News 6/7/23

Top News

A science advisory group of the American Heart Association says that digital technology can address many of the challenges that are faced by center-based cardiac rehabilitation and care programs.

The authors list available technologies for patient assessment, nutritional counseling, risk factor management, exercise training, and digital  monitoring tools.

They predict that data from digital technology systems will be merged with clinical data to support integrate biomarker-directed risk identification, medication adherence, risk factor modification, and fully virtual cardiac rehab programs and AI-powered training plans.

Reader Comments

From Pilsner: “Re: HIStalk’s 20th birthday. How about the tenure of the rest of the crew?” I’m winging it from memory, but I think Dr. Jayne started 12 years ago, Lorre 10, and Jenn nine.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Fuse Oncology, a Cone Health spin-off specializing in radiation oncology software, closes a $9 million Series A funding round.

RxLightning, which specializes in digital specialty medication enrollment solutions, raises $17.5 million in a Series A funding round.

UnitedHealth Group makes an unsolicited cash offer of $3.3 billion to acquire home care provider Amedisys, which has already agreed to be acquired by Option Care Health for a slightly lower sum, for its Optum business.  UnitedHealth acquired home health and hospice provider LHC Group for $5.4 billion in February 2023, which is also operating under Optum.

Cardinal Health sells its Outcomes business to pharmacy software vendor Transaction Data Systems. Cardinal launched the business in April 2021 by combining its medication therapy management, patient engagement, telepharmacy, and vaccine administration scheduling products.

Sales

• Renovis Health (MI) selects Innovaccer’s ACO REACH Solution Suite.

People

LSU Health Shreveport (LA) names Viola Sprague, MBA (Kettering University) CIO.

Reperio Health hires Nicole Brooks (Innsena Communications) as VP of marketing and communications.

Tom Gregorio (Tufts Medicine) joins Care New England as SVP/CIO.

University of South Alabama Health names Tyler Whetstine (Adventist Health) CIO.

Newfire Global Partners hires Sonali Damle, MS, MBA (Innovaccer) as chief people and transformation officer.

Sam Zebarjadi (Amazon) joins Moderna as VP of strategy and go-to-market innovation.

Announcements and Implementations

Startup Remission Medical will work with the Mayo Clinic (MN) to further develop its virtual rheumatology clinic software, incorporating AI and machine learning to reduce time between diagnosis and treatment, and to predict flare-ups.

Emerus Holdings implements Orchard Software’s Point-of-Care LIS software at its eight hospitals in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

In California, Seneca Healthcare District, Plumas District Hospital, and Eastern Plumas Health Care go live on Oracle Cerner through its CommunityWorks model.

Bellevue Hospital in Ohio implements Meditech Expanse.

CloudWave rolls out a fully managed patching service.

Government and Politics

Politico reports that HHS is accepting proposals from organizations that are interested in managing its TEFCA data-sharing initiative. The non-profit Sequoia Project has managed the framework since 2019 through a four-year contract and has applied to continue that work. Proposals are due June 27 and ONC expects to name the coordinating entity by September.

KFF Health News questions whether a federally created, independent National Patient Safety Board, similar to the National Transportation Safety Board, can succeed in helping hospitals learn from medical errors. The hospital industry’s influence will be hard to overcome given the $220 million it spent lobbying Congress last year and its role as the leading employer in 47 states. Proposed bills would allow the proposed group to investigate only when invited by the organization involved and would prohibit it from naming organizations or individuals, making it likely that it will be able to use only de-identified, voluntarily submitted data that is protected from public view.

Other

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (NH) uses $2 million in initial funding to launch the Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence, which will offer researchers and developers the means to evaluate new AI-powered digital tools in clinical settings.

Australia’s general practitioner professional group wants doctors to be paid for the time they spend referring patients to hospitals, a process that it calls “exporting hospital bureaucracy into general practice.” RACGP urges adoption of standardized digital referral forms, observing that while general practices have progressed past PDF forms and faxes, “hospitals are using not just unique forms, but archaic systems.”

Sponsor Updates

• Horizon Health Care (SD) expands its use of EClinicalWorks to include the company’s behavioral health module.
• Biofourmis, Current Health, and Volpara Health join The White House’s CancerX national accelerator.
• Nordic publishes an episode of its Designing for Health podcast that features an interview with Allison McCoy, PhD.
• Bamboo Health completes its SOC 2 examination, validating its commitment to critical security standards.
• Remedi Health Solutions sponsors the CHIME Innovation in Clinical Informatics Summit in San Diego.
• CloudWave will exhibit at the New England Spring HIMSS Annual Conference June 8 in Norwood, MA.
• CTG publishes a new case study, “CTG Improves Healthcare System’s Patient Portal Support with Amazon Connect.”
• Netsmart will integrate NVoq’s speech recognition software with its MyUnity EHR for post-acute care.

Blog Posts

• Good, Better, Best: 8 Questions to Challenge Your Network Management Strategy (CereCore)
• Google’s Material Design Explained the Impact on Digital Design and Why You Should Care (Access)
• Why and How to Build a Successful Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) Program (AGS Health)
• History of Healthcare Technology Regulations: What You Need to Know (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• What are the new RADV guidelines, and how will they impact healthcare? (Arcadia)
• 5 Key Facts About Workplace Injury Prevention (Bardavon)
• Healthcare Provider’s Guide to Value-Based Care (ChartSpan)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Morning Headlines 6/6/23

General Electric to sell over $2 bln stake in GE HealthCare

General Electric plans to divest $2 billion worth of common stock in GE Healthcare Technologies, which spun off from GE earlier this year.

HHS Office for Civil Rights Reaches Agreement with Health Care Provider in New Jersey That Disclosed Patient Information in Response to Negative Online Reviews

New Jersey-based Manasa Health Center will pay $30,000 to settle HIPAA violations stemming from a response it posted to a patient’s negative online review.

New Dartmouth Center Applies AI to Improve Health Outcomes

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (NH) uses $2 million in initial funding to launch the Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence, which will offer researchers and developers the means to evaluate new digital tools in clinical settings.

Monday Morning Update 6/5/23

Top News

The National Eating Disorder Association shuts down its chatbot after users report that it gave them inappropriate advice for managing eating disorders, such as advising them to diet.

The association closed its human-staffed help line in May 2023, a few days after its employees unionized. Help line employees and volunteers fielded 70,000 calls per year.

The medical school team that created the chabot says it was never intended to be a replacement for the help line. They also suspect that the organization introduced bugs in trying to make the chatbot look like ChatGPT even though it is a rules-bases system that can’t generate unique responses. 

Reader Comments

From Smidge: “Re: HIE. I saw a new doctor who downloaded my health and demographic information from an HIE and some of it was outdated or truncated. I’m wondering if others have seen this. It may have been caused by another provider’s system merge.”

From Another Dave: “Re: Scanadu Scout. Remember that? Mine still works on those occasions where I find it in my drawer of broken dreams. This one might make it to the marketplace.” Scanadu’s so-called Tricorder system died in a big cloud of hype dust when it gave up on bringing the Scout to market in mid-2017. Meanwhile, smartphones are slowly adding Scout-like technologies, and UCSD engineers have developed a 10-cent phone clip that allows measuring blood pressure using the phone’s camera and flash.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most readers aren’t making big money via side jobs.

New poll to your right or here: Has your cell phone ever been a key driver of a life-changing improvement to your health? Feel free to click the Comment link after voting to provide details.

Thanks to the following companies that recently supported HIStalk. Click a logo for more information.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

India-based Apollo Hospitals will sell a 6% stake in its online platform for $200 million, valuing the business at up to $3 billion. Apollo HealthCo was launched in June 2021, merging the company’s digital health and telehealth products with the intention of raising investor capital to expand.

Sales

• Belgian hospitals AZ Sint Jan and AZ Sint Lucas select Sectra One Cloud for enterprise imaging.

Privacy and Security

Molecular diagnostic company Enso Biochem announces via an SEC filing that the clinical test information of 2.5 million people was exposed in an April 2023 ransomware attack.

Other

Microsoft researchers train a GPT-4 model using a PubMed Central dataset extract of diagnostic images and their captions to inexpensively create a conversational assistant for biomedicine in one day.

Cancer screening company Grail blames third-party telemedicine vendor PWNHealth for sending 400 people letters inappropriately warning them that they may have cancer.

South Australia Health has failed to deliver on its promise of implementing a crucial result tracking and notification feature within its Altera Digital Health Sunrise EHR system, three years after the death of a patient whose adenocarcinoma diagnosis was delayed by three months. SA Health says a Sunrise upgrade later this year is required before introducing Compass, a task tracking function that reminds doctors when they don’t review test results promptly.

Where would you start if you were CEO of this major ambulatory EHR vendor as profiled in a new KLAS report?

Sponsor Updates

• Be Well Primary Care (TX) transitions to EClinicalWorks V12.
• Azara Health publishes a new resource and strategy guide, “Leveraging Social Drivers of Health Data to Promote Health Equity Advancement.”
• AvaSure adds AI enhancements to its TeleSitter virtual care platform, including augmented alerts for patient falls and elopement, and predictive fall risk identification.
• NeuroFlow publishes a new whitepaper, “Navigating the Integrated Behavioral Health Landscape: A Roadmap for Providers and Organizations.”
• Orbita will present at the Healthcare Contact Center Conference taking place June 7-9 in Atlanta.
• Nuance publishes a new case study, “DAX expands access to care at WellSpan Health.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health partners with Ariadne Labs and its Better Evidence program to donate over 100,000 UpToDate subscriptions.

Blog Posts

• Effective HCP engagement: Timely, Relevant, and Personalized (OptimizeRx)
• Optimizing the Transfer and Call Centers – Methodist Le Bonheur + Call Center (PerfectServe)
• Premier Survey Reveals Key Insights on Workplace Violence Incidents in Healthcare* (Premier)
• How Does Your Access Center Measure Up? (Tegria)
• What healthcare gets wrong about patient engagement (Hint: Sending a text message isn’t enough.) (Upfront Healthcare)
• Delivering better patient financial care: 3 takeaways from Renown Health’s success (Waystar)
• FAQ: Double Your Reach: Marketing Hacks for Inside and Outside Your Practice (WebPT)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/2/23

Top News

CMS announces that Medicare Part B will cover the use of FDA-approved monoclonal antibodies to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, but will require doctors to populate patient registries for real-world tracking of the performance of those treatments.

The Alzheimer’s Association says that requiring patient registries for coverage should be reconsidered because of the clinician data entry workload that is required. The association wants to know more about how data will be submitted, how the CMS-facilitated portal or other registries will work, and how patients and physicians can enroll.

Reader Comments

From Zippydoodle: “Re: non-existent HIPAA certifications. HIPAA compliance is a process, not an event, and there is no single body that certifies a company as being HIPAA compliant. Startups in particular that should be saying ‘we will sign BAAs’ instead declare that they are HIPAA compliant or HIPAA certified.” Companies need to be HIPAA compliant, not HIPAA certified,  and HHS has been clear that it requires the former and doesn’t recognize the latter. 

From Austin Keeping Weird: “Re: Founder Wellness and Blood Draw Party. Some influencer who isn’t affiliated with healthcare is promoting a digital health startup event. So many things wrong: the free blood draw panel for folks who are likely amply insured while much of Texas isn’t, the IV bar that has nothing to do with wellness, and the ice baths that create images of attendees in Speedos. Digital health companies who attend will soon discover that their sustainability is associated with payers or prescribers, not vanity faux medicine.” Maybe the unnamed company should launch a TikTok challenge.

From Laff Riot: “Re: Florida patient data law. I’m surprised that few comments have been made given the number of health IT companies that use offshore resources for support, development, or billing services. Florida providers and their vendors have little time to review or modify contracts to ensure that offshore resources do not have access to PHI.” The newly modified Florida Electronic Health Records Exchange Act, which takes effect July 1, prohibits providers from storing patient records offshore or allowing access to US-stored data to anyone who is outside the US or Canada. Providers must also ensure that patient data that is stored in the cloud is physically housed in the US.  A couple of websites mentioned of the law a few days after reading about it on HIStalk, but otherwise it has drawn little attention. Given that compliance will be far from universal by the due date, it’s all about enforcement and penalties.

