News 2/12/25

Top News

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

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

I found this Symplr explainer video on YouTube.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

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

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Sales

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

People

LeanTaaS promotes Tim Vasil, MS, MBA to CTO.

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

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

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

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

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
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Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 2/10/25

Top News

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

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

Reader Comments

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

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

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed. 

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

Sales

• Tanner Health will implement Abridge’s ambient documentation.

People

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

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

Government and Politics

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

News 2/7/25

Top News

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

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed. 

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

People

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

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

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

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

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

Access TeleCare hires Kris Kistler, MS as CISO.

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government and Politics

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

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

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

Other

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

HIStalk Sponsors Named Best in KLAS

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

Contacts

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

News 2/5/25

Top News

Affineon Health, which offers AI-powered physician inbox management software, raises $5 million in seed funding.

Reader Comments

From Victor Spoils: “Re: Transcarent. Have they pulled the plug on 98point6?” Allegheny College reports that the text-based virtual care technology vendor informed them it ceased operations as of January 1. The company transitioned to a software-only model in 2023 after selling its virtual care platform and affiliated provider group to Transcarent for $100 million. Former employees stated in April 2024 that most staff had been laid off. While the company’s website remains active and its app is still available on the App Store, the app has not been updated since June 2024.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Praia Health. Praia Health is the first consumer experience orchestration platform for healthcare, revolutionizing the way health systems engage and retain patients. Incubated at Providence, Praia Health has been instrumental in transforming how consumers interact with a health system’s digital channels, spanning web, mobile, a chat-bot solution, and the patient portal. Praia orchestrates digital interactions and disconnected point solutions, creating a cohesive experience for consumers spanning both clinical and nonclinical interactions that influence health outcomes. These experiences can be accessed through a single set of account credentials tied to an authenticated user’s personalized profile. Following in the footsteps of other consumer-driven industries, Praia unlocks digital transformation for health systems by managing the heavy lifting and custom integrations required for a frictionless consumer experience. Praia provides health systems with a platform to connect disparate digital programs, services, and tools, allowing them to deliver a more personalized experience, increase conversion rates, and drive system loyalty. The company’s founder and CEO is industry long-timer Justin Dearborn. Thanks to Praia Health for supporting HIStalk.

Thanks to these companies that recently supported HIStalk. Click a logo for more information and contact Lorre to join them.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed. 

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare AI company Suki announces $3 million in funding from Zoom Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to $168 million. Zoom’s video communications business announced in November that it would add Suki’s ambient clinical documentation capabilities to its healthcare offering for virtual and in-person visits.

The new owners of Massachusetts hospitals that were previously owned by the now-bankrupt Steward Health Care claim that Steward is demanding millions more than the agreed-upon amount for transitional medical record and billing services.

Stat reports that digital physical therapy company Sword Health will retool itself as an AI care company that will address all labor-intensive care delivery models. 

Sales

• BayCare (FL) selects Visage Imaging’s Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform.
• Mercy will implement Aidoc’s AiOS technology for diagnostic imaging in a phased rollout at facilities in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
• St. Joseph’s Medical Center’s multispecialty physician practice (NY) will adopt Retrieve Medical’s clinical documentation software.
• UNC Health selects Abridge’s AI-powered ambient speech-recognition and documentation technology.
• UK HealthCare (KY) will implement Epic at King’s Daughters Medical Center and St. Claire Regional Medical Center in the summer of 2026.
• Gunnison Valley Health (CO) will roll out Epic this May via UC Health and the Epic Community Connect program.

People

CloudWave promotes Mike Donahue to COO.

Steve Motil (Optum) joins Valley Health (VA) as chief data and analytics officer.

Westchester Medical Center Health Network (NY) names Leo Bodden, MBA (NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital) SVP/CIO.

Sanjeev Kumar, PhD (Gainwell Technologies) joins NextGen Healthcare as chief data and analytics officer.

Cedars-Sinai Health System (CA) promotes Shaun Miller, MD, MBA to chief health informatics officer and Yaron Elad, MD to CMIO, and names Lisa Stephenson, RN (Houston Methodist) CNIO.

Industry long-timer Mitch Mitchell (Amwell) joins Hippocratic AI as chief growth officer, government sector.

Announcements and Implementations

A new KLAS report on ambient documentation finds that adoption is growing rapidly as organizations address clinician burden and burnout. Respondents emphasize that physicians should not be expected to use their time savings to see more patients. Abridge leads in overall performance, with customers valuing its outcomes, cost effectiveness, multilingual support, and evidence linking. Microsoft’s DAX Copilot is frequently chosen by providers with existing Nuance relationships, though some say that it is more expensive than competing options.

Other

In Canada, doctors in British Columbia call on the provincial government to end the requirement that employees get a doctor’s sick note to return to work. They say it’s a waste of time, especially since the EHRs of individual practices don’t communicate with each other.

California farm workers are using MiSalud, an app-based, bilingual telehealth service that connects them to doctors in Mexico. Providers who aren’t licensed in the US can’t prescribe, but can perform health coaching.

Biomedical researcher Derya Unutmaz, MD uses ChatGPT’s new Deep Research tool to review two cancer cases. He reports, “Both reports were simply impeccable, like something only a specialist MD could write. There’s a reason I said this is a game-changer.” He has previously said that AI will be a standard, required tool in medical practice within two years, and electing not to use it might be considered malpractice.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD adds Mental Health Technologies to its integration partner marketplace.
• Vyne Medical releases a new podcast, “Healthcare AI Automation by Vyne Medical Improves Accuracy and Trust.”
• Arcadia ranks first in healthcare data governance and analytics, according to 2025 Black Book client ratings.
• Agfa HealthCare announces that it has been named a Leader in IDC MarketScape’s US Enterprise Medical Imaging 2024-2025 Vendor Assessment.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast, “ERISA Insights: Challenges & Compliance in Modern Healthcare, with Nick Welle.”
• Consensus Cloud Solutions offers a new whitepaper, “3 Reasons Healthcare Systems Should Invest in AI Technology Now.”

Blog Posts

• Advancing Addiction Treatment: 6 Ways Technology is the Catalyst (Netsmart)
• Here’s Our Comprehensive Guide on How to Get Into Travel Nursing (SnapCare)
• The dangers of disparate systems (Altera Digital Health)
• Four Hidden Pitfalls of In-House Provider Portals (Availity)
• Ensuring successful EHR implementations: A holistic approach to people, data, and technology (Cardamom Health)
• CloudWave’s Predictions for Healthcare IT in 2025 Part 5: A Resurgence of the Public Cloud in Healthcare (CloudWave)
• Amazon Lex: A Lifeline for Healthcare Organizations in the Post-Nuance Era (CTG)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Monday Morning Update 2/3/25

Top News

Veradigm’s strategic review fails to attract acquisition bids from the five organizations that had expressed interest, reportedly among them McKesson and Oracle. The company says it will refocus on making operational improvements and working to get its shares re-listed.

The company says it will provide an updated FY2023 and preliminary 2024 report in March. Tom Langan remains interim CEO after eight months.

Veradigm also announced that board member Beth Altman, who served as chair of its audit committee, has resigned due to health reasons.

MDRX shares dropped 32% on the news, valuing the company at $588 million. They are down 54% from their 52-week high.

Reader Comments

From Color Me Skeptical: “Re: Oracle Health. I’m skeptical of its claims about its next-generation EHR, since Cerner under Oracle has over-promised and under-delivered. I’m also befuddled by the promotion by company spokespeople about the EHR being voice driven. Is anyone really asking for that?” David Feinberg says that Oracle will rebuild the EHR with clinicians and patients in mind, integrating it with the company’s other systems, such as ERP and human capital management. Oracle emphasizes voice navigation, which might draw interest if it doesn’t slow clinicians down. He claims that the new EHR is now generally available, which I hadn’t heard before (anybody know the live sites?) He agrees that Cerner had a reputation for slow-motion fumbling but insists that Oracle ownership has fixed everything.

We have a customer base that has been patient with us as we haven’t really executed. In saying “we,” I’m really talking about Cerner, which did not execute fast enough. We became Oracle. I think we have literally leapfrogged the competition. We have executed and hit on every timeline. Now it’s 2025, it is time for us to deliver and delight our customer base.

From Aye I: “Re: AI training. As an AI dabbler, what training or certification do you recommend?” None. The technology and approach changes every five minutes, so whatever you learn today will be worthless tomorrow. Just get your hands dirty. The value of most certifications and online courses accrues to the seller, not the buyer.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Nearly all respondents from last week’s poll have had recent experience with a chain drugstore, of whom two-thirds report an OK or better experience.

New poll to your right or here: What type of visit would you choose for a sore throat? Bonus points for adding a post-vote comment that explains your choice. I’m probably an outlier since I’ve never had a virtual visit, a trip to urgent care, or an ED visit except a long time ago when I had an out-of-the-blue episode of laryngospasm, a terrifying but harmless choking-like moment when your throat decides to rage quit breathing (pro tip: relax, breathe slowly, make a sound such as humming, and don’t bother going to the ED because they can’t do anything).

DeepSeek can generate fun trivia quizzes, so I gave it the link to Vince Ciotti’s HIS-tory series.

Health system executives, technologists, and radiologists — Volpara Health will make a significant donation to Donors Choose for your response to this quick survey.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The latest Health IT Market Review from Healthcare Growth Partners reports a narrowing bid-ask spread in company acquisitions as buyers show greater risk tolerance. Investors are seeking portfolio liquidity, while sellers are offering higher-quality opportunities. Key takeaways:

• M&A valuations rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, with private equity buyouts hitting a record high.
• Distressed asset sales may not yield the apparent proceeds. Truepill, once valued at $1.6 billion with $250 million in annual revenue, sold for $525 million, but just $25 million was paid in cash. Upfront Healthcare’s $86 million acquisition by Health Catalyst fell short of its total raised funding.
• Take-private deals saw steep discounts from pandemic highs: R1 (-54%), CompuGroup (-74%), and Accolade (-89%).
• Early-stage fundraising is picking up, reflecting broader market confidence.
• AI investment accounted for 25% of total funding, with investor interest shifting almost entirely from clinical AI tools to workflow automation.
• Investors view AI as an operational enhancer for a company’s existing business rather than a primary investment focus.

People

Keith Dowling, MBA (Cleveland Clinic) joins Catholic Health as VP/CISO.

RxLogic hires Paige Zimmer, MHSA (First Databank)  as EVP of business development.

Andrea Kowalski, MBA (1upHealth) joins Datavant as SVP of product, provider solutions.

Announcements and Implementations

HIMSS conference owner Informa launches WHX Tech, a healthcare events brand that will hold its first conference later this year in Dubai with the involvement of HIMSS.

Government and Politics

The White House fires VA Inspector General Mike Missal, whose VA OIG report that highlighted patient harm that was linked to its Oracle Health rollout led to the project being temporarily halted.

FDA Digital Health Center of Excellence Director Troy Tazbaz, who guided the agency’s policy related to AI and software as a medical device, resigns.

Sponsor Updates

• SmarterDx staff assemble 250 patient comfort kits for UC Irvine.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces that six of its book publications have won Book of the Year awards from the American Journal of Nursing.
• Vyne Medical releases a new case study, “How a Tennessee Health System Leveraged Automation for Success.”
• CereCore releases a new podcast, “CIO Insights: How to Pursue Big Technology Opportunities and Satisfaction.”
• Black Book Research publishes a new digital book, “The 2025 Black Book of Global Healthcare IT.”
• Tegria will sponsor and exhibit at the AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference February 23-26 in San Antonio.

Blog Posts

• 5 Reasons Why AI is a Platform, Not Just a Solution (Netsmart)
• The case for bundled de-implementation: Could doing less deliver better patient care? (Nordic)
• 8 questions product leaders should ask when evaluating EMPI solutions (Rhapsody)
• The Role of Per Diem Nurses in Addressing Seasonal Patient Surges (SnapCare)
• Large Academic Medical Center Expands Adoption of Vyne Medical Solutions, Adding Cloud Fax Services (Vyne Medical)
• Unlocking Hidden Gems: Leveraging RCMTAM for Revenue Cycle Excellence (CereCore)
• Revolutionize Healthcare Payments with TrustCommerce: Meet Us at ViVE, HIMSS, and CORE 2025 (TrustCommerce)
• The cost-benefit of data quality and strategy in healthcare (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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News 1/31/25

Top News

Behavioral health technology company NeuroFlow acquires Quartet Health, which offers a free mental health provider search tool.

In a simultaneous transaction, Quartet sold its InnovaTel telepsychiatry staffing service to Iris Telehealth, a provider of telepsychiatry services for health systems and community clinics.

Quartet, which was founded in 2014, has raised $266 million, while the eight-year-old NeuroFlow has secured $58 million in funding.

