HIStalk Interviews Stuart McLean, CEO, Nordic Global

February 26, 2025 Interviews 3 Comments

Stuart McLean, MBA is CEO of Nordic Global.

Tell me about yourself and the company.

I’ve been in healthcare for about three decades now. I started by doing merger work for what is now Northwell. I did that for half a dozen years as we built that system, which led me to have a deep appreciation for the importance of scale and operating efficiency. I co-founded my own turnaround firm and merged it into Alvarez and Marsal. I’ve been focused for the last couple of decades on strategic financial operational strength for healthcare providers.

Nordic has been in place for about 15 years. We’ve greatly evolved over that time. We have a handful of areas of strength, certainly EHR – Epic, Oracle, and Meditech. We are increasingly working as implementation partners for Workday and Infor and seeing that as an important part of what our client healthcare systems need.

We’ve also developed a real strength in cloud, working with our partners AWS and Azure. The healthcare industry is moving to the cloud, at least on a hybrid basis, so it’s an important question about how best to do that. Finally, I would want to highlight the transformation that we have taken on to move in the direction of a full-service, end-to-end managed information technology company for our clients.

How do you characterize the health tech consulting market and how do you differentiate Nordic within it?

I think it’s getting increasingly crowded. Private equity views this as an important part of the healthcare transformation, so there’s a bit of a rush into this business.

We have maturity and a deep team. We have 3,300 professionals who have been at this for a while. We began 15 years ago with a deep expertise in the implementation, optimization, and integration of EHR systems. We think that makes a significant difference.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of being such a large organization that also provides services in Europe?

The expansion into Europe has been interesting. We operate in four countries in Europe — England, Ireland, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. We are growing pretty rapidly in that market as those markets recognize the benefits of the EHR platform as part of their strength. Because of our focus on managed services, we do a good bit of outsourcing work both in Ireland and in the Philippines.

How far along is the move to the cloud? Are health system worried about the cost or vendor lock-in?

This is a very early game. We just published an e-book that is available on our website where we dive into that a little bit deeper. We think it’s important to have a comprehensive evaluation so that we understand the benefits from an integration perspective and the concerns with regard to security since health systems are, and should be, risk-averse with regard to patient care information. That’s an important element of the response that health systems must make to the financial pressures that they are feeling.

Oracle Health has a lot of resources when it comes to cloud and technology and general. How will that influence its position in healthcare?

We are all going to benefit from that competitive dynamic between Epic and Oracle Health. Each company comes from a slightly different place. Both companies see the massive market size here and are pursuing it. They are pursuing it thoughtfully. I don’t pretend to have a clear crystal ball into who will be the winner here. They both will survive. They both will thrive. Here again, the health systems will benefit from that kind of competitive dynamic.

How much do health systems margins, M&A, and changes in staffing patterns affect your business?

As somebody who knows the health system industry really well, I’m surprised at the government’s response to the desire and the need for scale with health systems. I’m really surprised by it. When you compare UnitedHealthcare or any number of these large, national, fully consolidated insurers and the desire by the US government to keep healthcare pretty fragmented, it makes the work that Nordic does even more important. Those health systems are simply unable to access the scale economies that they would if they were allowed to be $20 to $50 billion super-regional health systems. We at Nordic can deliver the benefit of that scale.

How are health system IT departments affected by cloud adoption and the challenge to find and keep employees with specific skills?

It’s a little overwhelming. Without naming or getting into any competitive information, we have clients who are very concerned about the competition for their IT talent. That’s where I think we can be beneficial, because of the size that that we have, for those clients that choose to establish an outsourced relationship with us.

Two things happen. One, they no longer have to worry about access to talent, because we have it on a national and international basis. Secondly, we think we’ve struck the right mix of offshore, lower-cost delivery and onshore capacities.

Will the shift from onsite consulting to remote services last?

I think so. I’m an individual on this question, but also we at the leadership level have given some thought to this. We see efficiencies from non location-specific delivery of these services.

Will AI change your business?

For AI adoption to be successful, it’s a balance. It’s technology, but also humanity and empathy. The focus in the health systems space today is principally around decision support, predictive analytics, and workflow optimization.

We don’t see a revolutionary impact in the near term, in the next year or two. To your earlier question, with regard to Epic and Oracle, those organizations are spending a tremendous amount of energy and effort in this area and are working with early adopters to beta test and refine these capabilities.

I think the AI promise is very real, but it’s more likely three to five years away than one to two years.

Will it deliver tangible ROI to health systems in the short to medium term?

I don’t see it in the short term. I’m not even sure that this will ever be an ROI topic for health systems. It’s about the quality of care and population health, with the ability to become more proactive, more targeted, and more precise with regard to patient- specific situations.

How much of an AI driver is clinician satisfaction and wellness?

It’s not a primary ask from our clients at this point. It’s a bit more of an evolutionary component of this. The clinician and physician wellness part of it will be supported by the healthcare heuristics element. Have you asked this question? Have we considered this diagnosis? Rather than the AI providing the answer, it will offer help with going down the decision tree in the pursuit of the answer.

Shifting to business climate, what kind of companies will be winners and losers now that cheap financing is gone and investor demands have changed?

I think there will be a fair bit of chaos in this space. Nordic is in a very strong position. W are owned by Bon Secours Mercy Health, and their ownership interest is strategic and long-term. We’re not worried about capital structure and those sorts of things. We are focused on the strategic value of the work that is delivered by Nordic to our clients. We have a longer and more patient horizon, and that will make us stronger over time. There is money pursuing quick earnings, and this business requires patience.

Does General Catalyst’s acquisition of Summa Health foretell significant industry change?

I don’t follow General Catalyst closely, but I’m aware of that situation. I think they see the health system ownership as platform, almost a laboratory, for innovation that could then be deployed and delivered to others. I think that Bon Secours Mercy Health is in a better, stronger position as an independent, not-for-profit. long-term that’s less interested in capitalizing and creating dollars than they are in supporting the quality of care over long periods of time.

What factors will be important to Nordic in the next three to five years?

Strategic partnerships with other large health systems. We’ve been a contractor and we remain a contractor, largely. We’re hired by a health system to run a project to implement the EHR or optimize the EHR. We see our benefit increasingly in long-term, five-plus year agreements with health systems to be their technology partner. Not developing technology, which is the role of Epic and Oracle and others, but managing that technology cost-efficiently because the pressure is real. We think that we can be worth 25 to 30% over time in terms of the technology spend while still ensuring a strong, durable, consistently available platform.

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HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS25

February 25, 2025 Uncategorized No Comments

Agfa HealthCare

Booth 5027

Contact: Kara Clarke, director of marketing and communications
kara.clarke@agfa.com

Get ready, because the power of innovation is about to take your IT work-life balance to a whole new level. At HIMSS25, discover how Agfa HealthCare Enterprise Imaging significantly reduces IT complexity for healthcare organizations with a unified platform, user-friendly interface, enhanced security, and excellent scalability. Allowing you to focus on what matters most — helping your organization deliver exceptional patient care.

Join us at our booth, 5027, for a special client series, “Peer Perspectives: Connected Imaging Solutions for IT Leaders — Integration, Imaging, Innovation — Real Stories, Real Results.” Gain insights from IT leaders just like you who have transformed their organizations with Agfa HealthCare solutions. Uncover the strategies they used to overcome obstacles and achieve impactful results. Stay engaged with an interactive Q&A after each presentation. Learn more at www.agfahealthcare.com/himss25.

AGS Health

Contact Matt Bridge to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Matt Bridge, SVP of strategy
matthew.bridge@agshealth.com
508.523.4176

AGS Health is more than a revenue cycle management company — we’re a strategic partner for growth. Our distinctive methodology blends intelligent automation with award-winning RCM services and high-touch customer support to deliver peak end-to-end revenue cycle performance and an empowering patient financial experience. We employ a team of 13,000 highly trained and college-educated RCM experts who directly support more than 150 customers spanning a variety of care settings and specialties, including nearly 50% of the 20 most prominent US hospitals and 40% of the nation’s 10 largest health systems. Our thoughtfully crafted RCM solutions deliver measurable revenue growth and retention, enabling customers to achieve the revenue to realize their vision.

Altera Digital Health

Booth 2532

Contact: Meghan Cavanaugh, events marketing manager
meghan.cavanagh@alterahealth.com
847.790.6876

A global healthcare IT leader, Altera Digital Health develops and elevates technology that brings next-level healthcare within reach. At HIMSS25, we’re excited to showcase how Altera is addressing the challenges healthcare providers are facing today by enabling system interoperability and data sharing, ensuring financial stability, and leveraging AI to help alleviate clinical and administrative burden.

Join us in booth 2532 as EVP of AI Ben Scharfe presents the Altera vision for the future of healthcare in “Shared goals and measured results: Why Altera is doubling down on client outcomes” on Tuesday, March 4 from 12:00-12:20 pm. Additionally, Ben will present how Altera is leveraging AI to tackle some of healthcare’s most pressing challenges in “Cool, but how will it actually work?: AI complexities in a practical healthcare landscape” on Wednesday, March 5 from 12:00-12:20 pm. We’ll also be thrilled to hear CareInMotion EVP Kevin Ritter present interoperability priorities at kiosk C3318-14 in the Interop + Smart Experience Pavilion on Tuesday, March 4 from 10:30-10:50 am during his session titled, “Make your data work harder: How actionable insights enable better outcomes for your organization.”

Additionally, we’re hosting our “Viva Altera” happy hour on Tuesday, March 4 from 4:30-5:30 pm, so stop by our booth, 2532, for a beverage and to meet with our experts. For our full theater schedule and to learn more about our presence at the event, visit alterahealth.com/events.

Arcadia

Booth 3510

Contact: Drew Schaar, communications and content
drew.schaar@arcadia.io

Visit Arcadia at booth 3510 to learn how you can drive savings, improve outcomes, and identify opportunities to grow your network with one streamlined analytics platform.

Attend our general session, “Proactive and reactive strategies to minimize data disruptions in healthcare,” on Wednesday, March 5 from 3:15-4:15 pm on Venetian Level 2 in Titian 2201. In this session, learn practical steps to prevent data errors, swiftly address disruptions, and build resilient data governance frameworks that boost patient care quality and organizational efficiency.

Attend our general session, “Enhancing high-risk maternity care with advanced data analytics,” on Thursday, March 6 from 9:15-9:45 am on Venetian Level 4 in Lando 4201. In this presentation, learn how one Medicaid ACO is using advanced analytics to revolutionize the identification and management of high-risk pregnancies.

Attend Byte-sized booth talks at various times in booth 3510. Learn in a series of short, informative talks with industry experts on timely subjects, from the latest CMS policies to emergent tech tools.

Attend “Sips and Socks” happy hour on Tuesday, March 4 and Wednesday, March 5 from 4:30-5:30 pm in booth 3510. Join Arcadia for happy hour to network with peers and snag a limited-edition pair of Arcadia socks.

Learn more and view a full schedule of Arcadia’s events at HIMSS25.

Artera

Booth 2766

Contact: Elyssa Jaffe, senior director, growth marketing
elyssa.jaffe@artera.io
904.536.7790

Artera is a SaaS digital health leader redefining patient communications. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, the company is trusted by 800+ healthcare systems and federal agencies to facilitate more than 2 billion communications annually, reaching over 100 million patients. The Artera platform, powered by AI, integrates across a healthcare organization’s tech stack, EHRs, and third-party vendors to unify, simplify, and orchestrate digital communications into the patient’s preferred channel (text, email, and voice), in 109+ languages. The Artera impact – more efficient staff, more profitable organizations, and a more harmonious patient experience.

Our team will be available throughout HIMSS25 to share patient engagement best practices, offer product demonstrations, and answer your questions. Schedule and attend a meeting with an Artera team member and earn a $25 Amazon gift card. As an added bonus, you’ll be entered to win an iPad Pro in our post-event raffle. Schedule a meeting with our team here.

AvaSure

Booth 4672

Contact: Nicole Douglas, partner marketing manager
nicole.douglas@avasure.com
614.315.8112

AvaSure is an intelligent virtual care platform used in over 1,100 hospitals, enabling healthcare providers to engage with patients, optimize staffing, and seamlessly blend remote and in-person care at scale, addressing critical challenges in staffing shortages, rising patient complexity, and increased costs.

Join us at HIMSS in booth 4672:
Experience Innovation: Meet Vicky, the Virtual Care Assistant! AvaSure’s new patient engagement tool helps collect patient requests and uses AI to categorize, prioritize, and help the care team be everywhere they need to be.