From Billie Gene: “Re: gene editing to reverse/stop a hereditary condition. Laudable R&D to advance precision medicine or another over-reach by pharma?” Genetic telehealth provider Genome Medical will offer genetic counseling to participants in a company’s clinical trial of a gene editing process for treating sickle cell disease. Much of medical research isn’t laudable since profit is the intention and the reward, but I would have good feelings about the company if their treatment alleviated my SCD symptoms.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Are you Rockies-bound next week for MUSE Inspire? Some of my sponsors are, and here’s what they will be doing there.

I have some very slightly overlapping background with someone I was interviewing today and they asked if I knew Brad Dodge. I instantly said yes, recalling that his company back in the day, Dodge Communications and specifically Brian Parrish, designed the HIStalk logo you see at the top of this page that has served me well for more than 10 years (I am obviously from the “ain’t broke” school of rebranding). Thanks to Brad and Brian for volunteering to create what turned out to be a long-lasting graphic.

Listening: WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc), a Zamrock band from 1970s Zambia, where bands emulated the psychedelic sounds they heard from the US. The band’s (and the country’s) rough history left it with just one surviving member, 72-year-old Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda, whose day job is gemstone miner. They are releasing a new album this week and are on a long US tour.

HIStalk turns 20 years old this week. I was bored over the Memorial Day weekend of 2003 and decided to jot down a few temporary thoughts about my health system IT job to help me keep things straight in my head. I didn’t expect or necessarily even want anyone to read it, and given my limited attention span and lack of interest in hobbies in general, I definitely didn’t plan to still be doing it 20 years later.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke’s Health System will merge to form a 28-hospital system with $10 billion in annual revenue.

Sales

• Ardent Health Services will deploy Loyal’s consumer engagement solutions.

People

Leadership Development Worldwide hires Shane Danaher, MBA (Divurgent) as COO.

Government and Politics

President Biden will reportedly choose Aledade executive and former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH as director of the CDC.

Other

UnitedHealth cancels its plan to require prior authorizations for colonoscopies, instead requiring physicians to submit patient information before performing a procedure to quality for a “gold card” expedited approval process that will be rolled out next year. Three provider groups say the new plan is just as laborious for practices as the PA process would have been.

A New York Times report says that doctors at the “wealth nonprofit” Allina Health System aren’t allowed to see patients who have unpaid medical bills. Reporters found a document in which employees were told to cancel appointments for patients who own $4,500 or more and to lock their EHR records so that appointments can’t be scheduled. Doctors say they are used to seeing EHR messages that a patient “will no longer be eligible to receive care because of unpaid medical balances.” Patients with unpaid bills can continue to be seen only if they obtain a loan from the hospital or file bankruptcy.

Sponsor Updates

• Careport Health staff volunteer with Cradles to Crayon, which provides children with the resources they need to thrive.
• University Health (TX) upgrades to Agfa Healthcare’s Enterprise Imaging 8.2, and adds Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology.
• Arrive Health publishes a new whitepaper, “The Terrifying Truth About America’s Healthcare Affordability Crisis.”
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Key insights for not-for-profit leaders in behavioral health.”
• ChartSpan partners with HAPevolve, a subsidiary of The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, to offer preventative care programs to Medicare patients.
• CHIME launches its Trailblazers Podcast, with the first episode focused on “Developing the HIT Leaders of Tomorrow.”
• Divurgent releases a new episode of The Vurge Podcast, “Tips for Managing Cyber Risks in Healthcare.”
• Azara Healthcare releases a resource and strategy guide titled “Leveraging Social Drivers of Health Data to Promote Health Equity Advancement.”
• Ellkay will exhibit at AHIP June 13-15 in Portland, OR.
• The VA’s Veterans Data Integration and Federation Enterprise Platform, which supports longitudinal patient records using InterSystems HealthShare, wins a 2023 Forum Innovation Award.
• Rhapsody publishes a new case study, “From data ingestion to production in less than 30 days: How Zephyr AI uses Rhapsody Semantic to create precise AI models at scale.”

Blog Posts

• 4 Business Insights to Help Your Healthcare Practice Grow in 2023 (AdvancedMD)
• Robotic Process Automation Nets Multiple Benefits for Tidewater Physicians Multispecialty Group (AGS Health)
• How Southwestern Health Resources uses quality data to transform care delivery (Arcadia)
• Helping Intensive Care Teams at Great Ormond Street Hospital to Navigate Data (Aridhia)
• 4 Steps to Streamline Your Revenue Cycle Tech Stack (Availity)
• Building Board Engagement to Mature Your ECRM Program (Clearwater)
• Consensus Cares: The DEI Council and the #DoGoodChallenge (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Building the Future of Data: Dimensional Insight’s Mentorship Initiative (Dimensional Insight)
• Empowering Healthcare Excellence: Vital Role of Clinical Asset Management (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• How to build organizational resilience: six proven steps (Everbridge)
• 3 Elements for Successful Workforce Management: Embracing a New Way of Thinking in Health Delivery (Impact Advisors)
• Figure it out or fail: Extracting the value from unstructured data (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• 4 Strategies to Help a Multigenerational Workforce Thrive (Keysight)
• Guide Patients to the Right Care With Your Find Care Experience (Kyruus)
• 3 Tech Considerations for Painless Anesthesia (Medhost)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Readers Write: Ineffective TCM Programs are Keeping Patients in the Hospital

Ineffective TCM Programs are Keeping Patients in the Hospital
By Briana Rodriguez, RN

Briana Rodriguez, RN is director of clinical services of LIghtbeam Health Solutions of Irving, TX.

The healthcare industry is facing an uphill battle, as staffing shortages persist while the demand for clinical professionals continues to increase. With fewer skilled workers to perform necessary care delivery tasks, healthcare organizations must be thoughtful with their clinical resources. One area that is causing clinical and financial strain on organizations due to limited resources is transitional care management (TCM) programs.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), nearly 20% of all Medicare patients discharged from a hospital will be readmitted within 30 days, driving over $26 billion in additional costs each year. There are a multitude of reasons, both preventable and unpreventable, that a patient may be readmitted to the hospital. Chief among them is being enrolled into an inefficient, uncoordinated transitional care management program that fails to maintain engagement and make timely contact.

Understanding how and why your organization’s TCM program is insufficient is the first step to make meaningful process changes that demonstrate success in reducing readmission rates, lowering healthcare costs, and improving patient outcomes.

The goal of any TCM program is to perform timely and thorough patient follow-ups within crucial post-discharge windows to ensure quality of care and reduce patient complications. A standard transitional care management program comprises three main elements:

• Interactive contact. Initial patient outreach is performed within 48 hours post-discharge by a supervised staff member with the skills to address the patient’s status.
• Coordinating care behind the scenes. Care teams provide non-face-to-face services, such as clinical education, addressing follow-up needs, provider communication, referrals, and scheduling assistance.
• Follow-up visit. A face-to-face visit is scheduled with a provider within 7-14 days post-discharge, depending on medical severity

However, staffing shortages and insufficient resources can make even the three basic components of a TCM program difficult to accomplish. What sets a successful, effective TCM program apart is the ability to provide regular outreach, keep patients engaged, and identify issues before they require inpatient stay. These processes begin long before a patient is discharged from a hospital.

In today’s digital age, healthcare organizations have options that have only emerged within the last decade. Solutions like remote patient monitoring and telehealth garnered attention following the social distancing periods that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since, the healthcare industry at large has seen how beneficial similar strategies can be when it comes to reaching more vulnerable patients. When given the right capabilities, clinical professionals can work at the top of their license and provide the highest quality care to patients, wherever they are.

Leveraging these tools and resources, transitional care management teams can automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and reach more patients by engaging them at home. Some key aspects that can be further built into an efficient TCM program to increase patient engagement and reduce costs include:

• Coordinating with hospitals to notify care teams of discharges.
• Making the initial patient contact within 48 hours of discharge.
• Reviewing the discharge process and medication schedule with the patient.
• Scheduling a face-to-face visit within 1-2 weeks.
• Confirming all patient appointments to ensure continuity of care.
• Performing follow-up calls.
• Providing support for barriers to care by leveraging local, available resources.
• Supporting patients in the 30-day period post-discharge.
• Documenting all services throughout the patient’s TCM journey.

There are several reasons that transitional care management programs can fail. If providers are not able to identify high-risk patients with co-morbidities before they are discharged, these patients have a higher chance of developing complications that could result in further inpatient stay. TCM programs can also fail if clinical staff is not able to contact patients during crucial follow-up windows, especially the initial 48 hours post-discharge.

Noticing an increase in readmissions, post-discharge complications, and delays in interactive contact with patients may indicate that care teams are not reaching patients in a timely manner. If you notice these issues, it is important to find out the cause of the gap and to pinpoint the right solution, workflow, or strategy to close it.

Ineffective TCM programs cause patients to return to the hospital and drive avoidable costs into the billions. The first step to improve an inefficient TCM program is to arm healthcare staff with the tools and resources they need to reach out to patients, make an impact, and maintain engagement throughout their care journey. This can include investing in technology to streamline communication, leveraging analytics to identify high-risk patients, and enabling staff to work at the top of their license.

With the technology of today, healthcare organizations have access to solutions that weren’t available ten years ago. Outsourcing care coordinators extends the capabilities of care teams, while adopting tools like remote patient monitoring expands their reach.

Even when a TCM program possesses all these elements, it’s essential to assess their performance regularly, make process updates, and assess patient feedback and satisfaction. This can be done by tracking certain metrics, such as readmission rates, acute events, skilled nursing facility data, and more.

By understanding the elements of an efficient TCM program, identifying where gaps exist, and making necessary process changes, healthcare organizations can reduce readmissions, lower costs, and improve outcomes.

HIStalk’s Guide to MUSE Inspire 2023

Access EForms

Booth #413
Contact: Landon Light, national sales representative for Meditech accounts
landon.light@accesseforms.com
972.897.2877

Access is the preferred ESignature partner for Meditech hospitals, and for good reason. Our relationship with Meditech goes beyond just being a “partner” – it’s a deep integration that enables our solutions to seamlessly integrate with Meditech’s ecosystem. By expanding Meditech’s capabilities, we empower hospitals to provide patients with convenient ESignature solutions on their own devices anywhere, anytime. With Access, Meditech hospitals can streamline their workflows, reduce errors, and improve the overall patient experience. Join the many Meditech hospitals that have already chosen Access as their trusted ESignature partner and revolutionized their patient ESignature solutions. And, discover Focus by Access, the solution that simplifies patient intake by extending ESignature and intake capabilities directly to your patients’ devices, providing the experience and convenience they expect in today’s modern world.

CereCore

Booth #418
Contact: Jillian Whitefield, business development manager
Jillian.Whitefield@CereCore.net
248.891.5557

Your top priorities at MUSE are ours, too. Visit to see all the ways you can connect with CereCore about providing an EHR that best supports patient care, including educational sessions and career opportunities. Our team is ready to connect. Making the move to Meditech Expanse? Let’s talk about your journey to one EHR, navigating a multi-EHR health system, and more. Optimizing Meditech one of your priorities? Help us understand your goals, because we have helped health systems across the nation 0improve efficiency from clinical operations to revenue cycle. Looking for secure Meditech hosting and backup solutions? Sometimes this needs to be your first step. Let us help you determine the most cost-effective solution by comparing your options. Wanting to grow in your career? Career-changing, industry-shaping job opportunities are on our horizon, and possibly yours. Talk with us about your career plans.

