A $200 million investment to build what, exactly? RCM, ambient notes, and practice tools aren’t exactly underrepresented in health tech. Maybe Commure can use the cash to invent a fourth buzzword.” The company’s current website is at the top of the page, while the year-ago, AI-absent version that vaguely described the company’s product as a “healthtech operating system” is directly above. This was prior to its late 2024 acquisitions of Memora Health (care navigation) and Augmedix (AI-powered medical scribing). Certainly the current website is more specific about what the company actually sells, which was difficult to determine not long ago. The company launched as a FHIR-native developer platform in 2020.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Patient referral technology vendor Tennr raises $101 million in a Series C funding round.

Hoppr, which offers a platform for developing medical AI imaging applications, raises $31.5 million in a Series A funding round. Founder, CEO, and board chair Khan Siddiqui, MBBS spent executive time at Microsoft and Higi.

Consulting firm Huron will acquire Eclipse Insights, which offers revenue cycle consulting services.

People

Abby Polich, MBA (TridentCare) joins Health Data Movers as SVP of client services.

Announcements and Implementations

Oracle announces GA of Oracle Health Community Care, a cloud-based mobile extension of the Oracle Health Foundation EHR that can be operated offline.

Willis Knighton Health goes live with Meditech Expanse in its 132 clinics.

This may have healthcare implications and will almost certainly kill some competing apps. OpenAI announces ChatGPT Record, which records speech in real time (including from multiple speakers), creates a transcript, generates a summary, and allows rewriting into an email or project plan. A “reference record history” option allows ChatGPT to look back on previous transcripts to improve its responses and to recall previously shared information. The Record option is available only for paid users who run MacOS for now.

Government and Politics

I wrote back in the dark COVID days of early 2021 about Anosh Ahmed, MD, the COO of Chicago’s 122-bed Loretto Hospital who resigned after getting caught diverting scarce vaccine doses to his cronies. He’s back in the news for filing $900 million in bogus COVID testing claims, which netted him and his co-codefendants an astounding $300 million. Ahmed allegedly stole patient data from the hospital to bill the federal government for performing COVID tests on uninsured people who never actually received them. Beyond the $300 million, he also is accused of pocketing $147 million in kickbacks from a lab company. He put his $9 million Houston house on the market after the first round of charges, for which he generously threw in one of his Rolls Royces. He now lives in Dubai as a “wealth management strategist” and operates a charity whose books might warrant review. Kudos to Kelly Bauer of Block Club Chicago for originally breaking the story and chasing it aferward

Epic files a motion to move the CureIS lawsuit against it to a different venue, arguing that the Northern District of California doesn’t make sense given that both companies are based in the Midwest. CureIS’s lawsuit accuses Epic of anticompetitive behavior, requiring customers to use its own products instead of those of CureIS, blocking integration, stealing trade secrets, and violating Cures Act information blocking provisions. Epic says in the motion that the lawsuit contains “seven kitchen-sink causes of action” that “read like a bad spy novel.” In its motion, Epic argues that:

• CureIS blames Epic for its stalled growth and fading customer relationships instead of looking inward.
• Epic doesn’t need to steal IP given that its thousands of developers ship new software constantly.
• CureIS cites information blocking rules that weren’t in effect at the time.
• CureIS should win on merit, not in court, and its job is to prove to customers that its products are better than Epic’s.
• CureIS wants to limit Epic’s ability to improve its offerings and inform its customers about what’s coming, which is “both absurd and antithetical to how competition works in the United States.”
• This isn’t the first time a smaller company has tried to shift blame to a dominant competitor.

Privacy and Security

A late January ransomware attack on medical coding and risk adjustment firm Episource exposed the information of 5.4 million people.

Other

MIT researchers say that ChatGPT makes its users dumber, with brain scans of essay writers suggesting that they incur “cognitive debt” that dulls critical thinking, reduces creativity, and makes them more susceptible to manipulation. They found that 83% of the subjects couldn’t recall anything from the essays they had asked ChatGPT to write.

Sponsor Updates

• Clearwater sponsors the Tennessee HIMSS Chapter Golf Tournament.
• Black Book Research reveals the most promising European health IT firms selected by investors for their growth potential, regulatory preparedness, and ability to scale.
• KLAS features Clearsense in its latest Emerging Insights case study titled “Clearsense Data Platform as a Service 2025: Reducing Costs & Increasing Efficiency Through Accelerated Data Archiving.”
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Inside Capital Rx’s Acquisition of Amino Health: Creating the Health Benefits Platform of the Future, Today.”
• Netsmart announces that its MyUnity EHR platform has received the Community Health Accreditation Partner Verification for Home Health.
• Ellkay will exhibit at Health Choice Network’s Annual Board Educational Conference June 20-22 on Marco Island, FL.
• First Databank names Jessica Durm clinical informatics pharmacist, Ryan Cornell security operations engineer, and Keiron Jerome cloud operations engineer.
• Linus Health receives Silver in the Connected Digital Health, Clinical Decision Support Tools category at the 2025 Spring Digital Health Awards.

