News 6/5/24

Top News

Ascension says in a June 4 cyberattack update that it has restored EHR access in its Florida, Alabama, and Austin markets. It hopes to use that experience to make the EHR available to the entire organization by next Friday, June 14.

The health system adds that its retail pharmacy, home delivery, and specialty pharmacy sites have reopened and can once again receive prescriptions electronically.

Ascension’s systems have been offline for four weeks.

Ascension warns that remediation of its other systems is ongoing and will require time to complete.

Reader Comments

From Janky: “Re: conferences. How do companies justify the ROI of exhibiting? It’s not like every exhibitor goes home with a fistful of hot leads or commitments for on-site follow-up.” I don’t run conferences, but I’ll describe how I position the value of sponsoring my site that goes beyond lead generation or immediate pipeline building.

• Everything a company does, including making sales, happens because someone has heard of them, probably repeatedly. One-shot exposure, regardless of the medium, will rarely be enough to seal a deal.
• Exposure isn’t just to prospects, but also potential partners, acquirers, acquisition targets, investors, executive hires, and consultants who may influence prospects. Most of the sponsors I lose is because a company — very often another of my sponsors –buys them.
• Our industry has quite a few competitive niches with specific audiences, and conferences and sponsorships will probably reach some who are outside traditional marketing channels.
• Prospects often make buying decisions based on an early recommendation by a non-C level employee who tips their boss off to a possible solution to their specific problems. You can’t just cold call C-level employees hoping for magic. Don’t ignore the influence that is wielded by attendees and readers who are at the mid-executive level or who are clinicians.
• It’s impossible to tell which kind of exposure, and to which people, will provide a pathway to success until after the fact.
• My conclusion is that companies that expect dramatic, short-term, easily-measurable ROI from conference participation or being a sponsor will do a one-and-done because they don’t see that result. Those who see it as patiently building a foundation and making industry connections in often intangible ways will end up reaping the benefit over the longer term.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

June 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Snackable Summer Series, Session 1: The Intelligent Health Record.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. This webinar will describe how HealthVision, HDAI’s Intelligent Health Management System, is transforming care across health systems and value-based care organizations. This 30-minute session will answer the question: what if you could see critical information from hundreds of EHR pages in a one-page patient chart and risk summary that serves the entire care team? We will tour the Spotlight, an easy-to-digest health profile and risk prediction tool. Session 2 will describe HDAI’s Intelligent Analytics solution, while Session 3 will tour HDAI’s Intelligent Workflow solution.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business & Stock

Waste Management will acquire Stericycle for $7.2 billion. Stericycle specializes in medical waste disposal, compliance training, and secure information destruction. It sold off its patient engagement solutions business to Carenet Health in 2022. I remember the Stericycle team always having fun, candy-filled booths during the heyday of HIMSS.

UPMC acquires Washington Health System (PA), which includes two hospitals and 18 practices. Washington Health will presumably move its Veradigm inpatient and EClinicalWorks outpatient EHRs to UPMC’s new Epic system.

Healthcare workflow automation software startup Keragon launches with $3 million in funding. The company specializes in using AI to synchronize patient data across different apps in real time.

Sword Health, which offers AI-powered digital support solutions for issues related to musculoskeletal problems, physical therapy, and pelvic therapy, raises $130 million in financing that increases its valuation to $3 billion. The company also announces a conversational AI tool called Phoenix that conducts natural conversations with patients, provides them with verbal feedback, and summarizes their performance for their clinician.

Sales

• Visage Imaging signs new customers Consulting Radiology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Moffitt Cancer Center, and US Radiology Specialists.
• WellSpan Health (PA) will enhance primary care delivery with wraparound behavioral healthcare services and technology from Concert Health.
• Johns Hopkins Health Plans launches a multi-payer portal powered by Availity Essentials to help providers manage benefits, claims, and authorizations.

People

Adam Hameed, MBA (GrandPad) joins Glooko as president of connected care.

Baptist Health South Florida promotes Sha Edathumparampil to chief digital and information officer.

Eagle Telemedicine names Kat Thousand, RN, MHA (Envision Healthcare) VP of clinical services.

Sherman Sanchez, MHA (BN Consulting) joins Dina as president.

SSM Health (IL) hires Saad Chaudhry, MPP, MS (Luminis Health) as chief digital officer.

Health Recovery Solutions promotes Jason Comer, JD to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

A new KLAS report finds that the move to the cloud for image viewing and/or storage is happening quickly, with Visage Imaging and Sectra generating both high customer confidence and market interest. Customer perception of Intelerad’s cloud strategy is mixed, while users of GE HealthCare question its ability to execute. Visage Imaging, Agfa HealthCare, and Sectra top the list in “confidence in vendor’s strategy for imaging in the cloud.” The biggest concerns about moving to the cloud are cost, privacy and security, the bandwidth and infrastructure that are required, and system performance.

Privacy and Security

Several London hospitals declare a critical incident and cancel procedures due to a ransomware attack on pathology services vendor Synnovis. The company is a partnership between Synlab UK and Ireland, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

A judge rules that CMS inappropriately lowered the 2024 Medicare Advantage star ratings of SCAN Health Plan, which cost the plan hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced federal bonuses. As a result, the government will pay SCAN $250 million, which is likely to encourage other MA plans to seek a recalculation of their bonuses. Experts say that the star system doesn’t accurately reflect quality of care.

Sponsor Updates

• Groups of Availity HR staff work with Challenges Inc. to build and personalize wagons for Nemours Children’s Hospital and Ronald McDonald House Charities.
• Wolters Kluwer Health will offer ConsortiEX’s Assure-Trak IV Workflow Management in its Simplify+ compounding compliance suite.
• Healthcare Growth Partners launches HGP Health IT Momentum Index, which offers a real-time view into health IT M&A, investment value, and valuations.
• Visage Imaging’s Director of Customer Experience Steve Deaton participates in a new video titled “The Imaging Wire Show: Throwing Out the Imaging Playbook with Apple Vision Pro.”
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a new case study titled “EMR Test Management at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare.”
• Get-to-Market Health founder Steve Shihadeh joins Penn Presbyterian Medical Center’s board of trustees.
• Loyal announces that its consumer health platform is now available on the Oracle Healthcare Marketplace.
• Business Awards UK recognizes Altera Digital Health UK with its IT Product of the Year Award for its Sunrise solution.
• Arcadia publishes a new guide, “3 solutions to master data management.”
• Arrive Health publishes a new whitepaper, “The Crushing Weight of Prior Authorization and What You Can Do About It.”
• AvaSure will integrate CLEW’s advanced clinical surveillance solutions with its virtual care platform.
• Biofourmis will present at the Hospital @ Home Leadership Summit June 5 in Boston.
• Cardamom Health CEO Vivek Swaminathan celebrates the launch of the Wisconsin Investment Fund, a VC initiative that will initially invest $100 million in startups throughout the state.
• Clinical Architecture partners with Ready Computing to offer healthcare organizations an industry-leading solution to consolidate, manage, and improve the quality of clinical data at scale.
• DrFirst announces that its AI-powered SmartRenewal solution earned high ratings from customers in KLAS Research’s latest First Look report.

Black Book announces the 2024 awards for the highest user experience and customer satisfaction in health plan technology and outsourcing, recognizing the following HIStalk sponsors:

• Symplr – end-to-end provider data management and credentialing solutions.
• Inovalon – payer cloud platform.
• Surescripts – payer member safety, PBM, and pharmacy solutions.
• Availity – clearinghouse alternative solutions.

