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News 5/2/25

May 1, 2025 News 1 Comment

Reader Comments

From Creole: “Re: Oracle Health. Losing a customer also means losing access to its data, which was Larry’s big thing in buying Cerner.” Defecting Cerner customers take their data to Epic, undermining Ellison’s vision of a national health records platform and research repository. Oracle likely viewed Cerner as a valuable data asset, but outside of the DoD (and perhaps eventually the VA), that value diminishes with every lost client. As a tech company, Oracle seems to have underestimated the importance of Cerner’s domain experts, many of whom it has driven away, which has eroded trust and limits future business development. Not to mention that technical whiz-bangery doesn’t change the reality that Oracle Health will need to take business away from Epic to grow unless Epic collapses post-Judy. We healthcare lifers have reason to be wary, having lived through the loud arrivals and quiet exits of outsiders like GE Healthcare, Siemens, McKesson, Misys, and IBM.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I checked some of my past Temu orders and found that prices have tripled or more in the trade war environment. It’s probably no accident that I can’t compare further because everything in my order history now shows as discontinued or sold out, making the new, higher prices harder to track, although items that feature the same photo can be ordered for a lot more money.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health acquires UpLift, which offers virtual services for mental health and medication management, for $30 million in cash and $15 million in potential earnout. UpLift’s 2024 revenue was $15 million.

Healthcare AI workflow automation platform vendor Plenful raises $50 million in a Series B funding round.

Ascend Learning acquires TIPreport, which offers medical education feedback and competency tracking.

Amwell posts Q1 results: revenue up 12%, EPS –$.19 versus –$4.94. AMWL shares dropped 17% before the market’s close on Thursday and have lost 40% in the past 12 months.

Sales

In UAE, Al Zahra Hospital Dubai chooses InterSystems TrakCare EHR and its fully managed hosting service.
Silver Hill Hospital (CT) will implement Meditech Expanse under the Meditech as a Service subscription model.

People

Craig Richardville, MBA (Intermountain Health) joins Guidehouse as a partner in its health practice.

Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital hires Kevin Shorten (Alameda Health System) as VP/CITO.

Matt Madden, MBA (EverCommerce) joins Net Health as VP of product and business development.

Advocate Health promotes Matthew Anderson, MD, MHA to SVP of clinical transformation.

Announcements and Implementations

Zocdoc launches Zo, an AI phone assistant that manages incoming patient scheduling calls.

An AdvancedMD survey of the owners of private medical practices finds that 44% plan to renegotiate payment rates and two-thirds will hire new employees.

Government and Politics

New York’s fire department issues a directive that requires ambulances to take patients to the nearest hospital as assigned by a computer system, regardless of patient preference or existing provider relationship. An FDNY commissioner dismissed complaints as mostly coming from hospitals that worry about losing volume, explaining, “We’re not the Uber or Lyft business to take people where they want to go.”

Privacy and Security

Politico reports that the White House has shifted HHS OCR’s focus from HIPAA, patient privacy, and cybersecurity to enforcing the federal bans on DEI programs and transgender care. An HHS spokesperson said that the agency is “restoring its tradition of upholding rigorous, evidence-based science” while rejecting “woke DEI policies.” Most regional investigators have reportedly been dismissed, leaving just 18 of the original 100.

Sponsor Updates

A group of people standing around a table full of sandwiches

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Healthcare IT Leaders staff works with The Sandwich Project to make 700 sandwiches to help combat food inequity in Atlanta.
The “Provider’s Edge” podcast features Consensus Cloud Solutions EVP Bevey Minder in an episode titled “Tech Equity is the Missing Link in Health Equity.”
Black Book Research publishes a new report titled “Women’s Health Information Technology and Software innovations.”
Netsmart’s MyUnity EHR achieves Community Health Accreditation Partner verification for hospice care.
WellSky announces enhanced capabilities to help healthcare organizations succeed in value-based care models, including the new CMS Transforming Episode Accountability Model.
Infinx announces its Patient Access Plus solution listing in Epic’s Connection Hub on Showroom.
The new season of the Surescripts award-winning podcast, “There’s a Better Way,” will premiere May 20.
Elsevier offers its complimentary, accredited Gen AI Academy for Health to help clinicians utilize generative AI responsibly and effectively in their practice.
FinThrive publishes a new case study titled “How Eskenazi Health Transformed Claims Processing.”
Artera, Ellkay, HealthMark Group, Inbox Health, Infinx, MRO, and TruBridge will exhibit at the AAOE Annual Conference May 2-5 in Atlanta.
InterSystems joins the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium as a founding member.

Blog Posts

Why healthcare still relies on faxing—and why it’s a problem (Altera Digital Health)
6 Proven Ways to Improve Agent Productivity and Efficiency (Five9)
What primary care providers must know about billing, compliance, and MIPS MVPs in 2025 (Healthmonix)
Workforce Analytics Software for Aged Care: Data-Driven Staffing That Works (Inovalon)

Contacts

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

News 4/30/25

April 29, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

Community Health Systems (TN) restores computer systems at a reported 45 hospitals after several days of downtime that was caused by an Oracle Health engineer who mistakenly deleted critical storage during routine maintenance.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Private equity firm GTCR is reportedly looking to sell value-based healthcare technology vendor Cedar Gate Technologies at a $1 billion valuation. GTCR launched the company in 2014.

People

Direct Recruiters promotes Ben Shamis, MBA to managing partner.

DexCare promotes Matthew Blosl to CEO.

Pothik Chatterjee, MA, MBA joins Rice University as executive director of Digital Health Institute, which was formed with Houston Methodist.

Announcements and Implementations

Houston Methodist implements Ambience Healthcare’s new ambient AI documentation technology for emergency department and inpatient settings.

Black Book Research names Netsmart as the top-rated provided of EMR/PM solutions for physical therapy, outpatient rehabilitation, and speech therapy.

CliniComp adds enterprise PACS to its New Era EHR.

Abbott integrates its FreeStyle Libre continuous glucose monitoring system with Epic.

A new KLAS report on PACS finds that customers are expecting technology changes to accommodate AI and cloud. Sectra and Agfa Healthcare earn high marks overall, while GE HealthCare and Optum have lost significant ground due to lack of innovation. Intelerad users complain about poor Tier 1 support and being charged for services that were once free, while users of both systems from Philips — IntelliSpace PACS and Image Management Vue PACS — report deep dissatisfaction because of weak product development and poor support.

Government and Politics

Stat profiles Chris Klomp, the founder and CEO of Collective Medical (sold to PointClickCare in late 2020) who is now director of the Center for Medicare.

Privacy and Security

Ascension reports that patient data from care sites in five states may have been compromised during a December cybersecurity incident. It also states that it mistakenly shared some of the information with its third-party partner, which later experienced the software breach.

The Interlock ransomware group claims to have stolen data from outpatient dialysis company DaVita, which announced it was the victim of a ransomware attack several weeks ago. The group has posted data screenshots on the dark web, though no public mention of a specific ransom amount has been made.

Sponsor Updates

CliniComp adds enterprise PACS to its New Era EHR with Intrinsic AI Solution Suite.
Black Book Market Research announces Netsmart as the top-ranked IT vendor in its “2025 Post-Acute Technology Market Report.”
Clearsense earns NCQA’s Validated Data Stream Status for the second year in a row.
Wolters Kluwer Health announces that select UpToDate Enterprise Edition customers can now access UpToDate patient education content directly within their Epic EHR and MyChart patient portal.
AdvancedMD partners with Moyae as an integration partner to boost efficiencies for ophthalmology and optometry practices.
Agfa HealthCare will exhibit at SIIM 2025 May 21-23 in Portland, OR.
AvaSure, InterSystems, and Philips Capsule will sponsor and exhibit at ATA’s Nexus 2025 May 3-5 in New Orleans.
The “Ascendle Unscripted” podcast features Cardamom Health VP of Business Development Bridget Bell in an episode titled “Preparing your healthtech organization for AI.”
Censinet releases a new “Risk Never Sleeps” podcast featuring Genesis Medical Associates Director of IT Bill Laukaitis.
Consensus Cloud Solutions announces its e-fax cloud fax platform has placed twelfth on G2’s Best Healthcare Software Products list.

Blog Posts

Handling Risk Adjustment and HCC Coding in Value-Based Care (AGS Health)
Three challenges threatening rural hospital stability (Altera Digital Health)
Physician Burnout: Fix the Foundational Elements First (Goliath Technologies)
Why Now for Agentic AI in Healthcare: A Q&A with Guillaume de Zwirek (Artera)
Ransomware in Healthcare: Why an Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE) Is Essential for Protecting Your Epic EHR (Cordea Consulting)
The Importance of Culture Fit in Remote Healthcare Technology Teams (Direct Recruiters)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 4/28/25

April 27, 2025 News 8 Comments

Top News

An anonymous HHS official says that despite last week’s announcement, it will not create a registry of people with autism. NIH will continue with plans to build a $50 million repository of de-identified data that will be available to selected researchers.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD said last week that NIH would be “developing national disease registries, including a new one for autism,” raising concerns about patient privacy and the use of private data sources such as insurance claims and pharmacies.

CBS News reports that doctors who treat autism are being overwhelmed by patients who are asking that their data be deleted and their appointments cancelled.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described autism as a “preventable disease.” He has stated that HHS will determine its cause by September, although Bhattacharya has since said that the research grants won’t be issued until then.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Respondent choices were decisive in last week’s poll. I’m curious to know if your satisfaction with a vendor has ever improved with its acquisition?

New poll to your right or here: Do you trust government-led health data initiatives to handle your personal health information securely and responsibly?

Listening: Viagra Boys, raw post-punk with a saxophone kicker from Sweden, although the singer was born and raised in California. I’m not sure I love it yet, but it got my attention. They are probably best enjoyed in cramped, sweaty club where the lead singer’s stomach-leading slouch and sometimes non-musical growling shows his indifference to what we non-creatives think.

Today I learned (courtesy of ChatGPT) the term “zero complementizer” versus “explicit complementizer,” the latter of which makes a sentence easier to read. I change this constantly when editing someone else’s writing, but I didn’t know what to call it. Examples:

The singer says that she won’t appear. The word “that” is an explicit complementizer. It is more formal and also easier to read.
The singer says she won’t appear. This word “that” is implied but omitted.

