News 3/2/18

Top News

Intermountain Healthcare (UT) ramps up its commitment to virtual care with the launch of Connect Care Pro, a suite of services that brings together its 35 telemedicine programs under one roof at a new facility staffed by 150 clinicians. The “virtual hospital” will serve the health system’s 22 hospitals, 180 clinics, and nine unaffiliated facilities.

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HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor OnPlan Health. The company, based in Bannockburn, IL, tailors the financial experience of patients and providers by offering a smarter way to manage out-of-pocket costs. Its automated payment support identifies that 50 percent of patients whose past payment history and financial information suggest they will need support paying their bill, then engages with them in creating a customized, pre-approved payment plan. Munson Healthcare found that two-thirds of its payment plans were activated by patients themselves to avoid the time and embarrassment of asking someone at the health system to create a payment plan for them. Rush-Copley Medical Center says that implementing OnPlan increased payments by 10 percent within eight months and lowered average term length while increasing pay-in-fulls. Providers also benefit from fewer placements to collections, reduced staff time, and increased payment security supported by point-to-point encryption and elimination of stored credit card information. Co-founder and CEO John Talaga founded “friendly billing” pioneer HealthCom, acquired by McKesson in 2006 as its first acquisition in forming RelayHealth. Thanks to OnPlan Health for supporting HIStalk.

The folks at Waystar Revenue Technology (the recently merged and newly renamed Navicure and ZirMed) will make a $1,000 donation to my DonorsChoose project to honor of the winner of a raffle that will be held at their Waystar Premiere Party at HIMSS18. A name will be drawn from those of attendees who RSVP for the event — which will be held Wednesday evening from 8:00 until 11:00 at the Marquee Nightclub and Dayclub at the Cosmopolitan —  and I’ll recognize that person here afterward as having made the company’s donation possible. Teachers, students, and I thank Waystar and the eventual winner for supporting education.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The SSI Group acquires Informatics Corporation of America and its CareAlign clinical data aggregation and exchange platform.

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People

MDLive hires Lyle Berkowitz, MD (Northwestern Medicine / Healthfinch) as CMO and EVP of product strategy.

Dave Lundal (WellStar Health System) join consulting firm Evergreen Healthcare Partners as managing partner/VP of advisory solutions.

Jaffer Traish (Culbert Healthcare Solutions) joins Aunt Bertha – a public benefit corporation that offers an online social service directory that is used by 1 million people —  as VP of strategic partnerships.

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Sales

Mercy Technology Services selects Commvault’s cloud-based disaster recovery and backup solutions.

University of Missouri Health Care expands its relationship with Cerner to include RCM services.

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Announcements and Implementations

A new KLAS report that asked providers to rate consulting firms they’ve worked with finds that Nordic and Deloitte were most often perceived as true partners, while Advisory Board was by far the firm providers would not use again because of disappointing outcomes and use of inexperienced consultants. Chartis Group, Deloitte, and PwC were perceived as having the broadest range of services; Impact Advisors was named as having the most IT advisory depth; and clients said Nordic has the most implementation depth.  

RelayHealth Pharmacy Solutions and CoverMyMeds – both owned by McKesson—announce RxBenefitClarity, a real-time prescription benefits and prior authorization decision support tool that covers all payers.

In another attempt at relevancy in healthcare, Microsoft launches cloud-based AI and machine learning tools, plus security and compliance templates for moving health data to its Azure cloud. Early adopters include Ochsner Health System (LA) — which has partnered with its vendor Epic to determine if Microsoft’s AI can predict patient deterioration — and UPMC, which is test driving Microsoft’s new AI-powered transcription software.

Uber develops a HIPAA-compliant service that will enable providers to arrange rides for patients to and from appointments. Before everyone wets themselves with “Uber in healthcare” excitement, remember, it’s just a taxi service.

Cayuga Medical Center (NY) implements CloudWave’s real-time infrastructure monitoring and management services for its Meditech EHR.

InterSystems develops a FHIR testing environment for developers.

LogicStream Health announces GA of a clinical process module designed to help providers prevent opioid misuse.

A PatientSafe Solutions survey on clinical communication preferences finds that over half of IT respondents plan to deploy smartphone-based clinical communications, most within the next two years. 