Blog Posts

• MIPS Improvement Activities: What qualifies as a high-weight activity? (AdvancedMD)
• Agfa HealthCare: Leading the Way in Healthcare Innovation at SIIM 2024 (Agfa HealthCare)
• Building Your Digital Workforce: Launching and Sustaining Your Intelligent Automation Journey (AGS Health)
• Budget-friendly ways to improve your cybersecurity (Altera Digital Health)
• What you should know about SDoH and SOGI, the data sources shaping health equity (Arcadia)
• The Impact of Prior Authorizations on Patient Care (Availity)
• Managed Services: A Scalable Solution for Community Connect Support (Cardamom Health)
• Burnout Buster: Prioritizing the “People Piece” During an EHR Replacement (CereCore)
• Capture More Revenue and Save Resources with Artera’s New Intake and Payments Solution (Artera)
• Compliance Matters: User Access Monitoring – 5 Things You May Not Be Thinking About (Clearwater)
• Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Why Response and Recovery Matter (Divurgent)

Sponsor Spotlight

Revuud has launched a new AI matching functionality designed to revolutionize talent acquisition. This advanced matching algorithm swiftly sifts through talent profiles, pinpointing candidates whose skills, experiences, and preferences perfectly align with job requirements. By leveraging continuous learning from user interactions, feedback, and successful matches, the system refines its capabilities over time, delivering increasingly accurate and relevant results. This innovation promises significant time savings, expediting the hiring process by rapidly identifying the most suitable candidates.

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 6/4/24

TouchSource Acquires Healthcare Business and Patient Room Network From True Sync Media

Digital signage and wayfinding technology vendor TouchSource acquires True Sync Media’s healthcare business, which sells waiting room display solutions and content.

General Catalyst-backed Jasper Health lays off staff

Jasper, which offers tech-powered support to cancer patients, reportedly lays off half its staff.

BD to Acquire Edwards Lifesciences’ Critical Care Product Group for $4.2 Billion to Expand Smart Connected Care Solutions and Become an Advanced Monitoring Technology Leader

BD will acquire the critical care monitoring solution group of Edwards Lifesciences, which includes AI-enabled clinical decision support tools, for $4.2 billion in cash.

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 6/3/24

I use HIStalk as a primary source for healthcare IT news as much as the next person, so I was interested to see the recent Morning Headlines call-out about Google’s AI Overviews. I had seen them pop up in searches, but didn’t think too much about them since the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of meetings and deadlines with travel to a conference sandwiched in the middle.

I had a little bit of downtime this weekend and was planning to use it to complete my mandatory Maintenance of Certification questions that I have to do every quarter to maintain status with my specialty board. The online quarterly questions are open book and you’re allowed to use online resources. Normally I use well-trusted sites such as the United States Preventive Services Task Force, various professional journals, and UpToDate to research the answers if I don’t know them outright. This time, I decided to use Google to see what it would come up with.

Due to the honor code involved with the quarterly questions, I can’t share the exact queries that I did during the project, but I’ll share the results of some questions that recently came up related to continuing medical education quizzes and conversations with colleagues.

Asking Google how much calcium I should be taking in each day resulted in the AI overview that displayed the same data that appears on the website of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements. It showed values by age range and sex, since Google wouldn’t necessarily know how to define “I” in the query. However, asking it for tips on selecting the best blood pressure intervention for a female patient with a blood pressure of 200/90 didn’t provide an AI Overview. (UpToDate won that one, hands down, with multiple articles addressing the topic.)

The recommendations for breast cancer screening in the US recently changed. I asked Google for the current mammogram guidelines and was greeted with four sponsored results and then a result with a link to the US Preventive Services Task Force site, so that was a plus since it was a direct link to the primary source material. Of the sponsored links, the one from Mercy wasn’t even about mammograms, but rather a promotion for its multi-cancer-screening blood test. Another one of the sponsored links, from a local fitness organization, was last updated in 2020 and provided incorrect information. As a clinician, I was pleased to find that the search for “are COVID vaccines bad” returned two websites from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed by one from Johns Hopkins Medicine.

I then turned to more routine primary care questions, such as “do I need penicillin for sore throat” and was pleased with the information the AI overview provided, including that “antibiotics only help with bacterial infections, not viral infections” and “most sore throats are caused by viruses , such as the common cold, and will go away on their own within a week without treatment.” It went on to suggest reputable home remedies including rest and gargling with salt water as well as links to appropriate articles from UpToDate, GoodRx, and the National Library of Medicine.

I also asked, “what is a sinus infection” and although the information that returned was appropriate, I was thrown by the weird punctuation and capitalization that came with it: “Sinus infections can be caused by a number of things, including: An inflammatory reaction, Allergies, A code that doesn’t get better or gets worse after 7 to 10 days, and Smoking.” Even my Microsoft Word editor function caught that one and didn’t want me to send it along to Mr. H. I was pleased that it got the Oxford comma right, however. The AI Overview blurb also included some solid home remedies, such as reducing stuffiness by drinking lots of fluids, using nasal saline spray, and putting warm wet washcloths on the face.

By this point, I was fairly enthusiastic about some of the responses, since they included basic self-care items that a lot of the patients who come to see me in emergency and urgent care settings don’t seem to know. I see too many patients who present for care without having tried any kind of remedies at home, so I asked a tricky one: “Should I treat my child’s fever?” I see a fair number of parents who don’t give their children any fever-reducing medications when they are sick, under the pretense that they didn’t want to treat it because they “wanted the doctor to see how high it was.” Speaking generally for the physicians in my generation, unless your child is an infant or has one of a few chronic health conditions, we trust your use of a thermometer and want you to give your child some acetaminophen when they have a fever because it will help them feel less miserable.

The AI overview was spot on, advising caregivers to treat a fever “if it’s making them uncomfortable or preventing them from drinking fluids.” It also advised that treatment might not be needed for toddlers and children who are eating, drinking, playing, and sleeping normally. Sometimes I see children who are running fevers, but zooming around the exam room eating Cheerios and drinking apple juice, so this kind of information might have saved parents a $50 or $100 co-pay as well as prevented a couple hundred dollars in overall costs to the healthcare ecosystem. The overview was followed by links to content from UC Davis Health, Stanford Medicine, and Cleveland Clinic, so I felt good about the overall results of the search.

From there, I asked Google for symptoms of abdominal aortic aneurysms, and received an AI Overview. The second item on the list of symptoms, a pulsing sensation in the abdomen, can also be completely normal. The overview then recommended that anyone with the symptoms listed “should see your doctor as soon as possible.” In reality, if someone is having symptoms from this condition, they need to be in the nearest emergency department because it can be a life-threatening emergency requiring immediate medical management and the potential for emergency surgery. I’d give that particular response a D-minus if not an F since the potential for catastrophic consequences is high.

I asked the question again in a different way: “Do I have an aortic aneurysm?” and was told that “many people with aortic aneurysms don’t have symptoms until the aneurysm ruptures” and had to scroll off the screen to see any kind of recommendations for evaluation or care, so on the overall topic of aneurysms I would give Google an F.

In summary, I thought the technology did decently well for basic questions that I deal with every day, although it bobbled a little on the aneurysm question. Given the lack of basic health education in many communities, including how to treat minor illnesses and injuries, Google’s AI Overviews might be a nice step towards improved health literacy. It certainly makes the “finding” health information component easier, especially for patients and caregivers who might not know how to access the website of a local health system or other respected health information organization. It also did pretty well on the board certification questions, although some of them were more specific and therefore didn’t generate an AI overview. I’ll give the tool a solid B-plus as today’s grade but will keep an eye on it to see how it does in the future.