Blog Posts

• Findhelp + MHK: Streamline Your SDoH Workflows and Improve Member Outcomes (Findhelp)
• Why Tactics Matter in Cybersecurity: Rethinking the Way Healthcare Defends (Fortified Health Security)
• Behind the Scenes of Better Care: South Florida Psychiatry’s Revenue Cycle Transformation (Inovalon)
• Henry County Hospital’s 6 steps to improving physician satisfaction (Meditech)

Contacts

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

News 6/18/25

Top News

Ambient scribe technology vendor Nabla raises $70 million in a Series C funding round, increasing its total to $120 million.

The company will use the money to develop an agentic AI platform that will include real-time coding support, smarter documentation, EHR command execution, and nursing capabilities.

Reader Comments

From Skrill: “Re: virtual ADHD prescriptions. A new study out of Massachusetts General Hospital says that remote prescribing doesn’t increase someone’s chances of becoming addicted to drugs like Adderall. Doesn’t this fly in the face of the federal scrutiny (and fines) faced by Cerebral, Truepill, Ahead, etc. several years ago?” Reasons this study’s findings don’t necessarily vindicate for-profit telehealth providers who were cranking out prescriptions for stimulants:

• It looked at MGH patients who were treated for ADHD from March 2020 to August 2023. Most of them had at least one in-person visit before COVID moved their care to virtual. They were evaluated in person and managed by doctors in traditional academic medical center practice.
• I would trust MGH doctors who started seeing patients virtually to follow the proper prescribing guidelines, as compared to an investor-backed startup that contracts with doctors who are paid for each Adderall prescription they generate.
• The study looked at substance use disorder as an endpoint, but that doesn’t necessarily prove the absence of overuse or even misuse in general. Patients could have been selling or sharing their meds or using them for purposes other than as prescribed.
• The researchers had no way to measure diversion or inappropriate prescribing.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Parkview Health (IN) launches UpVia Health, a management services company that is focused on independent hospitals and provider groups. UpVia will initially offer services for virtual care, EHR sharing, revenue cycle, and group purchasing as well as pharmacy management and supply chain management.

Diabetes management software vendor Glytec announces $36 million in new funding.

Sales

• VA San Antonio expands its CliniComp EHR system to its post-anesthesia care environments.
• Ochsner Health (LA) selects clinical AI software from Latent Health.
• Erlanger (TN) will implement surgical operations automation software from Qventus.

People

CereCore names Matt Dearborn (Pivot Point Consulting) regional VP.

Eyecare EHR/PM vendor Sightview hires Tycene Fritcher (Outcomes) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

St. Mary’s Health and Clearwater Valley Health in Idaho implement a shared Meditech Expanse EHR system.

Stanford Health Care (CA) uses virtual pulmonary rehabilitation services from Kivo Health as part of its home-based care program for COPD patients.

Veterans Memorial Hospital (IA) goes live on Epic through a collaboration with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Med Tech Solutions begins offering personalized NextGen Healthcare and EClinicalWorks EHR utilization training through its new ProviderCare program.

Altera Digital Health announces GA of Sunrise 25.1.

Government and Politics

The FDA issues its most serious level of recall on select Zyno Medical Z-800 infusion pumps, citing software that has not undergone verification or validation testing.

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence, PhD stresses that progress is being made on preparing facilities in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio to go live on its Oracle Health-based EHR in 2026. Implementation activities are also set to begin this month at care sites in Anchorage and Cleveland. Thirteen facilities are scheduled to go live on the software next year.

Privacy and Security

Population health management platform vendor HealthEC and four of its customers will pay a combined $5.48 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit that stemmed from a 2023 breach that affected the data of 4.6 million people.

Other

A local news outlet questions the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s decision to add a “citizenship” field to Epic, noting that hospitals are not required to collect the information and patients are not obligated to answer.

Sponsor Updates

• Capital Rx supports the annual NYCFC/NYCSI Community Cup in Queens.
• Arcadia announces a strategic integration partnership with Quest Analytics.
• Black Book Research’s latest survey ranks Inovalon as the top-rated vendor for the End-to-End Medicare Advantage Risk Adjustment Lifecycle.
• Waystar appoints Aashima Gupta and Michael Roman to its Board of Directors.
• Altera Digital Health announces that customer Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has become the first trust in Greater Manchester to implement district nurse referrals in its Sunrise EPR system.
• Clearwater founder and Executive Chairman Bob Chaput leads a cyber risk management course at The University of Texas at Austin.
• Consensus Cloud Solutions will exhibit at the HIMSS Central & North Florida Chapter Conference June 19 in Tampa, FL.

