Netsmart acquires HealthPivots, a post-acute care market intelligence firm based in Oregon.
Revelstoke Capital Partners Announces Significant Growth Investment in MediQuant
Healthcare data management company MediQuant secures an undisclosed amount of funding from Revelstoke Capital Partners.
OneOncology acquires digital oncology care software vendor Navigating Cancer.
A legal advisor recommends that doctors not use AI to respond to patient complaints. She says that AI’s responses may use country-specific laws (most likely from the US), generate misleading statements, and ask for confidential information that could breach privacy laws. She also notes that patients may find AI’s wording to be insincere or indicative that their complaint didn’t warrant a human response.
Aidoc adds seven AI solutions for the European health market. Four of them address notification and triage of vessel occlusion, aortic dissection, vertebral compression fractures, and malpositioned endotracheal tube. The others involve quantitative assessments for midline shift, coronary artery calcification, and abdominal aortic measurement.
Imaging-based real world evidence vendor Segmed raises $10.4 million in a Series A funding round, with Advocate Health being among the investors. The company will use the proceeds to expand its use of AI.
Samsung acquires France-based fetal ultrasound AI software vendor Sonio, whose product is FDA 510(k) cleared in the US, for $92 million.
A study finds that AI models can guess a patient’s self-reported race based on technical aspects of radiology images, which could perpetuate diagnosis bias. The authors note that setting a score threshold for the relevant factors can mitigate some of the bias.
Digital transformation leader David Bray, PhD, MSPH says that it’s imperative that AI-generated outputs be labeled consistently to avoid “AI self-cannibalization,” which occurs when AI models are recursively trained on data that was created by previous AI work. He believes that HL-7 standards could be expanded to provide healthcare data provenance to create a traceable, transparent AI ecosystem and to support interoperability.
Actor Tom Hanks warns fans that online ads for “miracle cures and wonder drugs” are using AI-generate images of him, for which he didn’t consent.
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Leveraging the Power of Technology to Improve Behavioral Health
By Shana Hoffman
Shana Hoffman, MBA is CEO of Lucet.
We are living in an age of anxiety. Americans of all ages are increasingly struggling with their mental health. Half of young adults and one-third of all adults reported feeling anxious, either always or often in the past year, according to a 2022 survey. In 2023, 60 million Americans, roughly 23% of all adults, reported experiencing mental illness in the previous year.
Despite the growing need for care, millions of people are finding themselves without access to mental health treatment. The barriers they face in accessing behavioral health services are numerous and complex. Long wait times, a shortage of providers, geographical barriers, stigma, and cost all contribute to a system that is unable to meet the demand.
The shortage of mental health providers is a particularly acute problem. According to the American Psychology Association’s 2022 COVID-19 Practitioner Impact Survey, 60% of psychologists reported no openings for new patients. Nearly half of the US population in 2022 lived in a mental health workforce shortage area, with some states needing up to 700 more practitioners to close the gap.
The consequences of this inadequate access to care affect more than just individuals. On a micro level, insufficient healthcare access can impair a person’s ability to proactively manage their mental health challenges, leading to a worsening condition and potentially negative long-term health outcomes. On a macro level, unaddressed mental health issues can contribute to a range of problems, including homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and safety concerns. These have a cascading effect on the local, and ultimately national, economies.
But there is hope. We may be living in an age of anxiety, but we are also living in an age of technology. Technology can help bridge the gap and improve access to behavioral healthcare. By using today’s advanced tools, we can address many of the barriers that have historically limited access to mental health services.
One of the most significant advantages of using technology in behavioral healthcare is its ability to improve access in areas where mental health resources are limited. Rural areas in particular have long struggled with a lack of mental health services. Tele-mental health services offer a solution for these patients, connecting them to the care they need regardless of their geographical location. Mental Health America reports that rural areas have 20% fewer primary care providers than urban areas, with 65% of rural counties lacking a psychiatrist and 81% without a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Technology can help close these gaps, ensuring that these rural patients are not left behind.
Technology offers flexibility, enabling patients to access care at times that fit their schedules to make it easier for them to commit to treatment. Technology also helps expedite the process of connecting individuals to care. Current average time between booking an appointment and a claims-confirmed connection is over 45 days, with some psychologists reporting wait times of three months or longer. Technology tools that quickly identify active, in-network providers who are accepting new patients can significantly reduce these wait times, ensuring that patients receive the care they need when they need it.
Providers benefit from technology-enabled care access as well. By giving patients more flexibility in how they access care, technology makes it easier for them to stick to their treatment plans over time, helping providers achieve better long-term results.
Most critically, technology can help address the issue of provider shortages by offering advanced and accurate insights into available care resources, minimizing the time it takes for providers and patients to connect, allowing for more efficient scheduling of treatment. By streamlining administrative tasks such as patient intake, documentation, and screening, technology can also help free up clinicians to spend more time on delivering care.
Use of technology can improve treatment adherence and expand access to care in underserved areas, leading to healthier populations and lower long-term costs for payers. Additionally, by improving the accuracy of provider directory management systems, technology can help eliminate “ghost networks” in which healthcare providers who are listed in a health plan’s network are not actually available to provide care. This not only enhances regulatory compliance, but also boosts member satisfaction.
Mental health technology solutions have enormous potential to increase access to care, enhance efficiency, and improve outcomes. To fully realize this potential, stakeholders must continue to invest in and support technological advancements in behavioral healthcare, because only then can we create a more equitable and effective behavioral healthcare system.
Virtual Care Isn’t What It Used to Be – It’s Getting Better
By Derek Streat
Derek Streat is CEO of DexCare.
Virtual emerged as a vital access bridge during the pandemic, ensuring that patients received on-demand care while living in lockdown. As society transitioned back to normal, public use of virtual care inevitably declined. Today, as we watch market shakeups as companies shutter and shrink, critics are quick to point out that virtual fell short and will never replicate in-person care. That’s a shortsighted outlook, because like any technology, virtual is undergoing a natural pivot.