Happy Birthday, HIStalk! Congratulations on officially being old enough to buy a round of drinks. As is fitting for a publication created by anonymous people across the country, I celebrated with pastry for one. Healthcare IT has evolved in ways that I never dreamed it would, and I’m happy to have been along for the ride with HIStalk.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 6/3/24

OCR Updates Change Healthcare Cybersecurity Incident FAQs

HHS OCR provides specific information related to breach notification responsibility from the Change Healthcare cyberattack.

Wrongful death lawsuit alleges baby dies as a result of Springhill Medical Center’s negligence during cyberattack

A woman whose baby died in childbirth during a cyberattack says that the hospital is refusing to pay its previously agreed-on settlement.

Google Is Using A.I. to Answer Your Health Questions. Should You Trust It?

Google’s AI Overviews, which displays AI-generated search result summaries before showing the individual links, can provide health information that is incorrect or that uses unreliable sources.

Demands were sent to 4 hospitals/systems re: AI products for use in healthcare facilities

An investigative reporter finds that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has used the state’s consumer protection laws to demand that Houston Methodist, Parkland Health, Children’s Health, and Texas Health Resources provide his office with their AI-related contracts, policies, and disclosures.

Monday Morning Update 6/3/24

Top News

HHS OCR updates its cybersecurity FAQ to include the Change Healthcare cyberattack:

• Nobody has issued the breach notification that was due April 21, 60 days from when the incident occurred.
• Covered entities should contact Change Healthcare if they expect the company to issue the mandatory breach notification to affected patients on their behalf.
• Providers don’t have to issue a breach notification as long Change agrees to do so.
• All parties are responsible for ensuring that affected patients are notified.
• OCR’s interest in the business associates of the companies, including providers, is secondary.
• Determining if a ransomware attack is a HIPAA breach involves whether the attack caused PHI to be encrypted and the likelihood that the PHI is identifiable or capable of being re-identified and whether the data was actually acquired or used.

Reader Comments

From Orator: “Re: Oracle. Does the company believe that sarcastic, confrontational pieces like Ken Glueck’s blog post panning the BI article will draw healthcare admiration or improve sales?” Larry Ellison is widely recognized as Silicon Valley’s biggest bully, and one might expect his underlings to share that trait. I don’t think that this type of argumentative swagger has ever worked in healthcare, although ironically Cerner’s Neal Patterson was probably the best example before Larry bought his former company, and even Neal learned that macho personal attacks on Epic and Judy Faulkner just made Cerner look worse. Our industry respects corporate drive, but only when it is backed by some level of humility and empathy for the patients and employees of mostly non-profit health systems. Ken didn’t help the cause of the obviously butthurt Oracle by launching a public peeing match against a minimally influential website, although he’s done it before. Far better would have been a professional, factual, accomplish-centered response from David Feinberg, who at least carries healthcare credibility and holds the title of “chairman of Oracle Health,” even though it seems to be a ceremonial role of glad-handing and selfie-snapping while while the real puppet masters are Oracle’s EVPs.

Just in case any other health IT executives are considering providing their angry hot take on negative reporting about the company, I’ll offer this:

• Don’t give a negative story legs by mentioning it, unless most of the industry is buzzing about it and demands a response.
• Focus on the unemotional correction of misinformation.
• Acknowledge any claimed issues that are factual and commit to resolving them.
• Consult the employees who are the most knowledgeable to identify the article’s errors and the validity of the company’s planned response.
• Keep the tone professional and constructive since the company will be judged on it. Have a communications expert review and offer suggestions.
• Don’t take shots at competitors, or even better, don’t even acknowledge that they exist unless they are the focus of the article.
• Attribute the article to the executive who has the best credentials or highest recognition among the article’s audience.
• Consider the article’s sources and examine whether a company disconnect exists caused them to convey erroneous or negative information.
• Invite dialog and offer to continue the discussion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

It’s close to an even split among poll respondents about the federal government paying for the development of health system cybersecurity tools. Commenters expressed these supporting thoughts: the federal government needs to protect patient information because healthcare organizations aren’t doing it well and someone needs to do something drastic before a bad actor takes the entire health system down. Counterpoints: the feds should encourage / require health systems to effectively using existing security technologies and the government should not spend taxpayer money just because health systems haven’t.

New poll to your right or here: How has your opinion about Oracle Health changed in the past 12 months?

HIStalk turns 21 this week, started by me in 2003 as a hobby that would keep me current on the industry for my health system IT executive job. The time has flown by and filling the blank screen energizes me every single day. I’m thrilled to have readers and sponsors, but my selfish motivation has always been my own satisfaction, although it’s gratifying that influential readers make decisions based on what they read here.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

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

Other

Attorneys for a woman whose baby died during childbirth at Springhill Medical Center (AL) during a 2019 cyberattack ask the judge in her negligence lawsuit to force the hospital pay the settlement that they previously agreed to. The lawsuit claims that the ransomware attack took down the fetal monitoring system that should have alerted nurses to call the OB-GYN, who has said that she would have performed a C-section had she known that the baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. The hospital said that the doctor had the responsibility to notify the patient. The lawsuit is believed to be the first in which a patient’s death was attributed to ransomware.

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 5/31/24

Cybersecurity Event Update

Ascension says it has restored EHR access in one of its markets.

NHS computer issues linked to patient harm

Half of NHS trusts say that they have documented EPR-caused patient harm, including three deaths and 126 instances of serious IT-caused harm.

Thankfully Business Insider Is Not Responsible for Healthcare Modernization

Oracle EVP Ken Glueck calls a recent negative BI article “clickbait,” declares Epic’s Judy Faulkner to be “the single biggest obstacle to EHR interoperability,” and says that Epic will fail and Oracle Health will succeed.

News 5/31/24

Top News

Waystar targets a valuation of nearly $4 billion in its upcoming IPO.

The company, which was formed in early 2018 by the merger of Navicure and ZirMed, was valued at $2.7 billion in a 2019 investment.

Reader Comments

From Mandible: “Re: Oracle Health. The Business Insider article struck a nerve. The company’s blog post exposes a lot of anger. It also takes a shot at Epic for their lack of commitment to interoperability.” The Oracle response is a textbook example of why companies should take a breath and get PR help before lashing out in righteous indignation, not to mention that they should follow Mark Twain’s advice to “never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Oracle’s blog post was penned by EVP Ken Glueck, whose background is politics and lobbying (EVP Mike Sicilia, who has gone radio silent for months, was also a company lobbyist, and neither have any healthcare experience). I’ll summarize the post further down the page. Business Insider is likely delighted that the company is giving it free publicity and probably a ton of inbound clicks for a marginally informative piece. This isn’t Ken’s first journalism rodeo – he used Oracle’s blog to go nuclear on The Intercept when it reported that Oracle was marketing its analytics software to police in dissent-suppressing countries and then doxxed the reporter (and had his Twitter account suspended for doing so) and urged followers to send him dirt about her. Click the graphic above to enlarge the archived copy before the reference was expunged. Unrelated: despite being in such a high-ranking position, Ken’s photo appears basically nowhere on the Internet and he doesn’t include it in his X and LinkedIn profiles, so I can’t include his headshot.

From Jeepers: “Re: Oracle Health. Oracle stockholders should be livid that objective due diligence was not performed before buying Cerner. Larry Ellison wanted it and all his yes men said yes. The board and maybe even the SEC has a case for dereliction of duties or similar charge.” The comment quoted in the Business Insider article came from the Senate testimony of Oracle EVP Mike Sicilia: “I would say there’s always things that you discover after the fact. You know, we certainly had read the press, and we certainly had read things that were publicly disclosed. But there’s nothing like owning something to fully understand what’s going on.” It should be noted that Sicilia was referring to the VA project specifically, not the entirety of the Cerner acquisition.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Dollar General ends its parking lot clinic program that it launched with DocGo less than 18 months ago as part of its DG | Wellbeing brand.