Blog Posts

• 5 Care Coordination Challenges Netsmart Solves (Netsmart)
• What Is ICD-11? Key Differences from ICD-10 and How AI Can Help (Nym)
• 5 Ways Improving Care Access for Members Is a Force Multiplier for Engagement and Outcomes (ReferWell)
• The Panoramic View for Health Plans and Care Managers (Surescripts)
• From Inspiration to Action—How to Instigate Change after the 2025 MUSE Inspire Conference (CereCore)
• The silent advocate: How AI can alleviate mental health struggles in nurses (Altera Digital Health)
• Transforming How Healthcare Organizations Use Data (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 6/16/25

Top News

UCSF professor and University of California Health System chief data scientist Atul Butte, MD, PhD died Friday. He was 55.

Butte held the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professorship of pediatrics, bioengineering and therapeutic sciences, and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. He was director of UCSF’s Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and chief data scientist of UC Health.

The above UCTV video is from 2019, when Butte presciently described AI as “what’s old is new again” and discussed its potential in healthcare.

Reader Comments

From Efficient Hospital: “Re: AI. Everyone and their grandmothers have ideas on how to regulate it (CHAI, Joint Commission, AMA, AHA, CMS, FDA). Meanwhile, every AI company is learning that the only way to make money is to become an RCM vendor. All these regulations will end up applying to prior auth, denial management, and RCM workflows because nobody is willing to scale up deployment of clinical AI beyond itsy bitsy pilots.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

We clearly need to work out how to integrate and label AI-generated (or proposed) content into what clinicians generate manually.

New poll to your right or here: How has your perception of the former Cerner changed since its acquisition by Oracle? We’re now three years in, so comparisons are justified.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Amazon restructures its healthcare business after several executive departures. Amazon Health Services will be focused on six groups:

• One Medical Clinical Care Delivery.
• One Medical Clinical Operations and Performance
• AHS Strategic Growth and Network Development.
• AHS Store, Tech, and Marketing.
• AHS Compliance.
• AHS Pharmacy Services.

Health data platform vendor Datavant acquires Ontellus, which offers records retrieval technology for self-insured companies and law firms.

Autonomize AI, which offers AI copilots for healthcare enterprises, raises $28 million in a Series A funding round.

Oracle names Mike Sicilia, who oversees the company’s vertical businesses including Oracle Health, as co-president alongside another executive in new SEC filings. Oracle has previously elevated executives to the role of president as part of CEO succession planning.

23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki regains control of the bankrupt company as her newly formed non-profit acquires its assets for $305 million, outbidding Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a court-ordered final round.

China-based health tech company Ping An Good Doctor relaunches its health services platform with updates for proactive family doctor support, direct access to medical specialists, and full-cycle care coordination. The platform has 400 million registered users who can access 50,000 physicians, 105,000 health service partners, 235,000 pharmacies, and 4,000 hospitals. The company also announced AI tools for chronic disease monitoring, case triage, post-treatment care, and workplace health management.

People

Lee Health hires Chris Akeroyd (Children’s Health) as CIO.

Government and Politics

Draft legislation would increase Congressional control over the VA’s Oracle Health project by mandating regular reporting of project status.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research offers comprehensive managed care industry studies and reports ahead of AHIP 2025, where it will recognize industry leaders.
• Nordic releases a new episode of its “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Karen Joswick.
• Optimum Healthcare IT achieves Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop Advanced Specialization distinction.
• RLDatix will exhibit at the AAMI EXchange June 20-23 in New Orleans.
• Symplr receives the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Well-Being Excellence credential, and achieves Gold Tier status credentialing.

Blog Posts

• The power of analytics on your bottom line (Altera Digital Health)
• Reducing claims denials: Healthcare leaders weigh in on the future of revenue cycle management (Meditech)
• What You Need to Know About Interoperability and How it Affects You: Part 4 (Netsmart)
• Application portfolio management: What healthcare leaders should think about before M&A activity begins (Nordic)
• How AI Powers Explainable and Auditable Medical Coding (Nym)
• CMS Cracks Down on Medicare Advantage Audits: $43 Billion in Estimated Overpayments Leads to Increased Oversight (ReferWell)
• Data & Analytics Spotlight: Converting Bytes of Data into Cents of Value with Manik Gupta (Surescripts)
• 4 innovations in healthcare RCM from the Waystar Innovation Showcase (Waystar)
• Systems thinking can help redefine chronic care approaches (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• From Chaos to Clarity: Rethinking Knowledge Management in Healthcare (VisiQuate)

Contacts

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

News 6/13/25

Top News

Scotland-based Craneware, which develops hospital revenue integrity software, rejects a $1.4 billion acquisition offer from Bain Equity after concluding that the proposal undervalues the company.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health benefits solution vendor Capital Rx acquires Amino Health and will add its provider search, appointment scheduling, cost estimates and prescription savings capabilities to its Judi pharmacy benefit operations management platform.