The industry grew too fast, but disruption drives progress, creates new applications, and forges pathways for value creation. The technology that is powering virtual care has matured from simple, one-off video consultations into an adaptive strategy that complements in-person care to balance a health system’s limited capacity.
Virtual care 2.0 is underway, and at just the right time. With 11,000 Americans aging into Medicare each day and not enough primary care doctors, a new model for how care is accessed and delivered is required. Virtual is a critical backstop to meet the rising demand for care while reducing the pressures on clinicians.
The reality is that not everyone needs to see a doctor in person. It’s the type of appointment and routing to appropriate venues of care that counts. Instead of follow-ups, consultations, and common conditions clogging up urgent care clinics, emergency rooms, or taking away from a doctor’s finite time, health systems can redirect patients to a virtual appointment, a clinic, or a nurse practitioner. Modern care orchestration is multi-modal, predictive, and powered by real-time intelligence to ensure that patients receive the right care, at the right time, in the right setting.
But how can a health system guide a patient to the right modality on the fly? By operating in real time and having the digital flexibility to coordinate how, when, and where patients select care. It’s about having dynamic controls to precisely administer system-wide resources to match demand against capacity. Virtual is part of a broad portfolio of care that underpins convenience for patients while managing workforce resources by the hour, day, month, or quarter.
Consider Kaiser Permanente’s multi-modal approach. By integrating virtual consultations, online check-ins, and secure messaging, the health system enhances patient access while optimizing resources before and after in-person visits or by reducing the need for patients to physically see doctors altogether. The net result is more time for clinicians, greater choice for patients, and the delivery of quality, clinically appropriate care.
Virtual is no longer a button for patients to push, but rather a technology to promote flexibility and growth. For many health systems, virtual is being applied in innovative ways to address more complex patients’ needs.
Health systems can extend the reach of care by offloading routine visits to virtual. These can include check-ups, preventive, and chronic-condition management. The impact is time saved at multiple touch points throughout the delivery pipeline, allowing for a responsive patient experience while liberating resources to focus on acute care and higher complexity cases.
Disruption isn’t failure. It is fuel for innovation. Virtual care is evolving, not fading, and is a cornerstone to a growing mix of care venues, including services, locations, and providers. It’s not about replacing doctors, but rethinking how and where care is accessed to extend workforce resources. This isn’t the slow, phase out of virtual care. It’s just the beginning of a smarter, more agile health system.
Don’t Skip the Digital Wash: 3 Cyber Hygiene Tips for Healthcare Security
By Greg Surla
Greg Surla is SVP/CISO of FinThrive.
In 2023, healthcare systems faced an alarming surge in cyberattacks, impacting over 100 million people across the US, according to The HIPAA Journal. This troubling trend continued into 2024, emphasizing the urgent need for advanced cybersecurity measures in healthcare.
With the rise of sophisticated ransomware attacks, such as those from BlackCat, and the increasing availability of ransomware-as-a-service, healthcare organizations must remain focused on cyber hygiene practices.
Cyber hygiene refers to the routine practices that are necessary to protect information systems and sensitive data. For healthcare organizations, effective cyber hygiene is particularly challenging due to factors such as outdated technology, stringent HIPAA regulations, and rapidly evolving cyber threats. Key cyber hygiene practices — regular credential rotation, MFA, and effective vulnerability management — are essential for mitigating the risk of breaches and ensuring regulatory compliance.
This article explores three essential cyber hygiene procedures for shielding healthcare data: credential rotation, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and vulnerability management.
Regular Credential Rotation
Regular credential rotation is a fundamental security practice that involves frequently updating passwords and access credentials. This process helps minimize the risk of unauthorized access, especially if credentials are compromised.
In healthcare settings, where multiple users with varying access levels are common, managing credential updates is a complex, but necessary, best practice.
Multi-Factor Authentication
MFA is a critical security measure that enhances protection by requiring multiple forms of verification beyond just a password. This additional layer of security is especially important in environments where unauthorized access to sensitive data has severe consequences.
Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability management involves identifying, assessing, and addressing security weaknesses within systems. Regular vulnerability management is crucial in healthcare.
This practice includes routine scanning, risk assessment, and timely patching to protect systems from potential breaches. Automated tools are available to frequently scan systems for vulnerabilities and rank risks based on their potential impact and the likelihood of exploitation. Look for emerging vulnerabilities and train staff to identify potential risks and deliver prompt resolution.
The most common attacks in healthcare attempt to exploit user accounts through social engineering methods such as phishing as well as brute-force types of attacks such as password spraying and credential stuffing.
By adopting the cyber hygiene practices list above, healthcare organizations can enhance their defenses against cyber threats, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and maintain the security of their systems. And as cyber threats continue to intensify, staying proactive and vigilant safeguards your organization’s sensitive healthcare information, preserving trust in the healthcare system.
‘Hospital at home’ startup Doccla raises $46 million for its European expansion
UK-based virtual hospital and remote patient monitoring technology vendor Doccla raises $46 million in a Series B funding round.
Rejoy Health Secures $125 Million Valuation, Plans AI Expansion in Healthcare
New funding for Rejoy Health, developer of large language models for healthcare applications, puts its valuation at $125 million.
Radiology data sharing vendor Enlitic to acquire rival for $5M
Medical imaging data company Enlitic will acquire competitor Laitek for $5 million.
UK-based virtual hospital and remote patient monitoring technology vendor Doccla raises $46 million in a Series B funding round.
The company will use the funds to expand in Europe beyond UK and Ireland.
From Don O: “Re: Epic’s hiring practices. During my 17-year stint (now retired), I never met another vendor ex-employee. I’d be hard pressed to remember if Epic ever brought someone on from a customer, with possibly a couple of MDs who could not be part of the site’s installation team. Excludes the Emeritus program of experts that have retired from their organization primarily functioning in consulting roles.”