CloudWave

Booth #512
Contact: Christine Mellyn, VP of marketing
cmellyn@gocloudwave.com
781.636.8169

Visit us in booth #512 to learn how CloudWave can help with your cloud strategy or how to advance your cybersecurity readiness. The company will also be sponsoring the Charging Station. Also at the event, members of CloudWave’s team will be presenting the following educational and showcase sessions:  

• “Best Practices for Securing Healthcare IT Across Public, Private, and Cloud Edge Environments.” Thursday, June 8 3:10 p.m. MT. Moderated by Tim Quigley, chief client officer, CloudWave. Presenters include Matt Donahue, chief technology officer, CloudWave; John Gomez, chief security and engineering officer, CloudWave; and Eric Gasser, RN, CHCIO, vice president and CIO, information systems, Wooster Community Hospital Health System.
• “Take Advantage of Emerging Healthcare Cybersecurity Trends to Advance Your Security Strategy.” Saturday, June 10, 8:30 a.m. MT. Presented by John Gomez.
• “Product Showcase: Cybersecurity-as-a-Service – Advance Your Cybersecurity Program and Remove the Burden from Your IT Team.” Thursday, June 8, 1:30 p.m. MT. Presented by John Gomez.

Elsevier

Booth # 609
Contact: Clint Jones, senior director of partnerships
w.jones.2@elsevier.com
816.262.6634

As a global leader in information and analytics, Elsevier helps physician and nurse professionals advance science, reduce care variability, engage patients, and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. For over 140 years, healthcare professionals have trusted our content to support education, training, development, and decisions about patient care. We offer solutions and services that help customers utilize and integrate content to improve practice, reduce care variability, engage patients, and promote a culture of quality, safety, and satisfaction.   

We invite MUSE attendees to stop by our booth #609 to discuss how Elsevier’s advanced clinical knowledge solution, ClinicalKey, streamlines access to consistent, evidence-based information to help clinicians, as well as hear your thoughts and input on future development, your needs, skills learning, and integration. Let’s talk about where you want to expand your own Meditech relations and where we can offer help. Elsevier is participating in the MUSEO prize drawings, so bring your game card with you when you come to visit us, and we’ll give you a MUSEO sticker to help you become eligible to win great prizes!

Fortified Health Security

Booth 218

Contact: Rob Pullins, growth manager
rpullins@fortifiedhealthsecurity.com
615.600.4002

Fortified Health Security provides a wide variety of purpose-built services to help healthcare organizations evaluate their unique risk appetite, strengthen their cybersecurity posture, and improve operations throughout their security journey. The company is committed to creating a stronger healthcare landscape that benefits more clients, protects more patient data, and reduces more risk.   

Fortified activities and team member talks: 

• “Incident Response Program Maturity: How to Prepare for the Worst Day Ever,” Thursday, June 8 at 2:20 pm with Russell Teague, VP, advisory services and threat operations.
• Networking event and cocktail hour at the Après Ski section of the Pinyons Lobby Bar, Thursday, June 8, from 6-9 pm.   
• Stop by our booth to play MUSEO.

Tegria

Booth #409
Contact: Mark Valutkevich, senior account executive
mark.valutkevich@tegria.com

Tegria is a full service, READY-certified consulting and technology services firm. We offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions including advisory, consulting, and managed services to help clients maximize technology, transform operations, improve financials, and optimize care. Please stop by Booth #409 to say hello and speak with our Meditech experts.  

Tegria is hosting a subterranean happy hour at the Rockies Grotto in the Grand Lodge on Wednesday, June 7 from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. MT. The event will feature an open bar and a variety of light bites. Prepare to unwind and connect with fellow MUSE attendees in this unique space. Tegria team members will be mingling and are ready to chat all things Meditech, including how you can best navigate the road to Expanse. We hope to see you there! RSVP here.

Tegria team members will be participating in two educational sessions:   

• “Hardware Planning – Do’s and Don’ts When Moving to Expanse.” Thursday, June 8, 1:30 – 2:10 p.m. MT. Presenters: Priscilla Sandberg (Pure Storage), Nassim Abouzeid (Meditech), and Frank Tollefson (Tegria). Room: Red Rock 8. If you are planning on going to Expanse from Magic, Client/Server, or 6.x, there are few challenges you need to understand about the new infrastructure you will be running. Join us to discuss the major differences in platform infrastructure and some of the adjustments that customers can anticipate making when moving to Expanse. We will also be discussing the best practices behind the infrastructure design, data protection, and ongoing system support.   
• “A Study in Moving to Expanse – Pre, Intra, and Post-LIVE.” Friday, June 9, 1:20 – 2:05 p.m. MT. Presenters: Mike Bartman (Tegria), Mark Valutkevich (Tegria), Todd Prellberg (RML). Room: Red Rock 8. This session aims to provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of the key principles and best practices involved in successfully implementing Meditech Expanse in a hospital setting. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to apply these principles and practices to their own healthcare organizations, identifying opportunities for improving their current EMR systems or adopting new ones.

News 5/31/23

Top News

Carrum Health, whose platform helps employers manage employee healthcare costs, raises $45 million in a Series B funding round.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents aren’t convinced that the VA will finish its Oracle Cerner implementation.

New poll to your right or here: Did you sell $10,000 or more in products or services from your own company in the past year?

Listening: new from Yes, a 55-year-old band with no original members left whose recent live shows have been innumerable but awful. I walked out on them a couple of years ago because they sounded like a bad tribute band (which they kind of are) in playing their old album cuts slower, lower, and lazier in a seemingly desperate money grab, but this new music is actually pretty good even if a bit wimpy compared to their sweeping epics of yesteryear. I still prefer old concert videos, such as original singer Jon Anderson doing “Awaken” with Iceland-based rock band Todmobile (gets me every time) and the the full band’s symphonic live version of “Soon.” For me, Yes scores high in the all-important “what music would you want played at your funeral” test. It will outlive the many band members who wrote, recorded, and performed it over decades.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health IT and cybersecurity solutions vendor Anatomy IT acquires dental software company Iris Solutions.

Dock Health, which specializes in automated healthcare task management, raises $5 million in funding. The company was created from Boston Children’s Hospital’s innovation department in 2020.

Weight loss app Noom launches a telemedicine service to offer consumers access to prescription weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy.

A new KLAS report looks at remote patient monitoring technology vendors.

Sales

• Niagra Health in Ontario will implement Sectra One enterprise imaging.
• Corterra Healthcare (KS) chooses Medsphere’s Wellsoft EHR and RCM Cloud for a new behavioral health hospital.

People

Rebecca Manne, RN (Optimum Healthcare IT) joins Continuum Health IT as EVP of EHR Implementation.

Announcements and Implementations

Premier launches SmartPO, digital supply chain procurement and inventory management technology that will enable continuum of care providers to better identify cost savings and use staff resources more effectively.

A University of Michigan national poll of people aged 50-80 finds that 78% have a patient portal (half of those have more than one), 55% used it in the past month, half provided access to family members, and most were comfortable logging in and navigating it. People preferred the portal over the telephone for getting test results, updating personal information, getting medical records copies, and requesting refills, but they liked the telephone better for reporting symptoms, scheduling appointments, and requesting referrals.

The former Cerner Continuous Campus is under purchase contract to be turned into apartments and commercial space, although no companies have expressed interest in the campus’s 660,000 square feet of vacant offices.

A small study finds that smart watches and wristbands do a good job of correctly detecting atrial fibrillation even though they don’t have access to outside algorithms.

Government and Politics

VA Secretary Denis McDonough promises to look into reports that the VA medical center in Spokane will be forced to cut staff due to a budget shortfall caused by the troubled EHR Modernization program. He reiterated that he stands by statements made by VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal that budget concerns related to the Oracle Cerner system will not result in layoffs.

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes reports to a Texas prison after her losing her bid to remain free while appealing her conviction for investor fraud, which led to an 11-year sentence.

Privacy and Security

A new Florida law prohibits the state’s providers from storing EHR data outside the US, its territories, or Canada, including those patient records that are hosted in the cloud or by a third party.

Other

The bankrupt, non-profit Idaho Health Data Exchange replaces its executive director. The organization launched in 2009 using federal grants and ongoing funds from the HITECH act that ran out in 2021.

Mayo Clinic and University of California, San Francisco researchers determine that pairing AI imaging and volumetric breast density algorithms can help in predicting long-term risk of breast cancer, particularly invasive diseases. Their study used Volpara Health’s TruDensity algorithm and ScreenPoint Medical’s Transpara image-based risk tool.

In perhaps the first incident of AI leading to professional embarrassment or worse, defense attorneys ask to have a man’s personal injury lawsuit dismissed after noticing that most of the legal citations it included were not real. The plaintiff’s lawyer, who has practiced for 30 years, admitted that he had used ChatGPT for the first time and was not aware that it could generate false information. He even asked ChatGPT if the citations were real and was assured incorrectly that the cases “are real and can be found in reputable legal databases.”

Sponsor Updates

• Wolters Kluwer Health wins the NorthFace ScoreBoard Service Award for the twelfth consecutive year for superior customer service.
• OptimizeRx CEO Will Febbo provides a mid-year strategic update.
• Nordic Consulting names Samara Lattimer (Akkodis) a new client partner in the UK and Ireland.
• Aridhia Informatics Chief Data Officer Amanda Borens, MS is featured in an “Engineering Field of Dreams” podcast titled “Spelunking Adventures in Data.”
• Spok will join the broad-market Russell 3000 Index on June 26.
• West Monroe releases a new podcast, “Why All Companies Should ‘Shift Left’.”

Blog Posts

• COVID-19 Interoperability Alliance Retrospective (Clinical Architecture)
• AONL 2023: Drawing inspiration to fuel the future of nursing (Meditech)
• Amplifying Success: How Integrated Behavioral Health Programs Can Achieve the Quintuple Aim (NeuroFlow)
• How Can Healthcare Providers Improve Their Data Integrity to Achieve Better Insights? (NTT Data)
• 360Dx: Legislation Would Provide Medicare Coverage for Pharmacy-Based Testing (OmniSys)
• Safeguarding security and privacy in the age of generative AI (Orbita)
• Healthcare Coding Series: LOINC Codes (Pivot Point Consulting)
• Partnering with a Revenue Cycle Management Company to Tackle Hospitalist Billing (PMD)
• Young Upstart to Four-Star Admiral: The Chance Events of Dr. Brett Giroir (Surescripts)
• Designing a Comprehensive Caregiver Support Strategy: Empowering the Unsung Heroes of Healthcare (Trualta)
• 4 Signs Your PT Patient is About to Drop Out (WebPT)
• Jump to the Front of the Line for National Network Access (Zen Healthcare IT)
• What is the Focus of a Care Plan? (Zynx Health)
• Healthcare CIOs Talk: How to Navigate AI, Analytics, and Automation (CereCore)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Morning Headlines 5/26/23

Healthcare Triangle, Inc. Announces 1-for-10 Reverse Stock Split as Part of Nasdaq Compliance Plan

Shares of Healthcare Triangle, Inc. drop sharply on the news that it will conduct a 1-for-10 reverse stock split to meet Nasdaq’s share price requirements.

Quovis, a health tech startup in Cleveland, lands $1M investment

Cleveland-based health information exchange startup Quovis raises $1 million.

VA secretary says Spokane VA’s budget won’t suffer as result of flawed records system

VA Secretary Denis McDonough promises to look into reports that the VA medical center in Spokane could be forced to cut staff due to a budget shortfall caused by the troubled EHR Modernization program.

TA Announces Strategic Growth Investment in Alpha II

RCM software vendor Alpha II secures an undisclosed amount of funding from TA Associates.

Dock Health Secures $5M in Funding Led by MassMutual with Participation from DaVita Venture Group and August Capital

Dock Health, which specializes in automated healthcare task management, raises $5 million in a funding round led by MassMutual.

News 5/26/23

Top News

Mobile patient intake form platform vendor Florence acquires Zipnosis, which sells a white label asynchronous telehealth solution that is based on questionnaires.

Florence launched in March 2023 with $20 million in seed funding.

Failing insurer Bright Health acquired Zipnosis in April 2021.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Shares of Healthcare Triangle, Inc. drop sharply on the news that it will conduct a 1-for-10 reverse stock split to meet Nasdaq’s share price requirements. HCTI shares are down 50% in the past 12 months to $0.26, valuing the company at $11 million. Shares have lost 93% of their value since the company’s IPO in October 2021.