Interactive Demos: See our latest advancements in virtual care technology, including a new dual device designed to outfit every hospital room with virtual care and AI-enabled workflows.

Expert Insights: Don’t miss us at a Brunch Briefing on Wednesday, March 5 from 10:30-11:45 am in Caesars Forum room 110 to hear from industry leaders about orchestrating virtual care success with CIO-CNO collaboration.

Visit AvaSure at HIMSS and discover how we’re innovating for the next era of care.

Cardamom

Contact Bridget Bell to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Bridget Bell, VP, business development
bridget@cardamom.health
608.658.3461

Cardamom is a minority-owned healthcare technology services company specializing in data, analytics, AI, and applications with a strong focus on EHRs — particularly Epic. With expertise in revenue cycle optimization, managed services, implementation, and flexible AI solutions, we help healthcare organizations maximize the value of their data and technology to reduce costs, enhance care quality, and improve patient engagement. Learn more at www.Cardamom.Health.

CereCore

Contact Phil Sobol to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Phil Sobol, chief commercial officer
phil.sobol@cerecore.net
615.344.4169‬

CereCore works behind the scenes to empower hospitals and health systems with IT services. Need to drive operational efficiency, improve financial outcomes, and uncover more bandwidth for your IT team? Our experts understand the major EHR platforms inside and out. Tap into support desk solutions that will result in happier users and providers. For the second year, we earned a top KLAS Research rating in managed IT services, and we were the only vendor whose clients responded “Yes” 100% of the time when asked if their managed IT services provider exceeded expectations.

Facing an EHR transition that requires additional expertise? CereCore partners with healthcare organizations across the US and globe to provide comprehensive EHR consulting, IT and application support, technical professional and managed services, strategic IT consulting, and advisory services. Our hospital operations experience means we can help you create customizable roadmaps for RCM optimization, overcome talent shortages, and maximize your HIT investment.

Get a healthcare IT assessment and benefit from an outsider’s perspective, because the cost of not knowing often far exceeds the investment in finding out. Connect with us at HIMSS and find meaningful change with CereCore’s healthcare IT managed services.

Clearsense

Meeting Pod 9319

Contact: Glenn Wirick, chief commercial officer
gwirick@clearsense.com
480.450.5424

Revitalize your Data with Clearsense
Experience how to revitalize your data with Clearsense at HIMSS 2025. Our Active Data Archival solution goes beyond storage — we transform your archived data into a valuable, accessible asset that enhances clinical and operational workflows. We help health systems reduce IT costs, accelerate M&A value realization, and improve clinician access to patient information — all with the industry’s fastest time to value.

Why Meet with Us?
Active Data in Action – See how our archival solution seamlessly integrates with daily workflows, eliminating the need for costly legacy systems.
Strategic Cost Reduction – Learn how top health systems are saving millions by consolidating outdated applications and streamlining IT infrastructure.
Industry Expertise – Meet with our data enablement experts to discuss your unique challenges and explore tailored solutions.

Let’s Talk Data.
Schedule a meeting with us at MP9319 and discover how Clearsense can help you maximize cost savings, boost efficiency, and unlock the full potential of your archived data.

Book your meeting now.

Clinical Architecture

Booth 1349

Contact: Jaime Lira, VP, marketing
jaime_lira@clinicalarchitecture.com
317.580.8400

Clinical Architecture is bringing back its in-booth Data Quality Theater for a second year! Visit us at booth 1349 during the show for 11 presentations from clients, industry thought leaders, and partners. Featured speakers include Stan Huff, Graphite Health; Jason Buckner, Manifest MedEx; Therasa Bell and Peter Schoch, MD Kno2; Michael Barr, MD Velox Health Metadata – and many others.

We will also be introducing the PIQXL Gateway, a tool that objectively scores the quality of patient data and pinpoints root causes of data quality problems so the information can be improved.

Be sure to join us for “PIQXL Gateway: The Key to Improving Patient Data Quality” on Tuesday, March 4 at 2:00 pm with presenter and Clinical Architecture CEO Charlie Harp.

View the full list and register for theater sessions here. Registration is encouraged but not required and the sessions are free to attend. We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

CliniComp

Booth 5454 in the Venetian’s Executive Lounge, Level 3, Toscana 3610

Contact: Kem Graham, VP, growth and strategy
kem.graham@clinicomp.com
760.505.6879

CliniComp is an innovative technology pioneer serving customers globally for over 40 years with continual advancement in delivering a cutting-edge, comprehensive, EHR solution suite. CliniComp uniquely offers a System as a Service (SYaaS) model, eliminating the exorbitant cost of ownership with deployment of all system components in months, not years; with hardware, software, and 24/7 all-inclusive support, as a complete package of services for the life of the customer. The company was selected in 2024 as the winner of the “Best Electronic Health Record Service” in the MedTech Breakthrough Awards program, recognizing the breakthrough technology innovation of CliniComp’s unique and superior SYaaS model.

The CliniComp solution is an integrated, web-based EHR with an architectural framework conquering ever-evolving interoperability, scalability, adaptability, and real-time performance data challenges to provide a longitudinal patient record with Intrinsic AITM. Designed by clinicians for clinicians, CliniComp’s EHR delivers a comprehensive (inpatient, ambulatory, ancillaries, and revenue cycle) solution suite with an intuitive, seamless user interface and has earned an unrivaled record of performance and reliability with no planned downtime for decades in the most complex, high-acuity hospital environments.

For more information, please visit clinicomp.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X.

CloudWave

Booth 1373

Contact: Christine Mellyn, VP, marketing
cmellyn@gocloudwave.com
508.251.8899

Visit CloudWave, the healthcare data security experts, in booth 1373 for an interactive and informative experience! Our team of experts will be available to discuss important technology topics such as cybersecurity, cloud solutions, and more. In addition, we’re excited to offer a hands-on tabletop card game designed to immerse you in incident response and cybersecurity strategies. Using the Backdoors & Breaches deck of expertly designed cards, players will simulate real-world cyber incidents, sharpen response skills, and gain a deeper understanding of modern cyberattack techniques.

We’ve got a lot happening:
Win a Prize! – Participate in raffles at the conclusion of each day. You don’t need to be present to win!
Ask Questions, Get Answers – Visit our solution stations and speak with our experts about how CloudWave can help address your IT and cybersecurity challenges.
Meet with Our Team – Request a personal meeting (customersfirst@gocloudwave.com) with us to discuss your unique needs.
Tabletop Simulations – Join us for hands-on simulations and take home your own card deck plus a bonus gift if you complete the game.

Consensus Cloud Solutions

Booth 1361

Contact: Alyssa Beard, events director
alyssa.beard@consensus.com
319.325.2389

Despite significant advancements in healthcare technology, many providers and payers still face barriers to effective and secure data exchange. AI-powered technology offers a bridge between legacy systems and modern workflows, allowing organizations of all sizes to enhance data sharing without major financial or operational disruptions. At HIMSS25, Consensus will showcase its comprehensive product suite. Visit booth 1361 to learn how Consensus technology empowers healthcare organizations to overcome the challenges of unstructured data, achieve seamless interoperability, and boost operational efficiency.

Consensus will host several engaging customer and thought leadership panels in its booth, providing valuable insights and discussions that highlight the company’s commitment to innovation and collaboration. Attendees are also invited to Consensus’ booth for interactive demonstrations that show how its solutions work together to eliminate communication breakdowns, accelerate referrals, optimize administrative workflows, reduce provider burnout, and lower costs — all while contributing to improved patient outcomes and a more interoperable healthcare ecosystem:

Tuesday, March 4 from 11:25-11:40 am: “Navigating the Rise to the C-Suite – Lessons for Women in Health Tech” with Propel Health Advisors co-founder and CIO Rebecca Woods and SoNE Healthcare CIO Renee Broadbent, MBA, CCSFP, CHC.
Tuesday, March 4 from 12:15-12:30 pm: “Harnessing the Power of the Cloud to Support Growth Initiatives” with Piedmont Healthcare CIO Geoff Brown.
Tuesday, March 4 from 2:15-2:30 pm: “Unlocking Efficiency: How AI is Enhancing Inbound Fax Workflows” with Consensus Cloud Solutions Account Director Nick Baxter and Consensus Cloud Solutions Solutions Consultant Marianne Soucy.
Wednesday, March 5 from 11:15-11:30 am: “Leveraging AI to Accelerate Patient Intake” with Nick Baxter and Marianne Soucy.
Wednesday, March 5 from 12:15-12:30 pm: “Elevate Fax Efficiency: Athenahealth and Consensus Partner to Integrate Cloud Fax with Your EHR” with Athenahealth Corporate Strategy Manager Mohana Nagda.

Cordea Consulting

Booth 4624 in partnership with AWS

Contact: Bill Smith, Epic practice director
bill.smith@cordeaconsulting.com
973.902.6990

Cordea Consulting provides expert IT advisory services, digital health and cloud leadership, and contemporary staffing support to hospitals and health systems globally. Healthcare IT is all we do. We use proven tools and methodologies to help organizations build and optimize EHR/ERP/EIS systems and evolve their technology portfolios. Organizations partner with us to unlock funding, accelerate innovation, and grow more competitive in their market.

Stop by the AWS booth, 4624, for some insightful demos and be sure to attend ”Unlocking EHR Excellence with AWS: The Jupiter Medical Center Story” Thursday, March 6 at noon in the HIMSS Theater. Cordea Consulting Epic Practice Director Bill Smith will share how a successful Epic direct AWS implementation delivered zero unplanned downtime and rapid patient care recovery — all while leveraging the scalability, security, and performance of Amazon EC2, S3, and RDS. Also learn how the implementation lowered operating expenses by 10%, resulted in 35% savings compared with other hosting options, and reduced Jupiter’s capital needs by nearly $4 million annually. This is a success story you won’t want to miss!

CTG

Booth 5544

Contact: Sarah Blafer, marketing business partner
sarah.blafer@ctg.com
860.942.2180

With over 35 years of expertise, CTG stands as a beacon in today’s healthcare IT consulting market. Our healthcare consulting solutions blend innovative services with cutting-edge technologies to address the unique challenges, requirements, and regulations of the healthcare market. Our comprehensive range of services includes EHR managed services (including activation, go-live, and training support), cybersecurity, ERP, cloud and infrastructure, application management, support and development, and IT support. Let’s connect at HIMSS (booth 5544) to explore how CTG’s healthcare experts can help transform your challenges into opportunities, ensuring your organization not only succeeds but thrives in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Ellkay

Booth 2825

Contact: Auna Emery, VP, marketing
auna.emery@ellkay.com
520.481.2862

Experience healthcare connectivity in action with Ellkay at HIMSS. At HIMSS25, Ellkay is bringing seamless interoperability to life. Visit our booth to see live demos of our cutting-edge data management solutions and discover how we empower hospitals, labs, payers, and healthcare IT vendors with effortless data exchange and connectivity. With integrations spanning 750+ EHR/PM systems and 1,100+ versions, we help organizations optimize workflows, fuel value-based care, and make smarter decisions.

Why Stop By?
Live Demos: See our powerful platforms in action.
Expert Insights: Learn why the industry is choosing Ellkay and chat with our team about your data challenges.
Fun and Treats: Network while enjoying our exclusive booth events.

Don’t Miss These Special Events

Tuesday, March 4 Coffee and Tea from 10:00 am – 1:00pm
Tuesday, March 4 Ellkay Theater session with CommonWell Health Alliance from 11:00-11:30 am
Tuesday, March 4 Happy Hour from 3:30-5:30 pm
Wednesday, March 5 Coffee and Tea from 9:45 am – 1:00 pm
Wednesday, March 5 Ellkay Theater session with Meditech from 1:45-2:15 PM
Wednesday, March 5 Ellkay Theater session with Canada Health Infoway from 2:15-2:45 pm
Wednesday, March 5 Happy Hour from 3:30-5:20pm : Happy Hour
Thursday, March 6 (9:30 AM – 1:00 PM): Coffee & Tea
Thursday, March 6 Ellkay Theater session with Athenahealth from 10:30-11:00 am

Let’s talk about how Ellkay can power your healthcare data connectivity. Stop by and see interoperability in action. Learn more at Ellkay.com or connect with us on YouTube, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, or via TeamEllkay@Ellkay.com.