From Samsara Psychiatrist: “Re: mental health professional shortages. This is both in overall numbers as well as in-network psychiatrists, many of whom have full practices or are hospital based and don’t see outpatients at all. This is never reflected in the provider listings. Insurers want patients to make a bunch of unsuccessful phone calls before giving up and either paying cash or not obtaining care at all. Even those who are wiling to pay cash can wait six months for an appointment. Most problematically, patients with the most severe mental illnesses have the most difficulty in getting outpatient treatment since they are more likely to have Medicare or Medicaid and need complex, coordinated services that the average mental health professional is not equipped to give. On the health IT front, initiatives such as meaningful use, MIPS, and MACRA have made it increasingly less likely that mental health professionals will want to participate in these programs. Significant numbers of psychiatrists are retiring or cutting back their hours. The availability of telehealth has increased interest in psychiatry as a specialty, but there are still a limited number of residency training positions, and CMS rules — such as not allowing virtual supervision for in-person resident patients — should be more flexible. Insurers are certainly a big piece of the problem, but not the only one. Big changes are needed.”
From Danny DeVino: “Re: Epic trademarks. Industry interoperability guy Brendan Keeler had fun trying to figure out which of Epic’s trademarks involve products that either didn’t came to fruition or have been retired.” It’s a fun list.
About half of poll respondents say that their company culture has changed in the past year, and two-thirds of those say it got worse.
New poll to your right or here: How much time do you spend each week managing work-related messages after normal working hours?
Readers sent me questions last week about Epic related to Vot-ER and how Epic finances startup participation in its Workshop program. My experience is that the PR contacts of most companies don’t respond at all, and if they do, not quickly enough for that same day’s HIStalk news post. Epic always gets back to me quickly with an acknowledgment and then provides a company statement shortly after, which I appreciate since I can give my readers a timely response. It’s also good for companies to address rumors that are likely being discussed more widely than by the one person who asks me.
September 10 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Overcoming Hurdles in Specialty Med Access Under Medical Benefits.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Drew Hunsinger, VP of corporate business development, DrFirst; Tyler Wince, MEd, VP of product and technology specialty solutions, DrFirst. More specialty medications, which made up 80% of FDA’s new drug approvals last year, are falling under medical benefits, which challenges the patient care processes and efficiency of providers. Medication access experts will discuss how automation and unified medication management solutions can ensure better outcomes for patients and providers by addressing patient access hurdles and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of EHRs. They will also provide insights into how regulatory changes such as interoperability and prior authorization mandates will affect healthcare stakeholders.
October 3 (Thursday) 1 ET. “Navigating AI-Powered Medical Interpretation: Insights for Health Leaders.” Sponsor: Globo. Presenter: Dipak Patel, CEO, Globo. AI is redefining how providers can communicate with patients who speak limited English. However, not all LLMs are created equal, and their potential and limitations need to be examined further. Globo has published its results from testing several LLMs. This webinar will address the promises and perils of AI-enabled medical interpretation in summarizing that research in four key domains: the process of AI interpretation, how to measure it, the state of AI tools today, and the areas where AI falls short with interpretation.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
RxLightning names Peter Simmons, RPh as COO.
Nathan Gnanasambandam, PhD (HealthPointe Solutions) joins RhythmX AI as VP of AI.
Flatiron Health promotes Quincy Weatherspoon, MBA to VP/GM of Flatiron Point of Care Solutions.
Niagara Health in Ontario prepares to launch Oracle Health in November. Six hundred clinicians have signed up for extra training during the “Operation Monarch” implementation project, which was first announced in 2022.
Salem Township Hospital (IL) will go live on Epic next month.
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center goes live on Epic-integrated Cloud Payments from TrustCommerce, a Sphere company.
A new KLAS report on data archiving finds that the systems that are most commonly involved are EHRs from Altera Digital Health, Oracle Health, and Athenahealth. Top performance scores for complex archiving projects were earned by Galen Healthcare Solutions, an RLDatix Company; and Harmony Healthcare IT, while Triyam performed well in lower-complexity work.
Clinicians at Lovell Federal Health Care Center (IL) continue to focus on improving the Oracle Health-based EHR that was implemented five months ago at the facility, which is jointly run by the VA and DoD. Areas of focus, dubbed “big rock” projects, include fine-tuning referral management, standardizing and consolidating user roles, improving training, and improving coordination between prescribers and pharmacists.
Michigan researchers find that EHRs are not consistent in documenting the racial and ethnic designations of pediatric patients. They recommending implementing some form of gold standard that is appropriate for children who may not be able to self-report.
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MedHQ Expands Footprint with Acquisition of Trajectory Revenue Cycle Services
Healthcare advisory and administrative services company MedHQ acquires Trajectory Revenue Cycle Services.
CommonWell Health Alliance announces that Athenahealth, ModuleMD, and Solace Health are live on its new TEFCA-ready platform and QHIN that was developed with Ellkay.
Judge Ponders House Arrest for Indicted ADHD Telemedicine CEO
After considering her propensity to delete digital evidence and deeming her a flight risk, a federal judge considers placing Done Global founder and CEO Ruthia He under house arrest while she awaits trial on federal drug, fraud, and obstruction of justice charges.
PatientPay completes its acquisition of billing, statement, and payment technology vendor ClearGage.
The combined companies will have 1,600 healthcare organization clients and 1.2 million patient digital wallets.
From Not So Vendor Neutral: “Re: Epic. I’ve heard from multiple sources that Epic is making deals for cash and equity as part of its Workshop program, where they give access to Epic resources while promoting those vendors to their customer base.” An Epic spokesperson provided this response to my inquiry:
We undertake a significant amount of R&D to co-develop products with Workshop vendors for the benefit of our provider community. Rather than front-loading this expense on start-ups, we’ve entered into novel financial arrangements, including warrants in rare cases. This way, the start-ups can delay the bulk of their payment until they are successful and we can share in that success. We have no intention of company ownership.