Virtual Therapeutics, which offers game-based mental health apps, will acquire game-based cognitive treatment vendor Akili for $34 million in cash. Akili went public via a SPAC merger in August 2022 at a $1 billion valuation and saw its shares lose 70% of their value in the first week of trading. They are now down 97%.

Pharmacy workflow automation vendor Plenful raises $17 million in a Series A funding round.

IMO, aka Intelligent Medical Objects, renames itself to IMO Health.

Cardamom Health will receive funding from the newly launched Wisconsin Investment Fund.

Oracle EVP Ken Glueck lashes out at Business Insider and its “Oracle deadly gamble” article (he dismisses it as “clickbait”) that questions its VA performance and the state of the former Cerner business in general. Summary:

• The article recycles old news, anonymous quotes, and its own piece from two years ago while omitting Oracle’s response, which he says is “your typical Business Insider preconceived ‘expose’’.”
• The Cerner system has improved since BI’s July 2022 piece. Oracle fixed the “unknown queue” problem in 2022 just 10 days after it was reported.
• DoD implemented the Cerner system successfully and it has gone live at the jointly operated Lovell Federal Health Care Center, the first go-live since Oracle acquired Cerner.
• Glueck cites a 2020 BI article about Epic that he calls a “puff piece” that contains “Epic misinformation.”
• He calls Epic CEO Judy Faulkner “the single biggest obstacle to EHR interoperability” and says that Epic’s contracts give the company ownership of patient data in “stretching HIPAA beyond recognition.”
• He says the same issues that caused other industry outsiders to fail in healthcare will cause Epic to fail and Oracle to succeed.

People

Augmedix hires Alex Stinard, MD (HCA) as chief clinical AI officer.

Phillip LaJoie (Qbase) joins the Defense Health Agency as COO of the market technology integration office.

DirectTrust’s Interoperable Secure Cloud Fax Consensus Body elects Jeffrey Sullivan, MS (Consensus Cloud Solutions) as chairperson.

Announcements and Implementations

Medicare Advantage insurer Clover Health will offer its Clover Assistant clinical decision support tool for sale to payers and providers. The company went public in a SPAC merger in January 2021 at a $7 billion valuation, now at $553 million.

Ascension says in a May 29 cybersecurity event update that it has restored EHR access in one of its markets.

UCSF and UCSF Health receive a $5 million charitable donation to develop a system that will monitor the performance of AI tools in real time for efficacy, safety, and equity.

Black Book ranks Veradigm’s Payerpath as the #1 overall provider of claims and clearinghouse platform solutions for small medical practices.

Government and Politics

HHS taps national coordinator for health IT Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP as acting chief artificial intelligence officer while it searches for a permanent replacement. He will also continue in his national coordinator role.

Other

In England, BBC News investigates claims of a cover-up involving problems with NHS’s electronic patient record systems, which it says have been linked to three deaths, have left 200,000 medical letters unsent, and have caused payment problems in half of the trusts. The coroner who reviewed one of the deaths specifically called out its Cerner / Oracle Health system for not clearly indicating the level of acuity of ED patients as did the system it replaced.

Ukraine-connected digital health vendor BeKey runs a crowd-funding campaign for its rollout of YODD (Your Online Doctor Diagnostics), a telehealth device for homes. The company will donate devices to people in Ukraine and volunteers with Doctors4UA. Supporters will receive one of the devices later this year.

Contacts

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

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 5/30/24

I was talking to a colleague this week. We had a stroll down memory lane about the changes that have happened in the healthcare technology sphere during our tenures in the industry. I had made a comment about “doing electronic healthcare records since before Meaningful Use was a thing” and the conversation just spiraled from there.

We’ve seen practices opt out and take the penalties for non-participation, and we’ve seen practices overhaul themselves trying to get the most out of the bonuses. We’ve also seen a lot of organizations in the middle of that spectrum that just seem perpetually lost because they struggle to keep up with everything that’s going on in the regulatory world.

For those organizations in the swirl, the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Value Pathways (MVPs) registration is open for the 2024 practice year. Organizations that plan to report an MVP can register through December 2, 2024 at 8 p.m. ET. That seems a bit of an arbitrary choice on the time and date to close out registrations, but I’m far from being the clock or calendar police. Organizations that plan to register should identify the MVP they plan to report, whether they’re going to use the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare providers and Systems (CAHPS) for MIPS Survey, and the population health measure they would like to be evaluated on. There are several other decision points, such as participating as an individual versus group versus subgroup, so if you’re not familiar with all of that, it might be time to do some reading.

I haven’t heard much about data being used in this way, but Vanderbilt University Medical Center is using data to identify outlier clinicians who are receiving a high number of patient complaints. Once the physicians are identified, trained physician peers review the data and provide feedback that is targeted towards behavioral modification. The program has lowered malpractice claim costs for the identified physicians by 83%. Although the work at Vanderbilt was only done in orthopedic surgery, it would be interesting to see how similar initiatives might pan out in other specialties. I’m curious how other organizations might be using patient complaint data – it’s not something I hear much about in the informatics community.

Speaking of data, I can’t wait to see some actual research on this new solution. Crescent Regional Hospital in Lancaster, TX has deployed a solution that creates life-size holograms of physicians in patient care areas, “creating an immersive, engaging, interactive experience.” It sounds exciting and all, especially when the hospital CEO uses the word “teleport” to describe what is going on, but other than being in 3D and requiring specialized equipment, it’s a very fancy video visit. It is being described as a “non-touch” visit rather than a virtual visit or video visit. I’d love to see a head to head study comparing this type of solution with in-person care and non-hologram virtual visits. I suspect it will score similarly to the latter, although there’s a potential for it to score worse if there are technical issues. I wholeheartedly support the use of video / virtual care, especially in areas where it’s challenging to recruit clinicians, but I can’t help but remember something else that creates an “immersive, engaging, interactive” environment – live physicians.

Depending on the specialty, some departments have been slow to integrate virtual care into everyday practice. A recent submission in JAMA Pediatrics looks at the incorporation of clinician-to-clinician e-consults within pediatric care organizations. Ideally, it would allow primary care physicians to collaborate with subspecialists about the care of a particular patient. However, researchers found rates for the under-18 population that were significantly lower than other patient groups. The authors note key areas that need to be addressed in order to expand the use of the modality: specific payment mechanisms, EHR interoperability, operational processes, consent, privacy, and patient engagement. It will be interesting to look back at this topic in a few years and see if advances have been made.

As I was wrapping up my recent trip, the idea of innovation labs was a hot topic. Apparently Atrium Health is building a 20-acre “innovation district” in Charlotte, NC that includes research buildings, a residential tower, retail shops, and a hotel. It will surround the medical school that is planned for the area.

Plenty of large health systems have innovation centers or programs. I’ve heard of them ranging from high-performing units that can create and commercialize solutions to buzzword-friendly boondoggles. One of my drinking buddies shared a feature from The Hustle that suggests that the innovation lab concept has lost its sparkle. Examples of non-healthcare innovation labs that were cited in the piece include Estee Lauder and Microsoft “to infuse AI into your beauty routine (whatever that means)” along with Major League Soccer, Mars (home of M&Ms and Snickers), Sephora, and Visa.