The generous annual donation of long-time reader Mike funded these DonorsChoose teach grant requests, which also benefitted from matching funds from third party organizations and my Anonymous Vendor Executive:

Headphones for Ms. T’s elementary school class in Fayette, MS.
Tablets for Ms. E’s elementary school class in Tarzana, CA.
Math learning games and centers for Ms. H’s elementary school class in Naples, FL.
Lego kits for the elementary school robotics club of Ms. M in Dawson, GA.
Research center furniture for Ms. C’s elementary school class in Dundee, MS.
STEM centers for Ms. H’s elementary school class in Montgomery, AL.
Coding robots for Ms. U’s elementary school class in Miami, FL.
Uniform shirts for Mr. P’s high school class in Camden, NJ.
Scientific calculators for Dr. W’s middle school class in Camden, NJ.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Business Insider publishes the pitch deck of Doctronic, which just raised $5 million in seed funding. The company’s website offers a symptom-checker that suggests possible diagnoses, then prompts the user to book a telehealth visit from its site. The deck says revenue will also eventually come from referrals and medication orders.

North York General Hospital becomes the first Cerner client in Canada to migrate to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, after which it reported improved EHR response times.

Sales

KONZA National Network will participate in Phase 2 of the Missouri Department of Mental Health’s Electronic Long-Term Services and Supports (eLTSS) Data Exchange Project.

People

NYC Health + Hospitals promotes Divya Pathhak, MS, MBA to VP/chief data and artificial intelligence officer.

Suzanne Cogan, MBA (Aspirion) joins WebPT as chief customer officer.

Announcements and Implementations

MedStar Health will replace Oracle Health with Epic, targeting a fall 2027 go-live. A reader-shared internal memo says that Oracle Health’s software “has unfortunately not matured over time” and that MedStar has “evolved beyond the capabilities of our current technology.” Leadership also expects Epic’s RCM system to boost revenue. All other tech projects for FY2026 and beyond are paused unless individually approved by the executive team. MedStar, a Cerner customer since 1999, has 10 hospitals, 35,000 employees, and $8.3 billion in annual revenue.

Government and Politics

The DoD hires telehealth founder Justin Fulcher as a senior DoD advisor. Fulcher co-founded Singapore-based RingMD, which went bankrupt, and worked with the DOGE team at the VA.

Privacy and Security

Yale New Haven Health notifies 5.5 million people that their data was exposed in a March 2025 cyberattack, according to a breach notice filed with HHS OCR.

Other

A Reddit post from a current Epic employee shows retrospective insight about losing the VA contract:

Looking back, we weren’t really ready for what implementing and supporting the VA meant in terms of complexity, red tape, rigidity … Our philosophy is that your organization will change to effectively use the software, while Oracle’s philosophy is that they will tailor the software to work for your organization. Every core competency and technical or functional advantage Epic has today originates from the advantage of that fundamental difference in approach to software in an industry as complex as this … We have more than 450 … organizations live on Epic and making each one change to match how the other 449 orgs do something in the system is significantly easier than making the system different for each of those 450 orgs. It makes implementation, long term support, and development of new features infinitely easier. It also makes it easier on the actual users.

Sponsor Updates

Altera Digital Health publishes a new client story titled “Systems up at Hendrick Health: How Altera streamlined a major upgrade.”
Black Book Research ranks the digital interoperability performance of healthcare systems across 18 high-income countries.
StoneGate Senior Living implements WellSky’s EHR and RCM technologies.
Optimum Healthcare IT achieves AWS Premier Tier Services Partner status.
Redox releases a new episode of its “Shut the Back Door” podcast titled “The lost and found files – Data Loss Prevention with guest Zak Cowan.”
RLDatix will exhibit at HSPA’s annual conference April 27-29 in Louisville, KY.
SmarterDx will present at ACDIS 2025 May 6 in Kissimmee, FL.

Blog Posts

Contacts

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

News 4/25/25

April 24, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

Eli Lilly sues four telehealth startups — Mochi Health, Willow Health, Fella & Delilah Health, and Henry Meds — for selling compounded versions of its $1,000-per-month GLP-1 weight loss drug Zepbound.

The FDA has reminded compounders that the practice is allowed only while a drug appears on its shortage list. FDA declared the Zepbound shortage over on December 19, 2024. It gave compounders 90 days to comply during the enforcement discretion period that ended on March 19, 2025.

Lilly says that the companies are sidestepping its patents by offering customized or vitamin-fortified doses, a tactic that has been used with other compounded products. It seems to be focusing on companies that are manufacturing such products on a large scale.

Lilly sold $16 billion worth of Zepbound and its diabetes twin Mounjaro last year.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I paid a Fiverr freelancer $10 to throw together a one-page sponsorship flyer that uses my survey data and a new batch from Black Book Research. I’m squirmy about the “’buy now, operators are standing by” vibe it throws off, but I’m all about getting to the point and it’s factual, if a bit immodest.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Kansas City-based HEI Global Health, a provider of revenue cycle solutions for healthcare systems, will open its first international branch office in Dubai. CEO Aaron Habben founded the company 20 years ago after spending several years at Cerner.

Pennsylvania high school student Max Kopp, who turned a science fair project on needle-free glucose monitoring into his startup VitaSense, launches a website to share his lessons learned and to mentor students in science and entrepreneurship.

Sales

Valley View (CO) will implement Epic under UCHealth’s Community Connect program, apparently replacing Meditech.

Announcements and Implementations

AdvaMed, a non-profit medical technology trade association, publishes an AI roadmap that includes these recommendations, and others, for HHS:

Ensure data protection without stifling innovation.
Evaluate whether HIPAA needs to be updated to reflect AI.
Develop guidelines for patient notice and authorization when their data is used to develop AI.
FDA should continue to be the lead regulator for safety and effectiveness.
FDA should implement Predetermined Change Control Plans for Medical Devices (PCCP) for AI devices to enhance pre-market efficiency.
FDA should promote standards and issue guidance to promote common understanding between FDA and manufacturers.
Congress should consider legislative solutions to address the budget neutrality requirements for Medicare.
CMS should develop a payment pathway for algorithm-based healthcare services.
CMS Innovation Center should test alternative payment models for AI technologies.

A new KLAS Arch Collaborative report finds that virtual EHR training now matches in-person methods as measured by Net EHR Experience Scores for both physicians and nurses, while cutting costs and scaling more effectively.

Government and Politics

A New York assemblyman who is also a pharmacist proposes a bill that would require hospitals to send a patient’s full electronic medical records to their insurers for pre-authorization, replacing faxes and mailed forms. Insurance companies and employers support the move, while hospitals worry that payers would use the more comprehensive information to deny more claims.

Axios reports that DOGE-directed layoffs at FDA have left it unable to keep its drug databases and NDC directory updated as affected employees are using their remaining government time to hunt for jobs. A significant HHS layoff is set for June 2. FDA drug reviewers have also reported that their work is on hold because they no longer have access to academic journals.

A Kansas anesthesiologist pleads guilty to healthcare fraud for exploiting his role as a telehealth contract doctor to mine company portals for patient information that he then used to submit fraudulent orders for DME, pain creams, and genetic tests. Scott Roethle, MD made $674,000 from five companies that paid him $30 per order, which cost cost Medicare $1.5 million.

In Canada, medical researchers and lawyers urge strengthening privacy laws and consider moving EHR data in-country to protect it from US-based AI training, saying that the data is housed on American cloud services that could be vulnerable if the Trump administration wants to access the information.

Other

Tennova Healthcare’s six Tennessee hospitals go offline when Oracle Health engineers accidentally delete a critical database storage component of its Cerner system.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research uncovers nine under-the-radar AI innovations set to transform healthcare revenue cycle management.
Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Judi Health: Going Beyond Pharmacy and into Medical Claims, with AJ Loiacono and Dr. Sunil Budhrani.”
Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise Suite earns ISO 9001 recertification for 2025-2028.
Ellkay will exhibit at the American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives Annual Conference May 2-5 in Atlanta.
Health Data Movers and Symplr will sponsor the CHIME Innovation Summit Southeast April 30-May 2 in Jacksonville, FL.
Healthmonix names Marina Verdara (Tebra) account manager.
Impact Advisors releases a new episode of its “Impactful AI” podcast titled “Clinicians Take the Lead!”
Infinx CMO Radhika Tandon will speak at the HFMA Nor Cal Chapter Women’s Event April 25 in Pleasanton, CA.
Lincata announces that its LincTV plug-in device designed for Epic’s MyChartBedside is now available in Epic Toolbox and will showcase it at XGM.
Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a white paper titled “Transforming Operations and Care with the Cloud.”
Linus Health will present at the virtual League Connect Digital Summit May 7.
Med Tech Solutions publishes a new white paper titled “Proven IT Strategies Improve Care Delivery and Build a Foundation for Growth.”
First Databank and Surescripts will present at the NCPDP 2025 Annual Technology & Business Conference May 5-7 in Scottsdale, AZ.

Blog Posts

Hope, Healing, and Hastings the PAT Dog (Altera Digital Health)
Not All Text Messages Are Created Equal (Some Are Driving Communication Barriers in Healthcare) (Artera)
AI Agents: Integrating AI into Customer Service (Five9)
The Hidden Challenges of Epic Implementation During M&A (Healthcare IT Leaders)
Mastering Record Retrieval: Smarter MRR Strategies for Risk Adjustment Success (Inovalon)
Celebrating HIP Week: How MRO Supports Health Information Professionals with Automated Clinical Data Exchange (MRO)

Contacts

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

News 4/23/25

April 22, 2025 News 9 Comments

Top News

NIH is aggregating data from insurance claims, the VA, Indian Health Service, pharmacy chains, and even wearables to support the HHS-mandated autism research initiative that was launched by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

NIH will also create a disease registry to track Americans with autism.

Kennedy has stated that HHS will determine the cause of autism by September.