From ExMeditech: “Re: Epic hiring only entry level people. See this from Meditech’s Neil Pappalardo from a 1991 book.” Neil said this in the book “Entrepreneurs in High Technology: Lessons from MIT and Beyond,” which was written by the late MIT professor and Meditech co-founder Ed Roberts. It’s a reminder that Epic and Meditech shared some DNA and management philosophies in the early days:
We view ourselves as a family. We always hire entry level people, whether in software or sales. We don’t hire new people into managerial slots. All of our managers have been promoted from within. We want our people to join us when they’re still young and get their training here in our culture. They don’t have much experience when they start but at least they’re malleable at that age. And they learn quickly.
From Band Saw: “Re: Oracle CloudWorld. The band Journey is playing. Does the conference draw enough old dudes who care?” “Don’t Stop Believin” is my most-detested song, and I wouldn’t expect it to sound better played by the sole remaining original member in a million-dollar corporate jukebox show for IT geeks. The band’s most recent album is from 2022, but its later works are superfluous since — like skimpily talented insects trapped in musical amber – their music is indistinguishable from the 40-year-old stuff that includes that shriek-along favorite of tipsy karaoke moms. Don’t expect comradely glances between the keyboardist and guitarist, each of whom is a 50% band owner and opposing litigant in a money dispute that caused their upcoming European nostalgia-milking tour to be cancelled, and don’t expect to hear their singer – a non-English speaker from a Philippines tribute band who they saw on YouTube and hired purely because he sounds like Steve Perry despite looking as unlike him as is possible — since the audience will insist on singing along badly. The only deceased founding member is rhythm guitarist George Tickner, who according to his 2023 obituary was a registered nurse who left the band in 1975 to “pursue his PhD at Stanford University Medical School on a full scholarship.”
September 10 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Overcoming Hurdles in Specialty Med Access Under Medical Benefits.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Drew Hunsinger, VP of corporate business development, DrFirst; Tyler Wince, MEd, VP of product and technology specialty solutions, DrFirst. More specialty medications, which made up 80% of FDA’s new drug approvals last year, are falling under medical benefits, which challenges the patient care processes and efficiency of providers. Medication access experts will discuss how automation and unified medication management solutions can ensure better outcomes for patients and providers by addressing patient access hurdles and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of EHRs. They will also provide insights into how regul
EvidenceCare promotes Amy Deaton to president / COO.
Care2U promotes Lon Hecht to CEO.
Altais hires Kumar Murukurthy, MBBS (Walmart Health and Wellness) as chief information and digital officer.
CommonWell Health Alliance announces that Athenahealth, ModuleMD, and Solace Health are live on its new TEFCA-ready platform and QHIN that was developed with Ellkay.
University of Iowa Health Care CHIO James Blum, MD posted on LinkedIn that they have deployed Evidently’s EHR-embedded clinical decision support to all of their caregivers, of which 2,000 launched it on the first day.
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I’ve written previously about telehealth and the math that is needed to try to prove that it will result in overall savings to the healthcare economy. A recent JAMA viewpoint article further dissects the impact of telehealth on care delivery spending, calling out the “iron triangle” of tradeoffs where a service may improve only two of the three elements of quality, cost, and access.
The authors point out that telehealth may lead to more care, especially if preventive procedures are recommended as part of encounters. This will inherently increase spending, making suspect the claims that telehealth will reduce healthcare costs. On the other hand, that increased spending should drive value, but that value is often realized well down the line.
The authors propose that reframing the discussion around value might lead to different choices, such as only expanding telehealth services that address the areas of highest value. An example given is funding telehealth visits for federally qualified health centers in the hopes of improving quality and equity. Only time will tell, and we’ll have to wait to see what happens with federal telehealth funding in the US.
From Podcast Schmodcast: “Re: your pet peeve of being forced to use your phone for webinar links. I totally agree. Maybe I’m just a grumpy old man, but I prefer to do most of my work on a 24-inch monitor or larger but will use a laptop in a pinch. My pet peeve is written ’articles’ that are little more than redirects to podcasts, which I can’t stand. I can read much faster than many of the podcasters speak and am very much a visual learner. Podcast creators need to include a transcript so that they aren’t discriminating against what I suspect is a large part of the population that feels similarly.” I’m one of those people, so I agree. For the love of all things, please include a transcript. I’ve found that when I try to listen to recordings, I get too tempted to multitask, which results in my absorbing very little of the spoken content. When I’m consuming written documents, it’s much less likely that I’ll try to surf the internet or do any number of things that will cause me to have to skip back and listen again.
Members of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) received an email this week addressing concerns about the organization’s Annual Symposium that is being hosted at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. The hotel is apparently subject to a labor dispute and union leaders are discouraging organizations from doing business at the property. Since negotiations are ongoing, AMIA is following closely and hoping for a resolution that doesn’t impact the meeting. The hotel claims to have contingency plans to ensure service delivery in the event of a strike, but having stayed at hotels in several adverse but less-contentious circumstances (including boil orders and weather emergencies), I’m not hopeful for their ability to host the conference during a strike without some level of disruption. I’ll be following this one closely.
Speaking of meetings, Oracle has announced that its CloudWorld headliner will be legendary rock band Journey. I’ve seen them perform and it was a great show, but I’d imagine that a half century on the road might be starting to take its toll on some of the performers. Attendees can purchase a guest ticket for the show for a mere $350 while supplies last. Admission to the Oracle client conference is $2,300 with the price dropping to $1,700 for groups of five or more. The registration site includes a “Convince your boss” section complete with an email template to help workers summarize the costs and benefits of attendance.
I was back flying the friendly skies this week, enjoying some West Coast sunshine before starting a big project. Unfortunately, my seatmate made it a less than fun experience, as she constantly talked to herself, made tsk-tsk sounds when reading her emails, and laughed hysterically while marking up a PowerPoint presentation. I could see everything she was doing since she didn’t have a privacy filter. I could also see her email address and her passwords that were on a sticky note that was covered in tape applied to her laptop. I had half a mind to log in to her Concur account and enter a bunch of bogus expenses, just to prove a point.