Elsevier

Booth 3616 and AI Pavilion Kiosk 121-14

Stop by booth 3616 at the HIMSS25 Global Conference to learn more about Elsevier’s latest product innovations that support clinicians in their work to provide the best possible patient care. This year, we’re looking forward to sharing exciting updates for ClinicalKey AI. Join us in our innovation theater at the booth to learn more about how AI tools like ClinicalKey AI can revolutionize clinical decision-making while you enjoy Birsta coffee sponsored by our sister company, Lexis Nexis Risk.

We will host two presentations at the AI Pavilion Theater. On Tuesday, March 4, Elsevier’s physician lead for evaluation, Amber Featherstone-Uwague, MD will present “Evaluation of Generative AI for Clinical Decision Support.” On Wednesday, March 5, Elsevier Physician Clinical Executive Paul Helmuth, MD will present “Industry Trends in Evidence-Based AI Adoption.”

Attending the AI in Healthcare Forum? Join us for an engaging fireside chat with Elsevier CTO Rhett Alden, PhD, Elsevier Physician Clinical Executive Paul Helmuth, MD, and Jennifer Bell, MA, PhD, director of bioethics research at the Department of Clinical and Organizational Ethics at UHN Clinical and Organizational Ethics, to discuss unpacking bias in healthcare AI.

FDB

Booth 2835

Contact: Matt O’Connor, regional sales manager
Matt.OConnor@fdbhealth.com
708.261.2996

FDB (First Databank) creates and integrates the world’s most trusted drug knowledge that, in partnership with our customers, illuminates critical healthcare decisions. HIMSS25 attendees will learn from FDB and its end users about how physicians, pharmacists, nursing, and clinical informatics leaders are improving patients’ health and safety and delivering high-quality care through FDB’s trusted drug knowledge and next-generation medication decision support, patient education, and e-prescribing network solutions that consider unique circumstances of individual patients.

Attendees will explore inspiring success stories from peers who have leveraged FDB solutions to redefine medication decision-making and transform clinician workflows. From increasing medication alert acceptance, improving Leapfrog CPOE test scores, integrating real-time pharmacogenomic (PGx) decision support, boosting medication adherence, easing operational burden for nurses and improving HCAHPS scores to enabling drug price transparency for consumers, answering consumers’ medication questions, and expediting development time – these success stories demonstrate meaningful impact.

And in the spirit of Las Vegas, attendees can test their luck, have fun, and unwind at the FDB booth. Visitors can spin the slot machine and discover the amazing benefits achieved by FDB customers in medication decision support. Each play earns a Barnes & Noble gift card, while hitting the jackpot earns even more special prizes!

HIMSS25 attendees are also invited to join FDB for a casual in-booth reception to network, enjoy complimentary wine, beer, and gourmet popcorn, and to share success stories. Details include: “Unwind with Wine, Beer, Gourmet Popcorn – & Success!” Wednesday, March 5 from 4:00–5:30 pm at booth 2835. Drawing at 5:15 pm to win one of two Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition Readers! You must be present to win.

FinThrive

Booth 5623

Contact: Heather Lane, VP, channel partnerships
heather.lane@finthrive.com

FinThrive is advancing the healthcare economy by addressing every transaction and patient interaction holistically through advanced, scalable solutions. Seamlessly integrating with EHRs, these solutions empower organizations to achieve growth, operational efficiency, and exceptional patient experiences. Backed by decades of expertise, our AI-driven RCM tools unlock efficiency, enhance satisfaction, and drive revenue growth. By eliminating the constraints of fragmented systems, we help healthcare providers realize their full revenue potential, ensuring reliability, compliance, and superior financial outcomes. With over $10 billion in net revenue delivered to more than 3,245 customers worldwide, FinThrive makes healthcare finance effortless.

Visit FinThrive at HIMSS25, booth 5623, to see us in person and be a part of the action!

Celebrate Our Best in KLAS Insurance Discovery Win: Join us on March 4 from 4:00-5:30 pm for champagne, cupcakes, and cookies.
RCMTAM Insights: Explore our industry-first Revenue Cycle Technology Adoption Model to assess and advance your revenue cycle.
Thought Leadership Podcasts: Watch live recording sessions with industry leaders hosted by Health Insights VP Jonathan Wiik.
Prizes and Pairings: Stop by anytime to spin the wheel for exciting giveaways and enjoy donuts and lattes on March 5 at 9:45 am.
Live Demos: Get hands-on with our innovative RCM tools and see how they streamline processes and optimize efficiency.

Discover how FinThrive’s next-generation technology can empower your organization. Visit our HIMSS25 event page to learn more about our exciting participation at the event and set up some time to meet with one of our subject matter experts onsite!

Get-to-Market Health

Contact Steve Shihadeh to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Steve Shihadeh, founder and CEO
steve@gettomarkethealth.net
610.613.4074

Optimizing healthcare technology sales: Whether a company needs to accelerate its top-line growth following an investment round or is bringing new products to market, Get-to-Market Health helps healthcare technology leaders market, sell, and create sustainable, long-term relationships with their customers.

Health Data Movers

Contact Brooke Foster to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Brooke Foster, marketing coordinator
brooke@healthdatamovers.com
847.404.0326

Join us on March 4 at 5:00 pm to network and unwind with Health Data Movers, Triyam, and the NYS HIMSS Chapter at Chica in the Venetian after the first full day of HIMSS. Enjoy drinks, tacos, and good conversation to wrap up your day. RSVP here. We look forward to seeing you there!

Health Data Movers (HDM) is a healthcare technology services firm. We are trusted partners to healthcare organizations, biotechnology companies, and digital health enterprises through our services – data management, integration, project management, and clinical and business applications. We are the smart choice for creating unique solutions that empower patients and providers by unleashing the potential of healthcare data and technology. We Make IT Happen! Visit www.healthdatamovers.com.

Healthcare IT Leaders

Booth 3017

Contact: Leslie Mitchell, events and brand manager
leslie.mitchell@healthcareitleaders.com

Healthcare IT Leaders @ HIMSS25 — Where Innovation Meets Impact
Join us at booth 3017 to learn how Healthcare IT Leaders partners with hospitals and health systems to drive innovation, streamline operations, and improve patient care. With deep expertise in enterprise consulting and workforce solutions, we can help you implement, optimize, and scale solutions from Epic, Oracle Health, Meditech, Workday, UKG, Oracle, Infor, Snowflake, and more.

Why Visit Booth 3017?
Learn more about how our Managed Services team is delivering savings and higher customer satisfaction at health systems like yours.
Discover how our EHR Advisory experts can help with everything from system selection to integration, optimization, data migration, and the latest in AI.
Network with your HIMSS25 peers at our VIP Cocktail Hour on Tuesday, March 4 from 6:00-8:00 pm at Tao Asian Bistro in the Venetian Hotel.
Plus, we’re giving away a premium Triton poker chip set inspired by Las Vegas casino nights. Take a gamble and stop by!

Med Tech Solutions

Booth 6026

Contact: Shana Tachikawa, director of marketing
stachikawa@medtechsolutions.com

Elicit greater value from your EHR investment.Take the first step to ensure the success of your EHR and maximize its full potential. Leverage skilled, flexible, EHR-certified resources to cost-effectively fill IT expertise gaps with:

EHR Service Desk
EHR-Certified Staffing
Go-Live Support
M&A Systems Alignment

Wherever you are in your EHR journey, we can help. Discover why MTS-Stoltenberg’s Partial IT Outsourcing EHR support program has been named Best in KLAS three times. Schedule an executive meeting in booth 6026 today!

Medicomp Systems

Booth 454

Contact: James Aita, director, strategy and business development
info@medicomp.com
703.803.8080

A leading provider of evidence-based, clinical AI-powered solutions, Medicomp Systems makes clinical data usable for enhanced decision-making and better outcomes. Medicomp works with physicians to deliver trusted, diagnostically relevant, actionable information to the point of care. The Quippe Clinical Intelligence Engine works with EHRs and health tech, driving intelligent clinical workflows that support the way clinicians think and work.

At HIMSS25, Medicomp is excited to introduce new technologies available to healthcare organizations to make clinicians’ lives easier, and to extend AI with interactive multi-modal workflows. Specifically, Medicomp will be showing cutting-edge capabilities that convert dictation to trusted, structured, reportable data to drive billing, interoperability, and compliance. Medicomp will also showcase support for USCDI v3 and v4 along with SDOH compliance tools. Finally, Medicomp is introducing new AI-powered tools for all healthcare organizations to clean up legacy structured and unstructured data for RCM, interoperability, risk-aversion, and reporting purposes.

For more, visit medicomp.com.

Meditech

Booth 972 and Booth C3318-02 at the HIMSS25 Interop + Smart Experience Pavilion

Contact: Rachel Wilkes, director of marketing
rwilkes@meditech.com
781.774.4555

At HIMSS25, discover how Meditech’s intelligent Expanse platform empowers a growing number of global healthcare organizations to achieve their goals with innovative, interoperable, and fiscally responsible technologies. Through first-hand clinician encounters and product demonstrations, attendees will discover how Expanse leverages AI and intelligent interoperability to improve the patient experience, reduce clinician burnout, and provide meaningful and actionable insights.

Visit our booth, 972, to see the following customer panel sessions, which include a free luncheon:
● “Patient-Driven Healthcare: How EHR Technology is Fueling the Precision Medicine Revolution” March 4 at 11:30 am.
● “From Data to Decisions: Advancing Healthcare with Smart Analytics and Intelligent Interoperability” March 4 at 12:15 pm.
● “Beyond the Bedside: Intelligent Tools for Today’s Nurses” March 5 at 11:30 am.
● “Transforming the Provider Experience: Smart Tools for Smarter Healthcare Delivery” March 5 at 12:15 pm.

Meditech will also showcase its latest interoperability projects and initiatives at the Interop + Smart Experience Pavilion — including the Traverse Exchange interoperability network, innovations enabled via smart app launches and FHIR APIs, and the resultant presentation of data to support advanced analytics and AI for workflow improvements. Joined by partners Google Cloud, Microsoft, Commure, DrFirst, Health Gorilla, and Suki, Meditech will demonstrate how embedded partner technologies supporting AI, ambient listening, and patient engagement help enhance clinician workflow and decision-making. Meditech will also headline two panels at the Interop Smart Theater alongside our customers and technology partners Microsoft (March 4 at 1:00 pm.) and Google Cloud (March 5 at 11:15 am).

Meditech’s HIMSS25 page provides more information on booth speakers, Smart Theater sessions, pavilion demonstration times, and customers presenting at HIMSS.

Nordic

Booth 5232

Contact: Gwen Cantarera, senior director, global marketing
gwen.cantarera@nordicglobal.com
484.678.0264

Join Nordic, a global leader in healthcare transformation, at HIMSS25 in booth 5232 to explore the future of healthcare technology, meet Craig Joseph, MD, author of “Designing for Health: The Human-Centered Approach,” enjoy our free coffee bar, and get exclusive insights on groundbreaking healthcare trends from the Nordic team.

Highlights:

Tuesday, March 4 at 12:45 pm: “Improving Appointment Capacity: Streamlining Scheduling with Physician Engagement and Technology” with Nordic Managing Director of Clinical Transformation Mary Sirois.
Tuesday, March 4 at 3:15 pm: “The Burnout Crisis Among Healthcare Clinicians: Contributors and Solutions” with Nordic CMO Craig Joseph, MD
Wednesday, March 5 at 10 am: “Strengthening resiliency against healthcare ransomware attacks” with Nordic Managing Director of IT Strategy and Cybersecurity Jason Griffin.
Wednesday, March 5 from 3:30-5:30pm: HIMSS Chapter Social featuring networking and drinks hosted by the Wisconsin, Greater Kansas City, and Virginia Chapters.

Optimum Healthcare IT

Contact Larry Kaiser to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Larry Kaiser, CMO
lkaiser@optimumhit.com
516.978.5487

Optimum Healthcare IT is a Best in KLAS healthcare IT digital transformation and consulting firm based in Jacksonville Beach, FL. Optimum’s comprehensive service offerings include enterprise application services, digital transformation, and workforce management, which features our skill development program, Optimum CareerPath. Backed by a leadership team with extensive expertise, we deliver tailored healthcare consulting solutions to diverse organizations.

Praia Health

Contact Jared Johnson to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Jared Johnson, CMO
jared.johnson@praiahealth.com
972.561.0025

Praia Health is the first consumer experience orchestration platform for healthcare, revolutionizing the way health systems engage and retain patients. Praia provides a digital flywheel, connecting all of the ways that a consumer interacts with a health system before, during, and after care visits based on actual data across an entire ecosystem — not just on segments, models, or clinical records. This allows health systems to provide consumers with truly personalized recommendations that reduce friction, increase engagement, and drive system loyalty.