Vodafone creates Vodafone in Health to accelerate the use of healthcare technology in the UK.

Sales

• Health information sharing non-profit Contexture will implement Verato’s healthcare master data management solution for patient matching.

People

Nicole Kerkenbush, RN, MN, MHA (Monument Health) joins CHIME as VP of education.

Carteret Health (NC) promotes VP of general services / CIO Kyle Marek, MS to president and CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Conduent releases a provider data management solution to help insurers keep their physician directories current.

Synapse Medicine and CompuGroup Medical will partner to offer clinicians prescription support.

In Canada, Meditech will support electronic prescribing for Expanse EHR users by connecting to the PrescribeIT national prescribing service.

UK-based Acurable earns US FDA clearance for its self-applied wearable that diagnoses sleep apnea without a polysomnography study.

Government and Politics

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) demands that the VA avoid reducing headcount or services at its Spokane and Walla Walla facilities to offset a $35 million shortfall caused by its Oracle Cerner implementation. She says the VA should redirect the money that it would have spent to implement the system in other facilities since those go-lives are on hold, and instead move those funds to those hospitals that are already live.

Husband and wife doctors who are charged with sharing the medical records of US military officials with Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine were recorded by FBI agents who were posing as Russian operatives. Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist Anna Gabrielian, MD is accused of sharing her laptop screen containing patient records with the undercover agent. Her spouse, Army Major Jamie Lee Henry, MD – who was one of the first active duty US military officers to come out as transgender in 2015 – reportedly described themselves as a “coward” over potential HIPAA violations, struggled with technology problems in trying to share their screen with the undercover agent, and ending up giving the agent a paper notebook of records. The doctors, who are charged with conspiracy and HIPAA violations, argue that they were entrapped.

The American Hospital Association asks HHS OCR to stop considering the IP addresses of hospital website visitors as protected health information under HIPAA. AHA says pending lawsuits over pixel tracking have pushed website technology providers such as Google to stop supporting hospital websites, making regulation unnecessary, but if HHS OCR disagrees, then IP addresses should only be considered PHI if they are used from within patient portals.

Privacy and Security

Medical practice services vendor Practicefirst will pay $550,000 to the state of New York for failing to protect patient records that were exposed in a 2020 cyberattack. The breach, which involved the records of 1.2 million people of which 428,000 were New Yorkers, happened after the company failed to apply firewall software updates.

Sponsor Updates

• IntegrityCheck, the house band of InterSystems, wins $100,000 for the ALS Foundation in a Boston battle of the bands for charity.
• Healthcare Growth Partners advised Intelligent Medical Objects in its acquisition of Melax Technologies.
• InterSystems launches HealthShare Health Connect Cloud in AWS Marketplace.
• Healthcare Triangle sponsors CalvertHealth’s annual golf tournament in Lothian, MD.
• Indiana Health Centers reduces onboarding errors by using the EClinicalWorks Business Optimizer.
• Tegria CMO Ray Gensinger, MD joins Symplr’s effort to “Advance Healthcare Operations.”
• Nordic releases a new episode of its In Network podcast, “Designing for Health: Dr. John Whalen.”
• Netsmart earns top user satisfaction rankings among home health technology vendors, according to a Black Book survey of 2,285 end-users.
• Dimensional Insight publishes a new case study featuring Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters.
• In Europe, elder care organization Korian Benelux selects AI-powered enterprise solutions from Juniper Networks, including wireless and wired access, to optimize network performance and reliability.
• Konza National Network congratulates over 200 Konza-powered members that have been awarded accreditation through the NCQA Data Aggregator Validation program.
• The Patient Journey Pioneers Podcast features Kyruus CEO Graham Gardner, “Find a Physician & Beyond: Guiding the Digital Patient Journey.”

Blog Posts

• What IT advancements are needed to improve value-based care (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• A Different Point of View: The Age of TEFCA and QHINs Mandate Point-of-Care Diagnostic Filtering and Interoperability (Medicomp Systems)
• 10 Best Interview Questions to Ask Candidates (Direct Recruiters)
• Why Healthcare Needs Organizational Change Management (Divurgent)
• The pros and cons of using ChatGPT in clinical radiology: An open discussion (Elsevier)
• An inch deep and a mile wide (Nordic)
• Does Your Data Analytics Solution Find Patients Missing from Cohorts? (First Databank)
• Single sign-on vs. multi-factor authentication: Do you know the difference? (Fortified Health Security)
• Managed Services: The Case for Externalizing Aspects of Health System IT Operations (HCTec)
• Expanding After-Hours Virtual Care Options for Children (Health Data Movers)
• Am I Information Blocking? (With Examples!) (HealthMark Group)
• Five Key Considerations for a Successful EHR Optimization (HealthTech Resources)
• Does Your Patient Education Experience Pass the Accessibility Test? (Healthwise)
• When to Consider an Oracle Cerner Optimization Assessment (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• From raw to refined: Striving for high quality data in healthcare (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• How AI-Driven User Experience Testing Enhances Digital Health Accessibility (Keysight)
• Patients Need More Than a Better Compass to Navigate Healthcare (Lumeon)
• How EHRs Enhance Care Planning for Nurses (Medhost)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 5/24/23

Top News

Clinical terminology management and data quality vendor Intelligent Medical Objects acquires Melax Technologies, which specializes in data extraction using AI and natural language processing.

The acquisition, IMO’s first, will help extend its market reach to payer, life science, and pharmaceutical companies.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Aridhia Informatics. The Glasgow-based company offers the Aridhia Digital Research Environment (DRE), a combination PaaS/SaaS offering that addresses challenges that are associated with the scale and sustainability of biomedical data science. It is used by research hospitals, pharma, and global consortia across nearly 100 countries. Adherence to FAIR data principles gives researchers and innovators the ability to discover and understand data through dataset search, classification, and efficient metadata browsing capabilities. Researchers can request access to datasets, while data owners get access to configurable and orchestrated data governance while making approval decisions within their own specialized pipelines. Principal investigators can invite team members who can securely upload, access, and analyze project data while taking advantage of an audited environment that is furnished with analytical tools, scalable compute resources, and virtual desktops. All of this is underpinned by comprehensive auditing, secure data management, reliable infrastructure that scales to user needs, and world-class analytics capabilities. The company manages high-level security accreditation, leaving the team to focus on the science using a personalized, next-generation research environment. Thanks to Aridhia for supporting HIStalk.

YouTube has an intro video for the Aridhia DRE.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Nuance Communications CEO Mark Benjamin notifies employees of an unspecified number of layoffs as the Microsoft subsidiary adjusts to changing market conditions and a renewed focus on healthcare. Microsoft, which acquired Nuance in early 2022 for $20 billion, announced a separate round of 10,000 layoffs in January.

Sales

• Fifteen-bed Eureka Springs Hospital (AR) selects Oracle Cerner.
• Palouse Specialty Physicians (WA) will implement CureMD Oncology’s EHR and practice management software.
• Tampa General Hospital (FL) will roll out Navina’s AI-powered clinical data summary capabilities for primary care.
• Atlantic Health System selects NeuroFlow’s caseload management software to support behavioral health screenings within its ACO.

People

Zyter|TruCare names Joanne Berrios (Salesforce) VP and chief value officer.

Holly Urban, MD, MBA (Oracle Cerner) joins CliniComp as VP of clinical product design.

CRISP Shared Services promotes practicing pediatrician Marc Rabner, MD, MPH to chief medical officer.

Jordan Bazinsky (Cotiviti) joins Intelerad Medical Systems as CEO, replacing the newly retired Mike Lipps.

Telemetrix promotes Nancy Beale, RN to president.

Cynerio names Rasu B. Shrestha, MD, MBA (Advocate Health) as board chair.

Brooklyn Hospital Center promotes SVP/CMIO Sam Amirfar, MD, MS to chief medical officer.

Avalon Healthcare Solutions hires Pamela Stahl (Sidekick Health) as president.

Tegria hires Jen Morgan (Senta Partners) as CFO and Prasanna Gunjikar (HTC Global Services) as chief growth officer.

Aaron Green(Optum) joins OneMedNet as president.

Lanie Schenkelberg (Spring Health) joins Inovalon as VP of product marketing.

Announcements and Implementations

Gillette Children’s (MN) implements Notable’s automated Registration and Intake Assistant and Scheduling Assistant software across 11 multispecialty clinics.

Garden City Pediatric Associates (MA) implements EClinicalWorks.

Box Butte General Hospital (NE) goes live on Meditech.

Epic lists 26 of its customers that have pledged to join the TEFCA information sharing framework.

A new KLAS report on US EHR market share finds that Oracle Cerner saw its first double-digit net gain in hospitals since 2018, but 49 of its 50 wins were in under-200 bed facilities, giving it the biggest drop in total bed count of all vendors. Meditech gained 120 hospitals in 2022 via net-new sales and migrations, more than any other vendor, but still showed a decrease in total beds and total hospitals. Epic was the only vendor that gained both facilities and beds.

Government and Politics

Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center (WA) Director Robert Fischer says the facility will need to reduce staff by 15% over the next several years to make up for an anticipated $35 million budget deficit it attributes to the rollout and use of its Oracle Cerner system. The software’s well-documented deficiencies have hampered the facility’s ability to keep up with patient demand, resulting in decreased funding, while its billing inefficiencies have delayed payer reimbursements. Surges in staffing for the system and pay raises and bonuses to help with recruitment and retention have also contributed to the budget shortfall.

Privacy and Security

Norton Healthcare in Kentucky works to recover from a cyberattack two weeks ago that is still causing “delays in network-related capabilities” including patient portal messaging; imaging, lab and test results; and prescription fulfillment. Hackers reportedly sent a fax with threats and demands shortly after breaching the hospital network on May 9.

Amazon Pharmacy’s PillPack reports that an unauthorized person logged into its website using individual user credentials that were identical to those shared from other breaches, with 3,600 of those accounts containing prescription information.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD sponsors the Gratitude Gala in Chicago, benefiting The Bette D. Harris Family & Child Clinic.
• Princeton Brain, Spine & Sports Medicine transitions to EClinicalWorks Cloud.
• KeyCare pledges to adopt the TEFCA framework.
• InterSystems launches its HealthShare Health Connect Cloud in the AWS Marketplace.
• KLAS Research recognizes Availity as a co-recipient of the KLAS Points of Light Award.
• AvaSure establishes a chief nursing executive advisory board.
• Azara Healthcare publishes a new case study, “Improving Equity in Healthcare Access through Improved Data Exchange.”
• Nordic publishes a technical paper titled “A New Horizon for IT Strategy: Prioritizing the Patient Experience Through Digital Transformation.”
• Bamboo Health will exhibit at AHIP 2023 June 13-15 in Portland, OR.
• Black Book survey-takers give Xifin top customer and user satisfaction ratings in nine out of 18 RCM KPIs.

Blog Posts

• 2023 CHIME CIO Survey Results: Managed Services Opportunities? (CereCore)
• Documenting to Meet MEAT (AGS Health)
• Behavioral health providers face staffing and reimbursement challenges as demand grows for services (Baker Tilly)
• Workplace Injury Prevention: The Coach in Your Corner (Not the Boss Over Your Shoulder) (Bardavon)
• Advanced, affordable, accessible: Augmenting the patient experience with remote care at home (Biofourmis)
• Improve Your Patient Attribution Rates and Your ACO Performance (ChartSpan)
• What Are CIOs and ITSM Teams Looking For? ROI (Clearsense)
• What Healthcare CISOs Want to Know About Digital Health Technology Security (Clearwater)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 5/22/23

Top News

The assets of bankrupt digital therapeutics vendor Pear Therapeutics fetch $6 million at auction.

The company had raised $409 million in funding. It went public in a SPAC merger in December 2021 in a deal worth $1.5 billion.

The auction proceeds, which must be approved in a court hearing Monday, won’t cover the $32 million that Pear owes to creditors.