Reader Comments

From You’re Soaking In It: “Re: OnMed. Auburn University’s Rural Health Initiative is helping to place OnMed CareStations in rural locations, with one local paper claiming that one in Chambers County, Alabama is ‘the nation’s most active location for healthcare services.’” OnMed gets great patient reviews there, but the newspaper article is unclear on its statement about volumes, noting just 100 consultations per month. Maybe that makes it the busiest OnMed location, which would be a solid number. Companies seem obsessed at the idea of a medical telephone booth, but its only real advantages over standard telehealth are: (a) it’s in a fixed location, though that means patients have to go there instead of connecting from anywhere; (b) it provides instant access using someone else’s internet; and (c) it offers diagnostic tools that aren’t available in patient homes. Early product literature said that the booths dispensed medications, but I don’t see that mentioned now. Summary: it seems like an innovative idea that has failed before (like the now-defunct Forward, which  blew through $500 million of investor cash before augering in). Attribute that to the usual challenges of massive upfront investment, securing locations, uncertain demand, staffing the units to keep them running and clean, and finding ROI without trying to sell memberships or services that patients are expected to pay for with their own money. It’s Redbox versus streaming — you know how that ended.

From Bifstek: “Re: HIMSS. They’re offering a $799 add-on VIP pass for the annual conference.” I also received the email about Priority Pass Upgrade, which is limited to 100 buyers. It includes daily breakfast and lunch, concierge service, access to a private lounge, and front-row keynote seating. Not worth it to me, but I’m sure some elbow-rubbers will flex their expense account. Meanwhile, Freeman’s site says that Bistro HIMSS is back —$5,000 gets a reserved 10-top table for the week, 60 lunch tickets, and two conference badges. I did it years ago and liked having tickets to offer hungry-looking visitors to our booth and to host a CMIO lunch there. Bistro HIMSS, just off the show floor, offered a decent buffet with healthy options, plus you could enjoy real food at real tables and chairs (any HIMSS attendee will tell you that real tables and chairs are the most coveted items in the convention center). It’s depressing to wait in line forever to buy wildly marked up boring food, find no available seats, and then give up and sit on the dirty convention center hallway floor. 

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I was wandering around my local vinyl record shop when I noticed in the bins the one and only 1969 record by Tallahassee-based psychedelic band After All. I did a deep dive into that bit of music ephemera here four years ago, so of course I had to bond with the record geek owner about it. I also tried to get him worked up that SNL left Neil Young’s amazing “Rockin’ in the Free World” out of the show’s Questlove-created musical history that I just watched on Netflix, although Rage Against the Machine was a good choice in the “angry” category.

Sponsored Events and Resources

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Khosla Ventures invests $8 million in UK-based startup C the Signs, which uses routinely collected EHR data to help primary care doctors detect 50 types of early-stage cancer. The company participated in the White House’s Cancer Moonshot accelerator last year and aims to enter the US market. Co-founder and CEO Dea Bakshi, MBBS, is a former NHS primary care physician.

Genetic testing company 23andMe says that it is running out of cash and will try to find a buyer for the second time. There’s not much left of the company that was once valued at $6 billion – its market cap is down to $90 million.

Digital ultrasound vendor Butterfly Network will issue a follow-on offering that it expects to yield $76 million. BFL shares jumped sharply on the news, valuing the company at $900 million. They are up over 300% in the past 12 months.

Kode Health, which operates a gig matching service for HIM coders and hospitals, raises $27 million in a Series B funding round. 

Axios reports that venture capital firm General Catalyst is seeking buyers for a stake in its holding company, which includes Summa Health owner HATCo. Petershill Partners sold most of its GC stake earlier this month for $726 million, 62% more than it paid in June 2024. GC is one of the most active investors in digital health.

Sales

• Englewood Health chooses Agfa HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging Cloud solution.
• Johns Hopkins Medicine will implement Caregility’s virtual care platform and inpatient telehealth devices to support its virtual nursing program.
• Lady of the Sea General Hospital (LA) chooses TruBridge for EHR/RCM.

People

Avery Ashby, MS (Accenture) joins Impact Advisors as managing director of its data and AI practice.

Qventus hires Toryn Slater (Redox) as AVP of western US.

Shawn Kearl (Zipari) joins Perspecta as SVP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

The new president of 25-bed Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center (CO) identifies the three systems that it is considering to replace TruBridge (CPSI), CorroHealth (T-System), and CompuGroup Medical (Aprima), listing these selection factors as important to an unaffiliated small facility:

• Epic is gaining market share and most doctors have trained at an Epic site, but few Critical Access Hospitals use it and some clinicians say it’s a complex system.
• Meditech use is growing among smaller hospital systems, allows the hospital to customize its implementation, offers a strong revenue cycle solution, and has lower implementation costs.
• Oracle Health is seeing growth in smaller hospitals and offers shared installations, although the CEO says that he has heard anecdotes about substandard reliability, support, and communication.

Abridge announces an ambient AI product for emergency departments that is integrated with Epic ASAP.

HIMSS and AMDIS will partner to offer educational events and awards. AMDIS signed a similar deal with CHIME maybe 10 years ago, but I don’t know if that’s still active, especially since HIMSS and CHIME have consciously uncoupled.

Government and Politics

The White House indefinitely cancels all upcoming meetings of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, which is an advisory group under ASTP-ONC.

Privacy and Security

The FDA warns that cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the Contec CMS800 patient monitor could allow unauthorized remote control and data theft. The device’s software also contains a backdoor that could let hackers compromise the connected network. FDA advises IT staff to unplug the monitor entirely if it’s being used for remote monitoring, or if not, to disconnect the ethernet cable and disable its wireless functions.

New York Blood Center Enterprises remains offline with no ETA following a ransomware attack Sunday. Donors are being turned away. The organization provides blood products to 400 hospitals in 17 states.

Other

A review finds that Cleveland-area non-profits paid 56 employees more than $1 million in 2023. Seven of the eight employers that did so are health systems.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research’s latest survey of behavioral healthcare IT end-users finds that Netsmart ranks highest for integrated ambulatory EHR, practice management, and RCM software.
• Impact Advisors names Avery Ashby (Accenture) managing director of its Data & AI practice.
• Findhelp and The LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin will host a live recording of American Compassion: The Safety Net Podcast February 12.
• Five9 announces the winners of its New Era of CX Awards 2024, including US Radiology Specialists for its leadership and innovation using the Five9 Intelligent CX Platform’s ecosystem of partners to up-level customer and employee experiences.
• Healthmonix announces that its Emergency and Acute Care Clinical Registry has been approved as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry by CMS for the 2025 reporting year.
• Healthcare IT Leaders promotes Katie Bacon and Charlie Evans to associate client executives.
• Meditech will present at the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association Annual Meeting January 30 in Boston.
• Navina publishes a new guide, “A fresh start: 10 essential risk adjustment tips for 2025.”

Blog Posts

• Reflecting on the 26th Annual HFMA Western Region Symposium (FinThrive)
• Going Old School in the New Year: Healthcare Phone Spoofing Scams (Fortified Health Security)
• January Recap: New Year, New Momentum at HDM (Health Data Movers)
• Accelerating Clinical Trial Recruitment: Why Speed Matters and How to Achieve It in Patient Recruitment (Inovalon)
• Navigating QPP Reporting in 2025: Finding the Best Path for Your ACO (MRO)

Contacts

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

News 1/29/25

Top News

AI-powered cancer drug discovery startup Manas AI launches with a $25 million seed funding round.

The co-founders are LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman and oncologist-author Siddhartha Mukherjee, DPhil, MD, who wrote Pulitzer non-fiction winner “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.”

Reader Comments

From Steve: “Re: impact of DC happenings on healthcare, Are you planning to cover it, or would you rather dodge the politics of it? I think your readers would be interested.” I will cover any significant health tech-related change in law, regulation, or standard that affects the industry once it has happened. Coverage of legislative sausage-making isn’t my long suit and is amply covered elsewhere.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Instant Access Webinar: “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

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

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Therapy-focused health IT vendor Raintree Systems acquires Yoomi Health, which specializes in digital tools and practice management software for physical therapy.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a potential take-private deal between Walgreens and private equity firm Sycamore Partners, which was first reported in early December, is no longer on the table. Shares of the retail pharmacy dropped on the news, further escalating the stock’s see-sawing as Walgreens investors react to a DoJ lawsuit and better-than-expected quarterly earnings. WBA shares have lost 52% in the past 12 months.

Delfina, which offers an AI-driven pregnancy care platform, raises $17 million in a Series A funding round. Founder and CEO Senan Ebrahim, MD, PhD previously founded and ran Hikma Health, which offers free and open source software for caring for refugee patients.

Equality AI CEO Maia Hightower, MD, MPH, MBA announces that the company, which focused on trustworthy AI in healthcare, has closed after four years. She says that AI standards adoption will be delayed now that the White House has cancelled a 2023 executive order that addressed trustworthy development. She previously held IT leadership roles at University of Iowa Health Care and University of Utah Health and was EVP/chief digital and transformation officer at UChicago Medicine through July 2023.

Sales

• Hartford HealthCare (CT) selects WellStack’s analytics and data integration capabilities.

People

Adam Kansler, JD (S&P Global) will become CEO of Inovalon upon the March 1 retirement of company founder and CEO Keith Dunleavy, MD.

HealtheConnections promotes Elizabeth Amato, MHA to president and CEO.

Linda Janiszewski (UCSF Medical Center) joins CTG as IT strategy and value solutions leader, healthcare.

Announcements and Implementations

The development team that is behind the Opal patient portal for Canada’s McGill University Health Centre shuts down the app due to funding shortfalls, leaving 7,000 patients without access. Opal was developed as a non-commercial alternative to MyChart, part of Quebec’s $2 billion Epic implementation. The seven-year-old app, which was built with a $7 million innovation grant, required $350,000 annually to operate. The hospital stated that Opal failed to meet its expectations as a stable clinical solution and declined to provide further funding.

Duke Health and UNC Health will build North Carolina Children’s, the state’s first standalone children’s hospital. The 500-bed facility, which is expected to cost $2 billion, will receive $320 million in state funding. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2027, with the hospital opening in the early 2030s and full campus completion by 2033.

Tampa General Hospital (FL) funds the rollout of OnMed’s “clinic in a box” – which offers real-time virtual visits – at a homeless shelter. The station includes diagnostic tools and thermal imaging cameras. I wrote this in October 2019 when TGH installed one of the units in its employee cafeteria:

Even odder: Tampa General Hospital opens an OnMed telemedicine consult and drug dispensing booth in its food court so that its employees — who are inside its walls — can seek medical care from clinicians who aren’t. Maybe this is a Halloween-appropriate “the call is coming from inside the house” type situation. It’s not really an admission that employees don’t have time to deal with their own hospital employer’s bureaucracy as patients – the hospital is in business with the vendor and this first booth is a pilot for a broader rollout. The hospital CEO says millennials won’t wait to see a doctor in person, which if you’re a doctor who actually wants to care for patients, is depressingly accurate. The oldest millennials are now in their late 30s, so it would be interesting to see how those who are doctors run their practices and patient encounters.

Other

The CEO of non-profit Peterson Health Technology Institute, which evaluates digital health technologies using evidence-based assessments, tells Politico why the organization is launching yet another AI task force that involves big health systems. CEO Carolyn Pearson says:

We are not working with the AI evangelists or the AI researchers. It’s a CFO saying: “When I spend X, Y, Z, how is productivity changing in my environment? Or if I’m not pushing productivity changes and I’m doing it for the provider’s well-being and to prevent turnover — how am I measuring that?” A lot of them want to roll out AI medical scribes because it’s good for providers and helps with the long-term sustainability of that job. But as the solutions are coming into their systems, they are very quickly spreading out into cycle management, staffing, prior authorization and a million other service lines these companies offer. If you’re a health system leader and not being very careful and thoughtful about what you are and are not adopting, you can find yourself with big solution costs very quickly.

UMass Memorial Health creates a Digital Hub to unify its patient flow, remote patient monitoring, and in-home care management services. The e-ICU, part of the health system’s RPM division, monitors 150 ICU beds across facilities, with staff members responsible for up to six patients each.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia develops the Clinical Outcomes Data Archive, incorporating EHR data and manually collected and clinically reviewed data, to improve early interventions, care plans, and pregnancy-related outcomes research within its fetal medicine department.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research publishes a new report, “Innovation for Equity: The Transformative Role of DEI in Healthcare IT Success.”
• AdvancedMD releases “CPT/HCPCS Codes Guide 2025,” a comprehensive resource for ambulatory care providers listing the latest medical billing code updates.
• AGS Health will exhibit at the HFMA Lone Star Winter Conference January 30-31 in Irving, TX.
• Ascom Americas welcomes new project manager Casandra Siefkes.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast, “Why Drug Prices & Modern Tech Matter in Hospice Care, Too, with Nick Opalich.”
• Clinical Architecture invites healthcare professionals to participate in its 2025 Healthcare Data Quality Survey.