Prominence Advisors

Contact Austin Montgomery to schedule a meeting.

Contact: Austin Montgomery, VP of partnerships
austin@prominenceadvisors.com
847.282.0109

Founded in 2011 by former Epic leaders, Prominence empowers healthcare organizations to execute strategic data initiatives with confidence. We’ve led the way in automating data pipelines and facilitating cloud migrations, delivering governed data products that enable self-service analytics, real-time insights, AI, machine learning, de-identification, and visualization. By seamlessly embedding analytics into workflows, we transform data into frictionless insights that drive action.

Recognized as the 2023 Best in KLAS for Technical Services and the 2024 Best in KLAS for HIT Staffing, our team brings unmatched expertise in maximizing your existing investments and upskilling your workforce. Our strong partnerships with leading cloud, lakehouse, analytics, AI, visualization, and governance vendors make Prominence the only firm capable of supporting every step of your data journey. Let’s unlock the full potential of your data and make healthcare smarter — together.

Prominence is teaming up with our customers and technology partners to showcase our data enablement solutions at HIMSS. Please see below for details:

“Accelerating Clinical Research with Large Language Models with Databricks” Wednesday, March 5 from 11:00-11:30 am in booth 4360. Discover how our partnership with UC Davis Health enhances clinical research productivity using Databricks’ LLM tools.

“Enhancing Healthcare Quality Insights with Snowflake” Tuesday, March 4 at 4:00 pm in booth 1670. Learn how Mass General Brigham optimized their Quality Dashboard performance and availability by migrating to Snowflake.

Rhapsody

Booth 3854

Contact: Purvi Thakur, director, growth marketing
purvi.thakur@rhapsody.health
214.727.8981

Rhapsody health solutions enable digital health innovation through interoperability for 1,700 healthcare teams around the world. The Rhapsody Digital Health Enablement Platform includes healthcare API and HL7 integration solutions, identity data management, and clinical terminology mapping and management. With Rhapsody, care providers, health tech builders, and public health teams speed time to market, improve the credibility of data, and keep engineering focused on what matters most. These API-first solutions are composable and flexible to meet you where you are; deployable in our cloud, yours, or as an iPaaS.

Visit the Rhapsody booth, 3854, for demos of these Best in KLAS integration solutions and EMPI with AI. Discover effortless EHR integration and seamless data exchange for better health.

Sonifi Health

Booth 5528

Contact: Michelle Allen, GM
mallen@sonifihealth.com
841.527.9093

Sonifi Health provides industry-leading, interactive patient engagement technology proven to improve patient outcomes and staff productivity. The EHR-integrated platform is designed to anticipate the needs of patients and clinicians, infusing the principles of hospitality into care experiences. Sonifi Health technology includes interactive TVs, digital whiteboards, digital patient door signs, and more. As part of Sonifi Solutions, Inc., the company supports more than 300 million end user experiences annually.

To learn more about the hospitality effect in healthcare and what Sonifi Health provides, stop by booth 5528 or schedule an appointment here. Join us for a happy hour at our booth Tuesday, March 4 from 4:00-5:30 pm.

Surescripts

Booth 1338

Contact: Kate Giaquinto, PR manager
kate.giaquinto@surescripts.com
603.548.5273

Surescripts, the nation’s leading health information network, will convene industry experts and Surescripts Network Alliance participants at HIMSS25 to highlight how innovative collaboration is advancing interoperability; automating prior authorizations; and enabling better informed, safer, and less costly care for patients.

Visit Surescripts at booth 1338 anytime and join us for a session (details below) to hear impactful conversations with Surescripts and healthcare leaders including:

Surescripts VP and CMIO Andrew Mellin, MD will be joined by CMIOs to share insights on technology-enabled value-based care. He will also lead a conversation with key collaborators committed to innovation that delivers a more automated prior authorization process, helping patients get the care they need sooner.

Surescripts Interoperability Affairs Manager Justin McMartin will engage with leading healthcare organizations to illustrate why advancing interoperability and joining a QHIN is key to ensuring clinicians can provide better informed, safer, and less costly care for patients.

Surescripts VP and CISO Judy Hatchett will discuss how partnering with Clear to add another layer of identity validation protections is a critical step to reinforce and further prevent fraudulent prescribing.

Symplr

Booth 4348

Contact: Ann Joyal, VP, marketing communications
ajoyal@symplr.com
866.373.9725

We will demonstrate two new innovations at HIMSS and offer additional demos, in-booth experts, and swag like tech tacos, Bluetooth trackers, and more.

Stop by to learn more about:
The launch of a new Symplr AI solution for Evidence Analysis, one of several AI-powered solutions introduced in 2025 that we’re working on with AWS.

Our new Symplr Operations Platform, offering a single integrated platform for healthcare that consolidates fragmented systems and standardizes healthcare non-clinical and administrative operations into a scalable, secure approach. Explore how this helps not only CIOs but also leaders across other areas including workforce, credentialing, supply chain, and contract management using healthcare-specific workflows and 30 years of healthcare industry know-how in partnership with customers.

Tegria

AI Pavilion (Venetian Level 2, 121-15) and Patient Engagement 365 (Caesar’s Forum, C3718-07)

Contact: Kristin O’Neill, senior director, external relations
kristin.oneill@tegria.com
617.319.5516

Tegria is a global healthcare consulting and services company created by healthcare for healthcare. We deliver customized, end-to-end solutions that deliver outcomes and drive transformation. We proudly partner with provider and payer organizations to advance care, improve performance, and address healthcare’s biggest challenges.

Be sure to mark your calendar for the following case study presentations:

“Enhancing Access and Experience: Bridging Insights and Innovations in Healthcare” Tuesday, March 4 from 12:10–12:30 pm in the HIMSS Patient Engagement Pavilion (C3718, Caesars Forum). Explore key findings from The Health Management Academy on patient access and experience. Learn how technology is shaping the future of patient-centered and provider-centered care.

“Building the Foundation for AI: SLUHN’s Journey to a Modern Data Platform” Wednesday, March 5 from 10:00–10:20 am in the Artificial Intelligence Specialty Pavilion Theatre. Discover how St. Luke’s University Health Network and Tegria built a cloud-based Azure data lakehouse to enable AI-driven healthcare advancements, streamline data management, and reduce costs.

“Lunch & Learn: Navigating the Healthcare AI Wave: Strategies for Evaluation, Decision-Making, and Implementation” (Lunch will be provided.) Wednesday, March 5 from 12:30–1:45 pm at Caesars Forum, Room 125. Learn how to evaluate AI opportunities; decide between build, buy, or hybrid models; and how to navigate IT and operational challenges. Gain practical insights through real-world use cases and interactive discussion.

TruBridge

Meeting Pod 10211

Contact: Ashley Stevens, VP, sales
ashley.stevens@trubridge.com
740.816.6717

TruBridge connects healthcare providers, patients, and communities using innovative solutions to address both financial and clinical needs, resulting in substantial value in healthcare delivery. Our revenue cycle services and technology, recognized by HFMA Peer Reviewed, stands at the forefront of the industry, enhancing productivity and fortifying the financial well-being of organizations. We advocate for data-driven patient journeys, bolstering value-based care and yielding improvements in outcomes and patient satisfaction. Furthermore, our EHR products play a pivotal role in supporting streamlined and efficient patient care by integrating data across various facility types.

Trust Commerce, a Sphere Company

Booth 2648

Contact: Ryne Natzke, chief revenue officer
rynen@spherecommerce.com

Visit TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company, at booth 2648. For over 25 years, TrustCommerce comprehensive patient payment solutions have earned the trust of the country’s largest healthcare organizations. Here are four reasons to make a visit:

See how you can transform the way you process payments using TrustCommerce integrated solutions. Experience secure and compliant payment processing, anytime and anywhere – all while being seamlessly connected to leading EHRs like Epic, Veradigm, and athenaIDX.
Come see a demo of Cloud Payments! TrustCommerce Cloud Payments offers healthcare providers and technology vendors an easily implementable, card-holder present payment solution giving patients and staff a more retail-like payment experience, while providing greater flexibility. The vP2PE, EMV, and NFC capable card-present solution is supported in TC Vault and is integrated with Epic, Veradigm, and others. No client-side desktop install is required.
See our patient-friendly digital payment experience that proudly supports digital wallets such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal.
Learn about partnership opportunities. Ask us how to integrate TrustCommerce payment solutions with your digital health software to drive revenue, reduce risk, and increase workflow efficiencies.

Stop by for a latte, enter for a chance to win an Apple iPad, catch a demo, and join the fun at booth 2648.

Visage Imaging

Booth 661

Contact: Brad Levin, GM, North America
blevin@visageimaging.com
540.454.9670

Visage Imaging is a global provider of enterprise imaging solutions that enable PACS replacement with local, regional, and national scale. Visage 7 | CloudPACS is proven, providing a fast, clinically rich, and highly scalable growth platform deliverable entirely from the cloud. Today, 70% of Visage customers are in the cloud. Visage has not implemented a new customer on-prem in nearly five years.

At HIMSS25, Visage will demonstrate Visage 7 | CloudPACS, the new Visage Chat, and the groundbreaking Visage Ease VP for the Apple Vision Pro. Receive a demo of Visage 7 and receive a special-edition Visage SuperCar, along with a cup of gourmet Speedy’s Blend Coffee. See you in Las Vegas!

Waystar

Booth 4643

Contact: Angela Martin-Barcelona, senior manager, performance marketing
angela.martinbarcelona@waystar.com
844.593.8330

Waystar’s mission-critical software is purpose-built to simplify healthcare payments. With an enterprise-grade platform that processes over 4 billion healthcare payment transactions annually, Waystar strives to transform healthcare payments so providers can focus on what matters most – their patients and communities. Discover the way forward at waystar.com.

As healthcare continues to evolve, your challenges do, too. Stop by booth 4643 for some premium giveaways or schedule a time to talk with us about how we can help you boost productivity, deliver better patient financial care, and bring in fuller, faster payments.

Also join us on Tuesday, March 4 from 10:15-11:15 am to hear experts from Cleveland Clinic and Waystar discuss how healthcare leaders are harnessing the powerful potential of AI to revolutionize the revenue cycle to automate manual processes, combat denials, and accelerate payments.

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News 2/26/25

February 25, 2025 News 6 Comments

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Thanks to long-time HIStalk sponsor AGS Health and CEO Patrice Wolfe for stepping up as a Founding Sponsor. Those coveted Founding slots, which are limited to two, have become available only 2-3 times over many years, and only when one of those sponsors was acquired. Here’s a refresher on what the company does:

AGS Health is more than a revenue cycle management company — we’re a strategic partner for growth. Our distinctive methodology blends intelligent automation with award-winning RCM services and high-touch customer support to deliver peak end-to-end revenue cycle performance and an empowering patient financial experience. We employ a team of 13,000 highly trained and college-educated RCM experts who directly support more than 150 customers spanning a variety of care settings and specialties, including nearly 50% of the 20 most prominent U.S. hospitals and 40% of the nation’s 10 largest health systems. Our thoughtfully crafted RCM solutions deliver measurable revenue growth and retention, enabling customers to achieve the revenue to realize their vision.

We’ve been longtime Costco members, but I kept hearing about Sam’s Club’s superior technology and its stress-free, line-free shopping, and unlike Costco, an app and website that allow checking prices and inventory levels. In my first Sam’s trip this week, I used Scan and Go to ring myself up, paid instantly, and then bypassed checkout entirely and just sauntered out the door as AI-powered cameras verified my cart. No waiting in line to pay, no door-check bottleneck. I can see making a quick stop at Sam’s for just a handful of items, whereas the cupboard has to be pretty bare to be worth Costco trip anxiety. I’ll keep both memberships since Sam’s wins on prices, store layout, and produce, but Costco still leads on clothes, wine, and regular rollout of new items that I don’t need.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

OpenEvidence, which offers a clinical decision support chatbot for providers, announces $75 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. It recently signed a content agreement with The New England Journal of Medicine.

EXA Capital acquires human services-focused EHR and care management software vendor PrecisionCare.

Clinical documentation software company Retrieve Medical will acquire Curatus, which specializes in AI-powered provider data management.