Successful bidders were:

• Click Therapeutics, which offered $70,000 for Pear’s patents. That company offers a variety of digital therapeutics products.
• Harvest Bio, which bid $2 million for Pear’s patent licenses. I couldn’t find any online presence for the company.
• Nox Health, which offered to pay $3.9 million for Somryst, which is Pear’s insomnia treatment app. Nox Health offers sleep health solutions.
• Welt, which will pay $50,000 for Pear’s migraine assets. The Korea-based company offers digital biomarkers and digital therapeutics.

Reader Comments

From Oracular Degeneration: “Re: David Feinberg. Will he leave Oracle Cerner at the one-year mark? It’s coming up.” I’m among many who expect him to leave at the earliest date that won’t jeopardize his $22 million reward for serving as Cerner’s CEO for a few pre-acquisition weeks. The one-year closing date is June 8, and other documents reference a 52-day period that would make it July 30. I don’t know why he would stay or why Oracle would want him to.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents have just two real problems with the behavior of their fellow attendees. I’ll side with the person who opines that Q&A pontification is the one item on the list that is insulting rather than just annoying and thus deservers having attendees emulate UK Members of Parliament and shout them down.

New poll to your right or here: Will the VA eventually complete an enterprise-wide rollout of Oracle Cerner?

I thought the once-respected Forbes couldn’t get any more hilariously irrelevant, but they have topped it by tasking a “content creator” (they deem her an “expert”) to compare Cerner to Epic. She helpfully informs us that neither company offers transparent pricing or a free trial, that both offer the “useful feature” of revenue cycle management, and that Epic does not offer third-party integrations. She concludes that in her expert opinion, Cerner is the better choice for “clinical practices and specialties,” while “Epic is our pick for bigger hospitals and care networks.” Should you wish to drink further from her Forbes fountain, check out “How To Make Business Cards At Home” or “How To Get Clients In Release Estate.”

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

RCM vendor Aspirion acquires Firm Revenue Cycle Management Services.

People

Amwell hires Kathy Weiler, MA (Optum) as EVP / chief commercial and growth officer.

Today I (accidentally) learned that Care.AI founder and CEO Chakri Toleti – who previously co-founded Galvanon (sold to NCR) and HealthGrid (sold to Allscripts) – is a former actor and Bollywood film director. His brother Raj Toleti, who was involved with those companies along with others in health IT, such as Cytura and PatientPoint, is now founder, CEO, and chairman of Andor Health.

Announcements and Implementations

Five pharmacies of the Wegmans grocery chain will pilot ScripTalk, an RFID tag for prescription containers that allows the drug’s name, dose, instructions, and warnings to be read out loud on the accompanying audio device or on the patient’s phone.

Privacy and Security

The Harris County, TX attorney calls for privacy violation action against Texas Children’s Hospital after an unnamed person provided screen shots of the medical records of children to a conservative think tank, which published them in an article about the hospital’s gender-affirming care services.

In England, a judge dismisses a hospital patient’s privacy lawsuit against Google, ruling that Royal Free London NHS Trust’s sharing of patient medical records with Google’s DeepMind Technologies in 2015 did not violate reasonable expectations of privacy.

Other

In Canada, a Price Edward Island review finds that 1,700 patient referrals were missed when clinic staff forgot to fax them as required by the Telus EHR.

I found via a LinkedIn mention the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” that was created by the US’s predecessor to the CIA in 1944 to guide “citizen-saboteurs” of occupied countries as gleaned from European experience. Some that pertain to businesses may still have corporate relevance:

• Insist that everything go through channels and don’t allow shortcuts that could expedite decisions.
• Make long speeches that include anecdotes of personal experience.
• Refer all matters to committees that have at least five members.
• Bring up irrelevant issues.
• Revisit decisions made in previous meetings.
• Recommend caution and emphasize avoiding embarrassment in guiding decision-making.
• Promote employees who don’t deserve it and complain about achievers.
• Add layers of required approval and unneeded paperwork.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore promotes Bob Gronberg to AVP of Meditech professional services and Clay Posey to AVP of technical services.
• Black Book releases the results of its analysis of population health data activation platforms and data management systems, based on the responses of 2,539 survey respondents.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new customer success story featuring Shield Medical Group, “Data-Driven Decisions with Healow Insights.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health releases the results of its second “Pharmacy Next: Consumer Care and Cost Trends” survey.
• Nordic will exhibit at Infor Connect 2023 May 22-25 in St. Paul, MN.
• OmniSys will exhibit at the HCP23 Spring Hospital Pharmacy Conference May 22-24 in Indianapolis.
• Sonifi Health expands its customer engagements with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Essentia Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and Griffin Health.
• Talkdesk earns TrustRadius Awards in the contact center, call center workforce optimization, call recording, and VoIP categories.
• Waystar will exhibit at the EClinicalWorks 2023 Enterprise Summit May 22-24 in Boston.

Blog Posts

• Tired of Missed and Late Appointments? Take These Steps! (Net Health)
• Boost clinician satisfaction and reduce burnout in neurology (Nuance)
• Do your managed services KPIs drive value? (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• With Specialist HCP Engagement, the Devil is in the Details (OptimizeRx)
• The Retail Health Chess Game (Pivot Point Consulting)
• Unlocking the Potential of Your Answering Service: Boosting the Provider Experience (PerfectServe)
• Pinc AI Applied Sciences: Expanding Oncology Research with Real-World Data (Premier)
• How HNI Healthcare Reduced Denials and Achieved a 40% Automation Rate (RCxRules)
• The Hidden Economy: Unraveling the Economic Impact of Caregiving in the US (Trualta)
• 5 Tips for Hybrid PT Clinic Marketing (WebPT)
• Care Plans and Evidence-based Clinical Decision Support (Zynx Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 5/19/23

Top News

The VA and Oracle Cerner complete their scheduled five-year contract renegotiation.

The VA’s next five-year renewal period will be changed to five, one-year terms.

The revised contract will also include stiffer financial penalties if the Oracle Cerner system fails to meet specific performance metrics.

Reader Comments

From MmSEC Observer: “Re: Veradigm. This is how private equity firms steal shareholder value in taking public companies private. They are pillaging companies that misstep software accounting rules. See Avaya.” Publicly traded digital communications vendor Avaya filed bankruptcy a few weeks ago in a deal that allowed two private equity firm lenders to take control of the company, leaving Avaya’s shareholders with nothing. The company’s problems came to light after executive changes and delays in filing earnings reports that followed a previous bankruptcy filing in 2018. A bondholder class action lawsuit accuses Avaya’s board of “massive fraud” in misleading investors. MDRX shares have lost 34% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 4% gain, valuing the company at just over $1 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Reminder: if your company sponsors HIStalk and is participating in the MUSE conference, give me details for my conference guide.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

RCM automation vendor Adonis raises $17 million in a Series A funding round.

Virtual care management platform vendor HealthSnap raises $9 million in a Series A funding round.

CVS Health will close the clinical trials business that it launched in May 2021. The service provided technology-drive patient recruitment, real-world data collection, and clinical trial delivery.

A Business Insider piece says that Oracle is “crushing morale” among former Cerner employees since its $28 billion acquisition of the company by these actions:

• Laying off 3,000 of 28,000 employees.
• Freezing raises and promotions.
• Vacating Cerner’s former buildings in Kansas City.
• Sidelining former Cerner CEO David Feinberg to a “ceremonial” role as chairman of Oracle Health.

Doximity reports Q4 results: revenue up 18%, adjusted EPS $0.20 versus $0.21, beating expectations for both. Shares dropped 6% on the news to their year-ago price, valuing the physician networking company at $6 billion.

NextGen Healthcare reports Q4 results: revenue up 18%, adjusted EPS $0.31 versus $0.19, beating analyst expectations for both but sending shares down on the news. NXGN shares have lost 16% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 4% gain, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Sales

• Gundersen Health System will implement cloud-based Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform in its seven hospitals and 65 clinics.
• SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University will implement Memora Health’s care delivery platform.

Announcements and Implementations

Executives for Health Innovation, which was known as EHealth Initiative through 2021, will shut down, 22 years after it was founded.

UF Health will acquire Flagler Health+ (FL), with one of Flagler’s goals being to upgrade its IT systems. Flagler chose Allscripts Sunrise in 2011, while UF Health uses Epic.

UnitedHealthcare takes heat for its decision to require prior authorization for colonoscopies starting June 1, a move that left the American Gastroenterological Association “profoundly alarmed and disappointed.” The insurer says approval will be immediate for procedures that follow evidence-based guidelines and within two days otherwise.

OpenAI launches ChatGPT for the IPhone on the Apple App Store.

Government and Politics

A judge orders Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to report to prison to begin serving her 11-year sentence for investor fraud, rejecting her last-minute bid to remain free while she appeals. Holmes and former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani, who is serving a 13-year sentence, were also ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to 12 defrauded investors and former partners Walgreens and Safeway.

An Oklahoma doctor and pharmacist are charged with manslaughter in the death of a 75-year-old rehabilitation center patient from a methotrexate overdose. The physician admitted that he didn’t order correctly, while an investigation found that the pharmacist ignored the computer’s red-letter warning that the prescribed dose of 20 mg of methotrexate daily for seven days – instead of the intended 20 mg every seven days – was excessive.

Privacy and Security

A proposed Federal Trade Commission order would bar ovulation tracking app Premom from sharing user health data in charging the company with making unauthorized disclosures to third parties when its privacy policies claimed it doesn’t. The company will also pay $200,000 in federal and state fines.

Related to the Premom order, FTC seeks comments on its intention to extend the Health Breach Notification Rule to cover health apps.

An Oklahoma allergy clinic shuts down permanently following a cyberattack. The clinic’s physician owner says all of the practice’s technology was impacted when she and her husband downloaded an unspecified IPhone app, locking them out of all of its systems even as patients were receiving appointment reminder text messages. The owner says that the FBI, Department of Justice, and Department of Defense are investigating, but the FBI says it has received no reports about the issue. Social media comments claim that the same doctor abruptly shut down other clinics, including a medical spa, for reasons unrelated to technology.

Sponsor Updates

• Divurgent releases a new episode of The Vurge Podcast, “Digital Mental Health Insights: Breaking the Stigma with Data.”
• Fortified Health Security names Candace Manning (Lifeway) client success manager.
• Loyal wins Best Patient Registration and Scheduling Solution in the MedTech Breakthrough Awards.
• Consensus Cloud Solutions partners with Hyland Software to offer a digital cloud fax solution that integrates with OnBase.
• AvaSure, which offers acute virtual care and remote safety monitoring solutions, establishes a chief nursing executive advisory board with 10 inaugural members.
• CereCore will recruit and train hundreds of EHR and clinical informatics staff over the next one to three years to support HCA Healthcare’s deployment of Meditech Expanse.
• Nordic releases a video titled “The Download: Valuing IT as an Asset to Improve Patient Care.”

Blog Posts

• What does Consensus CTO, Jeffrey Sullivan, have to say about Generative AI? (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Can AI Replace Your Doctor? (Dimensional Insight)
• HIPAA: 4 Enforcement Discretions Expire with End of PHE (Experity)
• The key to better, faster innovation: Healthcare data standardization (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Demystifying Compliance: How Interoperability Solutions Can Simplify Healthcare Regulations (Medhost)
• In Healthcare, an AI Pause Isn’t Feasible. But, an AI Strategy Is. (Lucem Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 5/17/23

Top News

Connected health company Validic acquires Cox Communications subsidiary Trapollo, which offers technology and services that help healthcare organizations care for patients at home.

The companies had previously partnered to support a West Coast IDN’s personalized care program.

Cox will become an investor in Validic as part of the acquisition.

Reader Comments

From Vera Dime-a-Dozen: “Re: MDRX, formerly Allscripts and now Veradigm. Were supposed to restate their 10K on May 8, but it has been postponed to mid-June as the internal audit continues to identify issues.” The company says in a recent SEC filing that it hopes to file the 10-K by June 14, but can’t guarantee it. The company announced on March 22 that the year-end audit and 10-K filing would be extended because of “internal control deficiencies related to revenue recognition.” Veradigm expects the audit to have a revenue impact of $40 million that will require restating its 2021 financials.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Gmail suddenly started sending legitimate incoming emails to  spam a few weeks ago, I noticed yesterday, including entries from the Rumor Report and Contact forms. I added some inbox rules that should fix that, but let me know if you didn’t receive a reply that you expected.