Reader Comments

From Oingo Boingo: “Re: engagement. You said your site was tops in health tech media, but didn’t explain what that means.” The Black Book Research survey included these questions: (a) whether respondents had read anything on a given site in the past month, and (b) whether they spent more than 20 minutes there. Becker’s Health IT & CIO Report beat HIStalk on raw visits, but trailed badly on time spent on site, which I take to mean that they write a strong headline but less-strong content. One site that I assumed was a capable competitor turned out to be a non-factor, with 0% of respondents saying they had read it in the past month. HIStalk was also #1 in overall credibility and industry respect and also topped the category of providing unbiased and accurate information with a score of 9.9 on a 10 scale. As a lazy, part-time amateur, I’ll take it.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I visited a family member who was a patient in a small, university-affiliated hospital several times last week. Given that I’ve only spent one night in a hospital myself, and that was years ago, these were my technology observations:

The entire staff impressively used Stryker-owned Vocera’s communication for both clinical and administrative conversations, including in the patient rooms. I didn’t hear a single overhead page.
They used Epic’s secure messaging function to ask questions and coordinate care in real time to get answers quickly rather than promising to find out later.
Barcode verification was performed for just about everything.
Clinical information flowed spectacularly across care that included ED, procedures, and clinical team rounds.
The ability to order patient meals and guest trays via room service was very different than in my early hospital days.
The nurse made appointments for follow-visits and had prescriptions filled and delivered at discharge, all via Epic, I presume.

Dear people of the Internet: if your graph’s y-axis doesn’t start at zero, I assume that you’re trying to support a shaky opinion rather than presenting facts and I move on.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Brellium announces $16.7 million in Series A funding. The company offers automated chart auditing software to help providers maintain clinical and payer compliance.

Value-based care workflow automation vendor Reveleer acquires Novillus, which offers provider engagement and care gap management software to payers. Headquartered in California, Reveleer opened an operations hub in India last month.

Automated case management software startup Ascertain raises $10 million in Series A funding.

Patient experience software vendor Promptly acquires medical practice software from Patient Spectrum.

People

MyMichigan Health promotes Pankaj Jandwani, MD, MMM to VP/CIO.

Clearwater appoints Jeff Englander, MBA (New York University) executive advisor, business development.

Adam Weinstein, MBA (Cityblock Health) joins Teladoc Health as chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

South Australia Health implements Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EHR and patient administration system across all of its public hospitals. The contract for the $225 million project was signed in 2011.

Emory University Hospital Midtown (GA) integrates AI-powered fall-prevention capabilities from VirtuSense Technologies with its virtual nursing service. Emory Healthcare plans to deploy the VSTOne technology across eight inpatient units this year.

University of California Health describes how its nurses are using AI.

Adventist HealthCare rolls out Mednition’s Kate AI to several of its EDs to support and validate nurse decisions for high-risk and complex patients.

A new KLAS report on ambulatory core solution mindshare finds that while functionality is the highest consideration factor, interoperability trails just behind, while usability is #3.

Government and Politics

A VA memo to regional directors stresses the need for clinicians who provide virtual consults to do so in private workspaces as they return to working in VA facilities in the coming weeks, per a mandatory return-to-office order that has left some providers concerned about working in open, call-center-like spaces. The memo doesn’t specify what providers should do if such spaces aren’t available. Meanwhile, the VA reports a 12% increase in veteran satisfaction with its virtual care services, particularly the VA Video Connect app.

Other

The apparently popular “Acquired” podcast devotes a four-hour (!!) episode to the history of Epic. It doesn’t say much that you and I don’t already know about the company, but it’s aimed at generalists who won’t realize until the hosts finally say it that Epic has never acquired or been acquired and never will be, according to the policy of its board. I downloaded the audio into my AI tool to transcribe, saving me about 3:45 of that ridiculous runtime. I found only a few nuggets:

The hosts call Judy Faulkner the most successful female entrepreneur in history.
Judy’s mother was part of a group that won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the only new fact that I learned.
Harvard Medical School Professor Warner Slack, MD sent Judy to Boston to learn how to run a business from Meditech’s Neil Pappalardo, who mentored her for three days. The hosts gave Meditech and Pappalardo a lot of props, but surprisingly didn’t mention InterSystems.
Hosts: “Epic basically never did hire any business people. It is essentially a big gigantic company of programmers, logicians, implementation people who could be programmers, who would think like programmers. That is the DNA of the company to this day.”
Epic won the Kaiser deal because Carl Dvorak knew that system architecture and performance was a big deal and pulled a team all-nighter to model it out in Excel using Kaiser’s data, which Cerner didn’t do. Kaiser wanted equity, so Cerner offered 10% of the company while Judy said no, that wouldn’t be good for Epic, its customers, or Kaiser.
[Hosts on the VA contract] “Talking to Epic customers and CIOs in the research, they are like down on their hands and knees, thankful that Epic did not win this deal. Because Cerner just got dragged so into the muck … your founder and your leader is passing away in the midst of this very complex process. After that, Cerner cycles through a whole bunch of different leaders over the next few years. Meanwhile, Epic, kind of unburdened by this DoD and VA shitshow for lack of a better word, just keeps winning deal after deal in the large system providers and in their own way.”

Sponsor Updates

AGS Health will exhibit at the 2025 ACDIS Conference May 4-7 in Orlando.
CereCore publishes a new case study titled “Better User Satisfaction, Valuable Focus and Confidence Restored with Knowledgeable IT Service Desk.”
A new Black Book Research survey finds that healthcare organizations are accelerating plans to shift from traditional revenue cycle outsourcing to AI-powered RCM platforms.
The “This Just In” podcast features Arcadia Chief Strategy Officer Aneesh Chopra.
Optimum Healthcare IT launches the first episode of its “Visionary Voices” podcast featuring guests from Northeast Georgia Health System.
Capital Rx will present at the Business Group on Health Annual Conference April 22-24 in Nashville.
Divurgent names Patricia Allvin (MLH Healthcare Consulting) senior director of client service.

Blog Posts

Embracing Coding AI: A Strategic Vision for the future (AGS Health)
CIOs Reveal Insider Initiatives: Transforming Budget Woes into New Victories (CereCore)
How AI is Improving Clinical Documentation Accuracy and Compliance (Nym)
Teamwork & Team Leaders: Making the Difference in Retaining & Supporting Nurses (Symplr)
Improving EHR Training To Reduce Clinician Burnout (Tegria)
The journey ahead: Truly transforming healthcare organizations (Altera Digital Health)
Celebrating 10 Years of Artera: A Decade of Innovation in Patient Engagement (Artera)
Virtual Care Solutions to Nurse Staffing Shortages (AvaSure)
Smart revenue cycles start with smart build (Cardamom Health)
Navigating AI-Driven Cybersecurity Threats in Healthcare with Enhanced Security Operations (CloudWave)
What My Recent ER Visit Taught Me About Healthcare and Data (Dimensional Insight)
Pharmacy’s Missed Moment—and What Comes Next (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 4/21/25

April 20, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

A Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency advisory recommends that users of the legacy Oracle cloud environment take several precautionary actions following a recent breach that exposed user credentials.

A hacker has claimed to have exfiltrated 6 million records that could affect 140,000 Oracle Cloud tenants. Security researchers believe that the claim is accurate, although Oracle continues to deny that information was exposed.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Company trust apparently erodes when its leadership’s designer footwear has rarely trod the uncarpeted parts of the hospital.

New poll to your right or here: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned in your health tech career? Add a comment if your favorite wasn’t listed. Mine would be that it doesn’t matter that you work for a great company if your boss is a challenge.

Thanks to industry veteran Doug Brown of Black Book Research for designing and conducting an excellent industry survey about HIStalk’s position among health tech media sources, as requested by some of my sponsors. Lorre sent him basic information and he was off to the races with a well-designed study methodology and sample size. The results intrigued him so much that he ran a second survey that covered general trust in health tech media. I’ll post a summary later, but some points are:

HIStalk was #1 in Trust Index Rankings among all health tech media.
HIStalk was #1 in engagement and influence. Some of the sources that seem popular or that are run by big corporations actually scored 0% or 1% in engagement (i.e., despite appearances, nobody’s paying attention).
Respondents are fed up with media sources that run vendor-sponsored material without disclosing their paid relationships (it would be tacky of me to list the bottom finishers in this category, but you can take a guess).
The poll’s summary, which I’m shamelessly bragging about, is this: “HIStalk stands out for its influence, independence, and continued relevance to the decision-makers shaping the future of health IT … influencing perception, credibility, and market momentum at the highest levels.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Sales

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde taps Doccla to power a 1,000-bed virtual hospital as part of its hospital-at-home rollout in Scotland.

Announcements and Implementations

Leidos will invest $10 million over five years in a partnership with University of Pittsburgh to develop AI-powered digital pathology tools for early disease detection.

Sky Lakes Medical Center (OR) will lay off 70 employees, most of them in patient financial services and coding, due to the implementation of IKS Health technology that includes ambient documentation.

UK regulators approve the use of robotic surgery for 11 procedure types in NHS specialty centers, hoping to trim patient backlogs and streamline care.

Government and Politics

FDA will phase out animal testing for drugs and move to AI-based models.

Privacy and Security

A misconfigured database that is owned by Scotland-based healthcare staffing software vendor Logezy exposes 8 million records, including ID documents, work authorizations, certificates, timesheets, user photos, and electronic signatures.

Other

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman says that ChatGPT diagnosed and resolved his persistent jaw-clicking in one minute, a problem that specialists hadn’t been able to fix in over five years. He credits the chatbot with recommending a simple mouth-opening technique that realigned his jaw. Hoffman disputed a reader’s comment that doctors must hate ChatGPT: “If implemented correctly, AI could help doctors diagnose individual patients faster, do less paperwork, and see more patients in a day.”

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research’s survey of UK healthcare leaders dives into the potential impact of NHS restructuring on digital health planning.
Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast episode titled “Interview with Resa Lewiss, MD.”
Praia Health and Abundant Health Acquisition partner to deliver the first end-to-end, personalized consumer experience for healthcare systems.
Visage Imaging will exhibit at SIIM 2025 May 21-23 in Portland, OR.
Vyne Medical will sponsor and exhibit at NAHAM’s annual conference April 30-May 3 in Phoenix.