HealthStream reports Q4 results: revenue up 5.2%, EPS $0.16 versus $0.15. HSTM shares have gained 24% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Sales

Mass General Brigham (MA) will implement the Philips Capsule Medical Device Information Platform, Philips Clinical Insights Manager, and Philips Capsule Surveillance technologies.
Hartford HealthCare (CT) will use K Health’s agentic AI-based virtual primary care software to power its new HHC 24/7 virtual care service.
ECU Health (NC) selects Pep Health’s patient experience analysis software.

People

Eric Talbot, MBA (MedFuse) joins CheckedUp as chief data and analytics officer.

Troy Tazbaz, the former director of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence, returns to Oracle as SVP of data center planning – corporate development.

Guidehouse names Erik Barnett and Brian Smit (R1 RCM) partners in its health and managed services practices, respectively.

MGMA hires Julia Rosen, MBA (Pera Healthcare) as SVP of IT.

Jeff Surges (RLDatix) joins Brighton Park Capital as partner.

Eve Cunningham, MD, MBA (Providence) joins Cadence as chief medical officer.

Clinical Architecture names Laura Nixon, MBA (Nixon Strategic Consulting) as VP of interoperability solutions.

Announcements and Implementations

MyMichigan Health implements QGenda’s provider credentialing software.

Corti adds Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate clinical decision support content to its AI-powered Assistant app for clinicians.

Lumeris announces GA of Tom, an AI-powered clinical workflow tool for primary care.

Ray County Hospital and Healthcare (MO) works with OCHIN to replace CPSI (now TruBridge) and EPowerDoc with Epic.

Altera Digital Health integrates Medicomp’s Quippe AI engine with its TouchWorks EHR. Medicomp also releases Quippe Alchemy that applies AI to problem list cleanup.

Inovalon launches an AI-powered, EHR-integrate clinical trials recruitment tool.

Government and Politics

The White House says that former health tech executive Amy Gleason is serving as acting administrator of Elon Musk’s DOGE cost reduction program.

Privacy and Security

Malware researchers find that a China-based hacker group is disguising its malware as a Philips DICOM viewer.

Other

Technical.ly profiles the University of Maryland Medical System’s AI-powered remote fetal monitoring program, which launched last year using technology from PeriGen. Sixteen nurses work at the Neonatal Outcomes Impacted by Escalation Safety Telemetry (NEST) center, monitoring labor and deliveries across seven hospitals in real time. Nurse Manager Christine Haas, RN points out that the nurses have often been quicker to catch abnormalities than the AI: “This program is fundamentally the nurses’ brains with the AI counterpart, just really sort of being a reinforcement and a help for them.”

Sponsor Updates

Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Pharmacy Benefits 101: Stop-Loss Insurance, with Mike Miele, FSA, MAAA.”
Agfa HealthCare announces that several hospitals within the Osakidetza Basque Country healthcare network in Spain have successfully transitioned to its Enterprise Imaging for radiology and molecular imaging.
Philips Capsule participates in the IHE North America Connectathon 2025 in Toronto.
CloudWave publishes a new guide titled “The Strategic Value of Managed Cloud Services in Healthcare.”

Black Book Research’s list of top, physician-rated health IT for rural and critical access providers includes the following HIStalk sponsors:

TruBridge and Meditech Expanse – rural and CAH inpatient EHRs
Redox – rural healthcare interoperability and HIE vendors
Inovalon – population health, rural healthcare management, quality and safety solutions

Blog Posts

Celebrating 15 years of innovation and impact in healthcare (Nordic)
How to Transform Patient Scheduling: 7 MEDITECH 2.2 Features (CereCore)
Pharmacy Benefits 101: Building an Award-Winning Call Center from Scratch (Capital Rx)
HIPAA is More Than Keeping Medical Records Secure (AdvancedMD)
Agfa HealthCare Shines at ViVE 2025 with Incredible KLAS Triple-Award Win (Agfa HealthCare)
2025 New CPT Codes to Capture Evaluation and Management Telemedicine Services (AGS Health)
EHR System Speed and Reliability – The Foundation for EHR Success (Goliath Technologies)
Advancing interoperability: Altera at the IHE North America Connectathon (Altera Digital Health)
3 actionable steps to turn healthcare data into action (Arcadia)
Inside Healthcare’s Cybersecurity Battle: A Q&A with Availity’s CISO (Availity)
Managed services in healthcare: Balancing efficiency, stability, and growth (Cardamom)
8 Easy Ways to Prepare for an OCR HIPAA Compliance Audit (Clearwater)
The Growing Importance of Population Health in 2025 (Direct Recruiters)
Wintry Weather Can’t Dampen the Vibe at ViVE 2025 (DrFirst)

Contacts

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

6 Comments

Morning Headlines 2/25/25

February 24, 2025 Headlines 1 Comment

EXA Capital Acquires PrecisionCare

EXA Capital acquires EHR and care management software vendor PrecisionCare.

Retrieve Medical Holdings Inc. Announces Letter of Intent to Acquire Cúratus LLC, Strengthening AI-Powered Healthcare Solutions

Clinical documentation software company Retrieve Medical will acquire Curatus, which specializes in AI-powered provider data management.

VA EHR office shrinks headcount under Trump’s federal workforce policies

The VA’s EHR Modernization program faces a new round of scrutiny as lawmakers balk at vague cost estimates and lack of a master deployment schedule, office staff face layoffs and resignations, and a new GAO report highlights the program’s continued lack of progress on taking recommended actions.

1 Comment

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 2/24/25

February 24, 2025 Dr. Jayne 1 Comment

I’ve written previously about the cost of healthcare and health tech conferences and the need to make sure that attending is worth your while. I skipped ViVE in favor of HIMSS primarily because more of my clients or potential clients will be attending HIMSS and it’s a great way for me to have in-person meetings without having to fly across the country.

Still, it’s a substantial investment from both a monetary and time management standpoint. I usually stay at the Palazzo when HIMSS is in Las Vegas, but I went with a more cost-effective option this year even though it’s a bit of a hike to get to the convention center. I’m sure I’ll be questioning that choice when I’m walking 10 miles a day, but my accountant will be happier. I’ve already mapped out the best way to make it to the sessions without having to walk through a smoke-filled casino, so that’s something especially since my route takes me past a spot where I can grab some gelato if I need a boost.

A reader recently asked Mr. H his thoughts on the value of attending health tech conferences as a frustrated patient. He provided a summary of why it might not be the most productive way to advocate on behalf of patients, and I agree with his points. However, I’d like to add a few thoughts of my own for people working on the vendor side:

Although patients aren’t your target market since they’re not paying your invoices, they should be part of your product management and development processes. Similar to the patient and family advisory groups that many care delivery organizations have, they could provide valuable insight into whether the features and functions you’re planning are going to hit the mark or whether they’ll just result in spending that doesn’t move healthcare forward.

If one is going to spend a decent chunk of change enhancing your product, doesn’t it make sense to deliver the best value possible so you don’t have to revise it in the future? I don’t always trust the provider organizations to really understand what patients need, nor do I trust them to understand what their staff needs. I’d be out of a consulting job if they did this well in the first place, but I’m happy to educate them.

There need to be better ways to make sure your customers understand what new features were intended to do and how to implement them in a streamlined fashion. There also should be better incentives to help your customers use things properly. Consultants have made a tremendous amount of money coming through after a botched implementation and reworking things so that workflows are effective and efficient.

Unfortunately, there are some oddities in certain EHR software that if you don’t do it right the first time, it’s nearly impossible to correct. Anyone who had to work with the McKesson Horizon orderable pick lists, which displayed in the order in which they were built and had no mechanism to reorder, knows what I’m talking about. If you’re a vendor who still has content like this, please, for the love of all things, do something about it.

Although I agree with Mr. H’s comment that software vendors can’t fix the problems that are inherent with our dysfunctional US healthcare system, I do think that vendors can benefit from understanding how that system impacts patients, clinicians, and other users of the systems they produce. Understanding the baseline level of frustration experienced by users can help influence intuitive design as well as features and functionality.

I’ve been in this industry a long time. I’ve seen how the attitudes of my friends who are on the product management and development sides of the house have changed now that they’re older and have had more encounters with the healthcare system. It could be a little thing, like making sure that an error message is helpful and informative versus obnoxious and interruptive, that makes a difference in a user’s day.

The healthcare industry needs to do a better job of addressing the needs of frustrated patients, regardless of whether they attend a conference. I had an absolutely awful experience at a local institution last fall, complete with HIPAA violation. I returned a scathing response on my patient satisfaction survey and checked the box requesting a call from someone at the officel. I never heard from anyone. I also sent a letter to the departmental administrator, with zero response.

Want to know how I finally got a response? By taking the solicitation card from their annual alumni campaign, writing “no donation this year due to poor care at the institution,” and mailing it back in the business reply envelope. Patients shouldn’t have to resort to that in order to get attention.

Over the last several years, I have seen more people attending conferences in the role of patient advocate. Although some may be merely symbolic, others are using the opportunity to shine a light on what really happens in the industry and to raise awareness of chronic conditions where technology can really have an impact, such prenatal care and treatment of mental health. I would be interested to hear more from patient advocates that attend conferences to learn about their strategies for trying to drive change. Individual patient needs and opinions may not drive markets, but if you had strong advocates representing large cohorts of patients, we might see the needle move, even if it’s just a little bit.

In talking with some of my industry colleagues about their HIMSS plans, it sounds like many of them have cut back on their booths this year. Many have booked private meeting rooms in which they can meet clients, while others are just planning to be in town and host lunches and dinners to meet with prospects and customers but still save on costs.

I tried to look up the pricing for a 10×10 booth and it looks like you can’t see it directly on the website this year. Instead, you have to talk to the HIMSS25 sales team. I noticed on the exhibitor page that they’re listing 26,800 registrations under the Attendee Highlights section, which is a far cry from the HIMSS heyday when we used to see more than 40,000 people in attendance. When you’re a health system running at a 1% margin, it’s easy to see how conference budgets aren’t a priority.

What are your HIMSS plans, and how have they changed from previous years? Are there any particular sessions to which you are looking forward? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

1 Comment

Readers Write: Unlocking Hidden Gems: Leveraging RCMTAM for Revenue Cycle Excellence

February 24, 2025 Readers Write No Comments

Unlocking Hidden Gems: Leveraging RCMTAM for Revenue Cycle Excellence
By Kim Waters

Kim Waters, MBA is principal consultant, advisory services with CereCore.

Revenue cycle management (RCM) has become more challenging than ever. With increasing denials, evolving payer policies, and growing patient financial responsibility, healthcare organizations need innovative solutions to optimize their revenue cycles. Enter the Revenue Cycle Management Technology Adoption Model (RCMTAM), a game-changing framework that’s revolutionizing how we approach RCM technology.

As a leader in healthcare IT solutions, I’ve seen first hand how RCMTAM can transform revenue cycle operations. Let’s dive into the hidden gems this model offers and explore how it can drive operational efficiency, improve financial outcomes, and uncover cost-saving opportunities.

The RCMTAM Advantage: A Data-Driven Approach to RCM Excellence

RCMTAM is more than just another acronym in the healthcare alphabet soup. It’s a peer-reviewed, five-stage framework endorsed by Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) that assesses operational performance and the maturity of revenue cycle technology within healthcare organizations. What sets RCMTAM apart is its data-driven approach, linking technology adoption with financial outcomes to create customizable roadmaps for RCM optimization.

Key features of RCMTAM include:

A five-stage model for assessing RCM technology maturity.
Financial benchmarks for performance comparison.
Correlation of RCM technology adoption to financial performance.
Personalized organizational roadmaps.

Uncovering Hidden Gems: RCMTAM in Action

Let’s explore some specific examples of how RCMTAM can enhance operational efficiency and improve financial outcomes:

Streamlining eligibility checks. Experian’s recent state of claims survey revealed that 43% of respondents spend 10 to 20+ minutes on secondary eligibility checks. By leveraging RCMTAM to assess and optimize eligibility verification technology, organizations can significantly reduce this time, improving staff productivity and accelerating the revenue cycle.
Tackling denials head-on. With 38% of respondents reporting claim denial rates of 10% or higher, denials management is a critical area for improvement. RCMTAM can help organizations identify and implement advanced denial prevention and management technologies, potentially saving millions in denied claims.
Automating manual processes. Nearly 50% of providers still review denials manually. RCMTAM can guide the adoption of AI and automation technologies in the denial management process, freeing up staff for more complex tasks and reducing errors.
Enhancing data accuracy. Bad data is a leading cause of denials, with 46% of respondents citing missing or inaccurate data as a top reason. RCMTAM can help organizations assess and improve their data management technologies, reducing errors and improving clean claim rates.