Oracle announces Q4 results: revenue up 11%, EPS $0.19 versus $0.11, beating Wall Street expectations for both. The only mention of its health business in the earnings call was that Oracle Health is among the segments that are gaining users from competitors that have struggled with the shift from on-premise to cloud.

Clinical data exchange technology vendor MRO acquires Q-Centrix, which offers an enterprise clinical data management platform.

Ellipsis Health, which offers AI-powered healthcare voice agents for care management, raises $45 million in a Series A funding round.

Announcements and Implementations

A new AMA policy calls for clinical AI tools to include explainable output and safety and efficacy data to support informed decision-making by clinicians.

A publication in Sweden says that Oracle Health executives have admitted that its Millennium system was classified incorrectly under the EU’s Medical Device Regulation and should have not been brought live. Swedish authorities previously launched an investigation when the $190 million implementation in the Västra Götaland region experienced data handling problems.

Government and Politics

A Florida-based substance use disorder clinic will pay $1.9 million to settle FTC allegations that its CIO and chief marketing officer ran Google ads that impersonated other clinics to generate inbound consumer calls. The FTC says that the company ran at least 68,000 Google search ads that generated 3,500 calls to its call center from people who were attempting to contact competing clinics, which it says violates the FTC Act and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018.

A GOP-submitted draft House Veterans’ Affairs bill would reintroduce into law several previously removed VA EHR accountability and governance requirements, including standardized reporting, leadership roles, and data protections. The bill’s EHR provisions are nearly identical to those that were submitted by Democrats in May 2024 that were removed “due to lack of political viability.”

Privacy and Security

Central Maine Healthcare continues to work to restore its systems that were taken offline by a cyberattack on June 1.

Sponsor Updates

• Team HCTec wins the inaugural Tennessee HIMSS golf tournament.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Poster Presentations: The Utility of ICD Codes, and How Text Messages & Pharmacist Outreach Aids Medication Adherence.”
• TruBridge will present at the Truist Securities Healthcare Disruptors & Digital Health Conference June 24-25 in New York City.
• Black Book Research shares 15 top-rated healthcare technology vendors recognized for excellence based on polling of European healthcare leaders.
• Findhelp welcomes new customers Diverge Health, Florida Health Orange County, and the Town of Brookline, MA.
• Five9 announces new AI Agents and AI Trust & Governance solutions, powered by its Agentix Experience Engine.
• Fortified Health Security names Angie Dai business development representative.
• Health Data Movers hires Alexis Woltermann as account manager.
• “PSQH: The Podcast” features Inovalon SVP of provider surveillance and safety Hayley Burgess in an episode titled “Transforming Patient Safety with Technology.”
• KLAS recognizes InterSystems and Healthfirst with its 2025 Points of Light Award for improving continuity of care after acute events.
• Navina wins a Gold Stevie Award in the AI/Machine Learning Solution – Healthcare category at the American Business Awards.

Blog Posts

• How Altera gives back through volunteering (Altera Digital Health)
• The CX Awards Playbook: 6 Customer-First Strategies From the Boldest Brands in the Game (Five9)
• The High Cost of Manual Claims Processing – and How to Fix It (Inovalon)
• Understanding the 2025 Federal Moves on Price Transparency (Kyruus)
• Simplifying revenue cycle: Strategies for improved cash flow (Meditech)
• Optimizing Release of Information to Strengthen Revenue Cycle Performance (MRO)

Contacts

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

News 6/11/25

Top News

Mayo Clinic will invest in and partner with Hellocare.ai, whose platform supports virtual nursing, virtual sitting, patient engagement, ambient documentation, and remote monitoring.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (WA) will lay off 116 employees within its Virtual Health Services division and outsource those jobs to a different region, citing state-based financial pressures.

Sales

• Southwest General Health Center (OH) selects Notable’s patient engagement, registration, and intake software.
• MD Anderson Cancer Center (TX) will implement and further develop HealthEx’s patient consent and data management platform.
• St. Charles Health System (OR) selects WovenX Health’s virtual visit and care pathway technology for gastrointestinal patients.

People

California-based HIE SacValley MedShare names Tiffany Hodgins, MSHI (Health Catalyst) chief technology and quality officer.

MedEvolve promotes Matt Seefeld to CEO.

Vaughn Paunovich (Amwell) joins Lifestance Health as CTO.

Dave Icke (Humana) is named CEO of Medisafe, replacing founder Omri Shor, MBA.

CommonSpirit Health promotes Carolyn New, RN, MSN to VP/chief clinical informatics officer, south region.

Announcements and Implementations

Altera Digital Health will integrate Health Gorilla’s interoperability network into Sunrise EHR.

The deadline to submit HIMSS26 presentation proposals has passed even though the annual meeting is nine months away.