Blog Posts

What You Need to Know About Interoperability and How it Affects You (Netsmart)
Patient care continuity: Safeguarding Epic EHR access during disruptions (Nordic)
How Autonomous Medical Coding Can Speed Up Claims Processing (Nym)
Turning Data Into Insights at USA Health (RLDatix)
We’re a Designated QHIN! Here’s What That Means for You (Surescripts)
Recapping AONL 2025: Key Takeaways & Insights (Symplr)
Key Takeaways From IPMI Healthcare Finance Institute 2025 (Tegria)

Contacts

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

News 4/18/25

April 17, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

UnitedHealth Group reports Q1 results: revenue up 9.8%, EPS $6.85 versus $6.91, missing expectations for both and sending shares down more than 20% in the company’s first earnings miss since 2008.

UHG also cut its 2025 outlook.

CEO Andrew Witty called the results, which were negatively affected by unexpectedly high Medicare Advantage medical costs, “unusual and unacceptable.”

On the earnings call, Witty said the company’s tools boosted digital engagement among senior members by 40% in Q1. He added that AI will route over half of incoming calls to the appropriate resource this year. UnitedHealth also reported that AI-powered claims tools improved Optum Insight productivity by 20%.

Reader Comments

From JSON Argonaut: “Re: AI. We just signed a multi-year AI partnership so we can say we did. If it improves care or efficiency, great, but let’s be honest, the board wanted a press release.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Assort Health, which offers AI-powered incoming call management for patient scheduling in specialty practices, raises $26 million in funding.

Sales

The Minnesota Department of Human Services chooses Findhelp to power Find Help Minnesota, a statewide behavioral health program locator.
Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation chooses Meditech Expanse.

People

Healthcare cost containment technology vendor Claritev, which was formerly known as Multiplan, hires Jigar Patel, MD (Oracle) as SVP/chief medical officer.

Vanessa Carmean, PhD (KeyCare) joins Lirio as RVP of sales.

Caregentic hires Russ Johannesson, MBA (Glooko) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

A preprint describes how UMass Memorial PCPs used Linus Health’s tablet-based tool to incorporate cognitive assessments into routine visits.

Altera Digital Health integrates Nabla’s ambient documentation solution with Paragon Denali.

A new KLAS report finds that non-US health systems are using technology, especially AI, to fight staff burnout. AI and analytics investment are outpacing EHR and digitization projects. Cloud adoption is rising, although most deployments remain hybrid or lift-and-shift rather than cloud-native.

Government and Politics

The House Oversight Committee asks 23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki for details on the company’s bankruptcy and any plans to transfer personal and genetic data, warning that a sale to the highest bidder could be a “national security disaster.”

The National Association of Attorneys General urges Congress to prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from owning or operating pharmacies. Meanwhile, a new Arkansas law prohibits that same practice.

The White House proposes slashing HHS discretionary spending by one-third and reorganizing its agencies, following a previous 20,000-employee headcount cut.

Privacy and Security

KU Health, Lawrence Memorial, and Epic are named in a class action lawsuit after a KU Health physical therapist allegedly used its patient portal to snoop on patients of an affiliated plastic surgery clinic, including their nude photos. The suit, which was brought by patients of the plastic surgery clinic, claims that Care Everywhere’s cross-organizational data-sharing enabled the breach.

The CEO of an Oklahoma cybersecurity company is charged with installing screen logging malware on two computers of St. Anthony Hospital.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research releases its fully updated and expanded 2025 Key Performance Indicator Framework for Revenue Cycle Management.
Ellkay will present at Executive War College April 30 in New Orleans.
The “HIT with Grace” podcast features First Databank VP of Product Management Virginia Halsey.
Impact Advisors releases a new episode of its “Impactful AI” podcast titled “Decoding AI Empathy.”
Infinx will exhibit at NAHAM 2025 April 30-May 3 in Phoenix.
Meditech will present at the Montana Frontier Healthcare Conference June 18-19 in Billings.
Mednition welcomes Wellstar Health System and Good Shepherd Health Care System to its community of KATE AI partners.
MRO will exhibit at the American Urological Association conference April 26-29 in Las Vegas.
Navina will exhibit at the NAACOS Spring Conference April 22-24 in Baltimore.

Blog Posts

Three IT Focus Areas for Acquisition Due Diligence Decisions in Ambulatory Care (CereCore)
The Latest from Vital Signs: Healthcare provider pay increases, staffing challenges, GPOs and practice-payer relationships (AdvancedMD)
ROI for your RCM: Benefits of single platform approach (Altera Digital Health)
What the 2026 Medicare Advantage rate update means for payers and providers (Arcadia)
How Cost Transparency Enhances Patient Retention and Boosts Revenue Capture (Artera)
Leveraging Data Analytics to Enhance CDM Effectiveness (FinThrive)
Meeting Customer Demands: How to Stay Ahead in the New Era of CX (Five9)
Patient Portals Redefined: A New Era of Trust and Engagement in Healthcare (HCTec)
Healthmonix has done it: Quality reporting success for MSSP ACOs at scale (Healthmonix)
The Foundation of Trust: Why Governance Matters in Healthcare Security (Impact Advisors)

Contacts

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

News 4/16/25

April 15, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

Kidney care company DaVita works to recover from a weekend ransomware attack that encrypted some of its systems. The attack was disclosed in an SEC filing.

The company operates 2,657 outpatient dialysis centers in the US.

DaVita posted an update to its website on Monday indicating that it was experiencing high call volumes and asked providers to send medical records by fax.

Reader Comments

From Egress Latched: “Re: CuriMeta. Closed.” Unverified, but reported by several employees on LinkedIn who have adorned their headshots with the #OpenToWork label. St. Louis-based CuriMeta is (or was) a real-world data platform vendor that was launched in 2020. Washington University School of Medicine and BJC HealthCare, which contributed data research and research support, invested $6 million in seed funding in August 2022. That’s not a lot of funding after nearly three years. Founder Davis Walp moved on in January 2025.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Lincata. Lincata is the missing ‘linc’ that powers up the in-room patient experience 2.0. LincTV, Lincata’s flagship product, is a proprietary hardware device which transforms most existing hospital televisions into interactive digital hubs supporting MyChart Bedside TV, virtual nursing, alert motion sensors, and entertainment. Lincata proudly participates in Epic Showroom’s Toolbox vendor program for Bedside TV Hardware. Power up LincTV and power on healthcare’s next generation of smart room solutions.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual care delivery company Hellocare.ai raises $47 million.

Sales

Tanner Health (GA) selects CareTrack’s remote patient monitoring solution.
MedStar Health (MD) will use Reimagine Health’s remote cancer care management software and services.

People

Michael Quinn (Inovalon) joins NVoq as VP of strategic business development.

Oura hires Ricky Bloomfield, MD (Apple) as chief medical officer.

Civitas Networks for Health appoints Jolie Ritzo, MPH as interim CEO with the departure of founding CEO Lisa Bari, MPH, MBA.

Announcements and Implementations

IMAT Solutions announces GA of a new health data reporting platform incorporating business, data, security, and AI intelligence.

Ochsner Health (LA) implements digital advance care planning software from MyDirectives.

The Sequoia Project recognizes the Surescripts Health Information Network as a QHIN.

Healthcare benefits navigation platform vendor Castlight Health embeds Fabric’s virtual urgent care technology into its app. Castlight is owned by Apree Health, which is in turn owned by care solutions vendor Mosaic Health.

Government and Politics

LGBTQ Texans oppose a Texas bill that would mandate binary “biological sex” fields in EHRs that cannot be changed except to correct clerical errors, arguing that it endangers care for transgender and intersex patients by disregarding medical complexity.

Privacy and Security

CTG opens a Cegeka Modern Security Operations Center in Buffalo, NY and announces new cybersecurity solutions that include identity and access management and managed CISO Office-as-a-Service capabilities.

Northeast Radiology (CT) will take corrective action and pay $350,000 to settle federal HIPAA Security Rule violations that stem from a data breach of its PACS server that exposed the PHI of 300,000 patients.

Other

Nursing leaders looking to implement new care models are most in need of nurse informaticists, telehealth nurses, nurse care coordinators, and nurse educators in telehealth and virtual care, according to a new report from Wolters Kluwer Health.

Sponsor Updates

A new Black Book survey underscores critical actions US medical device and supply chain leaders must implement to prepare for potential market disruptions in light of escalating trade tensions.
Censinet, KLAS Research, and American Hospital Association publish the “2025 Healthcare Cybersecurity Benchmarking Study.”
CereCore will exhibit and present at MUSE Inspire 2025 May 27-30 in Dallas.
Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Navigating RxDC Reporting: Some Tips for Success, with Spencer Kramer.”
Healthcare IT Leaders becomes a Workday Application Managed Services Partner.
AGS Health will exhibit at the NAHAM Annual Conference April 30-May 2 in Phoenix.
AvaSure will present at ATA Nexus 2025 May 3-6 in New Orleans.
Conduce Health President Geoff Matous joins UConn Health’s Board of Directors.
Consensus Cloud Solutions will exhibit at the SCHIMSS Annual Conference April 16 in Columbia, SC.

Blog Posts

How healthcare technology is advancing patient safety: Insights from industry leaders (RLDatix)
From Implementation Decisions to Billing: Learn How to Maximize Meditech (CereCore)
The Emotional Journey of Limb Loss: How Intervention Transforms Recovery (AdvancedMD)
Six Best Practices for a Hybrid Approach to Denials Management (AGS Health)
Reducing Stress and Prioritising EPR System Usability (Altera Digital Health)
The hidden dangers of AI confidence scores in healthcare (Arcadia)
From prenatal to postnatal and beyond: How patient communication can close gaps in maternal care (Artera)
Clearwater at RSA 2025: Spotlighting Healthcare Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure (Clearwater)
Low-Cost, High-Value Epic Ransomware Solution: Ensure Epic Continuity with an Isolated Recovery Environment on AWS (Cordea Consulting)
Why I Won’t Call to Book a Doctor’s Appointment (and How to Make Online Scheduling Easier for People Like Me) (Divurgent)
Unlocking the Potential of Electronic Prior Authorizations for Specialty Medication (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 4/14/25

April 13, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

UnitedHealth Group demands repayment from practices to which it loaned money following the cyberattack on its Change Healthcare business.

Its Optum division is warning practices that they must repay in full or risk having the amount withheld from their reimbursements.