The Path Forward: Embracing RCMTAM for Continuous Improvement

As the 2024 State of Claims survey shows, the healthcare landscape is constantly evolving. Payer policy changes are occurring with more frequency (77% agree), and 66% of respondents find submitting “clean” claims more challenging now than before the pandemic. In this dynamic environment, RCMTAM provides a structured approach to continuous improvement.

By regularly reassessing your organization’s position on the RCMTAM scale, you can:

Identify emerging technologies that address your specific pain points.
Benchmark your performance against industry leaders.
Create data-driven strategies for ongoing RCM optimization,

Navigating the complexities of revenue cycle management can be tough. An RCMTAM assessment can provide the performance readout that your organization may need to help uncover the hidden gems in your revenue cycle so you can drive meaningful improvements in your financial performance.

As you embark on your RCMTAM journey, remember that technology is just one piece of the puzzle. Success lies in the seamless integration of people, processes, and technology. By taking a holistic approach and leveraging the insights provided by RCMTAM, you can transform your revenue cycle from a source of frustration to a driver of organizational success.

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Morning Headlines 2/24/25

February 23, 2025 Headlines No Comments

Blue Orca is Short Teladoc Health, Inc.

A short-selling investment firm claims that mental health therapists in Teladoc Health’s BetterHelp business are using ChatGPT to respond to patients during therapy sessions without the patient’s knowledge.

Waystar Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Results

Waystar reports Q4 results: revenue up 19%, EPS $0.11 versus –$0.12, beating analyst expectations for both.

AI health-care startup OpenEvidence raises funding from Sequoia at $1 billion valuation

OpenEvidence, which has developed a clinical decision support chatbot for providers, announces $75 million in funding.

Arizona advances bill to keep AI from rejecting medical claims

Following several other states, lawmakers in Arizona advance a bill that will, if passed, require a provider to review a claim or prior authorization before it can be denied.

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Monday Morning Update 2/24/25

February 23, 2025 News 4 Comments

Top News

Some BetterHelp therapists who were confronted by their patients admitted that they use AI tools because of heavy workloads and company bonuses that are tied to the number of words that a therapist types.

TDOC shares dropped 9% on Friday. They have lost 24% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $2 billion.

Teladoc Health paid $4.5 million in 2015 to acquire BetterHelp, which generates $1 billion in annual revenue, representing up to 40% of Teladoc Health’s total revenue. However, declining BetterHealth revenue caused Teladoc to take a $790 million impairment charge in mid-2024.

Reader Comments

From Placater: “Re: agentic AI. What does that even mean and why should I care?” AI began as a simple chatbot that answered user questions, sometimes even correctly. Over time, it improved by learning to analyze, correct its mistakes, and respond based on context to please its master. We’re now at agentic AI, which can take keyboard actions like placing an Amazon order or prescribing medication. This is the step that will start killing jobs, although software developers were already ripe for reduction by the last phase. The next short step is AI-powered robots performing human-like tasks, which is really just another output of agentic AI that is limited more by robotics maturity than AI itself. Self-driving cars already showcase AI’s ability to make better decisions than distracted human drivers. With each leap, fewer people benefit — while tools like ChatGPT help the masses, only industry titans and their investors will gain when robots replace human workers.

From Monetary Magnet: “Re: health tech conferences. I’m thinking about attending HIMSS next year as a frustrated patient. Will software vendors listen, or am I wasting my time? Didn’t you sponsor several patient advocates to attend HIMSS years ago?” I did, but that experience didn’t encourage me to repeat it. Reasons:

Health tech vendors create products that the market wants, and that market isn’t patients. Consumers don’t see 99% of the available software and their complaints usually relate to how it is used, not how it was designed.
Software vendors can’t fix the problems that are inherent with our dysfunctional US healthcare system. I eat at restaurants occasionally, but I would add zero value by attending a restaurant software convention. That’s a cleaned up version of my initial cynical healthcare thought, which is that having patients at health tech conferences would be like inviting livestock to attend a slaughterhouse software convention (that came to mind because I have a friend who is an executive in exactly that business).
Healthcare is not a retail market. Patients aren’t the ones paying and often don’t have a say in major decisions that affect them as a result.
Conferences like HIMSS and ViVE are designed for industry experts, and any patient representation is likely symbolic at best or tokenistic at worst. Their emotional keynote anecdotes get us all worked up, but we walk out of the conference room with nothing actionable.
It’s easy for patient advocates to become overwhelmed by conference parties and booth giveaways. A lack of relevant education sessions would probably leave them to wander the exhibit hall.
Healthcare is fragmented by geography, demographics, provider choices, and medical needs. A single patient’s experience and viewpoint don’t necessarily represent that diversity.
Vendor input on patient needs is more effectively gathered from their provider customers who write the checks. Those providers should be talking with their patients / customers and choosing software that supports whatever strategies the providers choose. Blame providers for bad patient experience.
The bottom line is that we’re all patients, just not at the same time, but what we think as patients doesn’t necessarily move markets. Change would need to come from providers, politicians, insurers, and life sciences firms that are pretty happy with the profitable status quo. Patients might better invest their time by engaging with people from those organizations.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Three-fourths of poll respondents don’t believe that their job performance can be entirely measured by objective metrics. Question: if that’s the case, what is your boss using instead, especially if you work remotely? I assume subjective criteria such as peer feedback, customer satisfaction, and the maddeningly vague areas of responsiveness, collaboration, problem-solving, and worth ethic, all of which might be heavily influenced by likeability or brown-nosability.

New poll to your right or here: Who is most responsible when a telehealth company regularly prescribes drugs that patients want in the absence of clear medical need? I admit that I don’t understand why companies are punished for fraud, opioid overuse, and prescribing without adequate clinical due diligence, but the clinicians who actually generated those prescriptions for cash aren’t even named, much less punished. Would you as a patient want to know that your doctor has willingly agreed to rent their license to the highest bidder? The concept probably extends to health systems – aren’t doctors supposed to represent the best interest of the patient rather than of their corporate bosses?

I’m testing a weekly, 60-second LinkedIn carousel that lists my picks of the week’s most important health tech news stories for the TL;DR types. I’ll post a new one each Wednesday morning to see how it goes.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Waystar reports Q4 results: revenue up 19%, EPS $0.11 versus –$0.12, beating analyst expectations for both. WAY shares have gained 104% since the company’s June 2024 IPO, valuing the company at $7 billion.

Sales

Akron Children’s will implement Abridge for ambient documentation.
Blessing Health System (IL) will implement Epic, replacing Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise.

Announcements and Implementations

Mass General Brigham researchers develop an Epic tool that identifies frail patients who are at risk for higher rates of hospital readmission and death. The tool works even when primary care visit data is not available.

Government and Politics

Website operator Gregory Schreck pleads guilty to federal charges that accused him of tricking Medicare patients into giving up their personal information so they could be sent “free” medically unnecessary items like braces and pain creams that were then billed to federal insurance programs. The scheme led to $1 billion in false Medicare claims, with Medicare and insurers paying out more than $360 million. Schreck was a VP at DMERx, the Internet platform that was used to generate the false prescriptions. He was also VP of HealthSplash, which advertised its service as helping payers, providers, and suppliers share data.

Other

The UK’s medical exam administrator admits to sending incorrect scores to September 2023 test-takers. It mistakenly told 222 internal medicine doctors they had passed when they had actually failed, while 61 who passed were told they had failed. The British Medical Association warns that those who were wrongly told that they passed now face an uncertain future, while some of the 61 who were incorrectly failed may have already left the profession as a result.

Sponsor Updates

Black Book Research publishes a free report, “2025 Black Book of Rural and Critical Access Healthcare IT Solutions.”
Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast featuring Doug Turner, MBA.
Nym names Yaara Libai and Bella Sirota clinical data annotators, Ariela Krumgals VP of HR, Yiftah Sasson product manager, Shiraz Tov junior backend engineer, and Hadar Yehezkeli NLP research engineer.

Blog Posts

Meditech customers create efficiencies to address emergency department utilization (Meditech)
IDD Workforce Empowerment: 3 Takeaways from the IDD Summit Expert Panel Discussion (Netsmart)
Same-day visits: Will you be the leader to make it happen in your organization? (Nordic)
The New Patient Priority: Why Healthcare Payment Flexibility is No Longer Optional (TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company)
The role of AI in modern healthcare: Striking the balance between progress and accountability (Wolters Kluwer Health)

Contacts

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

4 Comments

Readers Write: ViVE 2025 Recap

February 21, 2025 Readers Write 1 Comment

ViVE 2025 Nashville – The Tale of AI and the Snowpocalypse!
By Mike Silverstein

Mike Silverstein is managing partner of healthcare IT and life sciences at Direct Recruiters, Inc.

Tell me about your agents! No, not one from the CIA, FBI, or your record label. Tell me about your AI agents!

That was the theme of ViVE 2025 in Nashville. Music City was frigid outside, but inside the Nashville Convention Center, the agentic AI blaze was on.

Two weeks ago, I gave up and finally asked a client on a Zoom call, ”Can you tell me what the heck agentic AI is?” My head is still spinning from large language models (LLMs), GPTs, and generative AI (still not entirely sure what this is). Now if you don’t have AI agents, you are an HIT artifact.

Big tech is coming to healthcare and this time I think it is REALLY here to stay. With the labor crunch and margin pressures being ubiquitous and in full force, an AI agent that can make a phone call to a patient / member / health plan and converse like a real person with whatever tone and accent you prefer might just be a game changer.

The tools are really getting smart, borderline scary smart. I had several people demo products for me that I literally couldn’t tell with certainty if I was listening to a real person or an AI agent. Even more, these agents are being trained on serious healthcare data and workflows, and I believe the dominoes are going to start falling.

At HLTH 2024 in Las Vegas, AI co-pilots were all the rage. Now those firms are racing to stay up the value stream and provide even higher value clinical impact as AI note-taking feels like it will be table stakes very soon. Call centers and one-way SMS texts both seem like they could be on the chopping block, and it feels like we could be on the precipice of patients actually having a real consumer experience like in every other industry.

On the investment front, deal activity seems to be up. The firms I talked to are living less hand to mouth (as opposed to only focused on sales in the next six months) and are back investing in products and technology out of fear of being left in the dust. However, what stood out as interesting to me is that access to this cutting-edge technology seems to be far wider than various technological breakthroughs of the past.

Most of the vendors I talked to are layering their healthcare workflows on top of off-the shelf AI agent tools and platforms, so the speed-to-market has been pretty blinding. New healthcare tools are being developed using publicly available foundational tech and low code development. ViVE 2025 felt a bit like healthcare’s version of a big-time arms race. Everyone is working diligently to stay out in front of, or totally away from, Epic’s roadmap. It feels like this could be the start of a major leap in how we experience healthcare as consumers.

Unfortunately, the other major thing I learned this week is that Nashville is woefully unprepared for snowstorms. At the end of every conversation I had in the past 48 hours, everyone told me, “You had better move up your flight. It’s going to snow on Wednesday and this whole place is going to shut down.” As a result, there was a mass exodus from Nashville Tuesday evening, and the airlines cashed in big on change fees.

Even so, Music City was a great host, and 2025 feels like it’s going to be a pivotal year in the adoption of AI in healthcare.

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Morning Headlines 2/21/25

February 20, 2025 Headlines No Comments

Hims & Hers Acquires At-Home Lab Testing Facility, Expanding Capabilities to Ultimately Include Affordable Whole Body Testing for Subscribers

Vanity prescription vendor Hims & Hers acquires Trybe Labs, an at-home lab testing provider that processes customer self-collected blood samples.

Hummingbird Healthcare Closes $20M Funding Round in Support of Mission to Elevate Patient Access

Patient access software and services company Hummingbird Healthcare raises $20 million in a Series B funding round.

Millie Secures $12M Series A to Continue Closing Gaps in Maternal Healthcare

Tech-enabled maternity clinic Millie will use $12 million in new funding to open new clinics in California and expand its IT capabilities and services.

HHS Office for Civil Rights Imposes a $1,500,000 Civil Money Penalty Against Warby Parker in HIPAA Cybersecurity Hacking Investigation

Hybrid eyeglasses prescription and retailer company Warby Parker will pay a $1.5 million HIPAA violations penalty related to a 2018 data breach that wound up exposing the PHI of 200,000 people.