The flight attendants had to scold her for failing to put her laptop away as instructed, after which she slammed things around trying to stuff them into her enormous bag. I normally travel with noise canceling earbuds, but somehow they got left at home, which is a mistake I won’t be making again. In fact, I might throw a pair of foam earplugs in my bag as a precaution since they weigh nothing and would have been very welcome in this situation. They say travel is broadening, but I would argue that it’s not always in the way we might want.
I’m as much at risk of being drawn in my clickbait headlines as the next girl, so I admit I was taken in by a discussion of “Death Bots.” I wasn’t even sure what the term referred, to so of course I had to follow along. The article is a transcript (yay!) of a discussion by medical ethicist Art Caplan. The concept is this: patients who know that they will be dying soon might be able to record their voices so that after they pass, family members can converse with a virtual entity that is representative of their loved one. This AI-driven entity would become part of the grief process and might also draw from other materials that are left by the deceased individual such as diaries, writings, videos, and more.
It’s very “Star Trek” to be able to have a conversation with your departed ancestors, but as a physician who has worked with patients and their families through various levels of grieving, it would need to be clear that anyone participating in this is part of an unregulated experiment that deviates from our current scientific understanding of grief. I’d feel a lot better if participants went through some kind of informed consent process, but given the fact that this is already being commercialized, that would be unlikely.
Caplan points out the risks of having an AI version of a departed person “create information that sounds like you, but really isn’t what you have said, despite the effort to glean it from recordings and past information about you. He illustrates the other ways to leave memories for loved ones, including audio / video recordings, diaries, and the like.
Caplan agrees with the need for a consent process as well as safeguards for control of the information and cessation of the service if survivors desire it to end. The comments on the piece are interesting and bring up topics including regulations and their enforcement, the impact of such a service on survivor mental health, and more. Another notes, “Hopefully I have a way to go before I am gone, which gives me a lot of time to try this out and see whether I can even tolerate my own company after I am gone, much less inflict myself on posterity.” There are numerous comments on how this might go awry. My favorite comment is this: “One character in Futurama was Nixon’s head in a bottle of preservative. It spoke, and had opinions. But of course, AI is more sophisticated now.”
What are your thoughts on so-called Death Bots? Would you make one yourself, or want to have one representing a loved one? Leave a comment or email me.
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PatientPay acquires healthcare treatment estimate and payments software vendor ClearGage.
MedScape Launches Free AI Tool to Recap Patient Visits
Medscape launches a free AI scribe for US physicians that can summarize a patient visit in SOAP, H&P, or POMR format.
Hillhouse bids highest to buy healthcare BPO GeBBS from Chrys Cap for $870 mn
Top bidder Hillhouse Investment reportedly offers ChrysCapital $870 million to acquire HIM and RCM vendor Gebbs Healthcare Solutions.
Medscape launches a free AI scribe for US physicians that can summarize a patient visit in SOAP, H&P, or POMR format.
Researchers find that about only about half of the 500 AI-powered medical devices that have been approved by FDA were validated on real patient data, raising concerns about their clinical effectiveness and the FDA’s review standards. Three-fourths of the authorizations involved radiology products.
MUSC Health rolls out an Epic-integrated AI agent from SoundHound AI that can answer patient questions and manage appointments. SoundHound acquired Amelia AI, which sells conversational AI agents to multiple verticals outside of healthcare and had raised nearly $200 million, for $80 million three weeks ago. SoundHound went public via a SPAC merger in 2021 at a $2.1 billion valuation, now down to $1.7 billion.
Human Longevity, Inc., which uses AI to identify the early stages of age-related conditions for paying members of its 100+ longevity program, raises $40 million in a Series B funding round.
Google’s API-accessible HeAR AI model (Health Acoustic Representations), which was trained on 100 million cough sounds, serves as the foundation of an India-based company’s tool that assesses lung health and detects tuberculosis.
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Adam McMullin, MBA is CEO of AvaSure.
Tell me about yourself and the company.
I have led AvaSure for the past two years. I have had the privilege of being involved with a number of businesses that serve providers, working with nurses and improving clinical workflow. AvaSure checks all the boxes for me personally. It’s a mission-driven organization. It’s a company that is at the middle of a transformation around how virtual care is leveraged for providers.
AvaSure is the leading intelligent virtual care platform for hospitals. We have 1,200 of them as customers. That involves patient safety, virtual care, and ambient technologies that improve safety and efficiency.
What is the state of the art in virtual care and the technologies that enable it?
Our technologies were originally the purview of the chief nurse, who is an incredibly important constituent. We have a great chief nurse advisory board to help advise us there. But almost every health system has stepped back and realized that they have virtual safety, which is also called virtual sitting. They have efforts around virtual care and virtual nursing. They have traditional programs such as tele-stroke and tele-ICU. They are also thinking about the home.
What platform that does that? You have a number of solutions that are converging to become a health system-wide platform that has evolved to do a few things. It needs to have stability across the base of the platform. It needs to work, because when you’re adopting virtual care technologies, you need utility-like performance. On top of it, the value propositions and the problems that are being addressed are very much about improving patient safety in bucket one. Virtual care broadly includes things like virtual nursing, rounding, E-ICUs, and the like.
The third leg of the stool after patient safety and virtual care is around ambient, which is emerging. We have technologies that leverage computer vision for falls reduction and patient elopement. We just acquired a business to further accelerate our efforts.
We are seeing those three domains come together. Health systems want a platform that supports that and integrates with the rest of their technology, such as their EMR, their communication systems, and other AI technologies. There’s a lot of development in the market. Virtual nursing has continued to evolve as we look at the problem sets.
How does virtual care affect nurse satisfaction and the cost of providing nursing services?
We have virtual nursing in all of the cases that we have implemented. The experience from our chief nurse advisory board has been an improvement in nurse satisfaction and virtual care broadly. If you’re in the virtual safety arena and you’re not leveraging virtual safety observation, often you are taking away the non-licensed professionals who support nurses and care teams. Virtual safety observation contributes back to the care team. If you have virtual nursing and can triage, manage patient requests, or perform more thorough and less time-consuming patient discharges and admissions, then the nurses on the floor can better leverage the top of their licensure and focus on the patients that have acute and immediate needs.