UnitedHealth says that $3 billion of its $9 billion in interest-free loans was repaid by mid-October. The loans were offered following the February 2024 breach that sidelined Change’s clearinghouse services for nine months.

CEO Andrew Witty told the Senate Finance Committee last year that practices would have 45 days after their cash flows returned to normal to repay the loans.

Reader Comments

From Actionless Figure: “Re: LinkedIn. It used to be resumes and insight. Now it’s mid-tier health IT execs posting AI action figures like they’re getting their own McKinsey Happy Meal.” Agreed. You would think that the effortlessly generated, decidedly unclever graphics were Nobel prizes.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Pay and employee retention aren’t as important in health system IT satisfaction as you might think.

New poll to your right or here: What’s your biggest red flag when evaluating a health IT vendor? Leave a poll comment for a choice that I didn’t list.

Second-grade teacher Ms. P from Dallas, TX thanks HIStalk donors and matching funds contributors for fulfilling her DonorsChoose request for science and engineering kits and tools. A snippet from her message, which included classroom photos such as the one above:

I wish you could have seen my student’s faces when they got to see and use all the amazing things we got! You helped make learning impactful and long term by providing us with these hands on resources. These materials took my lessons to another level and engaged all my learners.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: April 15 (Tuesday) 1 ET. “Navigating ACO Quality in 2025: Lessons Learned and Future Directions.” Sponsor: Healthmonix. Presenters: Michael Lewis, VP of customer success, Healthmonix; Steven Tyson, senior account executive, Healthmonix. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) must stay ahead of evolving quality requirements and reporting changes. Join us for an in-depth discussion on lessons learned from past ACO implementation, key areas for improvement, and the impact of Medicare Clinical Quality Measures (CQMs).

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A ProPublica article reports that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana was found to have committed fraud by approving breast cancer surgeries but withholding full payment, leading to a $421 million jury award to New Orleans-based Center for Restorative Breast Surgery, which was started by the two surgeons above. The insurer’s former CEO argues prior authorization only confirms medical necessity, not a guarantee of payment: “Let me be clear: The authorization never says we’re going to pay you.” The article also notes that company executives had arranged special payment deals with the center for cancer treatment for their wives. The jury foreman concluded, “We would have given more if we had been asked for more. That’s how egregious the fraud was.” The insurer has appealed the verdict and its business practices remain unchanged.

People

Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP (HHS) joins Mayo Clinic as chief AI implementation officer.

Donna Woelfel, RN, MSN (MultiCare Health System) joins Kaiser Permanente, Northern California as CNIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Researchers develop a conversation-based, diagnostic-focused language model that outperformed primary care physicians in accuracy and was rated by patient-actors as having superior conversational quality.

A new cybersecurity report from KLAS, Censinet, and industry groups finds that most organizations are better at responding to breaches than preventing them. The biggest gaps are in supply chain risk management, asset management, and medical device security.

The authors of the ASTP-commissioned SAFER guides – a self-assessment framework for the safety and effectiveness of an EHR implementation – describe new updates to the toolkit that incorporate best available current evidence and clinical practice. Usability has been improved and content streamlined to emphasize the highest risk, most commonly occurring issues.

Other

Not healthcare-related, but relevant. The Department of Justice charges former Nate CEO Albert Saniger with investor fraud after he allegedly misled backers about the company’s AI capabilities. Despite raising $40 million on claims that its “skip the checkout” tool was fully AI-driven, Nate secretly routed 100% of transactions through call center workers in the Philippines. Maybe he meant “AI” to stand for “affordable individuals.”

Sponsor Updates

A Black Book Research survey of pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing executives finds that there is mounting momentum for reshoring US healthcare manufacturing.
Artera announces that its Staff and Insights AI Co-Pilot Agents have been adopted by more than 100 leading healthcare organizations across the country and are generating significant customer satisfaction.
Surescripts announces that its technology and data infrastructure systems have earned certified status by HITRUST for information security.
Vyne Medical publishes a new case study titled “University of Wisconsin Health Transplant Program Automates 80% of Fax-to-EMR Process for Increased Accuracy.”
Nym names Tarra Kline and Dani Hulahan medical coding and compliance auditors, Lior Segev software engineer, William Empey and Blake Cain customer success managers, and Mary Price Montagnet growth development representative.
PerfectServe offers a new case study featuring Cardiology Consultants of Toms River titled “Enhancing Cardiology Care with Medical Answering Service.”
Rhapsody publishes a new customer story titled “Axia Women’s Health saved $300,000, replacing a standalone API engine with Rhapsody Corepoint.”
SmartSense by Digi will exhibit at HISHE’s annual Hawaii Healthcare Technology & Facilities Engineering Expo May 8 in Waikiki.
WellSky will present the keynote at the virtual Home Care Association of Florida AI Summit April 14.

Blog Posts

Celebrating 4,000 Subscribers: The Meditech Blog is serving a healthy dose of innovation in 2025 and beyond (Meditech)
Adapting to Change with Innovative Flexibility (Netsmart)
EHR Implementation: The need for strong governance and effective, knowledge-based planning (Nordic)
A Comprehensive Checklist for EMR Implementation (Optimum Healthcare IT)
What is Consumer Identity and Why Does it Matter to Health Systems? (Praia Health)
Highlights from RLDatix Connected Healthcare Summit 2025 (RLDatix)
It’s Good to Be HITRUST (Surescripts)
Understanding Tariffs: Impacts on Hospitals & the Healthcare Sector (Symplr)
So Many Buzzwords, So Little Time: Demystifying the Modern AI Toolbox (VisiQuate)

Contacts

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

News 4/11/25

April 10, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) offers the federal government its vision for evolving the US quality measurement ecosystem.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Industry veteran and long-time HIStalk reader Todd Karner, DHA, MGA, RN is now professor and graduate program director at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UBMC). He asked me to let readers know that UMBC’s graduate program in health information technology can now be completed 100% remotely. The 10-course, 30-credit health IT master’s degree, which caters to working professionals, includes courses in strategy, policy, and management with more technical, hands-on courses. See their banner ad in the sponsor section and their link in the Sponsor Quick Links.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Bain Capital is reportedly close to acquiring healthcare payer solutions vendor HealthEdge for $2.6 billion from Blackstone, which bought the company for $700 million in 2020 and expanded it with Wellframe and Altruista Health. The sale is expected to deliver a 2x return for Blackstone, which previously explored a sale in 2022 that was called off due to valuation concerns.

Sales

The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation selects Netsmart’s EHR to support individuals who are experiencing substance use and mental health conditions.
Hackensack Meridian Health will incorporate AvaSure’s patient safety technology into its virtual nursing service to add real-time decision support and predictive analytics.
Sharp HealthCare chooses Abridge for ambient documentation.

Announcements and Implementations

Proprio, which offers an AI-powered surgical guidance system, earns FDA clearance to capture real-time measurements during surgery to assess progress against preoperative plans.

HCA Healthcare profiles Chief Health Information Officer Jake O’Shea, MD, MBA in a “Meet the Innovators” feature. He is leading HCA’s implementation of Meditech Expanse.

Health Catalyst launches Ignite Spark, a data and analytics solution for community health systems, regional hospitals, and multi-site practices.

Endeavor Health and Google Cloud will develop a cloud-based digital pathology model.

University of Colorado Health integrates on-demand language translation into its call system, pulling data from Epic to instantly connect patients with interpreters. UCHealth reports that in some regions, up to 13% of its patients aren’t native English speakers, and it has seen a 40% increase in calls while reducing operator workload and enabling more patients to communicate directly about their care.

Denmark-based Corti launches a medical dictation API that it says offers 99% accuracy, responds to dynamic commands, and outperforms ambient AI tools in use cases that involve technical communication.

Other

A philanthropy publication profiles Missouri’s Patterson Family Foundation, which was started by Cerner co-founder and CEO Neal Patterson and his wife Jeanne in 2007. The deaths of both founders from cancer in 2017 boosted the endowment of the foundation, which focuses on rural issues, to $1.4 billion, making it one of the 20 largest private foundations in the Midwest.

Sponsor Updates

A new Black Book Research report finds that Germany’s EHR market faces disruption amid AI caution, regulatory shifts, and vendor realignments.
CereCore will sponsor the MUSE Midwest Community Peer Group April 17 in Northfield, MN.
Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Empowering Unions with Technology: A New ‘Hours Banking’ System.”
Surescripts publishes a new case study titled “Surescripts and Clear: Enhancing Provider Access & Security.”
The “AI in Healthcare and Life Sciences” podcast features Elsevier Health Markets CTO Rhett Alden.
First Databank extends its Founders Gift Donor agreement with the NCPDP Foundation by an additional $100,000 to support research grants focused on enhancing patient safety.
Findhelp welcomes new customers RAIN (NY), Greater Baden Medical Services (MD), and CityServe of the Tri-Valley (CA).
Five9 publishes its “2025 Customer Experience Report.”
Healthmonix names Tom O’Grady (Doceree) sales executive.
Impact Advisors releases a new episode of its “Impactful AI” podcast titled “DIY AI.”
Navina will present at the NAACOS 2025 Spring Conference April 22-24 in Baltimore.
The “Wilshire IT RevCast” podcast features Infinx VP of RCM Insights Stuart Newsome.
Mednition names Andrew Belonga business development representative and Dilpreet Singh growth marketing manager.
MRO will exhibit at the NAACOS 2025 Spring Conference April 22-24 in Baltimore.

Blog Posts

The Impact of Big Data Analytics in Healthcare: Improving Patient Outcomes and Efficiency (Inovalon)
Investing in Nurses: New EMR is Just the Beginning (CereCore)
Reducing Stress and Prioritising EPR System Usability (Altera Digital Health)
The hidden dangers of AI confidence scores in healthcare (Arcadia)
From prenatal to postnatal and beyond: How patient communication can close gaps in maternal care (Artera)
Improve Oracle EHR Physician Experience and Reduce MTTR (Goliath Technologies)
Medicare DSH Payments 101 (FinThrive)
Why TEFCA offers a promising future for interoperability (Meditech)

Contacts

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

News 4/9/25

April 8, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

The UK government and the Wellcome Trust will invest $767 million to create a Health Data Research Service, which will offer researchers a single access point to NHS data.

The Wellcome charity will contribute $128 million of the cost, while the UK government will provide up to $639 million.