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News 2/21/25

February 20, 2025 News 4 Comments

Top News

Vanity prescription vendor Hims & Hers acquires Trybe Labs, an at-home lab testing provider that process customer self-collected blood samples.

The company says the acquisition will allow it to offer whole-body testing and give it de-identified health data for AI training.

HIMS shares rose on the news are are up 350% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $15 billion.

Reader Comments

From Hal2k: “Re: HIMSS25. Federal employees, including those from ONC / ASTP, have had to drop out. What will be the downstream impact? I heard lower turnout overall – they had to cancel a couple of hotels.” Unverified. I gave the conference website a quick look, with the only surprise being that Hal Wolf will be doing a fireside chat with Oracle Health EVP/GM Seema Verma on improving patient-centered care, which seems questionable for several reasons.

From Tired Sales Gal: “Re: ViVE. My perspective is that its attendance was down from previous years. Not sure if the weather played a part or not. Attached is an attendee list. The majority were vendors versus providers and payer representatives. Fewer investors attended. I question whether the list might not have included those attendees who registered through CHIME, but that might only be another 500 folks.” The list has about 4,000 vendors versus 900 providers, and some of those provider folk don’t have a title that suggests purchasing influence (podcast host, professor, administrative fellow, etc.) I’ve never heard of quite a few of the companies on the list. Maybe if I decide that I care enough I’ll compare the ViVE and HIMSS exhibitor lists.

ViVE Conference Day 3 and 4 Observations from an Attendee

Tuesday felt like the busiest day; lots of activity across the floor as folks tried to wrap up before the snow.
Simply based on my perceptions from walking around, it felt like sessions on the four primary stages were sparsely attended. One-on-one and small group meetings seemed to be the dominant activities throughout the conference.
Nashville got about 1.5″ of snow, so on the low side of expectations. On Wednesday there were lots of flight delays but relatively few cancellations, and major roads were in decent shape.
I’d estimate only ~2,000 folks were around on Wednesday. Probably one-third of booths had no one, and many started packing up early.
ViVE should’ve had a scavenger hunt to find all the booths that don’t have AI mentioned somewhere in their display or marketing materials. Practically every company is trying to say they have or use AI, but how real it is is unclear to me.
I want to give a shout-out to Streamline Flow. They were demoing until the very end, and in an industry of bad software, their product seems attractive, intuitive, clinician-friendly, and easy to use. It’s early, but looking forward to seeing how they progress.
Now the hard work begins. Companies that had a good conference and generated valuable leads are only on first base; there is a lot remaining to do to get to home plate. We feel good about how ViVE was for us but how we execute in the coming weeks and months will determine whether it was worthwhile.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A remarkably fine MedCity News investigative piece (it’s well worth clicking over) by Arundhati Parmar looks at Transcarent:

Founder Glen Tullman had said previously that care navigation companies are as obsolete as travel agents. Transcarent then acquired care navigation company Accolade for $621 million last month at what was seen as a fire sale price.
Insiders say that Transcarent wildly missed its 2024 sales targets, booking $60 million instead of the expected $175 million, and earned most of its big clients via its acquisitions or from Tullman’s executive connections.
Another insider says that 70 employer navigation RFPs were issued last year and Transcarent not only failed to win any of them, it wasn’t even considered in any.
Accolade’s prospects were fading after being dropped by big customers, trading as a penny stock, and being shopped to potential buyers.
A CEO who has known Tullman for years criticizes the strategy of Transcarent selling directly to executives who tend to perform less due diligence than benefits consultants: “I think Glen preys on the benefits buyers who do not have a ton of resources to understand that there is nothing under the veneer that he is presenting. There is no Transcarent model. They have no NCQA designation, no URAC designation. They have no hard standard accreditation for care management. He invests a lot of money in political connections and in being part of CEO clubs that give him access to board members that don’t know much about benefits.”
A healthcare CEO who passed on acquiring telemedicine vendor 98point6 after reviewing its financials said of Transcarent’s $100 million acquisition of the company: “They were losing 60 cents for every dollar of revenue they made. Glen has a pattern of taking distressed, low-quality assets and then slapping a bunch of tech together.”

Therapy Brands, which offers EHR/PM software for mental health and therapy providers, expands its Fusion rehab therapy product to the adult market.

Venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners merges two of its population health management technology companies, Azara Healthcare and I2i Population Health. The announcement is coy about what name the combined businesses will use.

Hummingbird Healthcare raises $20 million in a Series B funding round.

Walgreens shares jump Tuesday following a report that its potential acquisition by private equity firm Sycamore Partners could be back on the table.

IRhythm Technologies announces Q4 results: revenue up 24%, EPS –$0.04 versus -$1.26. IRTC shares are down 1% over the past 12 months, valuing the ambulatory ECG solution vendor at $3.5 billion.

Sales

Cleveland Clinic will roll out ambient documentation from Ambience Healthcare.
Inspira Health announces that it will replace Oracle Health with Epic, as a reader reported here last September.

Announcements and Implementations

WellSky launches a patient scheduling and workforce management solution for home care agencies.

Availity launches Rapid Recovery, a solution that is designed to swiftly restore critical healthcare operations after large-scale catastrophic events, including cyberattacks. Key features include a five-day recovery objective, an air-gapped recovery environment, comprehensive backups, and third-party certification.

Epic will expand its 11,400-seat Deep Space underground conference center by 23,000 square feet with a new 750-seat auditorium and a dining facility. The expansion is intended to accommodate the company’s user group meeting and is scheduled to open before UGM 2026 next August.

Government and Politics

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) presses Paul Lawrence, PhD at his confirmation hearing for VA deputy secretary:

EHR started in 2018 under President Trump and in 2020, it deployed to two Washington state VA hospitals. Instead of helping to improve our veterans’ health care, the rollout ending up being a complete disaster, and it endangered veteran patients. Unfortunately, the system still is not working the way that the VA doctors and nurses need, and veterans are continuing to suffer. Last month, the VA announced that it would be moving forward with pre-deployment activities at the next four sites for this Electronic Health Record. You will oversee the EHR program, so if confirmed, I want to know what you are going to do differently to hold Oracle accountable and to make sure we get this system right for our veterans?” Lawrence responded that he will figure out an accountability plan, to which Murray said, “We have heard that answer from every VA person that’s come before this committee for a number of years now. Everybody’s looked at it, everybody’s considered it, everybody’s talked about it, everybody’s convened panels. It is not working.”

Other

I saw this after reading Dr. Jayne’s piece on tech for seniors and thought it looked interesting. The free version turns an old tablet into a companion device that serves as a smart picture frame, text and photo messaging tool, and task manager. A $10 per month subscription adds auto-answer video calls, auto-join of Zoom meetings, AI activities and check-in, and connection of multiple family members. Onscreen Joy was announced last month at CES.

In the Netherlands, a man buys five 500GB hard drives for $5 each at a flea market and discovers that they contain patient medical records, apparently from the defunct healthcare software vendor Nortade ICT Solutions.

Sponsor Updates

Capital Rx releases a new episode of “The Astonishing Healthcare Podcast” titled “Judi Health: Going Beyond Pharmacy and into Medical Claims, with AJ Loiacono and Dr. Sunil Budhrani.”
BNH Hospital in Thailand implements the TrakCare EHR from InterSystems.
A Surescripts analysis projects more than $3.76 billion in healthcare savings could be realized if care managers leverage Surescripts Medication History for Populations technology.
First Databank publishes a new white paper, “Empowering Consumer Choice with EPrescribing.”
Findhelp welcomes new customers Cone Health (NC), Help at Home (IL), and Marion County Commission on Youth (IL).
FinThrive will present at the Idaho HFMA Spring Conference March 3 in Boise.
Five9 announces its global availability on Google Cloud Marketplace.
Healthcare Growth Partners advises Insight Partners on its investment in Azara Healthcare and I2I Population Health.
Inbox Health partners with Lighthouse Lab Services.
MRO achieves HITRUST CSF certification for its Exchange Services platform.

Blog Posts

Signs it is time to change your PBM vendor, and how to overcome common hesitations (Capital Rx)
5 Healthcare IT Trends Shaping the Industry (Healthcare IT Leaders)
AI in Enterprise Clinical Imaging: Capitalizing on the Value Proposition (Impact Advisors)
HEDIS MY 2026 Public Comments: Highlights for Quality Teams (Inovalon)
Full speed ahead: Interoperability at MEDITECH enters a new era (Meditech)

Contacts

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

4 Comments

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/20/25

February 20, 2025 Dr. Jayne 1 Comment

As someone who has been practicing medicine via telehealth since pre-pandemic days, sometimes I am placed in the wise elder role and asked to explain how things started and how they came to be the way they are. It can be a bit of a journey down memory lane, but then again, everything changed when COVID arrived and telehealth will never be the same.

Although large healthcare delivery organizations see telehealth as an extension of what they are doing in brick and mortar facilities, players in the direct-to-consumer space have dramatically shifted the options that patients can choose from in their quest for prescriptions and other services. In my own practice, I’ve seen it shift from being a partnership between physician and patient to being a transactional consumer activity where an outcome is expected and the patient/consumer becomes irate if they don’t get exactly what they think they need.

This is often frustrating to physicians who are new to third-party telehealth and thought it would be an easy way to pick up some extra money while making use of the medical license they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition payments to acquire.

I was in an online physician forum the other day and this topic came up. A physician was asking what it’s like to work for one of the direct-to-consumer companies that is well known for prescribing medications for erectile dysfunction. The company has added pre-visit questionnaires to gather information, often with somewhat leading questions that coach for patient answers that will generate a prescription. It’s a win-win for profits since the company is selling the medications as well as the professional services.

In some states, clinicians don’t even have to interact with patients in real time. They can treat them based on the equivalent of a one-way message. The medical board of a neighboring state has disciplined dozens of physicians for this since it’s not allowed in their state, but that doesn’t seem to have dissuaded people from doing it.

It always amazes me to see physicians who have no idea what is going on in their own industry and have little visibility beyond their personal practices. I found a recent article about the phenomenon and shared it to the forum. It was clear based on the comments section that people were having their minds blown.

One of the facts from the piece that drew quite a bit of attention was that together, three well-known telehealth companies spent more than $1.5 billion on advertising, sales, and marketing in 2023. Physicians in the forum also had no idea that direct-to-consumer telehealth companies were getting into clinical conditions that involve more complexity, such as mental health or obesity.

One of the physicians in the forum is the chief medical officer at an online weight management program. It works strictly through payer-based contracts and provides a multidisciplinary care team to address patients’ varying needs. She shared horror stories about patients who came to them after being seen at more commercial enterprises, where patients were basically told to use the medications that were shipped to their doorsteps but weren’t given any other counseling or support.

She made some great points. It’s not just that the treatments are ineffective, but that in some situations, they introduce side effects, including metabolic abnormalities that could have been avoided if a more thorough evaluation were performed prior to treatment.

Patients don’t always understand the knowledge and experience that is behind why physicians do or do not recommend a treatment. That’s especially true when they have seen dozens of influencers and paid spokespersons tell them exactly what they “need.” They don’t know the difference between one obesity management telehealth company that only hires physicians who have extensive formal training and years of experience in weight management versus another that is willing to onboard any licensed provider who willing to sign on the dotted line and accept $20-$30 for writing a prescription and a brief chart note.

The article has some great comments from Ateev Mehotra, MD, MPH, a public health professor who focuses on telehealth. He describes the transition from patients who work with their physician to make a treatment plan to a situation where the patient makes their own diagnosis and consults a transactional service whose clinician is a screener who is paid only to make sure that the medication is safe for the patient. That’s the lowest possible expectation for healthcare.

Not to mention that “safe” is a relative term. Is it safe because it probably won’t kill you? Or is it safe because you aren’t likely to have complications that dramatically impair your quality of life, whether briefly or for a longer period of time?

The article mentions situations where a screening-type approach might make more sense, with one of them being the provision of reproductive health services. Especially in states where it might be difficult to obtain reversible contraception, those services can be popular.

For medications that are over the counter in many other nations but remain prescription-only in the US, it’s easier to see that the risk/benefit equation for certain drugs might tip in favor of more streamlined access. I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but would bet that for many healthy non-smoking females in their 20s, the risk of morbidity and mortality from oral contraceptives is likely less than that of pregnancy, given the current state of maternal and infant health in the US.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the conversation unfolds over the next couple of days, which is about the typical length of time one of these threads survives. I’ll certainly make note and share if there are any particularly thought-provoking comments.