Government and Politics

State officials and advocates raise privacy concerns about CDC’s planned consolidation of disease surveillance data on Palantir’s Foundry platform.

Privacy and Security

Jackson Health System (FL) fires an employee who inappropriately accessed 2,000 patient records between July 2020 and May 2025 as part of a scheme to promote a personal healthcare business.

The AMA advocates for limits on how the personal and biological data of physicians is collected and used to address burnout, requiring opt-in informed consent and advance disclosure if data is identifiable.

Other

Researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute develop an online tool and hotline to help pregnant women find clinics within the state that offer prenatal care and accept Medicaid.

An Orlando Health study finds that using the EHR to identify and stratify high-risk metastatic cancer patients for targeted interventions decreased 30-day readmissions and length of stay.

UC Davis Health (CA) sees a considerable uptick in pediatric e-consults after developing specialty-specific e-consult protocols, adjusting referral options within its EHR to remind pediatricians that they can request an e-consult, and increasing messaging about e-consults amongst the larger UC Davis Health community.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD announces 2025 summer product updates and makes Waystar its preferred clearinghouse partner.
• Altera Digital Health offers a new client story titled “Bolton joins up and accelerates district nurse referrals across secondary and community care using Sunrise EPR.”
• Greece ranks among the lowest-performing nations in Europe across critical digital health benchmarks, according to findings from Black Book Research.
• Arcadia will exhibit at AHIP 2025 June 16-18 in Las Vegas.
• Gartner recognizes Censinet as a representative vendor in its “2025 Market Guide for Third-Party Risk Management Technology Solutions.”
• Clinical Architecture will sponsor a networking breakfast at the CHIME Innovation Summit June 11-13 in Fairfax, VA.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “The Future of Health Benefits: Integrating the Power of Pharmacogenomics (PGx), with Burns Blaxall, PhD, and Caitlin Munro, PharmD.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health updates its Sentri7 Drug Diversion and Sentri7 Pharmacy solutions.

Blog Posts

• Navigating Change: Key Priorities for Revenue Cycle Management Leaders (AGS Health)
• Reducing Wait Times, Restoring Trust: A Purpose-Driven Approach to Patient Access (Tegria)
• Move assets from staging to production with Promotion (Redox)
• From confusion to confidence: Navigating rapid digital technology changes (Altera Digital Health)
• Navigating governance and change management in EHR projects: driving strategic transformation (Cardamom)
• Rethinking the HIPAA Security Rule: Why Forward Path 2025 Might Be the Better Way Forward (Clearwater)
• Driving Change: How To Lead A Digital Strategy For Clinical Innovation (CereCore)
• Innovating Around AI: The Shift Towards Integration and Real-World Impact (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Modern Risk Management in Healthcare: Protecting Patients in a Connected World (CloudWave)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 6/9/25

Top News

Shares of virtual care and coaching company Omada Health jump to $23 in their Friday IPO debut, up from the $19 offering price.

The early pop faded by the close, however, with shares ending where they opened and the company’s public valuation of $1 billion remaining unchanged since its last private funding round.

Reader Comments

From Pedro Borbon: “Re: Emory Healthcare. Parted ways with its chief information and digital officer, its CISO, and its CTO within the past month. It previously dismissed its chief innovation officer and another C-suite executive, basically eliminating its entire technology leadership team without announcing it.” Partially verified since some, but not all, of those who have reportedly departed have updated their LinkedIn with a non-Emory status. That’s understandable since it’s tough to smile from the same face that just took a punch. Emory announced the departure of CIDO Alistair Erskine, MD, MBA in April as it also went back to separate CIDOs for the health system and university.

From Ornery Bugger: “Re: DexCare. Churn in past 12-18 months include the CEO, two CTOs, CPO, chief customer experience officer, chief growth officer, chief commercial officer, three sales VPs, and the head of implementation, also at least 30 director-level people from product or engineering. Only two sales reps out of at least 20 have lasted two years. Some of the execs have no healthcare experience.” Unverified because I wasn’t interested enough to crawl LinkedIn. The exec team page from just over a year ago lists eight execs, of which two are listed on the current version of the page. I’m omitting a lot of other information from the reader since I can’t confirm and I don’t want to pile on the Providence-launched capacity management software company. DexCare has raised somewhere around $200 million, with some of its customers taking a stake.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Last week’s poll results will surprise no one.

New poll to your right or here: Should health systems flag AI-generated content in the chart and patient-facing documents? My take: clinicians own the content, whether it comes from their fingers, ambient AI, or EHR auto-wizardry. The review-edit-approve loop goes all the way back to voice orders scribbled by a nurse onto a paper chart and human-transcribed dictation. Some docs will keep rubber-stamping whatever pops up, hoping that a malpractice jury will buy the argument that accountability was someone else’s job. But the real challenge is figuring out who the quarterback is for a given note or data element when multiple systems and clinicians are contributing. Maybe every data element, insight, recommendation, or observation should be tagged with its source, aka metadata as malpractice insulation.