That particular edition of The Hustle also included a blurb about a startup (BrainBridge) that wants to transplant a human head onto a donor body within eight years. They plan to use high-speed robotic surgeons and AI algorithms to make it all work (of course there is AI!) The blurb links out to an article in the New York Post, so that’s something right there. I’d love to hear what actual neuroscientists think about the potential for this.

My buddy also shared that the edition mentioned that Firefox recently resolved a software defect that was opened in March 2000 for the Netscape Navigator product. I had a 15-year relationship with a software company once, but generally gave up on defect fixes once the requests hit the five-year mark. Kudos to the team for closing the loop on this one.

I’m back in the cicada zone this week, and I’d be lying if said I wasn’t eager for them to finish their life cycle and have the next generation burrow back into the ground. They are projected to decrease in my area in mid-June, but work travel will take me to places where they might continue well into July. I try to dodge them when I’m out for a walk or a run, but it’s amazing how loud it can be when one of them hits your windshield at high speed. Good luck, little critters, we’ll see you again in 13 years.

What is your cicada-palooza experience? Are you fascinated by it or ready to be done with it? Or tired of hearing the Eastern half of the US talk about it? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 5/30/24

Virtual Therapeutics, Akili Interactive Enter Into Definitive Merger Agreement to Establish Leading Digital Health Company

Virtual Therapeutics, which offers game-based mental health apps,will acquire game-based cognitive treatment vendor Akili for $34 million in cash.

HHS names acting chief AI officer as it searches for permanent official

HHS taps national coordinator for health IT Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP as acting chief artificial intelligence officer – in addition to his existing role — while it searches for a permanent replacement for Greg Singleton.

Dollar General pulls mobile clinic mentions from website, partner no longer offering appointments

Endpoints reports that Dollar General has removed from its website mentions of its mobile clinics, which it operates in a partnership with DocGo, less than 18 months after launching the service.

Healthcare payments firm Waystar aims up to $3.83 bln valuation in US IPO

Waystar targets a valuation of nearly $4 billion for its US IPO, 50% more than its previous valuation in 2019.

Healthcare AI News 5/29/24

News

Microsoft announces new features for Copilot that include expanded Teams capabilities, the ability to create custom copilots that act as agents, and extensions and connectors for developers.

OpenAI says in an unrelated blog post that it bas begun training the success to ChatGPT 4o, which it says will “bring us to the next level of capabilities on our path to AGI.”

XAI, which was founded in July 2023 by Elon Musk, will raise $6 billion in funding to bring its first products to market. The company’s first release was its Grok AI system.

Mayo Clinic will hold an AI summit on July 8-9 at its Rochester, MN campus and virtually, with a registration fee of $350 for either option.

Business

Google profiles 24 healthcare-related startups from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa that are part of the 2024 cohort of its health startup support program.

Videra Health, which offers an AI-driven mental health assessment platform, raises $5.6 million in seed funding. Its product uses patient self-assessments and AI analysis of video patient responses.

Atropos Health raises $33 million in a Series B funding round, which the company will use to expand the stake of its evidence-generating applications in value-based care.

Other

China’s Wuhan Union Hospital launches an AI pilot project in collaboration with Baidu Health that includes AI-powered patient triaging, appointment scheduling, and wait time management.

Contacts

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

Readers Write: Healthcare’s Digital Leap: The Game-Changing Benefits of Online Marketplaces

Healthcare’s Digital Leap: The Game-Changing Benefits of Online Marketplaces
By Eric Utzinger

Eric Utzinger is co-founder and chief commercial officer of Revuud.

Digital marketplaces have become a transformative force across various industries, redefining how people transact and interact. From Uber to Airbnb, these platforms have revolutionized sectors and sparked trends like the gig economy and micro-entrepreneurship. 

The healthcare industry is experiencing its own revolution. Just as Uber changed transportation and Airbnb altered accommodation, digital marketplaces are shaking up healthcare. With over 150 online marketplaces today, while the concept isn’t entirely new, its application in healthcare is innovative. 

These platforms simplify the process of buying, selling, and hiring healthcare resources, transforming how doctors, nurses, medical equipment, medical coding, and IT services are managed. Let’s delve into how these marketplaces are enhancing healthcare’s efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility.

Boosting Access to Talent: Doctors and Nurses

• A bigger talent pool. Finding the right healthcare professionals used to be a local affair, often limited by geography and specific recruitment agencies. Enter marketplaces like LocumTenens.com and Vivian. These platforms expand the reach, allowing hospitals and clinics to connect with specialists and nurses from all over the country, or even the world. This broader talent pool ensures they can find the perfect fit for their needs.
• Faster hiring. In healthcare, time is of the essence. Traditional hiring processes can be slow, involving multiple steps and heaps of paperwork. Digital marketplaces streamline everything, providing robust platforms where job openings can be posted, and qualified professionals can apply directly. With features like instant messaging and credential verification, hiring becomes much quicker and more efficient.
• Flexibility and scalability. Marketplaces offer unmatched flexibility. Healthcare facilities can easily find part-time, temporary, or per-diem staff, allowing them to scale their workforce according to patient volume and seasonal demand. This adaptability helps manage operational costs and maintain high standards of patient care without the burden of overstaffing.

Revolutionizing Medical Coding

• Access to specialized coders. Accurate medical coding is crucial for billing and regulatory compliance, but finding specialized coders can be challenging. Marketplaces like The Coding Network connect healthcare providers with experienced coders who specialize in various medical fields, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
• Cost savings. Marketplaces offer competitive pricing for coding services, often cheaper than traditional staffing agencies. This cost efficiency is achieved through dynamic matching of supply and demand, reducing the overhead costs associated with conventional hiring processes.
• Scalability and flexibility. Medical coding needs can vary, especially with changing healthcare regulations or peak periods. Marketplaces provide the flexibility to scale coding services up or down as needed, allowing healthcare providers to manage their workload efficiently without long-term commitments.

Advancements in Healthcare IT Services

• Access to specialized IT talent. The digital transformation of healthcare requires specialized IT skills, from electronic health record (EHR) management to cybersecurity. Traditional hiring methods can limit the search for such talent. Marketplaces offer access to a pool of IT professionals with the expertise required for healthcare projects, ensuring providers find the right match for their highly technical needs.
• Cost efficiency. Hiring IT professionals through marketplaces often leads to significant cost savings. These platforms eliminate many overhead costs associated with full-time hires, such as benefits and long-term contracts. Healthcare providers can hire IT experts on a project basis, paying only for the services they need.
• Agility and speed. The rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare technology demands quick, agile responses. Marketplaces provide an efficient way to bring in IT professionals for short-term projects or to address immediate issues like system upgrades or security breaches. This agility is crucial for maintaining the integrity and functionality of healthcare IT systems, allowing organizations to scale their IT departments up or down when needed.

Conclusion

Digital marketplaces are revolutionizing healthcare by offering a more efficient, cost-effective, and flexible approach to managing resources. From doctors and nurses to medical equipment, coding, and IT services, these platforms provide numerous benefits over traditional methods. They democratize access to talent and resources, enhance transparency, and streamline processes, ultimately leading to improved patient care and operational efficiency.

As healthcare continues to evolve, embracing the advantages of marketplaces will be key for providers aiming to stay competitive and deliver high-quality care.

Readers Write: Strengthening the Net: The FTC’s Expanded Reach on Health Data Protection

Strengthening the Net: The FTC’s Expanded Reach on Health Data Protection
By Chris Bowen

Chris Bowen, MBA is founder and CISO of ClearData.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently finalized changes to the Health Breach Notification Rule (HBNR), signaling a move from fragmented, independent privacy and security measures towards a unified, collaborative defense. This new rule puts patients and consumers in the driver’s seat of their privacy and serves as a call to action for companies that create, collect, manage, and use health information, providing a potent deterrent against vulnerabilities that could expose their data.