The service will go live by the end of 2026.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I fully funded several DonorsChoose teacher grant requests using donations from Volpara Health, which contributed an amount for each response to a recent survey I ran. Their gift, combined with matching funds from my Anonymous Vendor Executive and others, supported these projects, with more to come:

Math as art activity books and supplies for Ms. H’s high school class in Byhalia, MS.
A presentation stand and clock for Ms. M’s second grade class in Roma, TX.
STEM activity kits for Ms. A’s elementary school class in Rio Grande City, TX.
STEM and engineering kits for Ms. S’s elementary school class in Thermal, CA.
STEM books for Mr. K’s middle school class in Olathe, CO.
Science books for Mr. A’s middle school class in Penitas, TX.
STEM activities for Ms. M’s first grade class in Naples, FL.
Robotics and STEM kits for Ms. M’s middle school class in Orrville, AL.
Uniform shirts for Ms. E’s high school class in Camden, NJ.
Group collaboration corner furnishings for Mr. K’s high school class in Trenton, NJ.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Therapy Brands, which offers software and services to rehab therapists, mental and behavioral healthcare professionals, and health IT developers, rebrands to Ensora Health.

Transcarent completes its $621 million acquisition of Accolade.

Sales

Lake Norman Regional Medical Center (NC) will transition to Epic as a part of its acquisition by Duke Health.
Six hospitals in Eastern Ontario will join the Atlas Alliance of hospitals and implement Epic by the fall of 2026.

People

Bharath Perugu, MBA (Office Practicum) joins Surgimate as chief product and technology officer.

CVS Health names Amy Compton-Phillips, MD (Press Ganey) EVP / chief medical officer.

Aaron Mann (KeyCare) joins Veeva Systems as VP commercial site solutions.

Solarity hires Kevin Hidenfelter as chief growth officer.

Brian Blackwell, MA (Point32Health) joins Healthcare Systems of America as VP of applications.

Prealize Health hires Jarret English (Sandata Technologies) as SVP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

The Choctaw Nation Health Services Authority (OK) implements Epic.

McLaren Flint hospital (MI) implements Volpara Health’s Risk Pathways software for breast cancer risk assessment and care management.

Sponsor Updates

Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “A New Approach to Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Screening, with Geneoscopy.”
Optimum Healthcare IT launches a podcast titled “Visionary Voices,” with its first episode airing on April 21, 2025.
CereCore publishes a new case study featuring Jupiter Medical Center, “EHR Agnostic IT Support Leads to Provider and Patient Satisfaction.”
The Röntgen Domus radiology center in Iceland implements Agfa HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging platform.
Altera Digital Health announces that Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has added its Clinical Health Psychology team to the trust’s Sunrise EPR from Altera.
New Black Book Research survey findings indicate that France’s EHR sector is undergoing significant transformation.
CHIME honors Censinet founder and CEO Ed Gaudet with its 2025 Baldrige Foundation Leadership Award.
The “Speaking Health Law” podcast features Clearwater Director of Consulting Services Hal Porter in an episode titled “How Have Cybersecurity Expectations for Health Tech Vendors Changed Over the Past 12 Months?”
Clinical Architecture joins the CommonWell Health Alliance Marketplace.
WEDI’s “The Collective Voice of Health IT” podcast features CliniComp SVP of Client Services Sandra Johnson in an episode titled “Clean Data, AI, and Interoperability to Eliminate ‘Pajama Time.’”
Divurgent publishes a new success story titled “Concierge Scheduling of Physician EHR Personalization.”

Blog Posts

High-Risk Medical Coding: Debridement Coding, Documentation Challenges, and Insights (AGS Health)
How Rules-Based Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is Reshaping Pharmacy Surveillance (Inovalon)
5 Ways to Break Down Silos and Deliver Whole-Person Care (Netsmart)
The journey ahead: Altera’s dedication to empowering patients with innovative solutions (Altera Digital Health)
5 forces disrupting healthcare performance today — and how to navigate them (Arcadia)
Exploring the Impact of Automated Patient Messaging on Medication Adherence and Clinical Trials (Artera)
Key Takeaways from Health Care Value Week: The Future of ACOs & Specialty Value-Based Care (Conduce Health)
The State of Telehealth in 2025 (Dimensional Insight)
Healthcare Themes for 2025: The Realities of AI, Smarter Medication Management, and the Changing Regulatory Landscape (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 4/7/25

April 6, 2025 News 3 Comments

Top News

Hinge Health is reportedly considering postponing its much-anticipated IPO due to stock market volatility.

The company filed IPO plans last month. Its most recent funding round in October 2021 valued the company at $6 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Respondents see little patient benefit to cloud migration. Some might argue that it’s not intended to impact patients directly, but others could reasonably ask, then what’s the point?

New poll to your right or here: What most limits your long-term career satisfaction in health system IT?

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Rite Aid is reportedly considering another bankruptcy filing less than a year after the drugstore chain exited Chapter 11, retreating from markets where it trails Walgreens and CVS to focus on regions where it’s the second-largest player.

Sales

Good Shepherd Health System chooses Mednition’s Kate AI.

People

Door County Medical Center promotes Erick Schrier, MBA from CIO / compliance officer to chief administrative officer.

Government and Politics

The federal government files a False Claims Act complaint against Vohra Wound Physicians, alleging that it built an EHR system that automatically billed routine wound care as surgical debridement regardless of clinical justification. The company is also accused of setting revenue-driven debridement quotas and hiring inexperienced physicians who were misled during training about Medicare billing rules.

Hospital price transparency data remains mostly inaccessible and unhelpful to consumers due to complexity and inconsistent reporting, a KFF Health News report concludes. The White House plans to step up enforcement of a mostly ignored executive order from six years ago even though consumers haven’t found the cost data to be immediately useful – since it doesn’t reflect their actual out-of-pocket costs – and could encourage hospitals to raise prices if they learn that competitors charge more.

Other

Penn Medicine News profiles SVP of Data and Technology Solutions Mitchell Schnall, MD, PhD.

Sponsor Updates

Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Healthcare Sector Update & Outlook, with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Jonathan Palmer.”
Ellkay offers a new success story featuring WakeMed Health.
Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Mark Mabus, MD.
Nym names Tal Shmuel junior backend engineer, Rashad Kanaaneh and Mark Kapilyan software engineers, Idan Bressler NLP research engineer, and Roee Mey-Tal and Hadar Dikstein medical data analysts.
Praia Health celebrates its first anniversary.
The AONL Foundation for Nursing Research and Education recognizes Symplr as its 2025 Friend of the Year Award honoree.
Tegria will present at the IPMI Healthcare Finance Institute April 7 in Orlando.
Wolters Kluwer Health adds conversational AI to vrClinicals for Nursing.

Blog Posts

The Nurse Scheduling Dilemma: Why Open Shifts Stay Open (And What We Can Do About It) (Inovalon)
A Smarter Path to Care: How Outreach Unified Telehealth, AI and Analytics to Improve Outcomes (Netsmart)
The question every health system leader should be asking when it comes to cybersecurity (Nordic)
How IT Service Management Drives Healthcare’s Digital Transformation (Optimum Healthcare IT)
ICYMI: Heard at HIMSS25 (Surescripts)
Implementing AI in healthcare RCM: How 1 organization built a structure for success (Waystar)
Five ways long-term care administrators can foster healthy stress management (WellSky)

Contacts

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

News 4/4/25

April 3, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

Leaders from the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs and Appropriations Committees ask the VA to submit an updated schedule and cost estimate for its Oracle Health EHR Modernization program. by September 30, 2025.

The group’s letter notes that “compliance with these laws, directives, and GAO recommendations is a critical step to ensuring EHRM’s success and accountability.”

Reader Comments

From HS CIO: “Re: Oracle breaches. Our Oracle Health rep said there was a call Monday evening where it was stated that the breach impacted legacy databases that were involved with migrations (I’m guessing Epic or the OCI instance of the EHR). On the cloud breach, the rep said that the message they were given is that no databases were breached, which seems to leave the door open. Wondering if you’ve heard anything similar from Oracle Health customers?” I invite those on the front lines to let me know what’s going on. Oracle has defended its claim that Oracle Cloud wasn’t breached because the incident apparently involved an older platform called Oracle Cloud Classic, although that is also an Oracle-managed cloud service. Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit that seeks class action status was filed against Oracle on Monday that involved both the cloud and Oracle Health breaches, accusing the company of violating Texas breach notification laws by not informing the alleged victims of the breach within the required 60 days.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Business Insider profiles the 29-year-old executives who are leading Palantir’s healthcare business, neither of whom has prior healthcare experience.

People

PeaceHealth hires Julie Eastman, MBA (UCI Health) as SVP/CIO.

Healthcare IT Leaders hires Paul Cannon (5plus2) as CTO.

Trimedx hires Neil de Crescenzo, MBA (Optum Insight) as CEO.

Apree Health, which was formed in the 2022 merger of Castlight Health and Vera Whole Health, promotes Jonathan Porter to CEO and restores the Castlight and Vera brands.

Advocate Health promotes Andy Crowder to SVP/chief digital officer.

Announcements and Implementations

A Stoltenberg Consulting survey of healthcare CIO members of CHIME finds:

The top priorities for 2025 are improving clinical workflows, improving the patient experience, and optimizing EHRs.
The #1 investment area is cybersecurity, privacy, and risk management.
Getting the most out of existing technology reached an all-time high of 62% of votes.
Clinician burnout rates are continuing their steady drop.
The top IT support frustration involves lack of training.
The biggest challenges are staff shortages, inadequate budgets, and EHR optimization.
More than half are exploring or using AI tools in areas such as revenue cycle management, clinical documentation improvement, and predictive analytics.
Health systems will continue to use hybrid or fully remote IT staffing.
IT budgets are flat or declining in 61% of respondent organizations.

Privacy and Security

The Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council Cybersecurity Working Group urges the White House to launch a one-year consultative process with healthcare leaders instead of proceeding with the planned HIPAA Security Rule update.

Other

A class action lawsuit accuses a University of Maryland Medical Center pharmacist of installing webcam-activating software on at least 400 hospital computers over a 10-year period to spy on young female doctors and residents as they undressed or pumped breast milk. The six plaintiffs also allege that he installed keystroke logging software to steal their passwords, then accessed their home computers to watch them via webcam and to steal information from their cloud accounts. They are suing the hospital, who has fired the pharmacist, for negligence.