I have been imperceptibly absent for several days on vacation, during which I missed HIStalk’s 22nd birthday on June 3. I was describing the site to a guy while I was away and he provided a perspective that I hadn’t thought of: “You’ve been writing the same technology blog for more than 20 years? How is that even possible with all the tech changes?” I’m the industry’s “Deliverance” banjo guy, sitting here plucking the same tune while bemusedly watching the oblivious paddlers.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Best Buy reports a $109 million restructuring charge for its health division, citing slower adoption of its hospital-at-home offerings due to financial pressures that its health system partners are facing.

Private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners acquires an unstated significant ownership position in NextGen Healthcare, which was taken private in 2023 by PE firm Thoma Bravo. Both PE firms will be involved in the company’s management. NextGen also announced that it will replace CEO David Sides with President and COO Sri Velamoor.

Sales

• Managed Care Advisory Group offers its provider assistance services for the $2.8 billion BCBS provider settlement — which requires claims to be filed by July 29, 2025 — to customers of Altera Digital Health.
• Emory Healthcare will spend $51 million to implement Epic at its newly acquired Houston Healthcare.

People

San Mateo County Health promotes Rich Bailey, MS (MultiCare Health System) to CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Stanford Medicine is piloting ChatEHR, a homegrown, secure AI chatbot that focuses solely on a specific patient’s EHR data. A few dozen clinicians are testing the tool, which can retrieve allergies, procedures, and lab results on demand without adding its own interpretation or advice. It can also summarize the external records of hospital admissions, which is often a chore due to inconsistent formats and documentation styles.

TeleTracking and Palantir partner to offer hospitals AI-powered, real-time predictive insights to address capacity, staffing, patient flow, and financial performance.

Availity and Vim partner to integrate real-time care-gap identification directly into provider EHR workflows, enabling seamless point-of-care notifications and secure submission to improve HEDIS and Stars performance and reduce administrative burden.

KLAS offers “complete looks” at six ambulatory EHR vendors:

• Athenahealth was graded B- with a score of 79.6, with strengths of product integration, timely upgrades, and user-friendly interfaces, with negatives of challenging implementations, varied support knowledge and responsiveness, and hidden costs.
• EClinicalWorks earned a C- grade and 70.5 score, with strong suits being low initial licensing cost, web-based stability, scheduling tools, and internal integration, with weaknesses being poor training, nickel and diming, and slow support that is hampered by language barriers.
• Epic earned an overall B grade and 82.3 score, with strengths in data sharing, innovation, and support and weaknesses in cost, frequent updates that can break workflows, and overly complex billing and reporting.
• Greenway Health was graded D- with a score of 59.3, with its user friendly interface and telehealth capabilities being offset by slow support, nickel and diming, limited training resources, and cumbersome integration with external systems.
• NextGen Healthcare was graded C- with a 70.1 score, with strong points being customization, product integration, and analytics capabilities but weaknesses in lack of employee knowledge, an unintuitive user interface, and gaps in implementation and training.
• Veradigm earned an overall D grade and 63.8 score, with users appreciating its ease of use and integrated clearinghouse functionality, but expressing frustration with support, nickel and diming, and outdated functionality.

Government and Politics

CMS Chief Health Informatics Officer Alex Mugge, MPH will reportedly leave to take a health policy job with Oracle Health, where she would rejoin her former boss Seema Verma.

Sponsor Updates

• Baptist Health (AL) will use managed services from Healthcare IT Leaders to maintain its Oracle Health system.
• Altera Digital Health partners with Managed Care Advisory Group to bring MCAG’s class action lawsuit recovery services to providers.
• Frost & Sullivan recognizes Wolters Kluwer Health as a clinical decision support leader in its 2025 Frost Radar report.
• Elsevier develops an evaluation framework for assessing the performance and safety of generative AI-powered clinical reference tools including its Clinical Key AI.
• A new Black Book Research analysis finds that providers are facing significant upheaval in their credentialing and privileging technology as major regulatory changes loom in 2026.
• Waystar celebrates its one-year anniversary as a publicly traded company.