Understand this: The FTC’s stance is unwavering and authoritative. It demands not mere compliance, but the utmost adherence to rigorous standards of care and caution in handling confidential health information.

The Health Breach Notification Rule mandates that vendors of personal health records and associated entities that are not covered by HIPAA must inform individuals in case of a breach with unsecured data. If a third-party service provider to these entities experiences a breach, it must inform the entity, which then notifies the individuals. The Rule also outlines the specifics of when, how, and what to notify in the event of specific breaches.

HBNR specifically applies to personal health record vendors and other entities that offer products or services through them, and third-party service providers to them. It covers a variety of platforms from health apps to wearable technologies. Unfortunately, 81% of Americans assume that all protected health data that is collected by digital health apps is protected under HIPAA.

In May 2023, the FTC proposed amendments to the Health Breach Notification Rule (HBNR) to clarify its scope regarding the collection of consumer health data by health apps and related technologies. The finalization of these changes is an unambiguous signal to the digital health ecosystem that the integrity of healthcare data is non-negotiable. No longer can firms hide behind the complexities or nascent nature of digital health technologies; the time to comply and protect is now, and the FTC has implemented rules that leave no uncertainty about the seriousness of the endeavor.

The updated HBNR ushers in several key shifts that set a higher standard for security and transparency. First among these is the expanded content required in a breach notification to patients. This move is not merely bureaucratic; it aligns with the growing demand for clarity and accountability that patients and providers alike require to maintain trust in the face of technological unknowns.

The Commission has made significant revisions and clarifications to the rules governing health apps and technologies that are not covered by HIPAA, enhancing the protection of personal health information (PHI). Among these changes are revised definitions to emphasize the rule’s application to health apps, clarification on what constitutes a “breach of security,” and a more precise scope for “PHR related entities” that includes those offering services via online and mobile platforms.

Additionally, the final rule expands the methods and content of breach notifications to consumers, including the use of electronic communication and detailed information on the breach’s impact.

It also adjusts the timing for notifying the FTC in the event of a breach, setting strict deadlines to ensure prompt action. These updates mark a significant step forward in securing PHI and underscore the importance of compliance and clear communication in the digital health space.

The FTC’s action demands not just compliance, but leadership — leadership in technological integrity, transparency, and fortitude in the face of cyber threats. Change will require investment, invention, and unwavering commitment, but the benefits extend far beyond mere regulatory peace of mind. In championing cybersecurity, we champion the future of healthcare, a future that is secure, trusted, and resilient. Digital health entities that fall short will find themselves lacking not just in regulatory compliance, but also in the trust and investment of a discerning public.

Consumer Protected Health Information is not just a term. It embodies the very essence of what is ours, our narratives of health, history, and future.

The time has come for a unified front in healthcare cybersecurity. We, the technologists, innovators, lawmakers, and guardians of the healthcare digital landscape, must rise to this challenge with unity and tenacity.

It is time for every digital health company, every healthcare professional, and every policymaker to reassess, reinvent, and redouble their efforts in cybersecurity. The FTC’s changes provide the roadmap. It is now up to us to ensure a future where patient data is as secure as the healthcare we strive to provide.

The stakes are too high, the threats too real, and the need for action too pressing.

Morning Headlines 5/29/24

Veradigm Announces Leadership Update

MDRX shares rose 16% Tuesday on news that it has replaced its interim CEO and is exploring strategic alternatives that could include a sale of the company.

2024 VA AI Tech Sprint Award Ceremony

The VA announces AI competition winners in ambient documentation and outside medical record summarization.

Cybersecurity Event Update

Ascension’s most recent cyberattack update from May 24 says that its recovery progress will be visible this week and that partners are reconnecting to its network.

Cue Health to Pursue Wind Down of the Business

Connected health vendor Cue Health, which went public in 2021 at a valuation of $2.3 billion, lays off all of its employees and files Chapter 7 bankruptcy following FDA’s warning that its COVID-19 tests are unreliable.

News 5/29/24

Top News

Veradigm will seek strategic alternatives for the company, which could include its sale.

The company has named President and Chief Commercial Officer Tom Langan as interim CEO, starting June 7. He will replace interim CEO Yin Ho, MD, MBA, who will leave the company and resign from its board now that her term of service has expired.

Veradigm dismissed CEO Richard Poulton and CFO Leah Jones in December 2023 as the company struggled to address overdue financial reports that threatened its stock listing.

MDRX shares are down 37% in the past 12 months, valuing the company at $812 million. They closed up 16% Tuesday on the news.

Veradigm acquired AI company ScienceIO in March 2024 for $140 million in cash.

SEC filings indicate that Veradigm’s board has approved stock awards of $1 million to $3 million for each of its top four officers, with accelerated vesting following a change of control.

Reader Comments

From Bombast: “Re: Ascension outages. My elderly mother, who is being treated at a Florida Ascension facility, found that the results of her CT scan can’t be shared digitally with her care team. That leaves her anxiously waiting to see if she really has a suspected blood clot near her heart, and if so, how her respective providers plan to treat it. ARPA-H’s UPGRADE effort is too little, too late.” Media sites are offering superficial coverage of Ascension hospital wait times, ambulance diversions, and patient inconvenience that are driven by its downtime, which is at 21 days and counting. Soothing corporate reassurances aside, you can bet that it’s chaos and patient harm in the uncarpeted areas of its hospitals. Health systems always justify their gazillion-dollar implementation of Epic or Cerner by touting its patient care benefit, but when that system goes offline for an extended period, they always claim that patient care is unchanged.

From Benevolence: “Re: the Business Insider article on Oracle Health. Living in KC, this felt like a giant pile-on to current and former Cernerites, deserved or not. Morale is already pretty low after rounds of layoffs and bad press.” The article was a mishmash in trying to tie together previous incursions of Big Business into healthcare IT, the VA’s stalled rollout of Oracle Health, and the legacy Cerner problems that Oracle claims that its pre-acquisition due diligence didn’t uncover. I didn’t see much new or insightful in the article other than some quotes from insiders. Oracle Health should be more worried that the industry learned nearly simultaneously – via a KLAS report that went live three days before the Business Insider article – that it lost 71 hospitals and 15,000 beds in 2023 while Epic gained 153 and 29,000, respectively. My takeaways: (a) the bandwagon effect, if nothing else, will send more Cerner clients into the arms of Epic; and (b) Oracle is already griping about low Cerner margins that are likely to worsen as customer count drops. Larry Ellison’s plans to use customer data for medical advancement won’t fly if health systems walk that data over to Epic. The article’s focus was on the VA, which is a bit harsh to Oracle Health since the VA has a long history of botching technology implementations via the disconnect between its officials who see the need for change versus civil service employees who are threatened by it. My conclusion is that the former Cerner business continues to be a nagging distraction to the otherwise surging Oracle except in Larry Ellison’s mind, and if he loses interest or dies in the saddle, a fire sale seems inevitable. Meanwhile, Oracle’s next earnings report is due June 18.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Two-thirds of poll respondents who hold certification or fellowship credentials don’t list them on their business cards or email signatures.

New poll to your right or here: Should the federal government fund the development of cybersecurity tools for health systems? Argument for: it’s arguably critical national infrastructure. Argument against: health systems are private businesses that are raking in huge profits that could fund their own security instead of waiting for taxpayers to foot the bill.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CVS Health is reportedly looking for a private equity partner to provide capital to expand its primary care chain Oak Street Health, which it acquired for $10 billion last year.