Attention HIStalk sponsors that are participating in the MUSE Inspire conference June 7-10 in Aurora, CO — send me your details and I’ll include them in my online list of sponsor activities there. I see some sponsor names sprinkled among those companies that have booths in the sold-out exhibit hall of the conference’s 40th anniversary.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisition, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare pricing transparency startup Cascade Health raises $1.7 million in venture funding. It has developed healthcare pricing APIs and an AI-powered chatbot that answers patient questions about procedure pricing and insurance coverage. Co-founders Ana-Maria Constantin and Pulak Goyal hail from Microsoft.

People

Divurgent CEO Ed Marx announces on LinkedIn that he has left the company after one year and will work as an independent consultant. The company made no announcement, but its leadership page shows that founder Colin Konschak, RPh, MBA, who stepped down from the CEO job in May 2022 but remained board chair, is again serving in both roles.

Dale Sanders, chief strategy officer of Intelligent Medical Objects, resigns to take a one-year professional break.

CereCore promotes Peyman Zand, MBA to chief strategy officer.

HCTec hires Bill Lewkowski (Lewkowski Associates) as VP of strategic client services.

Rhapsody names Jeff Chiumiento (Rocket Software) as CFO.

Jason Prestinario, MS (Komodo Health) joins Particle Health as CEO.

Jane Casey, RN, MS (Humber River Hospital) joins Tampa General Hospital as VP of CareComm Operations, its clinical command center.

Zyter|TruCare names Kevin Riley, MBA (Salesforce) as  president and CEO.

John George (Validic) joins Gozio Health as chief sales officer.

Sales

• Piedmont Healthcare (GA) will launch a remote patient monitoring program using RPM software from Telemetrix and devices, care management, and coaching from Remote Care Partners.
• The University of Mississippi Medical Center selects remote patient monitoring software, services, and resources from AMC Health.

Announcements and Implementations

CHIME opens registration for its Fall Forum November 9-12 in Phoenix, AZ for its provider members.

The West Hawaiʻi Region of Hawaiʻi Health Systems will go live on Epic June 1 through a Community Connect partnership with The Queen’s Health System.

Hendrick Health (TX) launches a wayfinding app developed by Gozio Health.

A Connected Health Initiative survey finds that 89 million Americans use a wearable device, with fitness tracking being the most common use followed by sleep and weight monitoring. Nearly all of the users are sharing data with their healthcare provider or are willing to, while 40% of those with a chronic condition say that the device has simplified their health management. More than half of HSA/FSA participants who don’t have a wearable say they would be more likely to buy one if they could fund the purchase from those accounts.

Government and Politics

Minnesota lawmakers are planning make a single exception to the state’s proposed patient-to-nurse hospital staffing ratio regulation for Mayo Clinic, which threatened to pull billions of dollars worth of investments out of the state in protest over the bill and another involving price transparency. House Speaker Melissa Hortmann says the exception is justified because “Mayo is different” and “an asset that is known all over the world.” Draft legislation would exempt hospitals that aren’t in the Twin Cities, that use an electronic nurse acuity system, and that have 40% of patients coming from out of state, requirements that only Mayo in Rochester meets.

Other

Netsmart earns top user satisfaction rankings among behavioral health technology vendors, according to a Black Book survey of 2,847 end-users.

UF Health launches tele-pharmacy kiosks from MedAvail Technologies at three of its ERs. Newly discharged patients can virtually consult with a pharmacist and pick up medications within about five minutes.

A Black Book survey of health system IT leaders finds that Care.ai is the top emerging ambient intelligence solution. The company has deployed AI solutions for infection prevention and control, patient and protocol monitoring, workforce optimization, and virtual care in 1,500 organizations.

A researcher warns that companies are rolling out AI-powered search tools for academic databases and research journals without understanding the opportunities and limitations of those tools. The author calls for evidence-based groups to audit individual search tools and publish their suitable uses so that research projects aren’t skewed.

Sponsor Updates

• Ellkay, which participates annually in the Go the Distance for Autism biking event, seeks donations to help it meet its fundraising goal of $35,000.
• Artera expands its online learning center, Artera Academy, to include an improved user dashboard, integrated events hub, and more accessible learning resources.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “The current state of cybersecurity in the healthcare industry.”
• Nordic publishes a podcast titled “Designing for Health: Dr. Adam Wright.”
• Bamboo Health will exhibit at the Medicare Star Ratings, HEDIS, Quality Assurance & Risk Conference June 5-7 in Chicago.
• Biofourmis will sponsor the Hospital @ Home Leadership Summit June 5-6 in Boston.
• CloudWave will exhibit at the NRHA Annual Rural Health Conference through May 19 in San Diego.

Blog Posts

• Specialty Pharmacists Get a Seat at the Table (Surescripts)
• Happy Birthday to Advanced Reporting & Analytics! (AdvancedMD)
• Revenue Integrity: Healthcare’s Growing Need (AGS Health)
• The Modern Odyssey: How do I find a ‘good doctor?’ (Amenities)
• Looming crisis: managing Medicaid redetermination as the PHE ends (Arcadia)
• Three Lessons for Optimizing Corporate Events (Ascom)
• The Butterfly Effect: Azara 2023 Annual User Conference Highlights (Azara Healthcare)
• How high-fidelity data could drive better predictive care and research insights (Philips Capsule)
• Creative Staffing Coordination for Budget-Friendly Epic Implementations (CereCore)
• How CCM Can Help Your Urology Practice (ChartSpan)
• Connecting to Greater Possibilities and Providing Care Anywhere (CHIME)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 5/15/23

Top News

Real-world healthcare data marketplace operator Prognos Health raises $23 million in growth equity.

The company offers life sciences customers access to the integrated lab and health record data of 325 million de-identified patients.

The co-founders are Sundeep Bhan and Jason Bhan, MD.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents say their employers haven’t dialed back remote work options.

New poll to your right or here, inspired by Dr. Jayne’s XGM recap: What behavior of fellow conference education session attendees do you find most annoying? I am most bugged by those who charge the microphone during Q&A to deliver pontification that is poorly disguised as a question, which clears the room like someone yelling “fire” in a theater. If your insecurity doesn’t allow you to sit quietly while someone else holds the audience’s attention, then sign up as a presenter next time.

My best HIMSS23 takeaway was an first-timer’s appreciation for Chicago’s chicken Vesuvio, which I made at home this weekend with great success. It sounds unexciting on paper, but is brilliant.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Lucem Health. The Raleigh, NC-based company transforms the science of clinical AI into trusted point-of-care solutions that scale. With its comprehensive, AI-agnostic platform for building, operationalizing, and improving clinical AI solutions, Lucem Health brings the full power and potential of clinical AI from the lab to the front lines of healthcare, where it can help clinicians deliver better care, improve patient outcomes, and lower costs. The company envisions a world in which clinicians detect problems before they become life-threatening and patients get world class care, everywhere. Thanks to Lucem Health for supporting HIStalk.

I found this overview of Lucem Health on YouTube.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Digital Health KC launches to encourage health technology people, especially those who worked for Cerner or other KC-based companies, to return to the area. The CEO is former Cerner executive Dick Flanigan.

Sales

• Emory Healthcare will implement NeuroFlow to provide behavioral services in a collaborative care model with its primary care clinics.

Announcements and Implementations

Victoria, BC-based Island Health celebrates Canada’s National Nurse Week by honoring the nurses who are working to implement its Oracle Cerner EHR.

The senior director of the Collaboration to Harmonize Antimicrobial Registry Measures (CHARM), which analyzes the EHRs of participating organizations for current prescribing practices, says that up to 80% of outpatient antibiotic use is inappropriate, either because the drug isn’t needed or is ordered incorrectly.

Epic updates its Epic Research Data Tracker to publish every-other-week metric updates on respiratory illnesses and other topics using data from Cosmos, allowing continuous monitoring that is often beyond the capability of public health organizations.

John Snow Labs posts demos of AI-powered models that can summarize clinical text, medical journal articles, consumer medical questions, and radiology reports.

Privacy and Security

HHS’s cybersecurity center warns that Veeam Backup and Replication software contains a vulnerability that hackers are exploiting.

Other

In England, the mother of a 19-year-old patient whose hand was bruised significantly during a blood draw shows the hospital a photo of the nurse watching soccer on his phone as he stuck her. The trust says the nurse was on break and decided to treat the patient anyway, which the mother says isn’t true. However, the trust adds that it will be more diligent about staff members using phones at work.

Sponsor Updates

• Netsmart customers celebrate key milestones at the company’s CONNECTIONS2023 conference in Washington, DC.
• Meditech recognizes the Institute for Health Metrics as their data collaborator to support and accelerate health equity at hospitals across the country.
• Surescripts releases a new episode of its There’s a Better Way Podcast, “Getting to Interoperability 2.0 with ONC’s Micky Tripathi.”
• Netsmart will integrate Findhelp’s closed-loop referral solution with its CareFabric platform.
• Magellan Healthcare details the success it has seen with NeuroFlow’s integrated behavioral healthcare solutions.
• Nordic will present at the AMIA 2023 Clinical Informatics Conference May 24 in Chicago.
• PerfectServe honors over 200 outstanding nurses in its third annual Nurses of Note Awards program.
• Tegria will exhibit at the MUSE Inspire Conference June 7-10 in Denver.
• Zynx Health parent company Hearst Health names Stanford Medicine the winner of the Hearst Health Prize in partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health.

Blog Posts

• Healthcare Hinges on Interoperability and Exchanging Quality Information (Surescripts)
• Why a 4K video about Meditech’s Might? Because it’s a once in a generation story we can all learn from (Meditech)
• Healthcare Compliance Risk Management Strategies for Effective Implementation (Net Health)
• The future of ambulatory care, part 3: The practical benefits of Dragon Medical One for ambulatory care clinicians (Nuance)
• The Top 6 Things That Pharmacies Need to Know About the Ending of the PHE (OmniSys)
• AI Interventions to Quench Burnout (Pivot Point Consulting)
• Nurses of Note Awards 2023: The Nursing Team at Blue Mountain Hospital, a Critical Access Facility (PerfectServe)
• Optimizing Front-End Revenue Cycle Management: The Power of Prior Authorization (PMD)
• Five Ways AP Automation Can Ease Burnout, Turnover in a Healthcare Organization’s Finance Department (Premier)
• The Unique Challenges Facing Caregivers of Veterans (Trualta)
• We must do better: alignment, evidence & clear care pathways are available now (Volpara Health)
• Develop a data-rich dashboard: Which medical billing metrics matter? (Waystar)
• How to Make a Hybrid PT Practice Work (WebPT)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 5/12/23

Top News

London-based, digital-first primary care operator Babylon Health will take itself private, 18 months after it went public in a SPAC merger that the CEO says was a “big mistake.”

The company just reported Q1 results: revenue up 17%, EPS –$2.53 versus –$1.71, with shares falling 84% in the past two days on the news.

BBLN shares have lost more than 99% of their value since trading began on October 22, 2001, with the market capitalization of the one-time high flyer sliding from $4 billion to $30 million.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Amenities. The Dallas-based company helps health systems grow top-line revenues and earn scalable ROI. Its Digital Membership Platform is a suite of e-commerce tools designed explicitly to: (1) Acquire new patients: Verify identity and register new patients with full EMR and patient portal accounts in under 30 seconds, with just one question. That means zero data entry, photo uploads, or duplicate accounts. (2) Upgrade tools (i.e., MyChart). Improve the design, usability, and conversion rate of critical revenue drivers like provider search, provider profiles, appointment scheduling, and proxy management. Additionally, aggregate and promote same-day care options in one simple place and maximize the visibility and usage of all access options.(3) Win patient loyalty. Create memberships designed explicitly to help keep patients in network. Build personalized experiences for members (i.e., health plan, ACO, D2E, MA, or other VBC groups) with custom networks, care options, vendor services, pricing, and more. Or, better yet, offer highly unique and market-tested features like a financial package that includes “no surprise billing” guarantee, transparent pricing, affordability scores on providers, and more. You may well know CEO Aasim Saeed, MD, MPA, who launched the company in 2021 after serving as VP of digital health for Baylor Scott & White Health. Thanks to Amenities for supporting HIStalk.