The following HIStalk sponsors will exhibit at the HFMA Annual Conference June 22-25 in Denver:

• AGS Health
• Altera Digital Health
• Arcadia
• CereCore
• Clearsense
• FinThrive
• Healthcare IT Leaders
• Infinx
• Inovalon
• MRO
• Netsmart
• Nordic Consulting
• Nym Health
• SmarterDx
• TruBridge
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere company
• VisiQuate
• WayStar
• Wolters Kluwer Health

Blog Posts

• Transforming CBO Case Management with Kiip (Findhelp)
• Nurses of Note 2025: The Director of Quality Management (PerfectServe)
• Powering Value-Based Care with Connected, Intuitive Technology (Netsmart)
• Because the doctor said so: How bureaucracy hijacked the exam room (Nordic)
• The Patient Portal Can’t Do It All (Praia Health)
• Unlocking healthcare interoperability: Redox + Databricks at Data + AI Summit 2025 (Redox)
• Move assets from staging to production with Promotion (Redox)
• Understanding TJC OPPE Requirements for Specialty Specific Indicators (Symplr)
• Navigating governance and change management in EHR projects: driving strategic transformation (Cardamom)
• Tegria at MUSE Inspire 2025: Advancing Compliance and Financial Performance in Healthcare (Tegria)
• Three Essential Strategies for Coding Excellence in the Era of Artificial Intelligence (TruBridge)
• Anticipating the Inevitable: Rethinking Denials in the Healthcare Revenue Cycle (VisiQuate)

Contacts

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

News 6/6/25

Top News

The Interlock ransomware group claims to have stolen 940 gigabytes of patient, employee, and corporate data from Kettering Health (OH), which is still working to recover from the May 20 ransomware attack.

Kettering officials acknowledged earlier this week that a small subset of data had been accessed.

The health system’s latest update on recovery efforts stresses that the cybersecurity threat has been removed, connections to its partners are secure, and that access to care is returning to normal.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Kyruus Health. Kyruus Health is the leading care access platform on a mission to connect people to the right care. The company connects over 500,000 providers across 1,400 hospitals and 550 medical groups, and members across 100 health plan brands so that every stakeholder can access and harness the most accurate, comprehensive, and contextually relevant information. By enabling informed decisions and confident action, the care access platform supports healthier outcomes, reduces friction in healthcare, and grants more time back in everyone’s day. To learn more, visit KyruusHealth.com or follow us on LinkedIn. Thanks to Kyruus for supporting HIStalk.

I found this Kyruus Health explainer video on YouTube.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Behavioral healthcare technology and services company Lucet acquires Emcara Health, which provides in-home primary care.

Sales

• Baptist Health (AL) will use managed services from Healthcare IT Leaders to maintain its Oracle Health system.
• UPMC Ireland will implement Meditech Expanse.

People

Arcadia names Lee Mooney (Sixth Street) CFO.

Announcements and Implementations

OhioHealth Southeastern Medical Center launches an electronic ICU program that enables OhioHealth staff at the health system’s central monitoring center to remotely monitor patients and communicate with bedside staff.

Zen Healthcare IT joins the CommonWell Health Alliance.

Government and Politics

CMS announces several digital health initiatives, including the development of an interoperable national provider directory, expanded availability of its Blue Button 2.0 API, and enhanced data exchange participation.

Other

New research from Linus Health finds that incorporating an electronic Person-Specific Outcome Measure tool into assessments used for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias can help patients and their caregivers prioritize and manage self-reported life priorities.

Stanford Health Care (CA) pilots an internally developed AI tool dubbed ChatEHR that enables clinicians to interact with patient medical records, primarily in the form of information-gathering. Stanford’s research team is also developing companion automations that will use AI to assist providers in evaluating patients for transfers, determining eligibility for hospice care, and determining post-surgical levels of care.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research reveals strong momentum and challenges in European Health Data Space Adoption ahead of HIMSS EU 2025.
• Ellkay raises over $30,000 during Alpine Learning Group’s Go the Distance for Autism event.
• Five9 publishes its “2025 Business Leaders Customer Experience Report.”
• Fortified Health Security names Angel Bonilla and Jackson See business development representatives and Zack Bishop threat defense analyst.
• Inbox Health partners with Exdion Health to boost efficiency and revenue for urgent care and occupational health centers.
• Infinx releases a new episode of its “Healthcare Revenue Cycle Optimized” podcast titled “Lab Revolution in the Age of AI and Access.”

Blog Posts

• Annual Medicomp U Asia Event Empowers Southeast Asia Hospitals Through Education and Quippe Training (Medicomp Systems)
• Altera Digital Health: Building a greener future for a healthier planet (Altera Digital Health)
• Seeing clinical value from AI requires practical, real-world results (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Achieving Social Care ROI: How Findhelp Powers Your Investment (Findhelp)
• Improve Patient Registration Efficiency in 6 Steps (FinThrive)
• 9 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Build Customer Rapport (That Actually Work) (Five9)
• Objective Thinking On Health System IT Staffing: 10 Traps To Avoid (HCTec)
• The Top 5 Reasons to Attend Empower 2025 (Inovalon)
• A New Era in Alzheimer’s Care: Digital Screening Meets FDA-Cleared Blood Biomarkers (Linus Health)
• Sustaining forward momentum to support nurse empowerment (Meditech)
• The New Physician Playbook: AI, Workflows & Value-Based Care in Action (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 6/4/25