Sponsor Updates

Medicomp Systems releases a new “Tell Me Where IT Hurts” podcast titled “Live From HIMSS25 in Fabulous Las Vegas!”
AGS Health CEO Patrice Wolfe joins Verisma’s board.
CereCore publishes a new case study titled “Virtual CISOs Bring New Hope to Orgs Without Security Officials.”
A new analysis from Black Book Research identifies top global growth opportunities for OpenEHR adoption in 2025.
Symplr will accept nominations for its new Karlene Kerfoot Nursing Leadership in Technology Education Grant, named in honor of its late CNO, beginning June 1.
Clearwater announces the publication of its “Cyber Risk Benchmark Trend Report for Healthcare Vulnerability Management.”
WellSky announces CarePort Care Transitions Dashboard Suite.
The “Vanguards of Health Care” podcast features Capital Rx in an episode titled “How Capital Rx is Fixing America’s Broken Drug Pricing.”
Inovalon announces that its Safety Management solution is now available on the PointClickCare Marketplace.
Redox joins the CommonWell Health Alliance.
Ellkay will incorporate Dymo’s labeling solutions into its LKOrbit platform.
First Databank names Kelly Marino regional sales manager, and Thomas Pugh and Joseph Kuruvila software engineers.
FinThrive will present at the IPMI Healthcare Financial Institute April 7 in Orlando.
Infinx offers a new case study titled “New York Hospital Solves Prior Authorization & Scheduling Overflow With Tech-Enabled Patient Access Solution.”
WEDI’s “The Collective Voice of Health IT Podcast” features Linus Health Chief Strategy Officer John Showalter, MD.

Blog Posts

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Bad Data – and Other HIMSS and ViVE Reflections (Medicomp Systems)
A Guide to EHR Activation Readiness Assessments (CTG)
MIPS Cost scores are coming — what to know for 2024 and prepping for 2025 (Healthmonix)
Capital Rx 2025 Partner Summit Highlights: The Future of Claim Administration & Benefit Management (Capital Rx)
Sites of care delivery shift from traditional hospital settings to alternative settings (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Meeting the Mandates: Powering California HRSN Service Delivery (Findhelp)
Don’t Let Self-Scheduling Practices Result in “Selfish Scheduling” (Impact Advisors)
6 technologies your medical practice needs now to weather financial uncertainty (Inbox Health)
What If Your Revenue Cycle Felt Like a Continuous Stream? (Inovalon)
Choosing the right EHR: Keys to long-term sustainability (Meditech)
Leveraging AI at MRO (MRO)
Letter from our CEO: Why our partnership with Goldman Sachs matters (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 4/2/25

April 1, 2025 News 1 Comment

Top News

The VA names nine facilities that will go live on the department’s Oracle Health-based EHR next year.

Medical centers and associated clinics in Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio will join four locations in Michigan as part of the VA’s accelerated deployment plan.

The VA expects to complete full implementation at all VA facilities nationwide as early as 2031.

Reader Comments

From Tressa: “Re: Oracle. It seems strange for the cloud and the legacy databases to be compromised at the same time. Also, I hadn’t heard if our data was affected and texted our CMIO with the information you posted. He contacted our Cerner account executive, who claimed to know nothing about it. It seems bizarre for the account execs to not be made aware of something that has been publicly reported on.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual care company AvaSure acquires Nurse Disrupted, which offers virtual nursing services for hospital and home-based care. Nurse Disrupted founder and CEO Bre Loughlin, MS, RN will join AvaSure as executive director of virtual care innovation.

Well Health Technologies will take control of Healwell AI as Healwell acquires New Zealand’s Orion Health. Well Health, which invested in Toronto-based Healwell and bought its clinical assets in 2023, saw its shares drop 30% Monday after it disclosed a US federal investigation into billing practices at its subsidiary Circle Medical Technologies that will delay its fiscal year reporting. WELL.TO shares rose 19% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Automated chart review startup Layer Health raises $21 million in a Series A funding round.

ATA Action, the advocacy group of the American Telemedicine Association, acquires the Digital Therapeutics Alliance and creates Advancing Digital Health Coalition.

Sales

Ballad Health (TN) selects specialty pharmacy analytics software from Loopback Analytics.
Providence Swedish (WA) implements remote patient monitoring software and services from Starlight Health as part of a new post-discharge pilot program at its First Hill hospital.
Columbus Public Health will implement Epic through an arrangement with Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

People

ReferWell names Kevin Healy (Chicago Pacific Founders) CEO.

Dale Sanders joins Unite Us as chief product and technology officer.

Hippocratic AI names Hollie Vugrinovich (Notable) chief growth officer and Brij Aswani, MBA (MD Clarity) VP of sales.

California health data network Manifest Medex hires three executive directors: Eva Williams, PhD (Centene), Southern Inland region; Ednann Naz, MD, MPH, MBA (ProNexus Advisory), Central and Northern region; and Erin Henke (Engaging Solutions), Bay region.

Risant Health hires Jessica Bartell, MD, MS, MBA (UnitedHealthcare) as CMIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children opens a staffed virtual urgent care kiosk in a shopping mall to ease ED wait times. Families can connect with the ED team, print documents, or be referred to a nearby hospital. The site, which is open daily, includes a private room for virtual consults and live interpreter access. It targets low-income areas to address gaps in technology and privacy.

Vaco Holdings, whose brands include MorganFranklin Consulting, Pivot Point Consulting, Focus Search Partners, and Built, renames itself Highspring, with the talent solutions platform taking the name Vaco by Highspring. The company has 10,000 employees who work from 45 global offices and seven delivery centers.

Government and Politics

A federal judge in Florida sentences Colton Neal to two and a half years in prison for stealing a physician’s professional and digital health credentials that he used to issue 144 controlled substances prescriptions. He advertised on the dark web, used an EHR and telehealth service to issue the prescriptions, and collected payments via cryptocurrency.

Other

Epic’s April 1 announcements include an Epic Aerospace rocket launch, a telehealth bloopers TV series titled “America’s Funniest Video Visits”, a short-form video function for clinician notes called TikDoc, and a MyChart enhancement for lung training and hearing assessment named Care-oke.

Sponsor Updates

AGS Health will exhibit at Healthcon 2025 April 6-9 in Orlando.
Black Book Research survey-takers rank InteliChart as the top end-to-end patient engagement solution vendor.
Healthmonix will exhibit at the NAACOS Spring 2025 Conference April 22-24 in Baltimore.
CereCore releases a new podcast episode titled “CNO Day in the Life: Leading through Change.”
Barwon Health in Australia will implement Agfa HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging Platform.
The “HealthTech with Purpose” podcast features Arrive Health COO Christie Callahan.
Capital Rx will exhibit at the AMCP Annual Meeting through April 3 in Houston.
Censinet will sponsor the 2025 Health-ISAC Spring Americas Summit May 19-23 in Naples, FL.
Clinical Architecture partners with Velox Health Metadata to help health plans navigate clinical data management.
The “Health Innovation Matters” podcast features DrFirst CMO Colin Banas, MD, MHA.

Blog Posts

Harnessing AI in Healthcare to Simplify Evidence Analysis (Symplr)
Improving care management data analytics for whole-person health (Wolters Kluwer Health)
The challenge of disparate systems in healthcare, and a promising solution (Altera Digital Health)
Potential Oracle Cloud Breach (Clearwater)
5 Keys to Epic EHR Activation Success: A Practical Guide (CTG)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 3/31/25

March 30, 2025 News 4 Comments

Top News

A hacker has breached Oracle Health systems and stolen patient data with the intention of extorting providers, according to a customer communication from Oracle. The FBI is investigating.

Oracle says the intruder used a customer’s stolen credentials to access legacy Cerner servers that hadn’t yet been moved to Oracle’s cloud. The company didn’t say how one user’s credentials could have been used to access the information of other clients.

Oracle said it became aware of the breach on February 20, 2025. Customers learned of the breach only when they received notification from Oracle’s external law firm. Oracle reportedly told those hospitals that they, rather than Oracle, are responsible for determining whether the stolen data violates HIPAA, and if so, for notifying affected patients.

In related news, a hacker claims to have breached Oracle Cloud servers and is offering the login credentials of 6 million users for sale. Oracle denies the claims of the threat actor, who provided a sample of the stolen data that customers verified as belonging to them.

Reader Comments

From Redzenskyca: “Re: Baptist Health South Florida. Moving away from Cerner to Epic.” Unverified. Nothing new so far in job postings or UserWeb accounts.

From Jimmy the Greek: “Re: comments. I’ve commented on Dr. Jayne’s Curbside twice now, but the comments don’t appear. What gives?” I found your comments. They were sent to suspected spam because they included several links. I’ve activated them.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

About one-fourth of poll respondents say that their employer’s support for work-life balance has declined over the past two years. Two poll commenters say that theirs improved because they changed jobs for that reason.

New poll to your right or here: Which initiative is burning the most time and money while delivering little improvement to patients?

There’s little health tech news happening, so let’s give you some free time after a brief musical mention. Listening: Postmodern Jukebox, a “rotating musical collective” that reimagines pop hits into retro-style covers that are weirdly compelling. Examples: “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love” as a 1960s girls group or “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” as Sam Cooke might have done it. In that same vein of interesting weirdness is Flaming Lips, a trippy, psychedelic musical art project that I regret not seeing when they played near me a while back.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Announcements and Implementations

Premier Health (OH) will end its transcription services since most providers have shifted to Dragon speech recognition and built-in Epic tools.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research publishes the “2025 Black Book of Patient Engagement and Healthcare Consumer Communications Technology.”
The Alliance for Health Information Operations and Standards re-elects HealthMark Group CEO Bart Howe president and elects MRO CFO Nate Eastman treasurer.
PerfectServe publishes “How to Reduce Missed Calls with an Effective Answering Service” featuring Women’s Health Associates (TX).
Praia Health achieves SOC 2 Type 2 certification.
RLDatix supports the ACHE Congress as a premier corporate partner.
WellSky will present at the Minnesota Home Care Association Leadership Summit April 2 in Maple Grove.
Vyne Medical publishes a paper titled “From Costly Paper Processes to Streamlined Operations: How Healthcare Can Build a Better Future.”