Blog Posts

• Meaningful AI in Post-Acute: Elevating Care and Efficiency with Integrated AI (Netsmart)
• Proposed Changes to the HIPAA Security Rule (AdvancedMD)
• AGFA HealthCare at HIMSS 2025: Revolutionizing Enterprise Imaging with Innovation and Work-Life Balance (Agfa HealthCare)
• Six realities facing CIOs—and a complimentary report on navigating them (Altera Digital Health)
• A CIO’s Advice for Moving All-Digital Hospital to Epic EHR (CereCore)
• Ensuring successful EHR implementations: A holistic approach to people, data, and technology (Cardamom Health)
• OCR’s Proposed HIPAA Security Rule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Part 1: Overview, Key Takeaways and New Terms Defined (Clearwater)
• EHRs as Engines of Insight (CliniComp)
• CloudWave’s Predictions for Healthcare IT in 2025 Part 4: Broader Adoption of Targeted Use Cases for Healthcare AI (CloudWave)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 1/27/25

Top News

UnitedHealth Group increases its estimate of individuals impacted by a February 2024 ransomware attack on its Change Healthcare division from 100 million to 190 million, affecting nearly half of all Americans.

The company says that it has no evidence of the stolen data being misused, but is offering two years of free credit monitoring to those who are concerned about potential exposure.

UnitedHealth disclosed this month that the cyberattack has resulted in direct and indirect costs exceeding $3 billion.

UnitedHealth Group acquired Change Healthcare for $13 billion in October 2022 after overcoming a Department of Justice legal challenge. UHG CEO Andrew Witty told the Senate Finance Committee last May that Change Healthcare’s outdated technology, which UHG was in the process of updating, made the breach possible.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Last week’s poll yielded predictable results, but it got me thinking. The challenge with PE-owned healthcare providers is spotting them in the first place, assuming that you have an option to take your business elsewhere if that bothers you. These are often high-profit specialty medical practices and dental offices that were already for-profit, but were at least operated locally with less-aggressive financial motives. To private equity firms, healthcare is just another widget factory that can be squeezed harder to enrich investors. It’s no surprise, then, that even the doctors who benefited financially from PE acquisitions often don’t want to stay under their ownership. The result is a contentious middle ground, caught between the mission of healing and the relentless drive to maximize shareholder value. It’s naïve to design a healthcare system that prioritizes profit and then lament when individuals and corporations pursue it over doing the ill-defined “right thing.”

New poll to your right or here: What is your 12-month satisfaction with chain drugstores? I’ve been pretty happy with my occasional visits to Walgreens, though it’s more for their non-clinical services than anything else. Example: not only can you send FedEx and UPS packages from their stores, but you can also have your incoming packages shipped directly to them at no extra cost and then pick them up at your convenience. This is especially handy for shipments that require a signature or are at risk of porch piracy, such as wine or electronics. It’s free because getting you in the door tempts you to grab an impulse pack of smokes, a Justin Bieber singing toothbrush, or a COVID vaccination.

If you’ve sent email to an histalk.com email address lately and didn’t hear back, please resend. The webhost had to throttle back an overly aggressive spam filter yet again.

I tried the news-dominating, China-developed AI chatbot DeepSeek. For now, I’m using it more than my paid ChatGPT account because it gives thoughtful answers quickly. It’s free and open source, was built in two months, cost only $5 million to train, and runs on cheaper chips, causing Silicon Valley to wet themselves and attempt to reverse engineer DeepSeek. I asked the LLM which health tech companies are at risk for 2025 and received thoughtful, detailed answers that it broke out into public versus private companies.

Five Minutes = Grateful Classroom

Health system executives, technologists, and radiologists — Volpara Health will make a significant donation to Donors Choose for your response to this quick survey. I also have access to matching funds that will probably triple their donation, and you’ll be helping a cancer technology company understand how providers are approaching AI. Disclosure: shameless grifting abounds, but there’s no personal gain here — Volpara isn’t giving me anything, nor are they an HIStalk sponsor, and Donors Choose is 99% rated for financial efficiency, modestly-paid leadership, and transparency. Afterward, I will list the classroom projects that I funded with Volpara’s donation.

Take the survey now.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Note: I’ve updated the title of this section to better reflect increasingly common alternatives to live webinars, such as on-demand presentations.

Instant Access Webinar: “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Leidos selects transplant software vendor CareDx to fulfill its $235 million federal contract to modernize the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is being replaced after 40 years due to outdated technology and the company’s conflicting role as both a transplant policy organization and a software vendor.

Rad AI, which offers AI-powered workflow tools for radiologists, raises $73 million in a Series C funding round that values the company at $525 million. Fun fact: Rad AI’s co-founder Jeff Chang became the youngest radiologist in US history after starting medical school straight out of junior high at 16 and completing his radiology residency at 26.

Tokyo-based digital healthcare vendor Doctors will launch its US business in the first half of 2025.

AI startup Retro Biosciences is reportedly raising a $1 billion funding round. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman provided the company’s initial funding of $180 million and will participate in the latest round. The company’s goal is to  add 10 years to the healthy human lifespan by using AI to target and reengineer the cellular drivers of aging.

People

Providence restructures its leadership team, moving Chief Digital Officer Sara Vaezy, MPH, MPA to chief transformation officer, which covers AI, innovation, and digital care and marketing.

LeanTaaS promotes industry long-timer Harwant Sethi to VP of sales.

Health Catalyst promotes Lynne Dossey, MPH to SVP/GM of North America.

Announcements and Implementations

Samsung is working on a non-invasive optically-based continuous glucose monitor for its Galaxy Watch, a feature that Apple is also reportedly trying to develop.

Black Book Research publishes its free “2025 Black Book of Healthcare Cybersecurity.”

Kaleida Health will partner with Olean General Hospital and Bertrand Chaffee Hospital and also replace Oracle Health with Epic, as a reader predicted here a couple of months ago.

Other

A newborn’s mom who is live-streaming TikTok video from an unnamed hospital’s NICU draws heat from followers who watch her unplug her baby’s monitor to summon a nurse to bring her a sandwich. She claims nurses told her to unplug any time she needs something and that viewers who express astonishment are “annoying.”

SNL hilariously roasts men aged 20 to 45 with Medcast, a visit to One Medical that looks like a podcast where they can “be honest in a way they never would with a normal doctor” and instead “just vibe.”

I haven’t seen this term in a while.

Sponsor Updates

• Capital Rx’s marketing team wins AVA Awards from AMCP for the company’s LinkedIn page and M3P digital marketing campaign.
• Optimum Healthcare IT announces that it is the first ServiceNow partner globally to receive the Validated Practice designation for its Healthcare and Life Science product line.
• Tegria will sponsor the Future of Health Care Conference February 20 in St. Paul, MN.
• Prominence Advisors publishes “ROI in the Fast Lane – Data Harmonization.”
• Black Book Research lists the top 100 healthcare IT advisory services projected to experience the highest demand in 2025, with the following HIStalk sponsors ranking among the top firms: Impact Advisors (enterprise IT infrastructure planning and HIT 0perations), Nordic (EHR implementation and optimization for Epic, Oracle Health, Altera Digital Health, Athenahealth, Veradigm, ModMed systems), Tegria (Meditech EHR implementation and optimization), Optimum Healthcare IT (go-live consultants and staffing), and Clearwater (medical device security strategy, and patient and consumer data privacy and security advisory).

Blog Posts

• How to Protect Provider Endpoints, the Critical Edge of your Network (Med Tech Solutions)
• Caregiver Engagement: 3 Key Takeaways from the IDD Leadership Summit (Netsmart)
• Making the most of your EPR for greater efficiency (Nordic)
• How your TV can support family caregivers (Sonifi Health)
• Cybersecurity in Healthcare Starts with 1 Question (Surescripts)
• 3 top AI + GenAI advancements transforming RCM, denials + more (Waystar)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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News 1/24/25

Top News

VA secretary nominee Doug Collins tells the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee that he will review the VA’s Oracle Health implementation with a fresh perspective and is optimistic about its completion.

Collins expressed confidence that project rollouts could resume earlier than the recently announced target date of mid-2026.

Reader Comments

From Senor Ortega: “Re: Express Scripts. Its fax service has been down since January 17. The only way to send them new prescriptions is via fax.” Unverified. I’ve emailed the company’s press contact. Meanwhile, my own contacts suggest that it was a brief outage and faxing is back to normal now, but anyone who knows different is welcome to chime in. I had forgotten that Express Scripts (pharmacy benefits manager) is part of Evernorth Health Services, which is owned by Cigna.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Dear conference attendees – while I admire your enthusiasm for spending your employer’s money to attend some conference, my own enthusiasm wanes when faced with a splashy LinkedIn announcement of that attendance (I’m annoyed only if it has a gratuitous graphic to game the LinkedIn algorithm, especially if the conference obviously provided it, but otherwise it’s just fine). For those who have asked me, I don’t know if ViVE is hosting a cash-grabbing nostalgia act for Industry Night this year (the Fergie-free Black Eyed Peas should now be unexpectedly available, prices start at $400,000, and who doesn’t like “Where Is The Love?” even if their newer stuff uses a lot of computer enhancement).

Health system executives, technologists, and radiologists — complete a short, anonymous survey about your organization’s AI purchasing plans and Volpara Health will make a significant donation to teach grant requests through DonorsChoose. Eleven questions, two or three minutes of your time, and a teacher somewhere gets some help with classroom necessities. I bragged on HIStalk reader participation when Volpara suggested the donation, so help me avoid looking bad.

Webinars

Stream on demand. “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Behavioral health AI agent developer Eleos raises $60 million in a Series C funding round.

Sweden-based full-body scanner company Neko Health raises $260 million in a Series B funding round, valuing the company at $1.8 billion. Neko, co-founded by Spotify’s billionaire CEO Daniel Ek, has performed 10,000 scans in London and Stockholm, priced at $400 and $250 respectively, and boasts a waitlist of 100,000 people. The scans measure blood pressure, blood oxygen, ECG, heart risk, blood values, BMI, eye pressure, and skin mole assessments. Patients receive consultations with company doctors immediately after their scans. Based on the numbers provided in the announcement, Neko has generated between $2.5 million and $4 million in revenue since its launch in February 2023, which establishes its valuation at a lofty 900 to 1,440 times annual revenue, so they had better start working through that waitlist. Neither of the co-founders have prior healthcare experience.

People

Bethany Miller-Urroz (Zus Health) joins Sownder as SVP and head of sales for North America.

Australia’s EHealth NSW hires Richard Taggart, MBA, MPharm (Calvary Health Care) as chief executive and CIO of NSW Health .

Announcements and Implementations

Meditech releases APIs that are compatible with version 4 of USCDI.

Mayo Clinic and Cerebras Systems will collaborate to develop LLMs that can review the medical records of patients to determine how they will respond to treatments based on their genetic makeup. The models will be trained on the genomic data of 100,000 Mayo patients.

Precision medicine technology company Tempus AI launches a personal health concierge app that collects a patient’s medical records and applies AI to generate insights.

WellSky announces its participation in TEFCA and its selection of Kno2 as its QHIN.

Government and Politics

The UK’s NHS will establish a $250 million fund to help trusts invest an diagnostic and predictive AI tools, with an initial focus on medical image analysis and pathology.

The Department of Justice sues Walgreens, accusing the company of filling millions of opioid prescriptions without medical justification and instructing its pharmacists to process them without verifying their validity. In response, Walgreens has countersued, arguing that the federal government has not clearly outlined the responsibilities of drugstores when handling potentially questionable prescriptions that were issued by licensed prescribers. DOJ sued CVS with similar accusations last month.

The Department of Defense urges patients who want personal copies of their legacy medical records to download them immediately from the TRICARE Online Patient Portal, which will be shut down on April 1 since it has been replaced by MHS Genesis.

Privacy and Security

The Sequoia Project publishes a white paper that reviews managing privacy and consent when sharing PHI, inviting public feedback by February 21.

Other

The Armed Forces of Ukraine will replace its paper medical forms with an electronic Primary Health Record that will be maintained through the Armed Forces Medical Information System. The system will capture information about combat injuries that will be used to create an evidence-based medicine database.

A viral video from India captures a hospital housekeeper running an ECG on a patient. The hospital confirmed the video’s authenticity, adding that while it it is trying to recruit more ECG techs, the machine is so easy to use that anyone can do it.