Nurses want to be able to have deep connectivity with their patients and to spend the time that is necessary. But they might be in the middle of something that takes more time. They get urgent calls and emergent calls and are pulled away. We have seen nursing satisfaction improve across the board when virtual nursing is a part of the care delivery model. It’s not a brand new care delivery model. It becomes part of the team-based care delivery model.
Have hospitals found unexpected benefits or use cases once they deploy virtual sitters as an efficient, non-intrusive set of eyes on the patient room?
Virtual sitting is a nice, effective way to get on board with virtual care. It provides financial benefit and clinical benefit. As an example, Community Health Systems had zero falls with injury once we implemented in their hospitals. That’s a clinical and financial value proposition. You support things like falls and behavioral health, which then frees up resources that can be returned to the care team, and then fund the migration from virtual sitting — which started with mobile devices and rolling something into a room — to this migration of enterprise-wide virtual care, where you are putting devices in every room. That supports those other use cases around broader virtual care and ambient.
Certain patients have a higher cognitive load and need more direct observation. We are also augmenting the virtual sitting with AI to improve effectiveness. We think that over time, the AI will advance to where you have a device in every room, and even if a patient is not being monitored by a human, we can provide an additional set of eyes on all patients. We’ve seen some interesting things as you leverage sitting and open the doors to virtual care, which then catalyzes these devices in every room that can then act as sensors. That is leveraging computer vision to do more, both clinically and operationally.
We provide our customers a maturity model around how these technologies are adopted. You can start in places that prove principles for the care teams, build confidence, and then move up the maturity model as you adopt additional use cases. We worked with both clinical and IT teams to inform that. The market maturity model it is not specific to AvaSure. It was developed in conjunction with leading clinicians and folks on the IT side. I’m thankful for all the health systems that contributed into it. It’s a useful roadmap that allows you to cut through all the noise and the fog to create a pathway to achieve the benefits of better clinical results, lower costs, and better utilization of precious human capital.
ICUs and other specialty units were mostly defined as a location that was wired for monitoring and staffed by specially trained employees. Will virtual solutions change that way of thinking?
We are all aware of the trend of rising acuity across health systems. We are seeing patients being kept in units when they might otherwise have been moved to higher-acuity units or prevented from moving to higher-acuity units.
I’ll give you an example. University of Colorado Health has published about their sepsis monitoring program that keeps people out of the ICUs. By having virtual monitoring, AI algorithm for detection, and well-trained and centralized human experts sitting in the virtual care center, they have saved 1,000 people per year from getting sepsis.
If they had sepsis or complications, they would be in the higher-acuity setting. By doing this, you are preventing issues and reducing length of stay overall, because people would be in those higher-acuity, more expensive settings and potentially be exposed to harm.
How does integration with the EHR work?
The EHR is obviously the core clinical system that we want to support and augment. Our technologies are integrated into all of the leading EHRs. In many of the EHRs, you can be in the clinical record, launch a virtual visit, and engage other providers if you’re doing a discharge. You can engage whoever is in charge of family care of the patient and loop them in from wherever they are outside the four walls of the hospital to have appropriate patient education or discharge. You can do all of that right from EHR.
We see a combination of the virtual care technologies that are tightly integrated with the EMR and other technologies that are working in the background to improve outcomes. We opened our platform. There’s so much innovation happening in this space, and we wanted our customers to know that AvaSure can support the things we do in safety, virtual care, and with computer vision and ambient. There’s a huge ecosystem out there.
We have a partnership with a company called Clew, which is the first FDA-cleared predictive model for patient deterioration. They have seen examples where alerts and alarms are reduced by 50 times. With that combination of video and documentation in the EHR, you’re see some incredible outcomes. UCHealth is using the Epic model as they support their sepsis reduction. Virtual care augments and supports the EMR.
How will the acquisition of Ouva affect AvaSure’s capabilities and strategy?
Since we talked last 18 months ago, we have more than doubled the folks that we have in R&D. As the largest company in the health system-focused virtual care market, we are committed to leading and developing the best technology. But as I mentioned, there’s a lot happening out there. That’s organic, the things that we’re doing within AvaSure where we are spending time and investing.
I mentioned that we completely opened up our platform, and anything our customers want to integrate, we have a standard API for that. We’re going to continue to build a greater number of partners that are pre-integrated and pre-packaged for the benefit of our customers, or if there’s anything they want to integrate, there’s a standard way of doing it.
When you get to M&A, any time that we can accelerate accelerate the strategy and gain team members who wake up every morning and have the same mission -driven passion that we do for improving the environment for care teams and patient safety, then we are really interested in doing that.
Ouva was a great example. Our AI at the time was focused on patient safety. Ouva added additional patient safety modules and modules that support operational elements, such as patient flow. Is a room ready to be leveraged by a patient? They had staff rounding. It was a natural fit where we gained the research that they had done within hospitals, the technology, and a team. That allows us to go faster, be better, and deliver more value for our customers.
Given that we have this large base of 1,200 hospitals, we’re at a great point to bring in emerging, high-value technologies. It’s hard to get things into healthcare, but we can put them on our platform to make them available to our customers.
You spent years as an executive with Hill-Rom, which has been acquired by Baxter, and that company as well as Stryker have extended their reach beyond beds and medical equipment and into digital health and AI. What ambitions do they have for doing more in the patient’s room?
We partner with both of them. They are continuing to build their IT portfolios to best serve their customers. Over time, we’ll probably continue to see more acquisitive activity.
What possibilities does AI add to your offerings?
We as a company are focused on computer vision and noticing more things that are happening in the room. We also have in-flight partnerships around large language models that will be coming to address nursing documentation, but that’s not at our core. That’s an example of where we’ll partner.