A wise company has taken advantage of my “Small Booth Special” first-year sponsorship discount for non-sponsors that occupied a 10×20 or smaller HIMSS23 booth. Get with Lorre by June 1 to shed the small-booth stigma and enjoy the same ad size as everyone else, a prime location that isn’t just a waypoint on the way to the bathrooms, and a 365-day audience of heavy hitters instead of those looking for a quiet part of the exhibit hall to make phone calls.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

National medical group Envision Healthcare is planning to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it struggles with $7 billion in debt, high labor costs, and federal legislation that has limited the company’s key business model element of surprise medical billing. KKR, which took the company private in 2018 in a $10 billion deal, will likely lose its entire investment.

Amino Health, whose platform guides members to cost-effective providers, raises $80 million in financing. The company previously pivoted from direct-to-consumer sales to focus on self-insured employers, health plans, and third-party administrators.

Lavita, whose health data marketplace platform allows people to control and monetize their digital health information for purposes such as clinical trials recruitment, raises $5 million in seed funding.

Business Insider lists the digital health market predictions of several healthcare bankers, which include:

• Behavioral health care companies will consolidate by merging.
• Companies that sell to employers will need to consolidate to improve their clinical models in an environment where companies are reducing their vendor count.
• Companies that will address healthcare labor shortages with AI will be attractive to buyers if they can prove ROI.
• Companies that address value-based care will continue to draw funding and interest.
• Startups that are struggling to reduce costs or raise money will need to consolidate to find a path to profitability, and private equity firms will sell some of their holdings even at less-attractive valuations.
• M&A, rather than IPOs or funding rounds, will dominate digital health.
• The digital health market will make a comeback within a year and well-capitalized firms are already targeting acquisitions, especially of companies that can use data to reduce waste and administrative complexity, automate standard protocols, and increase health system productivity.

Sales

• Center for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery chooses EClinicalWorks and Healow.
• Victoria, Australia’s health department will implement Altera Digital Health’s DbMotion for a statewide HIE.

People

Henry Archibong, MS (Inovalon) joins HealthMark Group as head of interoperability and innovation.

Scott Jones, MBA (ConnectiveRx) joins Equiva Health as COO.

Athenahealth hires George Hamilton, MBA (UnitedHealth Group) as chief corporate strategy and development officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Medhost launches an interoperability solution that meets ONC’s expanded requirements with an AWS data store, FHIR APIs, and common interfaces.

A small study finds that radiologists of all experience levels who use AI-supported mammography systems are prone to “automation bias,” in which they accept the technology’s assessment even when it is wrong.

A group of 21 Ontario hospitals launches the Ontario EHub HIE with technology and services from Oracle Health.

Government and Politics

The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency officially ended at end of day Thursday. US COVID-19 deaths are at 1.1 million and continue increasing at more than 1,000 per week.

CHIME asks people to email and tweet members of Congress asking them to repeal the Section 510 funding ban on creating a unique patient identifier.

Privacy and Security

Meta files a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit that accuses the company of privacy violations for sharing the medical data of users with advertisers via its Facebook Pixel website tracking tool. Meta says it’s the website developer’s job to understand how the technology works and to decide which information to send to advertisers.

Other

ProPublica notes that federal law requires insurers to share claims-related documents with the insured person and offers a form for requesting the information. The file can include notes, phone call audio, and internal correspondence that was involved with deciding whether to pay a claim.

In Canada’s Prince Edward Island, a family physician is closing his practice because of burnout that he says was caused by the province’s dysfunctional EHR. Thor Christensen, MD touts the value of electronic records, but says the Telus system is inefficient, is unconnected to the systems other providers, and has forced him to take on technology and billing tasks that eat up his evening hours. The 39-year-old doctor says that issuing a prescription takes up to five minutes versus 15 seconds on paper. PEI chose the Telus Health system in February 2021 as the island’s single EHR.

Bizarre: a 23-year-old Snapchat influencer expects to make $5 million per month from her $1-per-minute “digital girlfriend” voice chatbot, which was created from her YouTube videos and ChatGPT.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research announces the top comprehensive RCM solutions for laboratories and ancillaries based on the feedback of 2,663 healthcare and medical users.
• Care.ai joins The Leapfrog Group’s Innovators for Leapfrog collaborative as a charter member.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Experience a More Efficient EMR with V12.”
• Technology executive Philip Pead joins WebPT’s board.
• Surescripts publishes a new podcast titled “Talking the Future of Pharmacy with Rina Shah.”
• Direct Recruiters Inc. promotes Aaron Kutz, Shayla Jastrzebski, and Kim Jaber to partner.
• Divurgent partners with HIMSS as a preferred digital health technology partner.
• Healthcare Triangle will present at the 2023 MUSE Inspire Conference June 9-10 in Denver.
• Konza National Network will present at WEDI’s virtual Annual Spring Conference May 24.
• Nordic posts Episode 205 of its DocTalk podcast titled “Decentralized care supports the health of older adults,”
• Jon Lauck joins Rhapsody’s board as chair.

Blog Posts

• 3 Takeaways from the HIMSS 2023 Global Health Conference (Divurgent)
• Medicaid Updates: How Eligibility and PHE Changes Impact Urgent Care (Experity)
• Creating Education That Helps People Advocate for Their Health (Healthwise)
• UKG Dimensions Latest Release (R9 U3): What’s In It for Healthcare Clients? (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• How Value IQ + EQ Creates Sustainable Improvements (Impact Advisors)
• Building long-term ROI with BI modernization (Nordic)
• Innovating a Better Future (InterSystems)
• Surescripts Calls on the Industry to Make Pharmacists a Permanent Part of Patient Care Teams (Surescripts)
• Looking inward: How your tech stack can help improve data quality (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Reasons to Transform Your Current Software Test Approach (Keysight)
• Demystifying Compliance: How Interoperability Solutions Can Simplify Healthcare Regulations (Medhost)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 5/10/23

Top News

Hackers breach the systems of NextGen Healthcare and access the information of one million patients, according to a filed breach report.

The company says that its cloud-based NextGen Office EHR/PM was accessed using stolen credentials between March 29 and April 14, 2023.

NextGen was also breached in a ransomware attack in January 2023.

Reader Comments

From Sundowner: “Re: Oracle Cerner’s Helix molecular diagnostics platform. I hear that they are sunsetting it. Can you confirm?” I’ve heard this from multiple readers. I’ve asked an Oracle media contact to clarify, but haven’t heard back.

From Tootie: “Re: Sentara. Another $1M down the drain. They must have used the same firm Intermountain did. Perhaps health systems should rethink adding to their already bloated C-suites. I mean how many marketing, digital, experience, etc., ‘leaders’ do they really need to come up with this stuff? I have interns who can crank out better options than this in an hour. Maybe hospitals really do need ChatGPT.” Sentara claims to possess a newfound focus on overall health in renaming itself to Sentara Health, also announcing plans to rename its health plans under Sentara Health Plans. The president and CEO claims that the slightly new name will make healthcare simple, seamless, personal, and more affordable, apparently anxious to break free of being held back all these years by the omission of “health” in its name. Oddly, the organization says people should just keep calling it “Sentara” when talking about it. Interestingly, Sentara’s first hospital under its old name was called Retreat for the Sick, which seems most accurate and least gimmicky. The ever-growing health system chose the Sentara name in 1987 following a consultant’s recommendation to pick a meaningless name that it could copyright. It has since (expensively) gone through the usual hospital evolution of trendy names – Sentara Health System, Sentara Healthcare, Sentara, and now Sentara Health. Despite their emphasis on “health,” they still make most of their money from “healthcare.” I consulted with ChatGPT, which opines that spending all that money when Sentara is already well known as a healthcare organization might be silly, not to mention that business name changes usually involve shortening a name rather than making it longer.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

That big banner spot at the top of every HIStalk page is available after years of being fully booked, so get in touch if your company is interested.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Waystar. Healthcare payments are too complex for providers and patients. It’s time to simplify. Waystar’s technology is the way to make healthcare payments more human, helping your team prioritize care, improve margins, and give patients more clarity and trust. Waystar provides market-leading technology that simplifies and unifies healthcare payments. Its cloud-based platform streamlines workflows and improves financials for healthcare providers of all kinds, and brings more transparency to the patient financial experience. The Waystar platform is used by more than 450,000 providers, 750 health systems and hospitals, and 5,000 health plans and integrates with all major HIS and practice management systems. Thanks to Waystar for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Premier Inc. is evaluating strategic alternatives that could involve selling some or all of the company. PINC shares – which rose 6% on the announcement — are down 28% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 1% gain, valuing the company at $3 billion. The company said in its most recent earnings call in February 2023 that it would realign its Remitra invoice and payment platform business due to slower-than-expected adoption. It noted that its group purchasing business was being affected by lower provider utilization, reduced pricing and demand for pandemic-related categories, and provider use of previously stockpiled supplies. Premier has implemented a cost savings plan that included layoffs.

The New York Times looks at the rapid pace at which big corporations such as CVS Health and Amazon are acquiring primary care practices, especially those that serve Medicare Advantage patients. Seven in 10 doctors are employed by either a health system or a corporation, and while those owners tout cost savings and care coordination, experts warn that profit-seeking behavior will increase overall costs and frustrate patients and providers with gatekeeping functions such as prior authorization. The at-risk shared cost saving structure of Medicare Advantage allows primary care doctors to be paid up to $14,000 per year to manage a single patient instead of a few hundred dollars per visit.

Sales

• Australia’s Northern Health contracts for Agfa’s enterprise imaging solution for radiology.
• Weirton Medical Center (WV) will implement Oracle Cerner in a $65 million project. The hospital sued Cerner in 2017 over problems with its $30 million implementation in 2013 of Siemens Health Services Soarian. Cerner acquired that company in early 2015. The hospital said Cerner executives told them that they had inherited an unprofitable deal, after which Cerner failed to keep the promises Siemens had made.
• Nashville General Hospital (TN) will implement RLDatix solutions for governance, risk, compliance, and workforce management.

People

Jackson Healthcare promotes Brad Chason to SVP of IT.

Edifecs hires Chris Lance, MBA (Evolent Health) as chief product officer.

Medicus promotes Tony Niemotka to EVP of community health.

Announcements and Implementations

Medhost’s Medteam Solutions services business launches a managed IT services program that includes infrastructure management, network administration, and desktop support.

Harrison County Community Hospital (MO) goes live on Meditech Expanse’s patient portal, while Pinckneyville Community Hospital implements the full Meditech Expanse system.

Northwell Health provides $500,000 in funding each of to two employee-proposed innovation projects: (a) an AI-enabled solution to navigate cancer patients to care and clinical trials; and (b) a trigeminal nerve stimulator to help in recovery of acute ischemic stroke.

Australia will spend $290 million in a two-year project to modernize its My Health Record system, which will include a new national repository and increased connection to GPs and pharmacies. The health minister describes the system, which was implemented as a personally controlled EHR in 2012, as “a pretty outdated, clunky, PDF format system.”

A new KLAS report on interactive patient systems – which include patient care coordination, BYOD integration, non-clinical service requests, room controls, feedback surveys digital door signs, digital whiteboards, and in-room telehealth – finds that PCare earns the top performance score of 93.2. Vibe Health by EVideon is broadly evaluated in all areas except BYOD integration, while Epic, Sonifi Health, and Oneview Healthcare are rarely seen as complete solutions.