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research publishes a new technical guide, “The 2025 Black Book of Behavioral Health IT.”
• Five9 will present at Customer Contact Week Orlando January 28.
• Fortified Health Security welcomes Lauren Amador as a renewals specialist.
• Health Data Movers releases a new episode of its “Quick HITs” podcast, “Innovating Healthcare IT with Khalid Turk: Equity, Integration, and the Future of Digital Transformation.”
• Inovalon releases a new “Inovators” podcast, “Healthcare Data’s Evolution: New Patient Expectations and Exciting Healthcare Advancements.”
• Meditech customer Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Canada earns HIMSS Stage 7 recognition.
• Healthmonix releases the 2025 Mental and Behavioral Health Registry (MBHR), a specialized Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR).
• MRO releases a new episode of “The MRO Exchange” podcast, “Automated Record Retrieval w/ CHRISTUS Health’s RCS Director, Prudence Budemer.”

Blog Posts

• CMS Health Equity Initiatives in 2025 and Beyond (Findhelp)
• The Role of Analytics in Reducing Denials and Rejections (FinThrive)
• Navigating Legacy EHR Data: How to Prepare for Transitioning to a New EHR System (HCTec)
• 5 Ways to Optimize UKG Pro Workforce Management for Healthcare (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Mastering Denials: Practical Solutions for Improving Appeals Performance (Medhost)
• Optimum Healthcare IT Achieves ServiceNow Validated Practice Badge for HCLS (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Rethinking productivity to enhance revenue cycle performance (Meditech)
• Licking Memorial Health System Proactively Identifies and Resolves Citrix Slowness Issues Before Epic Hyperdrive Speed & Reliability Impacts Users (Goliath Technologies)
• The Successful Road to Epic is Paved with Multiple Stakeholders (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

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

News 1/22/25

Top News

Struggling consumer genetic testing company 23andMe considers selling its Lemonaid telehealth business.

23andMe acquired the business in 2021 for $400 million.

23andMe’s entire board resigned last September over differences in the company’s direction. It  announced a restructuring plan several months later that included laying off 40% of its staff and cutting several therapy programs.

Reader Comments

From ACIO: “Re: Children’s National. If I may, this isn’t a net-new deal against Epic. Children’s National (AKA The Bear Institute) was one of the first Cerner ITWorks clients, where Cerner basically took over all of IT (essentially full IT outsourcing). About the last ITWorks deal out there is University of Missouri (The Tiger Institute) as I believe at this point they pay almost nothing to Cerner and we all know that a university in today’s climate would really have a PR nightmare if they tried to replace an IT system to the tune of several 100s of millions of dollars.”

From What Happens In Vegas: “Re: Epic. It was recently reported that Carl Dvorak is no longer president of Epic. For as long as I can remember, the names ‘Carl and Judy’ were always mentioned together. Judy is getting older, so it seems like news that the person who was assumed to be taking over might not be poised to do so.” Carl recently said that he took a job in Epic’s international business sometime around May 2024. Sumit Rana’s LinkedIn says that he became president in August 2024. Sumit has been at Epic for 26 years and started as a developer, which I think I remember is a board requirement to run the company per Judy’s wishes. Carl has been with the company for 38 years, wrote a lot of Epic’s code at the beginning, and led the company’s architecture decisions. Google stalking suggests that Judy is 81, Carl is 59, and Sumit is 48.

From Matthew: “Re: Color Screens. Pretty sure Glen Tullman was an investor in the company that made the weird computer doors for Walgreens. EWTD (Everything Walgreens Touches Dies), including itself?” The company’s website had a now-archived web page that listed Glen Tullman as co-founder and vice chair. Co-founder and board chair of Chicago-based Cooler Screens (now CoolerX) is Greg Wasson, former president and CEO of Walgreens.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A reader’s donation funded the purchase of a document camera for Ms. H in Yonkers, NY, who provided the view above from her middle school classroom as she projects material onto the screen that all can now see. Students are also using it for collaboration projects. I will say, having directing other people’s money to hundreds of DonorsChoose projects, that the biggest bang for the buck comes from document cameras, headphones for students, Chromebooks, and small PA systems to allow the teacher to be heard without wrecking their voice. In fact, I see that Ms. H is asking for headsets to allow students to interact with AI-tailored reading lessons, the use of which is being piloted by her classroom (OK, I admit that I just fully funded that one since another teacher’s funded project was cancelled, which freed up some money).

Here’s a fantastic opportunity to support frontline teachers through DonorsChoose, courtesy of Volpara Health, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lunit Inc. that provides clinically validated AI-powered software for personalized breast cancer screening and early detection. Teri Thomas, MSN, RN — Volpara’s CEO and an industry long-timer – will make a generous Donors Choose donation for each health system executive, technologist, or radiologist who completes a short, anonymous survey describing their organization’s AI purchasing plans. It’s like a slot machine where you pull the lever once, the money jingles into my teacher bucket, and I choose STEM projects to support. Not only will your participation fund classroom needs, Volpara’s donation will be doubled by matching money that is provided by my Anonymous Vendor Executive. If you work for a provider in administration, technology, or radiology, please answer 11 easy questions and Volpara and I will do the rest.

Webinars

January 23 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Maximizing Revenue With Minimal Resources: Work Smarter, Not Harder in Claims Management.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenter: Travis Fawver, senior sales engineer, Inovalon. Navigating the challenge of hitting revenue goals is daunting, but billing doesn’t have to be. The presenter will explore how strategic adoption of new technology can transform claims management processes from reactive to proactive. Learn how to reduce denials while empowering staff to focus on high-value activities, and gain proven strategies to simplify workflows, automate routine tasks, and build a more efficient RCM operation to maximize reimbursement.

Stream on demand. “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Percipio Health officially launches with $20 million in Series A funding from investors that include UPMC Enterprises and Labcorp. The company offers app-based population health monitoring and management. Medhost founder and former CTO Eric Rock started the company with David Lucas, a former colleague at Medhost, Vivify Health, and Optum, in 2022.

Inovaccer acquires actuarial software vendor Humbi AI.

Behavioral telehealth vendor Iris Telehealth acquires InnovaTel, which offer telepsychiatry services.

Sales

• University of Kentucky HealthCare will implement Visage Imaging’s Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform.
• University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust in England will go live on Epic in 2026.

People

CompuGroup Medical US promotes Benedikt Brueckle to CEO, a position he also held between 2017 and 2021.

Qure.ai names Jim Mercadante (RapidAI) chief commercial officer.

Rob Cornelssen (Huron) joins Health Systems Informatics as VP of business development.

Ken Kaufman (Mpaired) joins Sirona Medical as CEO.

Waystar promotes Todd Woods, MBA to chief growth officer, ambulatory.

RevSpring hires Nicole Rogas, MBA (Symplr) as president.

Announcements and Implementations

Arrive Health develops Arrive Accelerate to offer providers AI-generated guidance on medication coverage requirements for improved prior authorization workflows.

In New York, Somos Community Care, Forward Leading IPA, and Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative implement Findhelp’s social care referral software.

OCH Regional Medical Center (MS) will go live on Oracle Health on January 27.

Government and Politics

ASTP/ONC publishes newly updated SAFER guides, which address EHR safety.

Northeast Surgical Group (MI) will pay $10,000 to settle federal allegations that it violated the HIPAA Security Rule by failing to conduct risk analyses on its information system. A ransomware gang attacked the group in 2023, exposing the PHI of 15,300 patients.

Privacy and Security

Allegheny Health Network files a breach report indicating that the information of 294,000 of its home medical equipment and home infusion patients was compromised by a cyberattack on IntraSystems, which manages AHN’s servers.

Sponsor Updates

• Consensus Cloud Solutions offers a free plan of its flagship digital cloud fax solution, eFax, to aid in disaster response.
• Ascom names Tobias Stanelle (Philips Healthcare) managing director for the Ascom Americas region.
• Capital Rx adds more than 80 new partnerships in 2024 and prepares for another year of record growth.
• Gartner recognizes Dimensional Insight in its Peer Insights Voice of the Customer for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms report with an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5.

Blog Posts

• How verifying insurance eligibility can increase revenue + ease staff burden (Waystar)
• 5 Eye-Opening Reasons to Assess Your Healthcare IT Today (CereCore)
• The Role of AI and Automation in Revenue Cycle (AGS Health)
• Specialty practices: How a tailored system avoids disruption (Altera Digital Health)
• Top 5 Cybersecurity Pitfalls in Operational Technology (OT) (CTG)
• Executive Search for Startup Companies: Building a Leadership Team from Scratch (Direct Recruiters)
• Why Device Readiness is Critical in an EHR Implementation (Divurgent)
• From Prescribing to Adherence: Tackling the Toughest Medication Management Challenges (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 1/20/25

Top News

ASTP / National Coordinator Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP says his goodbyes after four years.

Reader Comments

From Granular Argument: “Re: Children’s National. Has chosen Epic to replace Oracle Health, contracting underway.” Unverified. This reader reported in October that the hospital was doing demos of both. I wouldn’t be surprised since Oracle wins few (any?) net-new deals against Epic.

From Deal Kvetcher: “Re: Health Catalyst. SEC filings show that it paid $86 million in cash plus up to $33 million in earnouts to acquire Upfront Healthcare.” Crunchbase shows that Upfront has raised $30.5 million, with the last round being a $10.5 million Series C in September 2022. Meanwhile, Health Catalyst’s JPM presentation this month shows a steadily declining revenue growth since its 2019 IPO (38% to 3%) and consistent losses from operations. HCAT shares have lost 86% of their value since their first day of trading and are down 41% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $334 million.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Pondering: why does a telehealth doctor need to wear scrubs or a white coat? Maybe they are dashing online between in-person visits. I could have asked about a stethoscope, which clearly has zero utility when “seeing” a patient virtually. I also notice that 6% of poll respondents had their most recent encounter in video form. I’ve never had a video visit, but perhaps I’ll buy one of those ill-concealing exam gowns for future use in amusing the online doctor.

New poll to your right or here: What is the patient impact of private equity firms buying healthcare provider organizations? I added an “it depends” option, but I hereby restrict its use to respondents who promise to leave a poll comment that provides an example of when patients benefited from having their provider bought by PE.

Webinars

January 23 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Maximizing Revenue With Minimal Resources: Work Smarter, Not Harder in Claims Management.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenter: Travis Fawver, senior sales engineer, Inovalon. Navigating the challenge of hitting revenue goals is daunting, but billing doesn’t have to be. The presenter will explore how strategic adoption of new technology can transform claims management processes from reactive to proactive. Learn how to reduce denials while empowering staff to focus on high-value activities, and gain proven strategies to simplify workflows, automate routine tasks, and build a more efficient RCM operation to maximize reimbursement.

Stream on demand. “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Startup Our Expert Doc launches a digital electronic second opinion service that is aimed at connecting non-US patients with US doctors for a flat fee of $350 (and 50% off in January). The principals aren’t listed, but the company’s website address is a nice Raleigh, NC house that is owned by a quadruple-boarded Duke pulmonologist who is also listed as one of the available doctors (the company’s listed phone number is also his own, it appears). I was prepared to launch a snark attack about what seemed at first glance to be a questionable business (especially after viewing their YouTube videos, which feature a computer voice that says medical REE-cord), but I have to say that the providers listed are mostly amazingly well credentialed, and quite a few of them also work for Duke. PR seems to be a bit of a struggle for the company, so I offer to interview Dr. M if he is so inclined (my cred: I recently interviewed The Clinic by Cleveland Clinic CEO Frank McGillin, which also offers virtual second opinions in a joint venture with Amwell).

Chatham Emergency Services (GA) implements ArcGIS software that displays the diversion status of local hospitals and shows EMS crews how long it takes to get patients off the stretcher and inside, which allows them to seek the fastest care for situations such as stroke. The hospital dashboard can also be used by the public, as shown above.

Epic’s plans for a 90-acre, 2,000-employee European headquarters in North Somerset, England are approved despite 700 objections about loss of green belt, a local disapproval rate of 96%, and public gallery observers of the voting shouting “shame.” The project still requires approval by the secretary of state.

People

Surgical coordination software vendor Surgimate hires Kraig Brown (Office Practicum) as CEO. He replaces founder Rebecca Brygel, who will transition to product ambassador.

Announcements and Implementations

WellSky launches WellSky Extract for Home Health, which uses AI to extract information from patient documents and prescription labels to populate its home health EHR. The company says this is the first of a series of modules that it calls SkySense, with the next offerings being an ambient scribing solution and an EHR summarization application.