Computer vision is in our core. We’ll still partner with others in that space, but computer vision has actually been around for a long time. We see it obviously in the autonomous driving space and it’s been in manufacturing. With machine learning and AI around computer vision, we can already see if a patient is getting out of bed and is at risk at a fall. If you’re a behavioral health patient and you’re moving around the room, you can be at risk of elopement and leaving your room, and we can look for that.
With Ouva, we picked up technology to know about mobility. If you’re in a hospital and you’re in the bed all the time, that’s bad. You want to be up, be mobile, and prevent bed sores. We can provide data around mobility along with operational elements such as bed management and staff rounding. Those are all things that we have today.
What I’m excited about in the future is that we are quickly adding technology around caregiver harm, which has unfortunately been increasing. We can provide ambient tools for caregivers to leverage if they feel that they are in a position of risk and then alert folks.
We are adding through partnership. There is computer vision technology to start looking at vitals detection, so you can do a better job at spotting patient deterioration and intervening early where you can have better outcomes. Nutrition workflows. Once you have that device in the room, computer vision continues to open up really interesting possibilities. If you had a hospital expert observing in the room all the time, think about how efficiently the activities could be coordinated in that room for the benefit of a patient. In essence, you’re automating that with AI.
For now and for the foreseeable future, though, we’re going to make sure that we keep a human in the loop. We don’t want to go back to the days of proliferating nuisance alarms. We think that we can continue to improve the effectiveness of the humans in virtual care centers and other settings with the AI, and then over time, provide a level of non-human in the loop, truly autonomous observation for patients who are at lower risk, and also for operational issues.
What will be important to the company over the next few years?
The most important thing to us is that we continue to be the company – we are 15% nurses combined with the technology platform and we we just redid our analytics layer – that combines all of that to make sure that our customers get proven ROI and clinical benefits. That we’re a trusted partner with these technologies that allow health systems to mature as they adopt virtual care and ambient technologies.
Access and Use of Electronic Health Information by Individuals with Cancer: 2020-2022
An ASTP/ONC study finds that 60% of people who were recently diagnosed with cancer accessed their online medical records in 2020-2022, a marked increase from 2017-2018.
Pfizer Launches PfizerForAll, a Digital Platform that Helps Simplify Access to Healthcare
Pfizer launches PfizerForAll, a direct-to-consumer online healthcare business that offers virtual consults for select conditions, prescription and test delivery to the home, and local appointment scheduling for vaccines.
EHR vendor Cantata Health Solutions acquires Ohio-based Geisler IT Services for an undisclosed sum.
An ASTP/ONC study finds that 60% of people who were recently diagnosed with cancer accessed their online medical records in 2020-2022, which is a big jump from 2017-2018.
Of those who were recently diagnosed, 40% accessed their records six or more times in the previous year.
Nearly all recently diagnosed cancer patients accessed their test results through a patient portal or online system, with half of them needing to use multiple platforms.
From Epic Fail: “Re: Cerner. I saw some online chatter about Oracle / Cerner employees wanting to move to Epic. I don’t think that’s actually a thing.” Unless something has changed, Epic generally doesn’t hire people with industry experience. In Judy’s mind (and I love this), they would rather take a bright, high-potential new college graduate, pay them a decent salary given their lack of experience, teach them to do things the Epic way, and then move them up if it’s a good fit or out if not. They aren’t big on paying more to hire experienced people whose knowledge and habits need to be “unlearned.” Folks with recent time working for Epic, is this still generally accurate? As I’ve said many times, Epic’s most shockingly successful accomplishment is building a huge, successful company with an army of fresh-from-college industry newcomers to whom C-level hospital executives listen.
From Chaat GPT: “Re: patients using AI as an initial or second medical opinion. How does this work its way into the workflow of physicians who are already have all appointment slots booked for many months?” Doctors could face challenges as patients use AI tools like ChatGPT to get second opinions or conflicting advice. The healthcare system isn’t equipped to treat patients as equal partners within a 15-minute appointment. If just 10% of patients question their diagnosis or treatment based on their AI findings, it could overwhelm doctors. Enterprising physicians might create a second-opinion practice, gathering full patient information (thanks, interoperability), and thoughtfully reviewing it with the help of AI to explain the options or recommend new ones. Alternatively, a patient’s subjective data could be analyzed by AI before their appointment to create more informed care plans up front. I’m pretty sure that healthcare processes would look a lot different if you could ignore incremental profit motives, insurers, and malpractice attorneys (direct primary care addresses the first two).
Lorre accidentally uncovered a fun statistic today. HIStalk has served up more than 1 billion ad impressions in just part of its lifespan.
September 10 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Overcoming Hurdles in Specialty Med Access Under Medical Benefits.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Drew Hunsinger, VP of corporate business development, DrFirst; Tyler Wince, MEd, VP of product and technology specialty solutions, DrFirst. More specialty medications, which made up 80% of FDA’s new drug approvals last year, are falling under medical benefits, which challenges the patient care processes and efficiency of providers. Medication access experts will discuss how automation and unified medication management solutions can ensure better outcomes for patients and providers by addressing patient access hurdles and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of EHRs. They will also provide insights into how regulatory changes such as interoperability and prior authorization mandates will affect healthcare stakeholders.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
McKesson will acquire business and administrative services company Core Ventures from Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute for $2.5 billion. FCS launched Core Ventures in January to house its IT, finance, managed care, and procurement divisions. FCS, which employs over 500 clinicians across 100 locations, will retain its independence and become a member of The US Oncology Network, McKesson’s practice management business for cancer care practices.
Pfizer launches PfizerForAll, a direct-to-consumer online healthcare business that offers virtual consults for select conditions, prescription and test delivery to the home, and local appointment scheduling for vaccines.
Divurgent hires Steve Aspling (CorroHealth) as VP of client service.
Cordea Consulting names Kaitlin Traft (Healthlink Advisors) VP of sales.
Vik Krishnan, MBA (TeleVox Healthcare) joins Instem as CEO.
Tarah Bryan, MA (Health Catalyst) joins Notable as head of marketing.
Innovative Consulting Group names Christina Krugh (Baker Tilly US) as SVP of sales.