Sales

• Community Action Association of Pennsylvania will use Findhelp’s closed loop referral platform and network to develop PA Navigate, a statewide community information network that will connect people with community services.

Announcements and Implementations

Waystar says that tests of its Google Cloud-powered AI solutions show that the time that is needed needed to generate procedure pre-authorization was reduced by 99.9% by extracting requirements from payer datasets.

Government and Politics

The VA announces the winners of its AI Tech Sprint, which had use case categories of ambient dictation and outside medical record summarization:

• Ambient dictation – Nuance, Abridge, Knowtex, Althea Health, and TranscribeMD.
• Outside medical record summarization: Palantir, Althea Health, Abstractive Health, Commure, and TranscribeMD.

Privacy and Security

Ascension’s most recent cybersecurity event update from May 24 says that it hopes that patients and clinicians “will see progress across our points of care” this week. It adds that vendors and partners are reconnecting to its network.

Other

“South Park” brilliantly skewers the US healthcare system in a widely shared clip from its “The End of Obesity” episode, in which Cartman’s insurer refuses to cover Ozempic. It includes typewriters, fax machines, paper forms on clipboards, and line printers churning perforated paper. The insurance company’s refusal to pay is summarized as, “The medical director’s job is just to say no.” 

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD supports The Family Institute at Northwestern University during its Gratitude Gala fundraiser benefiting the Bette D. Harris Clinic.
• EClinicalWorks customer Rocky Mountain Women’s Clinic reports its integration of AI medical scribe software Sunoh.ai has helped its clinicians save at least two hours a day on clinical documentation.
• Nordic releases a new Designing for Health Podcast, “Interview with Diana Anderson, MD.”
• TruBridge earns “Peer Reviewed by HFMA” designation for its medical coding services, the company’s third solution to earn the honor.
• Mayo Clinic expands its partnership with QGenda and will implement QGenda Advanced Scheduling and On-Call for its clinicians at all campuses.
• RLDatix launches the RLDatix Safety Institute, an approved Patient Safety Organization that will research safety design and care delivery risk reduction best practices.
• Sectra publishes a new whitepaper, “Navigating the challenges of radiography – from student attrition to workforce shortages.”
• Symplr is a proud sponsor of the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation.
• Tegria will sponsor the 2024 Cognizant Health Sciences Conference June 10-13 in Orlando.
• Verato will exhibit at the CSTE Annual Conference June 10-12 in Pittsburgh.
• CereCore publishes a new edition of its magazine, “Partnership Perspectives.”

Blog Posts

• How to Think About Healthcare Data During AI Integration Planning (CereCore)
• Organizational Change Management Challenges (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• How to Prep Your Medical Practice for the Holidays (PerfectServe)
• Your Next Innovation Opportunity: Disrupting the Status Quo in Specialty Pharmacy (RxLightning)
• 4 healthcare data challenges and their impacts (Spok)
• AI & Healthcare: Let’s Keep the Human in the Loop (Surescripts)
• How to Enhance Your Clinical Communications Improvement Project (Symplr)
• How AI is Revolutionizing RCM Analytics (TruBridge)

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 5/24/24

Atropos Health Raises $33M to Scale the Automation of High-Quality, Personalized Real-World Evidence Leveraging Generative AI

Real-world data and evidence platform vendor Atropos Health raises $33 million in a Series B funding round.

Interoperable Exchange of Patient Health Information Among U.S. Hospitals: 2023

ONC reports that 70% of hospitals engaged in all four domains of interoperability (send, receive, find, and integrate) in 2023, up from 46% in 2018.

CVS seeks private equity funding for Oak Street Health, Bloomberg News reports

CVS Health is looking for investors to fund growth at Oak Street Health, a chain of Medicare primary care clinics it acquired last year for $10.6 billion.

News 5/24/24

Top News

HHS/NIH’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) offers up to $50 million to fund development of technology that can secure hospital IT environments.

The system, which it calls UPGRADE, will scan hospital computer systems for vulnerabilities and weaknesses and automatically apply patches as needed.

ARPA-H says that achieving its goals will likely require the formation of teams with different kinds of technical expertise. A virtual Proposers’ Day webcast will be held on June 20.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor RLDatix. Every day around the world, thousands of patients are harmed by care delivery errors, many of which are preventable. We want to change that. RLDatix is on a mission to improve healthcare by enabling a world where patients receive the best and safest care possible. Trusted by thousands of clients around the world, our connected healthcare operations platform combines software and trusted services to empower organizations with critical data insights across risk, safety, compliance, provider lifecycle, and workforce management. Our user-centric approach provides a holistic, real-time view of healthcare operations, connecting disparate information across the enterprise, thus giving organizational leadership the contextualized data they need to make better-informed decisions. Thanks to RLDatix for supporting HIStalk.

It’s Summer Doldrums ‘round these parts, where the industry takes a collective hammock nap until Labor Day and we do a PBS-like sponsor pledge drive. Do you need website traffic, exposure to potential business or M&A partners, or to stay top of mind with prospects? You read HIStalk and so do many of the industry’s decision-makers. Contact Lorre, Jenn, or me about sponsorship spiffs for:

• Former sponsors who return to the fold.
• Startups.
• Webinar promotion (Lorre does BOGO in the slow months).
• Email promotion.

Today I learned that the nine-question PHQ-9 paper form that primary care doctors use to screen patients for depression was developed by a drug company to increase sales of its antidepressants. The marketing team of drug maker Pfizer designed the form to overcome the reluctance of PCPs to prescribe antidepressants such as Pfizer’s own Zoloft. Such drugs were previously ordered almost entirely by psychiatrists who weren’t likely to generate big sales volumes. The form was never intended to be anything more than a conversation-starter between doctor and patient, but overloaded PCPs often use it as a standalone tool.

Check out what some HIStalk sponsors have in store for the 2024 Muse Inspire Conference next week in the Denver area.

I was amused that EHR vendor Fusion Health announced a sale to Illinois Department of Corrections, a target market that the company calls “movement-restricted communities.” They might have made up that term since I don’t see it used elsewhere.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Vancouver-based  technology-based workplace health solution provider CloudMD will be taken private by a private equity firm as it struggles with liquidity following several acquisitions and its failure to file a Q4 earnings report. DOC.V shares are at $0.045, valuing the company at $14 million.

Twin Health, which uses a digital twin AI platform to help members achieve remission from type 2 diabetes, expands into the obesity market with a program that focuses on sustainable weight loss that complements the use of GLP-1 drugs.

Real-world data and evidence platform vendor Atropos Health raises $33 million in a Series B funding round. The company was founded in 2019 by three Stanford University PhDs as the Green Button research project.

People

Ellkay hires Nicholas Szymanski, MBA (Signature Healthcare) as COO.

Industry long-timer Terri Steinberg, MD, MBA (Medecision) retires.

Cynthia Porter, MBA retires after 34 years as CEO of Porter Research.

Announcements and Implementations

Ontario-based Halton Healthcare joins Project AMPLIFI, care coordination program that connects long-term care facilities and Meditech hospitals to allow sharing patient medical histories.

Microsoft announces GigaPath, a whole-slide foundation model for digital pathology that it developed with Providence and University of Washington.

Redox will partner with Snowflake to facilitate data exchange between legacy healthcare systems and Snowflake’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Cloud.

Government and Politics

The Irish government publishes “Digital for Care: A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-203.”