Government and Politics

The House Budget Committee lists the cost-cutting options it is considering to keep paying for federal tax cuts. Some of the healthcare-related ones:

• Eliminate the non-profit status for hospitals, taxing them as for-profit businesses.
• Eliminate federal healthcare tax credits and Medicaid access for non-citizens.
• Roll back the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid.
• Stop reimbursing hospitals for the unpaid debts of Medicare beneficiaries.
• Implement Medicare site-neutral payments.
• Replace payments to hospitals for uncompensated cares with a new fund that will include care delivered outside of hospitals.
• Reform ACA subsidies.
• Reform graduate medical education payments.
• Eliminate Medicare’s inpatient-only list so that more surgeries can be performed in lower cost outpatient settings.
• Reform the prescription price-setting aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Reform Medicare physician payments.

Other

A Redditor vows that ChatGPT saved his life after he entered his post-workout symptoms (muscle weakness and pain) and ChatGPT urged him to go to the hospital because it suspected a muscle breakdown condition called rhabdomyolis. The hospital ran lab tests that confirmed the diagnosis, which he knew almost immediately because he ran his results through ChatGPT as well. Redditors understood the takeaway – use ChatGPT to interpret symptoms, then go to a doctor to confirm and treat.

This is only slightly healthcare related, but a good business lesson. Happiest Baby, the maker of the $1,700 “smart bassinet” Snoo that rocks affluent babies to sleep, sparks customer outrage by introducing a $20 monthly subscription fee to use features that were previously free. The company defends the move as a “critical step” to counter losses from the thriving resale market, which they say undercuts new-product sales. Health tech folks will get this — the company’s long-term strategy isn’t to lower prices, but rather to get corporations, insurance companies, and government agencies to subsidize the Snoo’s cost. Customers are complaining to the FTC that a retroactive subscription requirement is a bait-and-switch tactic that should not be allowed.

Walgreens scraps the futuristic “smart doors” it installed on drugstore refrigerators, which were intended to display video ads, track inventory, and dynamically price items. The screens failed to deliver the promised sales boost, and the then-CEO reportedly asked, “Why do our stores look like an effing casino?” Screen vendor Cooler Screens sued Walgreens for $200 million and retaliated by cutting off data feeds, leaving customers — many of whom disliked the opaque screens from the start — staring at blank displays or makeshift printed signs. The failed project left $50 million worth of unusable custom screens gathering dust in a warehouse. This debacle echoes Walgreens’ earlier misstep with Theranos, which cost the company millions in customer lawsuit settlements over faulty in-store blood tests.

Sponsor Updates

• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a white paper titled “5 Things to Know Before You Invest in ServiceNow”
• Netsmart offers a new case study featuring Amedisys, “Making Major Time-Savings Possible for Collectors.”
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast, “Interview with Brendan Keeler.”
• QGenda will exhibit at ASA Advance 2025 January 31-February 2 in Atlanta.
• TruBridge will exhibit at HFMA Western Region Symposium January 19-22 in Las Vegas.

Blog Posts

• CloudWave’s Predictions for Healthcare IT in 2025 Part 3: A Growing Threat of Healthcare Supply Chain Attacks (CloudWave)
• Clinical benefits of medical device connectivity (Philips Capsule)
• The future of healthcare: 5 resolutions you can’t ignore (Nordic)
• How Staff Self-Scheduling Can Boost Retention and Satisfaction (SnapCare)
• Ready for Action: Advancing Pharmacy Interoperability (Surescripts)
• Why Data Analytics Is Driving Healthcare’s Shift to the Cloud (Tegria)
• Coverage Detection 101: How RCM teams find missing or hidden insurance (Waystar)

Sponsor Spotlight

Planning a Workday project? Healthcare IT Leaders has released the ultimate Workday resource planning and staffing guide, including a comprehensive breakdown of the staffing requirements for each phase of a Workday project in healthcare organizations. The whitepaper provides detailed role breakdowns across six critical areas — from legacy system support to post-implementation optimization — so organizations can better plan their resource needs. Download the guide here.

Contacts

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

News 1/17/25

Top News

Canada’s Nova Scotia Health pauses its two-day-old rollout of medical appointment text reminders after the system sent incorrect information, failed to indicate whether the visit was in-person or virtual, and in some cases referred to a non-existent appointment.

The organization blames integration challenges with the 900 scheduling systems that providers use. A patient provided the above reminder for a 2:45 p.m. appointment that instead indicated 6:45 p.m.

Reader Comments

From Asking for a Friend: “Re: Baxter. Heard through the grapevine that it is discontinuing its DoseEdge product in 2028. Can you confirm? Will it be replaced with another solution?” I have emailed Baxter’s media contact for any news about the pharmacy workflow product, which Baxter acquired with its Baxa acquisition in 2011. UPDATE: Baxter provided this response:

After careful consideration due in part to third-party manufacturing constraints, Baxter will end of life the DoseEdge Pharmacy Workflow Manager after December 31, 2028. We are committed to supporting our customers throughout this transitional period.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

HIStalk sponsors who are participating in the ViVE conference February 16-19: fill out this form with your details by February 7 and I’ll include you in my conference preview.

Dr. Jayne weighs in on the most annoying and overused trendy words, which inspired me to make my own list while not exactly following instructions since I included some phrases.

1. Suss. Somehow we got by with “understand” until recently.
2. Unpack. Did “analyze” or “explain” fail to do the job all of a sudden?
3. Utilize. You don’t look a bit smarter by not just saying “use,” and I would argue the opposite. See: “leverage.”
4. Unlock. A favorite of hack PR writers, they would have you believe that buying a company’s product will allow you to “unlock” something that is tantalizingly just out of reach until you write them that check.
5. Journey. Everything is a journey all of a sudden.
6. Gaslight. I still get confused about what it really means, especially when it seems to be misused often.
7. Curate. Everything that isn’t random has been curated by definition, and you’re no smarter just because you made a list.
8. Disinterested. Not the same as “uninterested,” instead indicating that the person has not been influenced by personal benefit.
9. Build out. Means the same as “build” with twice as many syllables. Press release people embrace it because it sounds decisive and explicitly defined when companies pledge to “build out” one thing or another.
10. LOL and LMAO. Mostly used, strangely enough, to project contempt or aggressive anger against an Internet stranger than to signal amusement.

Webinars

January 23 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Maximizing Revenue With Minimal Resources: Work Smarter, Not Harder in Claims Management.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenter: Travis Fawver, senior sales engineer, Inovalon. Navigating the challenge of hitting revenue goals is daunting, but billing doesn’t have to be. The presenter will explore how strategic adoption of new technology can transform claims management processes from reactive to proactive. Learn how to reduce denials while empowering staff to focus on high-value activities, and gain proven strategies to simplify workflows, automate routine tasks, and build a more efficient RCM operation to maximize reimbursement.

Stream on demand. “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

UnitedHealth Group reports Q4 results: revenue up 6.8%, EPS $6.81 versus $6.16, beating earnings expectations but falling short on revenue. Investor concern about higher medical costs sent shares down slightly. UHG finished the year with $400 billion in revenue and $32 billion in earnings from operations, with its Optum services business generating $17 billion in earnings on $253 billion in revenue. The company’s market cap is $478 billion.

Medical imaging solution vendor Core Sound Imaging raises a $80 million growth investment and gives the private equity investor the executive chair seat on the board.

Sales

• In Canada, Novia Scotia Health will deploy Novari’s surgery wait list management system in a five-year, $12 million contract.
• Denver Health chooses Nabla for ambient documentation.

People

Larry Adams, RN, MSN, MBA (ShiftMed) joins CareRev as chief nurse executive and SVP of strategy.

Announcements and Implementations

Healthmonix releases its 2025 MIPSpro Enterprise qualified clinical data registry.

Fortified Health Security publishes its healthcare cybersecurity guide for 2025.

Amazon Web Services and investment firm General Catalyst will collaborate to develop and deploy AI solutions. General Catalyst’s portfolio includes Summa Health acquirer Health Assurance Transformation Company, Commure, and Aidoc.

Government and Politics

A New York Times report finds that medication access company Apexus has earned big profits in the 20 years that it has been running the federal government’s 340B drug discount program, which gives hospitals and clinics that serve low-income or uninsured patients mandatory discounts on outpatient drugs. Apexus, a former non-profit that is now a for-profit subsidiary of Vizient, earns a fee for the drugs that are purchased, which gives it an incentive to increase use. The organization has an 80% profit margin in booking an estimated $227 million in annual revenue as the 340B program has grown to $66 billion in annual drug sales involving half the country’s non-profit hospitals.

The Washington Post reports that healthcare entrepreneur Chris Klomp is the choice of nominated CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz to run the $1 trillion Medicare program. The Salt Lake City-based Klomp became chairman and CEO of care notification technology vendor Collective Medical in 2014, which was sold to PointClickCare for $650 million in late 2020. He serves on the board of Nomi Health, Maven Clinic, InnovaCare Health, and HealthJoy.

Privacy and Security

Tech Crunch reports that UnitedHealth-owned Change Healthcare tagged its breach notice webpage with the “noindex” HTML meta tag, which would have hidden it from web searches.

Other

A University of Michigan survey finds that patient portals are the most-used digital health technology among older adults. The authors note that black patients are more reliant on portals because they don’t trust health systems enough to engage with them otherwise.

Gallup’s annual poll finds that Americans rank nurses as the most honest and ethical profession for the 23rd straight year. Pharmacists and physicians finished at #4 and #5, although trust in doctors has fallen from 77% in 2020 to 53% now. Holding the bottom spots are lobbyists, members of Congress, TV reporters, and advertising professionals, all of whom finished below car salespeople.

Sponsor Updates

• Neurogen Biomarking, which offers tools for early detection of cognitive impairment, will integrate the cognitive assessments of Linus Health.
• Black Book Research releases a new report, “The 2025 Black Book of Healthcare IT Consultants and Advisory Firms.”
• QGenda publishes a new report, ““State of Healthcare Digital Transformation: Untapped Strategies to Simplify Healthcare Workforce Management.”
• MRO offers a recap of its 2024 achievements, including recognition of its CEO and new customer partnerships.
• Rachel Pataky joins Nordic as managing director and MEDITECH practice lead.
• CloudWave appoints healthcare cybersecurity expert Lewie Dunsworth to its Board of Directors.
• Real Leaders and Built In recognize Findhelp as, respectively, a top impact company and best place to work.
• Fortified Health Security ranks ninth among leading healthcare cybersecurity vendors, according to the latest KLAS cybersecurity report.
• Goliath Technologies publishes a new case study, “Licking Memorial Health System Proactively Identifies and Resolves Citrix Slowness Issues Before Epic Hyperdrive Speed & Reliability Impacts Users.”

Blog Posts

• CloudWave’s Predictions for Healthcare IT in 2025 Part 2: Shifting from Detection to Prevention in Healthcare Cybersecurity (CloudWave)
• Why medical device connectivity needs a vendor-agnostic approach (Philips Capsule)
• A Dream Realized: It’s Time to Integrate Pharmacists into Pharmacogenomic Medication Decision-Making (First Databank)
• The High Stakes of Hospital Price Transparency Compliance (FinThrive)
• MRO Starts 2025 Strong with Top CEO Award, Major Client Wins, and Record-Breaking Growth (MRO)
• Understanding the CMS MIPS cost measure for Melanoma Resection (Healthmonix)
• The Generative AI Revolution: 9 Trends Reshaping Healthcare in 2025 (Impact Advisors)
• Full speed ahead: Interoperability at MEDITECH enters a new era (Meditech)
• Top Five Predictions for the Healthcare IT Industry for 2025 (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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News 1/15/25

Top News

Several health systems launch the Truveta Genome Project, which will create a database of genotypic and phenotypic information. The data will be collected by using leftover biospecimens from the routine lab tests of tens of millions of consented, de-identified volunteers.

Truveta is made up of several big health systems that collect and sell EHR data to life sciences companies and researchers.

The company sell the genomic data for use in drug discovery, clinical trials design, and AI model training.

Reader Comments

From Buzzball: “Re: UpStream.care. Looks like the company is in liquidation. I look forward to your analysis. Interview Fergus Hoban?” The Greensboro, NC-based company provides support and technology for primary care physicians who provide value-based care to Medicare beneficiaries. It filed a WARN act notice in July 2024 that it would be laying off 66 employees after losing a contract with Triad Healthcare Network. The company reported funding of $185 million and a billion-dollar valuation as of late 2022. LinkedIn profiles indicate that most of its executive team left in late 2024. I emailed the “contact us” address from the website and it bounced back as undeliverable. I couldn’t find an email address for Fergus Hoban, founder and executive chairman.

Webinars

January 23 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Maximizing Revenue With Minimal Resources: Work Smarter, Not Harder in Claims Management.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenter: Travis Fawver, senior sales engineer, Inovalon. Navigating the challenge of hitting revenue goals is daunting, but billing doesn’t have to be. The presenter will explore how strategic adoption of new technology can transform claims management processes from reactive to proactive. Learn how to reduce denials while empowering staff to focus on high-value activities, and gain proven strategies to simplify workflows, automate routine tasks, and build a more efficient RCM operation to maximize reimbursement.