Greg Burrell, MD (Gravie) joins Homeward as chief medical officer.
Regional West Medical Center will implement Epic in October through a partnership with UCHealth (CO) and Epic’s Community Connect program. The hospital settled a contract dispute with Oracle Health earlier this year over financial losses and lowered bond ratings that it contends were directly caused by its 2018 implementation of Cerner Millennium.
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center implements Cloud Payments software from TrustCommerce, a Sphere company.
Capital Rx launches Never Move Again, which allows self-funded health plan sponsors to continuously access the best drug prices without needing to re-implement their pharmacy benefit plans or issue new cards, thereby avoiding disruptions for members. It uses the company’s JUDI platform, which centralizes pharmacy benefit workflows and provides full financial transparency.
McLaren Health Care (MI) restores its computer systems following an August 5 ransomware attack.
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McKesson will acquire business and administrative services company Core Ventures from Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute for $2.5 billion.
McLaren Health Care IT system restored following cyberattack
McLaren Health Care (MI) fully restores its computer systems following a ransomware attack earlier this month.
Forge Health Poised for Optimization and Expansion with Strategic Investment from MFO Ventures
Hybrid mental healthcare provider Forge Health will use new funding from MFO Ventures to develop tailored programs for cancer patients and to expand its virtual care services beyond the five states in which it currently operates.
The vast majority of HIStalk readers work with some of the larger or better-informed sectors of the healthcare IT industry — health systems, hospitals, large physician groups, technology vendors, governmental entities, and other similar organizations. Many of us have teams that are dedicated to keeping up with regulations and requirements and making sure that we don’t get ourselves into trouble. For those who are willing to push the boundaries, there are often legal and compliance teams that help advise prior to a decision being made.
I’m active in my local professional society, where the majority of physician members are not employed by a hospital, health system, or other large organization. They may be in a group of one to 10 physicians and generally focus the most on providing quality healthcare to the people in their community, which means sometimes that they don’t follow regulatory requirements as well as they should. EHR vendors that focus on ambulatory practices have done a good job of trying to keep them informed and explaining what components and features of their systems are designed to help with regulatory compliance, but the reality is that some of those physicians never see those newsletters. Even if they see them, their understanding of the requirements and risks is highly variable.
National specialty organizations also do a good job of advocating for and informing their members, but there is also a risk that physicians don’t see those communications either. There are consultants out there that can help, but given the small margins under which the average private practice physician group is operating, any additional expenditures seem daunting.
Because of these factors, it will be a surprise to many that physicians and other clinicians who are participating in certain Medicare programs can wind up in hot water with information blocking. Many of the physicians that I interact with at the local level don’t even know what this means. One of my own physicians is one of the biggest blockers I’ve ever met, because her patient portal is incorrectly configured and releases nonsense information rather than the required data elements.
As of July 31, the Department of Health and Human Services, via the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), will start enforcing the information blocking provisions with respect to physicians, hospital accountable care organizations, and others who had previously been excluded from the rules that are found in the 21st Century Cures Act. The OIG plans to spend most of its efforts investigating situations where information blocking is said to have caused patient harm, to have gone on for a long time, or to have had a negative financial impact on federal / government healthcare programs or private entities. To meet the standard of violating the rule, the practice has to have knowledge that their operational practices are unreasonable and are apt to interfere with or discourage patient access or use of electronic health information.
Physicians who are found to have committed information blocking can receive penalties through the Medicare Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) that will impact them for future years as well. The names of offenders will also be published on federal websites, and I suspect there may be some other downstream ramifications that are related to payer credentialing and other critical physician processes. Even though this isn’t the same as being debarred from a federal program, it’s a federal penalty, and I can foresee questions like, “Have you ever been investigated for information blocking or been subject to review by the Office of the Inspector General?” or something similar.
Physicians and those who are now subject to these rules need to educate themselves about the policies and procedures that are related to information blocking and what is required of them for patient access and use of electronic health information. This means looking at both federal and state laws. They will also need to update their practice’s policies and procedures if they don’t already address the issue, and train staff on how to deal with patient requests and how to remain compliant. If they are working with a vendor that is less than supportive as far as release of electronic health information, they may need to consider switching platforms so that they don’t place themselves at further risk. We all know how much fun switching EHRs can be, so hopefully vendors will step up where needed.
Although I don’t find enjoyment in seeing physicians subjected to additional regulatory burden, I support this as a patient. I had an episode of care last year where I saw a new provider and was reassured that my presenting problem wasn’t concerning. I also had a minor procedure performed at that time for something that was a nuisance, but not a long-term health risk. I didn’t think twice about wanting to see a copy of the office note, because the situation seemed so minimal and the physician was someone who I trusted.
Fast forward to 2024 and now that visit might be important related to a current health issue, and the office — which is subject to the provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act — doesn’t even have a patient portal where I can see my notes. They also won’t fax me a copy of the note, but offered to read it to me during what was probably one of the most ridiculous patient / office phone calls that I have ever experienced. Guess what? The note documents only the procedure, leaving the patient scratching her head as to why the other issue wasn’t documented.
You can bet that I am going to be assertive about seeing notes from every visit moving forward, and when I select new physicians, I’m going to be specifically asking about their EHR, patient portal, and how they release copies of visit notes and pathology. I’m probably going to become “that patient” who rolls in with her giant folder of information, because I don’t know if I can trust people to have the right information for the right patient at the right time in the care process – a fact that is very discouraging when living in a large US city in the year 2024.
We owe it to our patients to do better, whether we’re clinicians, solution providers, technology companies, or others that support healthcare. Even if you’re not currently a patient, some day you will be. And if that day turns out to be one where you get news that makes it seem like one of the worst days of your life, you may have a different understanding than you have now. Why not work to make things right before that time comes?
Have you, while in the patient role, experienced information blocking? How did it impact your care or make you feel? Leave a comment or email me.
Email Dr. Jayne.
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Not exactly sure how the community is supposed to learn when a local acquisition is contemplated so that they can…