ONC reports that 70% of hospitals engaged in all four domains of interoperability (send, receive, find, and integrate) in 2023, up from 46% in 2018. Other tidbits:

• The percentage of hospitals that routinely engage in that exchange rose from 28% to 43%, with a much higher percentage among system-affiliated hospitals.
• While 71% of hospitals have electronic access to clinical data from other providers, only 42% of clinicians regularly use that information.
• Most hospitals aren’t sending summary of care documents to external hospitals or ambulatory care providers.
• While 17% of hospitals send information to long-term, post-acute care providers, only 8% receive information back from them.
• ONC concludes that the interoperability bar needs to be raised to focus on routine exchange of information.

Sponsor Updates

• In Kansas, Blue Valley School District honors Netsmart COO Tom Herzog with its Friends of Education Award.
• DrFirst announces the winners of its 2024 Healthiverse Heroes Awards.
• Meditech’s Traverse Exchange Canada connects its first pilot organization, Champlain Association of Meditech Partners, to Oracle’s e-Hub.
• The Association for Community Affiliated Plans names First Databank a preferred vendor.
• FinThrive releases a new Healthcare Rethink Podcast, “Got a Healthcare IT Renovation Project? We have a DIY Book for you!”
• Five9 will present at three upcoming investor conferences.
• MRO launches a new podcast, “The MRO Exchange: Connecting Healthcare Executives,” with healthcare quality reporting as its first topic.
• Fortified Health Security welcomes Alex Callahan as its summer accounting intern.
• Healthcare Growth Partners releases the May edition of “HGP Observations.”
• Konza National Network announces that Family Health Center (MS) has joined its QHIN.
• MRO launches a podcast, “The MRO Exchange: Connecting Healthcare Executives.”
• NeuroFlow develops a suicide risk calculator to help healthcare leaders understand the risk in their patient populations.

The following HIStalk sponsors will exhibit at the MUSE Inspire Conference May 28-31 in Denver – CereCore, CloudWave, Consensus Cloud Solutions, Dimensional Insight, DrFirst, Ellkay, Elsevier, FinThrive, First Databank, Meditech, Nuance, Tegria, TruBridge, Vyne Medical, and Waystar.

Blog Posts

• Navigating the HTI-1 Final Rule with Transparent and Reliable Clinical Decision Support (Medicomp Systems)
• Navigating CMS Updates: Adapting to Evolving Healthcare Machine-Readable File Regulations (FinThrive)
• Support Maternal Health by Addressing Social Determinants of Health (Findhelp)
• Hospital Staffing in Summertime (Impact Advisors)
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EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 5/23/24

I’m reporting this week from the AMIA Clinical Informatics Conference in beautiful downtown Minneapolis. Although I usually prefer to be in the great outdoors, I must say I’ve enjoyed being in the city and having zero cicadas flying in my face compared to what I’m used to at home. AMIA wins the best badge ribbons title hands down and has something to meet everyone’s needs for pop culture references.

The conference has been filled with great sessions and plenty of networking opportunities. It’s been nice to see people who I rarely see in person and to make new contacts. Of all the AMIA meetings, this one focuses the most on applied informatics. I’ve already jotted down several pages of helpful tips for upcoming projects. 

Speaking of jotting notes, I’m glad that the included AMIA pen writes smoothly, because it’s been a long time since I’ve taken notes by hand. I appreciate the workshop sessions that have had table setups because it makes it much easier to manage your notes or laptop as well as any snacks or drinks you might have with you.

I also heard some great quotes that were worth making note of. One of my favorites so far is, “People who are into tech aren’t always into communication.” This resonates with anyone who has encountered detailed instructions for electronic devices that don’t take into account the fact that end users aren’t necessarily engineers. Another quote in the patient safety realm was, “Pharmacists don’t break rules, so if they’re doing it, you know you’ve run off the rails.” I was also excited to hear two people at the poster session and reception discussing something they had read about in HIStalk, which always makes my day.

One conversation between sessions included anecdotal reports about what is going on inside Ascension hospitals during their ransomware-inflicted downtime. Someone with inside knowledge mentioned a situation where younger members of the staff were unable to read the cursive handwriting used by some clinicians. My local public schools stopped teaching cursive around 2008 or so, causing some entertaining moments at family birthday parties as the youngsters try to read their grandparents’ handwriting in greeting cards. Cursive or not, physician handwriting has been the butt of jokes for decades, and poor penmanship can result in significant medical errors. Something for hospital and healthcare delivery organization leaders to consider as they’re reviewing and revising their downtime plans.

Back to Ascension, the organization is providing updates on a state-specific basis. I noted these nuggets from the Wisconsin section: Ascension retail pharmacies remain unable to fill prescriptions and patients have been asked to “bring notes on symptoms and a list of current medications, including prescription numbers or bottles.”

Lawsuits related to potential HIPAA violations have been filed on behalf of Ascension patients in the US District Courts of the Northern District of Illinois, Western District of Texas, and Eastern District of Missouri. I couldn’t find information on the other two, but the one from Texas appears to be a class action. Buckle up, Ascension, it’s going to be a wild ride.

As far as cyberattacks and downtime are concerned, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) sent an eight-page letter to the Department of Health and Human Services highlighting the vulnerability of the US healthcare system and the need for greater oversight and improved business continuity planning. It asks for a new Office of National Cybersecurity Policy led by a “Cyber Policy Czar” and a National Health Care Cyber Fire Drill Week. Regarding the latter, organizations would be charged to work not only with internal systems, but with “critical trading partners” to test systems and define contingency plans. I’m happy to dust off my high-visibility Incident Command vest for the occasion, I just need to find some snappy shoes to go with it.

From Hybrid Curmudgeon: “Re: Dell flagging employees that aren’t coming back to the office as much as they’re expected to. How degrading.” Apparently, Dell is aggregating the data from VPN usage and in-person badge swipes to assign color codes for employees to make it clear how much they are working in the office versus from a remote location. Workers are expected to be in-person for 39 days each quarter. Starting this month, workers will receive weekly updates via the company’s HR platform and will be assigned a color (green, yellow, or red) based on respective time in the office (regular, some, limited). Top performers with a consistent presence in the office will be flagged in blue. I’ve worked in organizations where a variety of indicators are used to identify employees to be placed on the block for the next round of cuts, and this is just one more piece of data to add to those matrices. Nine box talent grids, anyone?

Speaking of talent, one of the hot topics among CMIO types this week was the challenge of retaining talented clinical informatics staffers when they’re partnered with physicians who need to move across the country either for training or for improved job prospects. Allowing staff to work remotely would be an easy fix, but I understand the reluctance of health systems to want to deal with multi-state employment law and payroll regulations. I still find it humorous that these same systems will outsource their IT departments, sometimes outside the US, but won’t make accommodations to retain successful team members.

I also heard some discussion about the number of burned-out physicians who are trying to cross into clinical informatics as a “way out” and the political implications of having them appear in the hiring process. It sounds like some are claiming that they’re “in clinical informatics” because they’ve used an EHR in their career, despite the lack of deeper knowledge of healthcare information systems or the processes and governance needed to sustain them.

My outbound flight for the conference had a mechanical issue which led to a delay of about an hour. Although passengers weren’t thrilled, I didn’t hear a lot of people voicing concern about connections, so that’s a good thing. At least it wasn’t an issue like the one that occurred recently when a United flight from Zurich to Chicago had to divert when a passenger’s laptop was swallowed up by a business class seat. The crew was unable to retrieve it, and due to the risk of fire with lithium-ion batteries, the flight landed in Ireland. The ensuing chain of events, including the inability to access the laptop from anywhere but through the cargo hold, led to a crew time out and an overnight stay for passengers.

What’s the strangest maintenance delay you’ve experienced on a flight? Leave a comment or email me.

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