Stream on demand. “Healthcare Data Security: Aligning Processes with Evolving Threats & Regulations.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenters: Anthony Houston, MBA, senior director of security, risk, and compliance, Inovalon; Paul Wilder, MBA, executive director, CommonWell Health Alliance; Luke McNamara, MPA, deputy chief analyst, Google Cloud; Michael Quinn, VP of strategic partner development, Inovalon. Hear leaders in healthcare data security discuss some of the top recent threat evolutions and how organizations can proactively respond by making ongoing improvements to security protocols.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare operations optimization software company Qventus announces $105 million in Series D funding.

Health data and analytics vendor Health Catalyst will acquire patient engagement-focused Upfront Healthcare Services.

RCM vendor Access Healthcare secures funding from New Mountain Capital, which had reportedly been interested in acquiring the company. The PE firm was in the mix last year to acquire R1 RCM, which wound up being taken private by CD&R and TowerBrook at a $9 billion valuation. It announced plans to acquire AI healthcare payments company Machinify last week.

Virta Health, which offers payers nutrition-focused, virtual-only programs for diabetes reversal and weight loss, says that it has scaled to $100 million in annualized revenue.

UK-based digital-first home healthcare provider Cera raises $150 million in financing, valuing the company at over $1 billion.

Technology news site The Register interviews a lead attorney representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit against software vendor MultiPlan. The attorney alleges that MultiPlan uses commingled pricing data from multiple insurers to reduce payments for out-of-network provider claims. The lawsuit argues that this sharing of payment data constitutes an anti-trust “cartel,” effectively forcing providers to accept below-market rates. It highlights a similar practice from 1996 to 2008, when insurers used software from UnitedHealthcare-owned Ingenix until lawsuits forced shifting the work to independent vendors serving as “liability shields.” The Register’s headline describes MultiPlan’s service as “price fixing as a service.”

Sales

• Renown Health (NV) selects patient experience and employee engagement software from NRC Health.
• Mayo Clinic (MN) will roll out Abridge’s AI-powered clinical documentation technology across its enterprise.
• Missouri HealthNet will implement social care payment capabilities from Unite Us as a part of its Transformation of Rural Community Health program.
• OrthoNebraska will adopt Health Catalyst’s Ignite data and analytics technology.
• Vizient selects ambient AI clinical documentation software from Augmedix.
• TidalHealth (MD) will implement Glytec’s Glucommander diabetes and insulin management technology.

People

Susan Kristiniak, DHA, MSN, RN (RV Healthcare Solutions) joins Caregility as CNO.

HHS names Meghan Dierks, MD (Komodo Health) chief AI officer, ASTP/ONC.

Access TeleCare names Michael Genovese, MD, JD (Acadia Healthcare) chief medical officer for behavioral health.

Inbox Health hires Patrick Block (Titan Cloud) as CFO.

Michael Kallish (Encoda) joins OP Solutions as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Availity adds Concert Genetics clinical criteria, coding standards, and genetic test identifier to its automated insurance authorization software.

New York-based Arnot Health and Cayuga Health affiliate to form Centralus Health, which will roll out Epic in March. It replaces EClinicalWorks and QuadraMed at Arnot and EClinicalWorks and Meditech at Cayuga.

Arcadia announces GA of a new AI-powered precision medicine solution for improved development of treatment pathways.

Labette Health (KS) will go live on Meditech Expanse this spring.

Waystar launches AltitudeAI, a set of new AI capabilities designed to help providers appeal denied claims.

A study finds that patient self-reported responses about their sleep quality, stress, mood, and pain that were collected using NeuroFlow’s digital health platform predicted suicidal thoughts.

Duke Critical Care Informatics opens registration for a two-day datathon on April 26-27, where critical care clinicians and data scientists will develop data-driven models using de-identified EHR data.

Government and Politics

Philips issues a Class I recall – FDA’s most serious classification – following reports that its remote cardiac monitoring patch failed to alert cardiology technicians of high-risk ECG events, causing 109 patient injuries and two deaths.

Privacy and Security

A former employee of Rhode Island Quality Institute sues President and CEO Neil Sarkar, whom she accuses of misusing confidential patient data from the state’s health information exchange to conduct personal research as a professor at Brown University. The complaint claims that Sarkar used his position at RIQI to persuade data analysts at CurrentCare – which is run by RIQI — to release the data while bypassing the plaintiff, who was responsible for ensuring patient confidentiality.

Sponsor Updates

• Ascom publishes a new case study featuring Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, “Reducing response times and the number of patients falling with Smart Nurse Call.”
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast, “Pharmacy Benefits 101: Pharmacy Audits.”
• The This Week Health Podcast features Clearsense CEO Jason Rose, “Maintaining Efficiency while Ensuring Quality and Secure Data.”
• Clinical Architecture releases a new episode of The Informonster Podcast, “Standardizing Healthcare: Carol Macumber Talks HL7.”
• Consensus Cloud Solutions announces that it has been recognized as a Leader in the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Digital Fax 2024 Vendor Assessment.
• DrFirst publishes a new whitepaper, “AI, But Make It Clinical: The Perils and the Promise of Machine Learning in Healthcare.”

Blog Posts

• What Makes Medical Device Risk Management Healthcare’s Most Interesting Opportunity (CereCore)
• Healthcare Trends to Watch in 2025 (AGS Health)
• Reconnecting through technology: How ambient listening bridges the old and new in medicine (Altera Digital Health)
• All About AI: A Conversation with Artera Leaders Guillaume de Zwirek and Ashu Agte (Artera)
• The transformative potential of AI in healthcare: Trends to watch in 2025 (Cardamom Health)
• CloudWave’s Predictions for Healthcare IT in 2025 Part 1: Hospitals Will Adopt a Patient-First Cybersecurity Approach (CloudWave)
• Epic Community Connect: A Strategy for Growth (CTG)

Contacts

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

Monday Morning Update 1/13/25

Top News

Walgreens announces Q1 results: revenue up 7.5%, EPS –$0.31 versus –$0.08, beating expectations for both. Shares of WBA, the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 last year, jumped 27% Friday on the news. From the earnings call:

• The pharmacy services business was strong enough to offset weakness in its front-end retail business, which the company says is due to changing consumer behavior.
• CEO Tim Wentworth says that store closures will ramp up with another 450 this year, reminding investors that, “We have a lot of experience with store closures, having closed about 2,000 of our locations over the past decade.”
• The company will launch new scheduling optimization technology this month that will use store-specific demand projections and staff work preferences.
• Walgreens continues to move some prescription processing to micro-fulfillment centers, which will give in-store pharmacists more time for patient care and clinical services such as vaccine administration and medication therapy management.
• Wentworth says that sale of its VillageMD primary care business is underway, while it is considering options for Summit Health – CityMD.
• The company will roll out digital and virtual check-in for pharmacy patients.
• Wentworth said that shoplifting is a “hand-to-hand combat battle,” but sales drop when merchandise is displayed in locked cabinets.

Reader Comments

From Buck Tanner: “Re: TORCH. The Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, of which all 158 Texas rural hospitals are members, hosted a webinar to explore a potential partnership with Epic to create a Unified Care Infrastructure. This is a bold, critical step to address the state’s rural healthcare challenges. The leadership of President and CEO John Henderson, who is a former CEO of a Texas critical access hospital, is instrumental in driving this effort forward.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Last week’s poll had interesting results, although brand perception may be impacted more by marketing than personally experienced results (health systems count on this, of course). I’m surprised that drugstores and imaging centers fared poorly.

New poll to your right or here: What was the provider wearing during your most recent visit? I’ll define “visit” as a health-related encounter with a paid provider. Meanwhile, I’m amused by the image of status-seeking doctors who sport stethoscopes in non-clinical settings or who work in roles where auscultation isn’t exactly a job requirement, like psychiatrists or physician executives. My experience is that nurses, who probably use their stethoscopes far more than anyone else, don’t feel the need to flaunt them at meetings or while running errands.

Companies, you can kick off 2025 by sponsoring our little HIStalk party of health tech insiders for less money than coffee runs at ViVE and HIMSS. Former sponsors and startups might get some spiffs besides. Maybe this year will be tough or maybe it will be one of those “we’re so back” boom cycles, but 365-day visibility is key either way. Even though I’m hopelessly old school in eschewing flashy stuff or self-promotion, everybody who is anybody in the industry follows HIStalk (proof: you’re reading it now). Talk to Lorre.

Webinars

January 23 (Thursday) 11 ET. “Maximizing Revenue With Minimal Resources: Work Smarter, Not Harder in Claims Management.” Sponsor: Inovalon. Presenter: Travis Fawver, senior sales engineer, Inovalon. Navigating the challenge of hitting revenue goals is daunting, but billing doesn’t have to be. The presenter will explore how strategic adoption of new technology can transform claims management processes from reactive to proactive. Learn how to reduce denials while empowering staff to focus on high-value activities, and gain proven strategies to simplify workflows, automate routine tasks, and build a more efficient RCM operation to maximize reimbursement.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Inventory management technology vendor Bluesight acquires Protenus, which offers a healthcare compliance analytics platform. Investment firm Thoma Bravo acquired Bluesight in July 2023, after which the company acquired drug diversion software vendor Medacist and Sectyr, which offers 340B audit and compliance tools. Bluesight was known as Kit Check until its December 2022 rebrand.

Redditors report that Oracle Health employees who work under Seema Verma and who live within 50 miles of an Oracle office will be required to work from that office for at least 50% of the week starting February 1, with details left to manager discretion. Insiders report the same issues that other RTO companies have experienced – lack of available office space, new hires who were promised permanent remote work, employees who don’t live near a company office, and the perception that companies are using RTO to reduce headcount without paying severance or earning negative publicity.

Infosys sues Cognizant and its CEO Ravi Kumar, who it claims stalled development of the Infosys Helix healthcare platform in his previous job as Infosys president, after which he left the company to become Cognizant CEO. Infosys also accuses Kumar of poaching key Infosys executives who were involved with Helix. This counters a previous lawsuit that was brought five months ago by Cognizant subsidiary TriZetto, which accused Infosys of stealing trade secrets to develop Helix.

Prospect Medical Holdings, which operates 17 hospitals, files Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will sell at least three of its hospitals. The state of Pennsylvania is suing the company’s private equity owners, who made $500 million by loading the hospitals with debt and mortgaging their real estate for $1.1 billion as the hospitals ran out of medical supplies due to unpaid bills. Chairman and CEO Sam Lee netted $128 million while the private equity firm owner collected $600 million in dividends and management fees. The company’s hospitals are in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and California. A cyberattack in August 2023 led Yale New Haven Health to seek dissolution of its agreement to buy three Prospect  hospitals, with the bankruptcy adding more complexity to the long-delayed deal. 

Business Insider reports that Datavant, which has made 11 acquisitions since 2017, is looking to buy one or two more companies in early 2025. The company is reportedly planning an IPO for this year and reports $1 billion in annual revenue. Datavant’s mid-2021 acquisition of Ciox Health valued the company at $7 billion.

Innovaccer raises $275 million in a Series F funding round, bringing its total to $675 million. The company will use the proceeds to add AI and cloud capabilities, create a developer ecosystem, and develop AI copilots and agents. Co-founder and CEO Abhinav Shashank describes the healthcare status quo that he hopes to disrupt:

We have got this massive connectivity problem. Doctors, payers, patients, life sciences companies, nurses, everyone’s using different systems that just … don’t talk to each other. At all. You’ve got hundreds of solutions managing everything from patient care to insurance claims to clinical trial enrollment. But they are all isolated, and don’t even get me started on the patient’s electronic health record. Interestingly, information exchanges in other industries happen at the tap of a button or the swipe of a card, but your doctor literally has to pick up the phone and wait on hold just to get basic info about you from another provider. Some still use fax machines (hold your gasps, it’s true). This system doesn’t work for anyone. This isn’t just frustrating — it costs us around $1 trillion in healthcare waste. That’s trillion with a T! In a world where you can transfer money or order anything with a single tap, why are we stuck in the healthcare dark ages?

Sales

• HSHS-partnered Door County Medical Center (WI) will implement Epic, replacing Meditech.

People

Health and wellness marketing company Merge hires Stephanie Trunzo, MBA, MAPW, former SVP/GM of Oracle Health, as CEO.

Lety Nettles, MBA (Novant Health) joins orthotic and prosthetic product and services vendor Hanger, Inc. as EVP/CIO. 

Announcements and Implementations

Stanford Medicine creates an AI-powered tool that creates a patient-friendly draft interpretation of their lab results that is ready for physician review, which it self-developed using Anthropic’s Claude LLM through Amazon Bedrock. Doctors say that patients appreciate having their doctor add understandable, empathetic comments. It extends previous development by Stanford Medicine of a draft message generator to respond to patient messages.