Top News

HHS names radiologist and former ONC senior advisor Thomas Keane, MD, MBA assistant secretary for technology policy and national coordinator for health IT.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: June 18 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Fireside Chat: Closing the Gaps in Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Ben G. Long, MD, director of hospital medicine, Magnolia Regional Health Center; Wes Blakeslee, PhD, vice president of clinical data strategies, DrFirst; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. Magnolia Regional Health Center will describe how its Nurse Navigator program used real-time prescription fill data from DrFirst to identify therapy gaps and engage patients through timely, personalized outreach. The effort led to a 19% increase in prescription fills and a 6% drop in 30-day readmissions among participating patients. Attendees will learn why prescribing price transparency is key to adherence, how real-time data helps care teams support patients between visits, and how Magnolia aligned its approach with value-based care and population health goals.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Net Health, which specializes in health IT for wound care and rehab therapy, acquires digital and in-clinic musculoskeletal care company Limber Health. The acquisition marks Net Health’s second this year, having acquired patient engagement software vendor Alinea Engage in January.

Health IT veteran Ralph Keiser launches ArcheHealth and announces $6.7 million in seed funding. Customer Texas Health Resources participated in the round. The company has developed AI-powered software to help health systems improve operational performance, initially focusing on supply chain.

Clinical surveillance and decision support company AirStrip acquires clinical analytics vendor Fifth Eye. The companies began working together in 2022 when AirStrip became a Fifth Eye investor.

Sales

• Horizon Rx, a virtual practice for patients traveling in California, selects AdvancedMD’s EHR and practice management software.
• Cardiovascular Associates of America will implement HybridChart’s mobile rounding software.

People

Demetri Giannikopoulos (Aidoc) joins Rad AI as chief growth officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Health First (FL) goes live on Epic.

Epic announces that 1,000 hospitals and 22,000 clinics are now leveraging TEFCA data-exchange capabilities through the company’s Nexus QHIN.

MUSC Health (SC) implements Ovatient’s virtual care services. MUSC Health and The MetroHealth System (OH) formed Ovatient in 2022.

After a successful pilot program, the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Care Center will offer patients Veris Health’s oncology-focused remote patient monitoring technology.

Privacy and Security

Kettering Health (OH) brings core parts of its Epic system back online. It is still working to restore functionality to MyChart, as well as inbound and outbound calls. The health system was hit by a cyberattack May 20. It has not yet confirmed if ransomware was involved, though several media outlets have reported that the attack, in which a subset of data was accessed, was initiated by the Interlock ransomware group.

Central Maine Healthcare shuts its IT systems down after detecting unusual activity on its network over the weekend. Covenant Health, which also operates several facilities in Maine, continues to deal with a cyberattack it detected last week.

Sponsor Updates

• Cardamom Health helps to raise over $100,000 for the American Stroke Association during its CycleNation event in Madison, WI.
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Kai Romero, MD.
• CereCore releases a new podcast episode titled “Developing a Digital Strategy for True Clinical Innovation.”
• Black Book Research releases a report ranking EHR systems across Canadian healthcare.
• Capital Rx supports the next phase of the New York City Soccer Initiative’s efforts to expand free soccer programming for children across the city.
• Clearsense publishes a new white paper, “How Application Portfolio Management Accelerates M&A Value in Healthcare.”
• The American Health Law Association’s “Speaking of Health Law” podcast features Clearwater VP of Security Services David Bailey.
• Clinical Architecture becomes a member of Civitas Networks for Health.
• CloudWave will exhibit at the Wisconsin Rural Healthcare Conference June 4-6 in Wisconsin Dells.
• DrFirst earns a 2025 Best Practices Award from Frost & Sullivan.

Blog Posts

• The Critical Role of Physician Documentation in Newborn Encounters (AGS Health)
• Clinical Communication Integrations for Better Patient Care (PerfectServe)
• Five ways health leaders can address silos in healthcare (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• AI in Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: What to Expect in 2025 (Nym)
• AI and Your Practice: Key Insights on AI Usage Among Family Physicians and Primary Care Providers (AdvancedMD)
• Practical Uses Of AI: How It’s Redefining Pharmacy (CereCore)
• Building patient trust through technology (Altera Digital Health)
• How To Unlock the Full Potential of Meditech’s Expanse Patient Connect, Powered by Artera (Artera)
• 7-Steps to Deploying Virtual Care and Virtual Nursing Platforms (AvaSure)
• Accelerating the Transition: Strategies for Health Systems to Thrive in Value-Based Care (Conduce Health)
• It Takes a Community: Transforming Cyber GRC in Healthcare (Censinet)
• 5 Keys to Digital Transformation in Healthcare (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• What Makes a Resume Stand Out to Executive Recruiters (Direct Recruiters)

Contacts

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