Blog Posts

Five9 Wins 2025 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Award (Five9)
Top 5 ways for healthcare leaders to be successful right now! (Meditech)
EHR optimization for CMS TEAM: Overcoming challenges and driving success (Nordic)
The Revenue Cycle Leader’s Guide to Autonomous Medical Coding (Nym)
8 Keys to Effective ESM Deployment (Optimum Healthcare IT)
The Next Phase of Consumerization in Healthcare: Moving from Fragmentation to Orchestration (Praia Health)
Phone Calls for Member Engagement Work! Here’s Why (ReferWell)
HIMSS 2025 Highlights & Reflections (Symplr)
Tegria at HIMSS25: Key Takeaways, Expert Insights, and What’s Next (Tegria)
Top 6 trends in healthcare RCM: AI, ROI, data security + more (Waystar)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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News 3/28/25

March 27, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

HHS will eliminate 10,000 full-time positions and close half of its regional offices, with past and planned cuts expected to reduce its FTE count from 82,000 to 62,000.

The largest number of cuts will occur at FDA and CDC, which will lose 6,000 positions.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also announced plans to merge Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and other groups under the newly created Administration for a Healthy America. HHS will also merge the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to create the Office of Strategy.

HHS will also create a position of Assistant Secretary for Enforcement that will oversee the Departmental Appeals Board, the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals, and the Office for Civil Rights.

Reader Comments

From Cynical C-Suite: “Re: ASTP/ONC. Being gutted and maybe folded into CMS. Guess that makes it official that interoperability is now just a billing problem.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Solace, which connects Medicare patients with virtual support advocates, raises new funding at a $300 million valuation. The company pivoted from a cash-only model to serving Medicare beneficiaries last year, when the program began covering advocacy services. Advocates help with scheduling appointments, communicating with doctors, reviewing medical bills, managing insurance appeals, and researching treatment options. Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Gurewitz previously worked as a marketing VP for a kids book club company.

Investor Halle Tecco checks in on the 65 health tech-adjacent unicorns that were born during the 2020–2022 ZIRP frenzy. She predicts that companies have been forced to accept unlabeled or down rounds, have undertaken cost-cutting programs, and are trying to extend their runway to reach profitability.

89% are still operating.
Two-thirds haven’t raised additional funding.
One went public (SomaLogic), and another plans to (Hinge Health).
Four were acquired or merged (CareBridge, Truepill, MindMaze, ClassPass).
Two shut down (Forward, Olive AI).

Taxo, which offers a data extraction and workflow automation engine for healthcare administration, raises $5 million in seed funding.

Several former leaders of Glassdoor launch Marit Health, a salary transparency website for doctors and advanced practice providers. It offers anonymous, verified data on salaries, bonuses, benefits, and shifts. Investors in its $3.2 million seed funding round include the founders of several health tech companies.

People

Mount Sinai Health System promotes Robbie Freeman, DNP, MS to chief digital transformation officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre in Ontario, Canada integrates four local hospices into its Meditech Expanse EHR.

Akido Labs will provide fast, clinician-supervised medical care to New York ride-share drivers using its ScopeAI diagnostic and treatment tool. In addition to its AI technology, the company operates a network of primary care and specialty care providers in California and Rhode Island.

Truveta adds administrative data to its EHR-sourced database, including billing details, provider resource allocation, and patient movement information.

Penn Medicine’s elimination of 300 positions includes six employees of Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, which includes an accelerator program and innovation lab. The center’s website lists eight employees.

Government and Politics

Politico reports that potential candidates to lead ASTP/ONC include Ryan Howells, MA (Leavitt Partners, The CARIN Alliance) and former ONC senior advisor Thomas Keane, MD, MBA. It also says that the White House is reportedly considering reducing the office’s staff from 180 to 30 and possibly merging it into CMS.

Privacy and Security

The UK government fines Advanced Computer Software Group $4 million after ransomware hackers breached its systems that lacked multifactor authentication.

Sponsor Updates

CloudWave’s Managed Cloud Hosting solution again achieves the “Best Practice” rating following its completion of the Meditech Infrastructure and Supporting IT Process Assessment.
Black Book Research probes the fate of healthcare technology in the NHS based on insights from Digital Health Rewired 2025.
The Aga Khan University profiles its work with Meditech to roll out an EHR across Kenya.
Five9 announces that Five9 AI Agents has been named a winner for Innovative AI Products in the 2025 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards, presented by the Business Intelligence Group.
Inovalon will exhibit at AMCP Annual March 31-April 3 in Houston.
Linus Health will present at AD/PD April 1-5 in Vienna, Austria.
Mednition will exhibit at AONL 2025 March 31-April 1 in Boston.

Blog Posts

Celebrating Excellence: RLDatix Awards Outstanding Achievements in Patient Safety and Innovation (RLDatix)
Technology That Works for Caregivers, Not Against Them (Symplr)
How healthcare practices can empower care partners to improve cognitive outcomes (Linus Health)
New Executive Order Should Prioritize Drug Price Transparency (First Databank)
Findhelp’s Integrations into Epic: Support Patient Care and Drive Health Outcomes (Findhelp)
HFMA RCC 2025 Key Takeaways (FinThrive)
Community Connect: Custom Epic Implementation with Strategic Leadership Support (Health Data Movers)
Bridging the Gap: UKG & Workday Integration in Healthcare (Healthcare IT Leaders)
Securing a competitive edge in value-based care with AI: Key insights from industry leaders (Navina)

Contacts

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

News 3/26/25

March 25, 2025 News Comments Off

Top News

California-based consumer genetic testing company 23andMe files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Co-founder Anne Wojcicki has stepped down as CEO, but remains on the board and plans to bid independently to buy the company.

Once valued at $6 billion, 23andMe’s market cap has plunged to $20 million.

California’s attorney general has issued a consumer alert reminding customers that they can delete their genetic data, prompting heavy traffic that repeatedly crashed the company’s website.

Reader Comments

From Bill Bonkers: “Re: health tech. When will innovation focus on care instead of coding?” When care quality drives more profit than tweaking bills.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor ReferWell. ReferWell is a digital healthcare company that is focused on helping health plans and provider organizations manage value by helping more people get on, and stay on, their healthcare journey. With a mission to transform access to care and improve patient engagement, the company’s innovative Care Access Scheduling platform and unique Care Access programs remove administrative burdens from health plans, providers, and patients to effortlessly connect patients with care to improve their experience and health outcomes. ReferWell, which is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, has grown to support plans and providers that are responsible for more than 10 million covered lives across the US. Thanks to ReferWell for supporting HIStalk.

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

AI clinical insights company Navina raises $55 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $100 million.

The Financial Times reports that majority-stake owners Temasek and Warburg Pincus are considering selling their stakes in supply chain management technology vendor Global Healthcare Exchange at a $5 billion valuation. Singapore-based Temasek acquired its stake in the company from Thoma Bravo in 2017, while Warburg Pincus became an investor in GHX in 2021.

RCM vendor VisiQuate acquires Rotera, which offers a digital assistant platform.

Sales

University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics will expand its use of Abridge’s ambient documentation product to 300 more providers.

People

David Clickner (Beacon Healthcare Systems) joins Itiliti Health as SVP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

Peterson Health Technology Institute looks at early adopters of ambient documentation systems:

Solutions are offered by 60 companies, the fastest adoption of any recent healthcare technology in the absence of a regulatory requirement.
Health systems are mostly using the technology in primary care settings.
The systems deliver the most benefit to clinicians who often fall behind in documentation or spend more time talking to patients.
Early adopters report reduced clinician burnout, enhanced productivity, and improved patient experiences.
PHTI suggests that health system leaders define the outcomes that they seek and then measure the performance and financial impacts of ambient documentation systems against those goals.

Centralus Health (NY) hospitals Cayuga Health and Arnot Health go live on Epic.

The State of Ohio adds Bamboo Health’s overdose history alert tool to its Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (FL) implements Epic. This LinkedIn clip offers a peek into its Super Mario-themed go live activities.

Other

The local paper reports on St. Luke’s University Health Network’s use of Engnite CardioCare, which analyzes EHR and ECG data to help diagnose heart conditions. Egnite President and CEO Joel Portice has health tech executive experience with Intermedix and Enclarity.

The US falls to #24 in the World Happiness Report 2025, continuing a slide that started in 2016 that has been led by declining social trust and growing inequality. The rankings are based on six factors:

GDP per capita.
Healthy life expectancy.
Social support.
Freedom to make life choices.
Generosity, as measured by charitable acts.
Perceptions of corruption.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research identifies market leaders in digital pathology.
Philips Capsule will exhibit at the ANIA Annual Conference March 27-29 in New Orleans.
Clinical Architecture publishes a new case study titled “Advance Real-time Insights with Data Quality Automation.”
CloudWave will exhibit at the MUSE New England Community Peer Group event March 28 in Saratoga Springs, NY.
CTG names Christina Kochan, RN (Oula) healthcare solution architect.

Blog Posts

Navigating the Medical Coding Automation Journey: Roadmap to Maturity (AGS Health)
The Future of Patient Safety: Innovation, Transparency and Collaboration (RLDatix)
Tackling Healthcare’s Most Pressing Supply Chain Challenges (Symplr)
A former health system leader shares her perspective on successfully navigating hospital mergers (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Understanding the Medical Billing Complexity of Prolonged Services (AdvancedMD)
The journey ahead: Altera’s commitment to enabling clinicians with the right tool (Altera Digital Health)
Four major hurdles to healthcare AI adoption (and how to overcome them) (Arcadia)
Are You Ready for Quantum Day in Healthcare? (Clearwater)

Contacts

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

> OpenAI is reportedly considering entering the consumer health market, such as creating a personal health assistant or health data…

... "I’m curious to hear from anyone who made up an interesting Epic job title." Chair Emeritus, the Tokay School…

The rolling adoption and then abandonment of car software by car manufacturers, eventually led to a different tech idea. They…

Camel Camel Camel is a similar nice site that gives you price history for Amazon and third parties, and lets…

Great insight from Dr. Bonis. I appreciated the candor he expressed on the market.

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