SmartSense by Digi launches Voyage, which provides visibility, control, and tracking of supply chain assets in shipment for healthcare and other industries.

Private practice doctors sue Saint Agnes Medical Center (CA) for restricting inpatient care to hospitalists who work for Vituity. They note that the hospital is owned by Trinity Health, whose president is a former Vituity executive, and that the company sometimes uses temporary traveling physicians who won’t know anything about their patients. 

Industry long-timer John Glaser, PhD publishes a book titled “101 Questions From My Daughters.” which seems like quite a deal at $7.95 when purchased directly from his site. Need due diligence that he writes well and is interesting? Check out his bio, which makes me feel dull and lazy in comparison (he gets good practice by writing his family a weekly four-page letter, which he has done for 35 years). Those with long HIStalk memories will recall his “Being John Glaser” series that I ran way back in 2008-2009, when he described himself as an “irregular regular contributor” to HIStalk. 

Government and Politics

HHS publishes a strategic plan for the use of AI in healthcare. It recommends these actions:

• Catalyze adoption through public-private partnerships, clarify regulatory oversight, and support collection of outcomes evidence.
• Promote development of trustworthy AI, including mitigating equity, biosecurity, data security, and privacy risks.
• Democratize AI use through information sharing and developing open source AI tools.
• Cultivate an AI-empowered workforce through training and development of an AI talent pipeline.

The US Trade Representative warns that 96% of the world’s 35,000 online pharmacies are operating illegally, putting consumers at risk of being sold counterfeit or pirated products.

Stat reports that the Department of Justice is interviewing former UnitedHealth Group doctors about the company’s reported pressuring of physicians to add lucrative diagnosis codes for Medicare Advantage patients.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore publishes “Partnership Perspectives: Q4 2024.”
• Impact Advisors publishes a new case study, “Health System Employees Eliminate Over 1 Million Non-Value-Added Hours.”
• Netsmart will present at Ideal Healthcare’s second annual event January 18 on Florida’s Marco Island.
• PerfectServe releases a new case study, “How Optimized Provider Scheduling Improves Patient and Room Scheduling.”
• QGenda wins Brandon Hall Group’s Bronze Technology Excellence Award for Best Advance in Time and Labor Management.
• TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company, becomes a Premier Partner with Today’s Practice for Finance.
• Wolters Kluwer Health publishes a new guide, “5 Tips to Ensure Your Data is Analytics-Ready.”

Blog Posts

• MIPS Changes for 2025 (AdvancedMD)
• The Dual Role of AI in Healthcare Cybersecurity in 2025 (FinThrive)
• Navigating Enterprise Reorganization: The Crucial Role of Change Management (Impact Advisors)
• 2025’s healthcare imperative: merge innovation and human-centered strategies to improve access (Nordic)
• Caregivers 101: Everything You Need to Know (SnapCare)
• Add This Healthcare Podcast to Your 2025 New Year Resolutions (Surescripts)
• Revitalizing Patient Financial Engagement in 2025 (Tegria)

Contacts

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

News 1/10/25

Top News

Transcarent, which offers employee healthcare benefits navigation services, acquires rival Accolade for $621 million in cash.

ACCD shares have lost 78% in the past 12 months and are down 90% since the company’s July 2020 IPO. Transcarent will pay a 110% share premium to take Accolade private.

Analysts suggest that Transcarent got a fire sale deal for Accolade and predict similar M&A in the short term, especially with struggling publicly traded companies that have run out of investor patience.

Reader Comments

From Debaser: “Re: Oracle Health. Have you heard anything about the Cerner Client Connect team being abolished? From what I understand, our client executive was let go last week, along with the entire group. We received no communication about this. Yet more frustrating behavior from a vendor that has been frustrating to deal with for many years now.” Those in the know, can you assist?

From Who Dis?: “Re: Becker’s list of CIOs to know.’ They never list their selection criteria” Becker’s says that their never-ending “to know” C-level lists are based on nominations and editorial research. I take this to mean that youthful staffers just Google, pull biographical information off LinkedIn, and “curate” the results into a click-baity list that is about as meaningful as a first-grader’s gold star. Still, pulling names out of the air  — 133 CIOs are listed on the latest list, which hardly makes it an exclusive club — to bestow awards is a smart, cheap way to turn personal and corporate vanity into free publicity. I’m also puzzled by what “to know” means.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare AI agent developer Hippocratic AI raises $141 million in Series B financing, valuing the company at $1.6 billion.

Qualified Health, which offers healthcare AI governance infrastructure, raises $30 million in seed funding.

EHR integration technology vendor Red Rover Health raises $4 million in seed funding. CEO John Orosco, who is a former Cerner developer, is also president and CEO of JASE Health, which offers Oracle Health technical consulting.

Warburg Pincus, the private equity owner of specialty EHR vendor Modernizing Medicine, is considering options for the company that could include a sale at a $5 billion valuation.

Population health analytics vendor HealthEC and VirtualHealth, which offers a medical management platform, unite (in an unstated manner) to form Elligint Health. HealthEC Chris Caramanico will be CEO of the new business, so one might assume that HealthEC acquired VirtualHealth. Or perhaps more likely, that the businesses were combined by their shared investor HLM Venture Partners.

Provider data vendor H1 acquires Ribbon Health, which offers a doctor-finding service for consumers.

Caduceus Capital Partners announces Launch, a 12-week pre-seed digital health startup accelerator that will be led by industry long-timer Mitch Morris, MD.

Amwell sells its virtual psychiatric care service to Avel ECare for $21 million in cash. Amwell acquired behavioral digital health startup Aligned Telehealth in November 2019 and then paid $320 million for SilverCloud Health and Conversa Health in July 2021. AMWL shares have lost 71% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $112 million. They are 99% off their all-time high in January 2021, which occurred shortly after the company’s IPO.

Healthcare workforce solutions vendor CSI Companies acquires healthcare IT consulting firm MedSys Group.

In England, the North Somerset Council recommends approval of Epic’s plans for its UK campus, which will include a 3,000-seat auditorium, offices, and a training facility. Epic expects the first office buildings to be completed in 2028, the auditorium in 2033, three more offices in the 2030s, and then project completion in 2041. The 90-acre campus will house up to 2,000 employees.

Sales

• Infusion provider New England Life Care will implement Inovalon’s ScriptMed Infusion cloud-native pharmacy system for specialty and home infusion pharmacies.
• Tidelands Health (NC) and Honor Health (AZ) choose Five9’s contact center as a solution to replace legacy on-premise contact centers
• Duke Health chooses Abridge for ambient documentation in its 150 clinics.

People

Industry long-timer Tim Nash (Aidoc) joins Linus Health as SVP of healthcare.

ClearPoint Health hires Tawfiq Bajjali, MS (Lyric) as CTO / chief product officer and president of its newly launched ClearQuote benefits proposal system vendor.

Scott Nourse (Change Healthcare) joins Accuity as regional VP of sales.

Announcements and Implementations

South Central Regional Medical Center (MS) will implement Epic, with assistance from HCTec and replacing Oracle Health.  

Other

The mayor of a remote small town in Italy orders residents to avoid accidents, travel, and sports activities, hoping to raise awareness that its health center is often closed and doctors are available only during weekday business hours.

Sponsor Updates

• Waystar will present at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference January 13 in San Francisco.
• SmarterDX names Jonathan Wald, MD (InterSystems) solutions architect.
• Black Book Research publishes a free 60-page technical guide to practice management technology.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announces that its Lippincott Ready for NCLEX-RN nursing education resource now features AI-driven remediation with personalized, multi-modal improvement plans.
• Ellkay publishes a new customer success story featuring Lehigh Valley Health Network.
• Findhelp welcomes new customers Essen Health Care (NY), TriWest Healthcare Alliance (AZ), and Rainbow Housing Assistance (AZ).
• Healthmonix announces that MIPSpro and APP Impact have been approved by CMS as a Qualified Registry for the 2025 performance year under the Quality Payment Program.
• Impact Advisors publishes “Building a ‘Smart Hospital’ from the Ground Up.”
• Medicomp Systems releases a new “Tell Me Where IT Hurts” podcast featuring Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy.
• Lewis County Health System (NY) implements Meditech Expanse’s Continuing Care Medication Management functionality.

Blog Posts

• Best Practices in Denial Management (FinThrive)
• EHR Implementation is a Big Lift Without Automation (CereCore)
• Ransomware attacks the California Health System with claims of 17 million patient records stolen (AdvancedMD)
• Forget 2025 — Here Are My Top Predictions for CX in 2030 (Five9)
• Beyond the Dose: Past, Present and Future of Specialty Pharmacy (Inovalon)
• Supporting HHS’ Renewed Focus on Cybersecurity in Healthcare (Fortified Health Security)
• Taking a coordinated approach to strengthen rural healthcare systems against cyberattacks (Meditech)
• Five Key Strategies to Protect Healthcare Organizations from Cyberattacks (Med Tech Solutions)
• Why Investing in Internal Auditing Tools is Key to Reducing Coding Risks and Financial Losses (MRO)

Contacts

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

News 1/8/25

Top News

Clinical surveillance and alarm management company AirStrip Technologies acquires Decisio Health, which specializes in clinical decision support and remote patient monitoring software.

Former AirStrip CEO Alan Portela launched Depth Health, which is focused on AI-enabled patient care and traffic flow optimization, last August.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Sanford Health (SD) finalizes its acquisition of Marshfield Clinic Health System (WI), which was announced in July. Hospital leaders expect that pooled resources and access to Sanford’s $350 million virtual care center will enable the combined systems to offer more virtual care services to their rural patient populations. The organizations will invest up to $500 million to transition Marshfield from Cerner to Epic.

CalmWave announces $5.25 million in new funding. The company has developed AI software to help ICUs manage alarm fatigue.

Evidence generation platform vendor Highlander Health acquires Target RWE, which generates real-world datasets. Highlander Health was launched in September 2024 by oncologists Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD and Brad Hirsch, MD.

Teleradiology services company Onrad acquires the 80-radiologist Direct Radiology practice from Philips, making it the largest independent teleradiology vendor in the US.

Health tech venture capital firm Providence Ventures spins off from Providence to form Allumia Ventures.

Sales

• The Illinois Public Health Institute will use 4medica’s data-sharing technology to power its new Chicago Regionwide Community Information Exchange.
• AdventHealth will implement hospital-at-home software and clinical care services from Biofourmis as a part of its new remote patient monitoring program for patients in Central Florida.
• USA Health (AL) selects managed services from Healthcare IT Leaders.

People

Direct Recruiters promotes Stephen Benson and Bradley Morrison to partners.

US Air Force veteran Eric Gardner, MBA (Flagship Health) joins Leidos QTC Health Services as VP of operations. Gardner’s 20-year career in the Air Force included stints as a Medical Service Corps officer and as the CFO and VP of the Air Force Medical Operations Agency.

Topcon Healthcare names Jacques Gilbert (Nuance) chief strategy and business development officer and Christian Odaker, PhD (Smart Reporting) CTO.

Susan Grant, DNP, RN (Wellstar Health System) joins Symplr as chief clinical officer.

Impact Advisors names Wes Arnett (Compassus) as president of its revenue cycle managed services business.

Parkland Health promotes Brett Moran, MD to SVP / chief health officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Six health systems in Southeastern Ontario form the Lumeo Regional Health Information System to implement Oracle Health throughout their enterprises.

A study finds that nearly two-thirds of patients who reviewed a standard prostate pathology report were unable to determine whether they had cancer, whereas nearly all of those who received a plain-language version could easily understand their diagnosis.

Uvalde Memorial Hospital (TX) goes live on Meditech Expanse.

Analysis finds that the claims-based undiagnosed dementia algorithm of Linus Health-owned Together Senior Health can accurately identify high-risk patients.

A review by TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company finds that 96% of surveyed providers accept patient credit cards, 69% offer flexible payment plans, and four of five identify expanding payment options as a key focus area.

Other

People in every other developed nation will struggle to grasp this. A White House rule will ban lenders from factoring medical debt into loan approval decisions (affecting 15 million people owing $49 billion) and prohibit repossessing medical devices, wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs from those who can’t pay (imagine that repo job). While it protects credit scores from billing errors that are awaiting resolution, a health justice group’s take highlights the wagging tail of medical debt while ignoring the dog: our wildly overpriced healthcare “system” that this change does little to fix:

Nobody, no matter where we live or how much money we have, should be forced to make the impossible choice between getting essential care and going into debt. And they should not have to worry that medical debt could prevent them from buying a house or securing an auto loan because of its impact on their credit.