I enjoyed reading Mr. H’s recap of one of the Donors Choose grants in which reader donations provided microphones and speakers for a classroom in North Carolina. In addition to students being able to hear their teacher and peers clearly, learning how to use a microphone properly is a life skill that everyone should have.

Conferences that I’ve attended usually have microphones distributed throughout the audience to ensure that people can be heard when they ask questions. Invariably, at least one or two people will declare, “I don’t need the microphone.” They try to talk loudly, but don’t succeed, or they inadvertently sabotage the recording or broadcast for attendees who are not in the room. Some hold the microphone too far away from themselves or place it right up against their lips, both of which are never great for the audience or others who actually would like to hear what the speaker is saying. Hopefully incorporating those skills into the school setting will pay dividends for those students down the road.

If your organization expects you to confidently approach the microphone, do they provide any instruction in how to effectively do so or to avoid the dreaded screechy feedback? Or do they just hope you were a member of the A/V club in high school or that you channel your inner rock star? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

1 Comment

Morning Headlines 2/20/25

February 19, 2025 Headlines Comments Off

Azara Healthcare and i2i Population Health Unite to Supercharge Safety Net Population Health Management

Population health and value-based care company Azara Healthcare acquires I2I Population Health Management.

URAC Launches Development of Health Care AI Accreditation

Healthcare accreditor URAC announces plans to release a healthcare AI accreditation program later this year.

Walgreens Gains After CNBC Says Sycamore Takeout Is ‘Alive’

Walgreens shares jump on the news that private equity firm Sycamore Partners has revitalized its interest in acquiring the retail pharmacy chain.

Valsoft Enters the Managed Care Space with the Acquisition of Chordline Health

Canadian software business acquisition company Valsoft acquires North Carolina-based Chordline Health, which specializes in managed care software.

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Readers Write: Solving Healthcare’s $125 Billion Fax Problem

February 19, 2025 Readers Write 3 Comments

Solving Healthcare’s $125 Billion Fax Problem
By Thomas Thatapudi

Thomas Thatapudi, MBA is CIO of AGS Health.

In the six years since Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services called for an end to faxing in healthcare, the industry remains stubbornly attached to fax communications. Fax-led communications solutions are prevalent today, as organizations continue exchanging more than 9 billion fax pages each year, representing about $125 billion in annual costs to the healthcare system.

It is a problematic practice in terms of data integrity, productivity, and efficiency. According to information compiled by DirectTrust, 30% of tests must be re-ordered due to lost faxes and 25% of faxes fail to arrive before a patient’s first visit. Faxes also often require manual indexing for integration into the EHR and other health information systems, a time-consuming process that requires human and financial resources that are hard to come by for many healthcare organizations.

Luckily, fax indexing lends itself to automation. In particular, generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI excel at automating mundane and repetitive tasks. However, it is unrealistic to expect digital workers, such as AI agents that mimic human actions, to accurately index 100% of the faxes from the outset. Thus the best outcomes are realized when digital workers are paired with human counterparts who manage exceptions and handle specialized information and requests, at least until the digital workers have accrued enough on-the-job training via machine learning and deep learning models to take over higher complexity tasks.

Implementing a hybrid fax indexing model accelerates processing and eliminates the care delays that are caused by improperly managed faxes. It also alleviates the strain on increasingly scarce resources, reducing costs and freeing internal staff to focus on higher-value tasks.

However, achieving these outcomes requires careful orchestration of a workflow that seamlessly integrates digital workers (AI agents) and their human counterparts delivering on quality, timeliness, and accuracy.

Designing the Digital Workforce

The heart of a successful hybrid fax indexing strategy is a well-designed digital workflow model that helps orchestrate workflows between humans and digital workers. It starts with mapping the necessary technologies, a step that is best informed by shadowing human indexers to fully understand the process and map any unique needs. This information is also used to plan the implementation and conduct feasibility testing.

Like their human counterparts, digital workers are armed with an array of intelligence and automation tools, including optical character recognition (OCR), to analyze faxed documents and convert them into machine-readable text. They use natural language processing (NLP) models to interpret and manipulate the data contained within. GenAI is then leveraged to classify faxes based on the sender’s documentation format, determine its confidence threshold, and either index it into a documentation management system or EHR or divert it to the validation workflow for manual processing.

Machine learning allows digital workers to adapt to new document formats and categorize data according to providers’ templates and styles. Further, each processed fax enhances accuracy, efficiency, and capabilities while reducing exceptions.

Monitoring effectiveness is crucial to success. Establish clear KPIs, such as the volume of faxes indexed per day, indexing accuracy, turnaround times, and productivity levels to assess progress over time.

AI Grounded in Reality

While automated fax indexing is a relatively new entry into the burgeoning field of healthcare AI, it is quickly making an impact. One health system’s implementation of automated fax indexing has put it on track to save approximately $2 million in annual expenses. Automation has reduced the number of manual indexers that are required to process the health system’s fax volume, which allows key team members to focus on higher-value tasks while achieving a near-perfect accuracy rate and 24-hour turnaround time. As digital workers “learn” over time, the automation rate will increase, while the need for human intervention decreases, adding to the anticipated cost savings.

While it is unlikely that we will see a fax-free healthcare system in the near-term future, leveraging readily available automation and AI tools makes it possible to digitize the process and alleviate its associated cost, productivity, and patient safety burdens.

Automated fax indexing is yet another example of a thoughtful AI application that solves an age-old problem that, until now, has been stubbornly resistant to change.

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Readers Write: Are Your Patient Access Metrics Ready for Healthcare Consolidation?

February 19, 2025 Readers Write Comments Off

Are Your Patient Access Metrics Ready for Healthcare Consolidation?
By Emily Tyson

Emily Tyson, MBA is COO of Relatient.

The healthcare industry witnessed a surge in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in 2024, a trend that is expected to gain momentum in 2025. While organizational growth can unlock new potential for patient care and financial performance, it often brings operational inefficiencies that, if left unchecked, can strain staff, frustrate patients, and hinder sustainable success.

One of the biggest hurdles is managing the influx of data from fragmented sources. Adding new providers and locations introduces complexity, making it difficult to maintain consistency in scheduling, patient flow, and care delivery. Without the right tools to consolidate and standardize this data, organizations risk creating bottlenecks that impact the patient experience, disrupt operations, and negatively affect financial outcomes.

To ensure sustainable growth, healthcare organizations need proactive, data-driven strategies that are focused on four key aspects of patient access — provider scheduling performance, call center efficiency, patient experience, and financial outcomes — to not only identify inefficiencies, but also address them before they escalate.

Provider scheduling performance

During periods of growth, whether through acquisition or organic expansion, the last thing healthcare organizations need are scheduling disruptions. Scheduling is a cornerstone of operational success, directly impacting patient acquisition, physician satisfaction, and financial performance.

Accurate data insight is key to identifying gaps and uncovering opportunities for improvement. For example, high patient no-show rates might signal ineffective communication about appointment details, leading to missed visits. Another critical metric is appointment wait time, as patients overwhelmingly identified this as a top frustration in a 2024 survey.

Other essential metrics such as provider utilization rates, rule optimization, and scheduling accuracy reveal how effectively an organization accommodates provider preferences while balancing patient demand. Monitoring these indicators helps prevent overbooking, supports efficient patient throughput, and ensures that providers’ schedules are sustainable.

Metrics like the third next available appointment and waitlist conversion further illuminate the balance between patient access and appointment availability. These insights empower organizations to fill open slots more efficiently, expanding patient access while maximizing financial performance.

Contact center efficiency

During periods of growth and M&A activity, ensuring a seamless transition at the first touchpoint of the patient journey, the contact center, is critical. As new organizations integrate, call volumes naturally increase and require careful management to maintain care quality and consistency.

Proactively measuring and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) for both efficiency and patient satisfaction allows healthcare organizations to identify potential gaps. For instance, tracking peak call times allows administrators to allocate resources strategically, ensuring that patients receive timely support during high demand periods. The right metrics provide insights to reduce bottlenecks, streamline scheduling, and lower operational costs. Other KPIs like appointment booking efficiency, minutes per call, and staff training time offer a comprehensive view of contact center performance and areas for improvement.

Patient experience

Today’s healthcare consumers demand convenience, and if scheduling processes are complicated or time-consuming, particularly during periods of growth or consolidation, patients are likely to seek care elsewhere. To meet these expectations and enhance both patient experience and contact center efficiency, organizations must monitor patient experience metrics that reflect engagement and satisfaction.

Given that research consistently shows that patients prefer self-scheduling options, empowering patients to take more control of the scheduling process can lead to better outcomes for both patients and staff.

With the right systems in place, providers can track self-scheduling rates and after-hours scheduling activity to gain deeper insights into patient behavior. Other essential patient experience metrics include patient acquisition, referral conversation rates, and appointment abandonment rates, all of which provide a clearer picture of how well the organization is meeting patient needs.

Financial outcomes

Effective scheduling and data management play a vital role in driving financial performance. During periods of rapid growth, healthcare organizations should closely monitor key financial metrics that are tied to scheduling and payment processes. Doing so enables them to identify opportunities to streamline operations, reduce costs, and maximize revenue.

Crucial metrics that provide insight into a practice’s financial health include payment collection percentages, reductions in accounts receivable, balances collected through payment plans, and the speed of patient balance collection. By tracking these indicators, organizations can pinpoint inefficiencies, implement targeted improvements, and ensure financial stability during times of expansion.

Setting the state for growth

Tracking the right metrics enables teams to address inefficiencies and achieve sustainable growth by focusing on four critical areas:

Optimizing scheduling workflows. Track scheduling KPIs like no-show rates, wait times, and provider utilization to balance patient demand and provider efficiency.
Boost contact center performance. Analyze KPIs such as peak call times, appointment booking efficiency, and staff training to improve operations and care quality.
Enhance patient engagement. Offer self-scheduling options, track patient satisfaction metrics, and resolve issues like appointment abandonment to align with consumer expectations.
Improve financial health. Focus on payment collection rates, accounts receivable reductions, and patient payment speed to drive revenue stability.

Intelligent patient access tools such as multi-channel appointment scheduling, provider preference management, and automated appointment reminders allow organizations to accurately track the most relevant KPIs, enhancing operations and improving the patient experience. Combined with robust analytics, these tools enable data-driven strategies, optimize performance, and support sustainable growth.

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Healthcare AI News 2/19/25

February 19, 2025 Healthcare AI News Comments Off

News

Google launches Co-Scientist, a Gemini 2.0-powered research LLM that researchers say is like having an expert collaborator. Users provide a plain language research goal, after which the tool provides a summary of published literature and cited suggestions for new hypotheses and possible experiments.

Healthcare accreditor URAC announces plans to release a healthcare AI accreditation program later this year.

CVS Health redesigns its app with AI-driven features to provide a personalized health concierge experience. The app allows users to manage prescriptions for their entire family across CVS Pharmacy, CVS Caremark mail order, and CVS Specialty pharmacies. It also allows them to open locked display cabinets and pick up prescriptions using a barcode. Future enhancements include conversational AI for checking refill status and tailored recommendations for chronic condition management.

Business

Innovaccer launches telephone-based AI voice agents for patient scheduling, protocol intake, referral, authorization, care gap closure, HCC coding, and patient access.

HP acquires wearable device maker Humane AI for $116 million, gaining its employees and software while discontinuing the device. The widely hyped product, criticized as a solution in search of a problem, will be retired. The year-old, $699 Humane AI Pin — which also required a $24 monthly subscription – will become dysfunctional next week when its cloud service shuts down. The startup had raised $230 million and sought a $1 billion buyout.

Ambient documentation vendor Abridge raises $250 million an a Series D funding round. The company was previously valued at $2.5 billion.

Crunchbase lists five healthcare-related companies whose new fundraising rounds suggest a Unicorn Club valuation of at least $1 billion:

Neko Health (body scanner), $1.8 billion.
Hippocratic AI (AI agents), $1.6 billion.
Aragen Life Sciences (drug discovery), $1.4 billion.
Truveta (healthcare data from its provider owners), $1 billion.
Cera (digital-first home health), $1 billion.

Research

A UK-based company develops an AI-powered “super test” for prostate cancer screening that offers greater accuracy and sensitivity than traditional tests like PSA. The multi-omics test uses AI to analyze blood and urine samples for the presence of specific genes and proteins that have been clinically associated with the disease.

University of Michigan and other organizations are using a federal grant of up to $25 million to develop an AI-equipped van that can help medical generalists deliver hospital-level services in rural areas.

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