Government and Politics

The VA tells the technology modernization committee of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that while Oracle Cerner is improving its pharmacy software, the changes are “small and incremental”and need to be sped up. Oracle EVP Mike Sicilia says that Cerner had provided the VA with an “unacceptable” timeline of three years to fix problems involving integration of Medication Manager Retail to PowerChart to support the VA’s role as both prescriber and prescription filler. Sicilia did not mention his previous commitment for Oracle to rewrite the pharmacy system by April 2023. Committee chair Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) closed the hearing by saying that, “The worst thing the VA could do is  to continue down this dead-end road perpetuating the same failed strategy” and says that he expects to see the VA “disentangle itself from this monopoly” by next week’s contract renegotiation deadline, urging the VA to “cut their losses and move on” because Oracle is unlikely to be able to resolve existing problems quickly enough to meet the VA’s needs.

Privacy and Security

A study finds that one hospital’s ransomware attack disrupts other local EDs, leading the authors to recommend that cyberattacks be treated as disasters with coordinated planning and response efforts. The authors found that the EDs of hospitals that were not part of the cyberattack saw resulting jumps in patient census, ambulance arrivals, waiting room times, patients who left without being seen, and length of stay as the affected hospital recovered its systems.

Other

Northwell Health sues a former Long Island Jewish Medical Center morgue attendant who allegedly posted autopsy videos on her Instagram and TikTok accounts under the name “Autopsy Bae.” Hospital administrators confronted Quantaise Sharpton, who expressed no remorse for being an “influencer” with 20,000 followers who monetizes morgue “content.” She also claimed that her intention was to inspire her followers to pursue mortician and autopsy careers.

Sponsor Updates

• Clinical Architecture releases its “2023 Healthcare Data Quality Report,” highlighting the impact that data quality has on patient care and organization performance.
• Black Book Research announces that Netsmart has swept the post-acute health technology platform ratings for highest customer satisfaction in its annual client experience polling of 20 top vendors.
• Access publishes a new patient e-signature case study, “Northern Regional Hospital: Creating a Better Experience for Healthcare Workers and Patients.”
• AdvancedMD publishes a new e-book, “The Current State of Telehealth in Ambulatory Care.”
• Arrive Health publishes a new white paper, “The Terrifying Truth About America’s Healthcare Affordability Crisis.”
• Availity wins the platinum-level Healthiest Companies Award from the First Coast Worksite Wellness Council.
• Baker Tilly publishes a new case study, “Medical products provider undergoes PMO assessment to prioritize initiatives and improve technology landscape.”
• ChartSpan and Illinois Primary Health Care Association partner for better health outcomes in Illinois.
• CTG releases a new episode of its This Week Health Podcast featuring Managing Director of Health Solutions in North America Tanya Johnson.

Blog Posts

• Setting the Stage for Investing in Revenue Cycle AI and Automation (AGS Health)
• Accelerating Your Data Innovation Journey in the Healthcare Industry (Pivot Point Consulting)
• Top 10 Leading Healthcare Analytics Companies to Watch (Arcadia)
• Data in the past fuels the future (Oracle Health)
• 2023 CHIME CIO Survey Results Are In (Part 1) (CereCore)
• What Do AI, Data Quality, EHR Issues, and Resources All Have in Common? (Clearsense)
• Clearwater’s Brand Evolution and Steadfast Healthcare Focus (Clearwater)
• Will AI help healthcare systems fight against disintermediation? (Nordic)
• The Cloud Revolution’s Talent Demand (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Highlights from HIMSS23 – Interoperability is No Longer a Buzzword (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Asembia 2023: Payers, Pharma and Pharmacy Discuss Patient Access (CoverMyMeds)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 5/8/23

Top News

UC San Diego Health will use a $22 million donation to create a mission control center for digital medical data.

The health system notes that many systems issue constant streams of potentially useful data, which requires experts and AI to isolate the elements and trends that would be immediately useful to caregivers.

The donation and the plan to develop the center were announced in February 2023. They were explained further in last week’s Innovation in Digital Health symposium.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I’m relieved that poll results suggest that I’m not the only one who has zero interest in sitting through videos and podcasts that were made at HIMSS23. I’m feigning anticipation of the educational session recordings, but I know from past years that my interest drops off quickly in the weeks it takes for them to be posted.

New poll to your right or here: Has your employer cut back on remote work in the past year? I drew the ire of several readers in July 2022 when I said this:

Economic and industry conditions have put bosses back in charge and they know that they need to manage costs while fretting less that their employees might flee to greener pastures … I bet many executives agree with me that you can’t build and maintain a great company when employees are doing task work in their living rooms … I expect companies to compromise by offering a hybrid model of 1-2 offsite work days per week or maybe going with a permanent four-day workweek.

GLP-1 weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic are fascinating, especially as they negatively affect the work of physicians. Insurers don’t want to pay for them, so they are adding bureaucratic measures to impede demand, such as prior authorization and documentation proving that less expensive alternatives were tried and failed. Second, patients who cannot afford to pay $800 to $1,500 per month will pressure their doctors to falsely diagnose them with diabetes so their insurance will pay, which could land the doctors in trouble in the absence of supporting clinical documentation. The US is a weight loss drug dream market of overweight people (two-thirds of the population), lobbyist-friendly politicians, and unregulated drug pricing, and while these drugs might improve an individual’s health, our system of frequent job and insurance changes doesn’t reward employers and insurers who spend money today to save someone else on healthcare expenses years from now. And we like drugs better than behavioral changes, as the now-shuttered Jenny Craig can attest.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Shares of the Global X Telemedicine and Digital Health ETF were unchanged over the past month versus the SP& 500’s 1% gain. They are down 25% since inception in July 2020 versus the S&P’s 26% gain. Top holdings are Masimo, Doximity, Alibaba, JD Health, and DexCom. 

Minnesota’s largest employer, Mayo Clinic, threatens to redirect billions of its investment dollars to other states in protest of two bills that would: (a) set a maximum patient-to-nurse staffing ratio; and (b) create a Health Care Affordability Board that would set healthcare spending growth targets, enhance provider transparency, and explore alternative payment programs.

People

Nym promotes Or Peles to CEO. He replaces co-founder Amihai Neiderman, who will remain on the company’s board.

Announcements and Implementations

Redox announces its reimagined product portfolio: Nexus (integration); Nexus Lite (a lightweight, self-service offering); Access (connection to Carequality and DirectTrust); Chroma (a Verato-powered EMPI); and Nova (transform legacy standards to FHIR using existing provider integrations and libraries).

Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital incorporates Indigenous healing and wellness practices into Epic.

A new KLAS report on hospice software finds that MatrixCare and WellSky are ranked highest for independent hospices, while Epic Comfort is top ranked overall by its hospital-owned hospice users.

Government and Politics

The Senate Finance Committee wants to hold health plans accountable for “ghost networks,” citing a secret shopper study by Senate staffers in which only 18% could get an appointment with a mental health provider that was listed by 12 Medicare Advantage plans. Another audit of MA plans found that 73% of dermatologists who were listed as in-network providers could not be booked for an appointment due to duplicate entries or a change in plans they accept. 

Kell West Regional Hospital, which was one of just four hospitals that CMS fined for failing to comply with its price transparency rule, will appeal the $117,000 fine because it has successfully met CMS requirements after a company it had hired failed to deliver.

Privacy and Security

The ALPHV group of ransomware hackers say they have breached Constellation Software, whose software groups include healthcare-focused Harris Computer, and are threatening to publicly post 1 TB of its data if it fails to pay the ransom. Constellation, which has acquired 500 software companies since 1995, says it has restored its infrastructure and none of the IT systems of its companies was affected. An ALPHV ransomware attack took down the Colonial Pipeline in May 2021, triggering panic buying that caused gasoline shortages in the eastern US even though the company paid the demanded $4.4 million almost immediately. 

Other

Don Detmer, MD, MA and Andrew Gettinger, MD list essential EHR reforms for the this decade in a JAMA viewpoint article in which they also advocate use of technology such as ambient voice recognition, AI, and cloud-based medication and allergy lists.:

• Develop a national patient identifier as HIPAA originally mandated.
• Remove administrative and regulatory content from clinical time. CMS should replace check-the-box documentation by deriving quality measures from existing documentation.
• Include patient-entered information in the EHR.
• Reinvent the clinical note to become prospective and to encourage less documentation instead of more. Ban copy-paste and copy-forward functions.

Scan Health President and CEO Sachin Jain, MD, MBA says in a Forbes opinion piece that health systems have “an epidemic of inauthenticity and superficial execution” as much-publicized projects are never scaled beyond pilots or limited deployment, broken care processes are hidden, and regression to the mean is presented as evidence of impact. He adds that we have normalized inauthenticity as being good salesmanship, as people are selling their ideas and building their brands despite lack of real impact, which will eventually breed cynicism and burnout. 

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD observes “The Curious Side Effects of Medical Transparency” in a New Yorker essay, where she ponders how her practice has changed due to Cures Act requirements that patients be given access to clinician documentation:

• She worries that patients will become alarmed if she records her differential diagnosis correctly and they see serious but unlikely possible diagnoses that she is ruling out.
• She cites experts who question whether transparency should be its own ideal or whether it should be compared with other ways to deliver the same end result.
• Seniors whose technology is managed by their adult children have asked her to keep some prescriptions private, and having multiple family members accessing the patient’s portal can make it hard to determine whether communications are going to them directly or to detect when patient records are being accessed by people who are harming them.
• The use of multi-test lab panels almost ensures that every patient will get a slightly out-of-range result that will be highlighted as abnormal, or the results of tests whose result can’t be expressed as a simple yes or no.
• She spends time every day managing a flood of patient questions about new test results and is forced to try to answer urgent questions quickly without having completed basic legwork.

Sponsor Updates

• Wolters Kluwer Health staff in Waltham, MA clean up the banks of the Charles River as part of its Green is Green initiative.
• Drug Store News recognizes OmniSys XiFin Pharmacy Solutions for the second time with its annual Retail Excellence Award – Technology and Automation.
• An OptimizeRx physician survey finds that they are receiving life sciences product information from a variety of channels, but with gaps, and with a need for more information about treatment eligibility, affordability, and access.
• Sectra releases a new episode of its Let’s Talk Enterprise Imaging Podcast, “Beyond the technology – how Sectra provides end-to-end SaaS security.”
• Black Book Research names Andor Health to the top spot in virtual care collaboration solutions based on a survey of nearly 1,000 health system executives.
• KLAS awards Ellkay its Points of Light award, recognizing the company’s payer-provider collaboration efforts via bi-directional connectivity. 
• National Medical Care Company in Saudi Arabia selects Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate, UpToDate Advanced, and Medi-Span solutions.
• First Databank VP of Clinical Network Services Lathe Bigler will present at the NCPDP 2023 Annual Technology & Business Conference May 9 in Scottsdale, AZ.

Blog Posts

• Will AI help healthcare systems fight against disintermediation? (Nordic)
• Managing Alert Fatigue – an Alarming Problem! (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Next-Best Action: Elevating the Future of Omnichannel HCP Marketing (OptimizeRx)
• Healthcare Coding Series: SNOMED CT (Pivot Point Consulting)
• How Better Communication Management Ensures Top of License Practice (PerfectServe)
• The Complexities of Behavioral Health Billing (PMD)
• AI’s stretch towards the last mile (Nordic)
• Missouri Health System Increases Provider Engagement with PINC AI Stanson (Premier)
• HCC Model v28 Proposed Changes: Opposing Viewpoints (RCxRules)
• Post-pandemic HIMSS v1.0 – 2023’s event unwrapped (Redox)
• Reaching Peak Healthcare Interoperability Together One Step at a Time (Surescripts)
• All about the people: Transforming care with the UVM Health Network (Tegria)
• Is healthcare home to the next wave of AI innovation? What to consider as the industry weighs the potential impact of AI on the patient experience. (Upfront Healthcare)
• The Federal Breast Density Inform Rule: Huge Leap Forward, But More to Do (Volpara Health)
• 11 Google Business Profile Tips to Dominate Local SEO (WebPT)
• Tackling Rising Denial Rates in 2023 (Vyne Medical)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.