The Lown Institute names the 2024 winners of its Shkreli Awards, which are named after the notorious price-gouging, ex-con pharma bro CEO Martin Shkreli:

1. Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD: Collected $250 million in private equity profits while the hospitals under his management declared bankruptcy.
2. UnitedHealth: Boosted Medicare Advantage profits through rushed patient visits and aggressive coding practices.
3. Amgen: Ignored research showing that its cancer drug was effective at lower, safer doses that would have reduced its revenue by $180,000 per patient annually.
4. An oncologist at St. Peter’s Hospital (MT): Administered unnecessary cancer treatments and altered patients’ end-of-life plans without their consent, becoming the hospital’s top earner.
5. Private equity-owned New Mexico Hospital: Denied care to cancer patients, even those with insurance, unless they made upfront payments.
6. Pretty in Pink Boutique: Operated a fraudulent medical supply scheme, one of seven suppliers that billed Medicare $2 billion for questionable urinary catheters in 2023.
7. Cigna: Refused to cover a $98,000 air ambulance bill for an infant who was in respiratory distress, labeling the transport as medically unnecessary.
8. Zynex Medical: Profited from shipping unordered batteries and electronic pads to users of its nerve stimulation devices, with these supplies accounting for 70% of the company’s revenue.
9. Dentist who perform dubious tongue-tie surgeries on babies: One supplier of equipment for the surgeries hosted a “Tequila and Tongue Ties” dentist training session that was followed by shots and margaritas.
10. University of North Texas Health Science Center: Sold body parts from unclaimed bodies to for-profit companies after making minimal efforts to locate relatives.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthcare IT Leaders partners with Locums Choice and Christmas Tree Santas for its annual Christmas tree giveaway benefiting the Children’s Development Academy.
• CereCore releases a new podcast, “Automating EHR Implementations: A Must-Have for Managing Healthcare Informatics.”
• Uvalde Memorial Hospital (TX) upgrades its Meditech system to Meditech Expanse.
• Inovalon completes its three-year transformation of its analytics platform to the cloud.
• Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast titled “High-Cost Orphan Drugs, Securing Claims Data, and More, with Dr. Eric Bricker.”
• Censinet releases a new episode of its “Risk Never Sleeps. podcast, “From Stage Fright to Spotlight: Building Presentation Skills That Inspire, with Anthony Lee, partner at the Heroic Voice Academy.”
• DrFirst publishes a new guide, “Unlocking Faster Access to Specialty Medications With Prior Authorization Automation.”

Blog Posts

• Introducing Pharmafusion’s Patient Wellness Dashboard – The S’MORE of AdvancedMD data! (AdvancedMD)
• Denial Remediation: The Road to Revenue Recovery (AGS Health)
• Streamline Clinical Workflows with Meditech Expanse 2.2: A How-to Guide (CereCore)
• Maximizing Revenue Through Efficient A/R Management: Best Practices for Hospitals (FinThrive)
• Use Cases for Automated Messaging in Healthcare (Artera)
• What to Expect in Healthcare in 2025 (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Monday Morning Update 1/6/25

Top News

The Wall Street Journal reports that UnitedHealth Group has significantly increased its Medicare Advantage payments by electronically prompting its employed and affiliated doctors to add new diagnoses.

Patient sickness scores rose by 55% among those patients who switched from traditional Medicare to UHG’s Medicare Advantage plan, boosting UnitedHealth’s revenue by $5 billion over three years.

UnitedHealth disputes the findings, asserting that it complies with Medicare payment rules and that its patients are sicker. Doctors have pointed out that the company’s motivations are likely non-clinical since it does not suggest additional diagnoses for traditional Medicare patients, as doing so would raise its costs without increasing revenue.

A previous WSJ analysis revealed that Medicare Advantage insurers collected $50 billion over three years by adding diagnoses for which doctors performed no treatment. One example is a bruising condition that generated an additional $1,900 per year per patient, which was diagnosed 28 times more often in MA patients versus traditional Medicare, with one doctor saying that the diagnosis is pointless since all she can do is tell affected patients, “Wear some sunscreen. Maybe stop bumping the wall.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Two-thirds of poll respondents think that health AI has reached Gartner’s Peak of Inflated Expectations, which is defined as generating a lot of excitement and widespread adoption attempts that fizzle when the technology’s limitations are discovered.

New poll to your right or here: Which of your local care providers has earned your most positive brand perception? I ran this poll a few years ago and a hospital / health system was the winner, but that outcome may have been influenced by respondent demographics.

I’ve played so much R.E.M. during the slow last week that I created a playlist of similar bands from all eras (mostly old by definition) that play alternative, guitar-heavy, melodic indy pop. My research turned up these and a bunch of others, all of which I’m enjoying: The Lemonheads, Bob Mould (I notice that the video includes former Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster), The Connells, Michael Penn, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, The Posies (I recognized co-founder Ken Stringfellow because he played keyboards and bass on several R.E.M. tours), Urge Overkill, and The Auteurs. I pasted the list into ChatGPT and asked for similar bands, which gave me another few dozen to investigate.

Pundits are cranking out their annual attention-seeking lists of safely vague predictions for 2025, which hopefully will prove to be more accurate than the ones from previous years. Here is my one and only: the new administration and its replacement of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, JD will allow private equity firms and big companies (including big health systems and their vendors) more leeway in acquiring, merging, and engaging in potentially anti-consumer behavior. Beyond that, FTC has been directly involved in the Health Breach Notification Rule, the proposed (but failed so far) banning of non-compete clauses, the requirement to disclose pay-for-play social media product reviews, the distribution of potentially biased AI algorithms, the use of consumer data by health app vendors, drug company and pharmacy benefits manager pricing, healthcare price transparency, and health-related advertising.

If I was forced to make a second prediction, it would be that major health systems will turn over some of their specialty-specific chronic care management and care coordination functions to AI tools, which will test FDA’s willingness to give its OK to such systems under the new administration. The good news is that (a) even mediocre AI is probably better than the best current efforts; (b) those new systems don’t need to connect to external data that could cause hallucinations; and (c) the scope of this work focuses on specific conditions and clinical rules. The unknown is the extent of payer willingness to give hospitals money for performing those functions, whether AI or manual.

OK, one more. My aspirational #3 prediction is that doctors will finally reassert their autonomy and push back against their undervalued role as compliant rubber stampers of patient-unfriendly corporate decisions that are imposed by insurers, health systems, and private equity owners. However, I doubt that disunited physicians can effectively challenge the status quo, as they fail to recognize the collective power they could wield if they overcame divisions based on specialty, employer type, geography, and fears of being displaced by non-physician clinical providers. The lack of cohesive leadership compounds the issue, particularly given that so few practicing physicians—especially younger ones—are AMA members and don’t agree with its business-friendly, revenue-generating positions, which leaves basically no other group or individual to lead the charge.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Censinet. The company is the leading collaborative risk network for healthcare organizations and vendors. Censinet RiskOps is the first and only cloud-based integrated platform that consolidates enterprise risk management and operations capabilities across critical business areas: clinical, regulatory, cybersecurity, research, and supply chain. This includes the company’s foundational success with third-party risk management (TPRM) for healthcare and transforms enterprise risk by making data and insight actionable. Thanks to Censinet for supporting HIStalk.

I found this video that describes how Northwell Health converted its TPRM programs and processes to Censinet.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Siemens questions whether its 75% ownership of Siemens Healthineers justifies its $47 billion investment, advising investors that it will make a decision about its involvement by the end of the year.

A Financial Times opinion piece says that investors aren’t realizing a substantial return on the $100 billion they put into digital health companies from 2020 to 2022. Factors include stiff competition, low consumer switching costs, high user acquisition costs, and the introduction of competing products from big tech companies such as Amazon.

Veradigm extends the six-month contract of interim CFO Leland Westerfield for the second time. The company fired its CEO and CFO in December 2023 for failing to comply with financial reporting. Original interim CEO Shih-Yin Ho, MD, MBA stepped down in May 2024 and was replaced as interim by Tom Langan, who remains in that role. MDRX was delisted from the Nasdaq in February 2024 for not filing its annual report for 2022.

People

ChristianaCare hires Rob Hartmann, MBA (Tegria) as VP of EHR transformation, where he will oversee its Oracle Health to Epic project.

Justin Mooneyhan, MBA (Amsurg) joins IVX Health as VP of IT / CISO.

Charlie Gibbs, who founded early hospital IT software companies Gibbs Computer Systems and First Coast Systems, died December 30. He was 84. Long-timers may want to search Vince Ciotti’s HIS-tory for his name to get a fuller picture of Jacksonville-based FCS.

Announcements and Implementations

A Department of Defense crowdsourced test identifies 800 vulnerabilities in using AI to summarize clinical notes and for powering a consumer medical chatbot. DoD will use its findings to evaluate future vendors and to develops its best practices and policies. The study was conducted by the non-profit Humane Intelligence, which gives AI model evaluators a platform for auditing and performing impact assessments. Co-founder and CEO Rumman Chowdhury PhD, MS has done similar work at Twitter and Parity, the latter of which she founded.

Black Book reports its top EHRs for specialty practices for 2025, also naming as top innovation leaders ModMed, NextGen Healthcare, Netsmart, ClinicMind, Epic, and RXNT.

DirectTrust announces updated versions of its 26 accreditation programs that took effect on January 1.

Sponsor Updates

• HCTec offers holiday support to an elderly care facility in Hohenwald, TN, and Operation Stand Down Tennessee.
• First Databank will present at the ASAP 2025 Annual Conference January 16 at Amelia Island, FL.
• Goliath Technologies publishes a new client success story, “Maimonides Medical Center Quickly Troubleshoots ‘Citrix is Slow’ Complaints.”
• Black Book Research highlights Australia’s digital health transformation in its “2025 Global Healthcare IT Rankings” report.
• QGenda publishes a new case study, “Children’s Nebraska Improves Clinical Capacity Management.”
• The “DGTL Voices with Ed Marx” pPodcast features SmartSense by Digi President Guy Yehiav, “SmartSense Disruption in Healthcare & Simple Hacks to Become a CEO.”
• TruBridge names Merideth Wilson (Experian) financial health general manager.
• Clearwater releases a new “Clear Perspective” podcast, “The Truth About EDR Killers.”
• The Philadelphia Business Journal recognizes Crossings Healthcare Solutions parent company UHS CEO Marc Miller as one of the region’s Most Admired CEOs.
• Direct Recruiters recognizes its Healthcare IT Team as a top producing team in 2024.
• EClinicalWorks announces that Indiana University Student Health Center has integrated Sunoh.ai’s AI-powered ambient listening solution with its EHR.
• Ellkay supports the Pajama Program, an initiative providing children with new pajamas and storybooks to foster a comforting and safe bedtime routine.

Blog Posts

• Transforming primary care: Inside the Making Care Primary (MCP) model (Healthmonix)
• CMS 2026 Proposed Rules: Key Takeaways for Quality and Stars Managers (Inovalon)
• Meditech Expanse: It’s Electric (Meditech)
• MRO is Advancing Quality Control Solutions for Release of Information (MRO)
• 2025 Healthcare Forecast: The Convergence of Behavioral Health, Technology, and Measurable Impact (NeuroFlow)
• 5 Ways AI is Revolutionizing IDD Care (Netsmart)
• The Power of More Data: AI’s Wheelhouse (Rhapsody)
• The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right QHIN: 5 Questions Every Healthcare Leader Should Ask Themselves (Surescripts)
• Key Insights From 2024: Our Experts Share Their Best Takeaways From Leading Healthcare Events (Tegria)
• Nearly 70% of the Private Practices We Surveyed Lack a Comprehensive Patient Engagement Strategy (AdvancedMD)
• Current Procedural Terminology® 2025: Key Changes and Updates (AGS Health)
• Future-forward healthcare data platform considerations (Arcadia)
• RCM Strategies: Shift Left to Prevent Denials Before They Start (Availity)
• Top 5 Ways IT and Clinical Leaders Can Collaborate on Virtual Care Programs (AvaSure)
• Pharmacy Benefits 101: The Importance of the Network (Capital Rx)
• Predictions and Prerequisites for Healthcare IT in 2025 and After (CereCore)
• How Electronic Prior Authorizations Cut Through Complexities of Specialty Medication Access (DrFirst)
• 2025 – The Year of AI Validation and Human-Centered Innovation (Medicomp Systems)
• The Unbeatable eClinicalWorks Experience (EClinicalWorks)
• Gundersen Health System Makes 15,000 Referrals in 3 Years (Findhelp)
• Why is Revenue Cycle Management Important in Healthcare? (FinThrive)
• Forget 2025 — Here Are My Top Predictions for CX in 2030 (Five9)
• A Legacy of Connection: Transforming Healthcare Through Innovation and Care (Fortified Health Security)

Contacts

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