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Government and Politics

Military officials are pleased with the first-year progress of MHS Genesis, comparing the rollout of the Cerner system at four sites more favorably to similar implementations last year at three of Cerner’s private-sector customers. They are confident that full deployment will begin in 2019 and DoD-wide implementation will be finished in 2022.

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Sponsor Updates

• SymphonyRM will present its HealthOS platform, which combines CRM and data science, at HIMS18’s VentureConnect session, one of six startups chosen.
• Qualcomm Life will resell PeriGen’s PeriWatch Vigilance, an early warning system for OB patient deterioration.
• Fortified Health Security is named Healthcare IoT Cybersecurity Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan.
• Medhost delivers its largest-ever product release.
• Medhost’s largest product release in history also sets quality success records.
• The Surescripts Network Alliance helps improve prescribing accuracy by 26 percent.
• KLAS recognizes Lightbeam Health Solutions and Arcadia in its latest population health management report.
• MedData and Experian Health will exhibit at MGMA FMPC 2018 March 4-6 in Orlando.
• PerfectServe and Philips Wellcentive will exhibit at the AMGA 2018 Annual Conference March 7 in Phoenix.
• Docent Health adds mobile messaging capabilities from MPulse Mobile to its patient engagement platform.
• Ellkay will launch at HIMSS18 the LKClinicalDataExchange data exchange platform.  
• Wolters Kluwer Health expands its Reference Data Management tool to include professional services capabilities.
• Arcadia achieves high customer satisfaction marks the KLAS 2017 Value-Based Care Managed Services Report.
• Spok expands its partnership with Spectralink.
• InterSystems partners with critical care company Zoll Medical to improve exchange of PHI between EMS providers, physicians, and EDs.
• Black Book Research gives QuadraMed, a division of Harris Healthcare, top ranking for its EMPI software and clean-up services.
• Forbes profiles ZappRx CEO Zoë Barry.
• Diameter Health partners with the Kansas Health Information Network to publish a study highlighting the use of HIE data in the calculation of quality measures.

Blog Posts

• Medicity’s CEO Attends White House Meeting on Interoperability (Medicity)
• The Definitive Guide to the Business Benefits of Digital Transformation (Liaison Technologies)
• 5 Steps for a Cost-Efficient Migration to AWS Cloud (LogicWorks)
• 3 Ways You Can Recognize Patient Safety Awareness Week (Meditech)
• The CUREConnect InterApp API (Mobile Heartbeat)
• Advisors’ Advice: A More Formal — and Earlier — Role for IT in Healthcare Mergers, Acquisitions and Affiliations Processes (Huntzinger Management Group)
• Heating Up the Revenue Cycle at Little Rock Diagnostic Clinic (Waystar)
• Technology and data-driven decision drive best practices in patient collections (Experian Health)
• 5 Ways to Improve Clinical Communication and Workflow (PatientSafe Solutions)
• Securing the Future of Healthcare Data with Blockchain (PokitDok)
• Is your perioperative area struggling with the EHR? (Nordic)
• Patient Engagement: Not Waiting “Patiently” to Be Told What to Do (Leidos Health)
• 5 Reasons You Should Send Developers to HIMSS (Redox)
• 5 Reasons to Update Your Integration Software (Summit Healthcare)
• It’s Time to Go for Gold in Prescription Accuracy (Surescripts)
• Changing the Way Work Gets Done (Voalte)
• Hidden Connection: How Online Reviews Impact Patient Retention (WebPT)
• A VBID, risk-based approach to the opioid crisis (Philips Wellcentive)
• Top ten healthcare resources you can easily provide to your employees (WiserTogether)

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Contacts

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

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 3/1/18

 

The countdown to HIMSS18 is reaching its end and I’m in my final stages of preparation. I’ve developed some strategies over the years for making the meeting productive without being too exhausting. I was talking with a colleague who is attending his first HIMSS this year and he made the comment that what I was suggesting sounded a lot like the strategy he used when taking his small children to Disney World. I have a fondness for the chocolate-covered Mickey-shaped ice cream bar, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing any of those on the floor of the convention center. I guess I’ll (hopefully) have to settle for some fresh-baked scones.

My first general rule for HIMSS is to plan travel to arrive a day early if possible. This allows me to get settled in and possibly squeeze in a couple of social-style meetings on arrival day, such as a lunch or coffee, drinks, or dinner. It’s nice to be able to connect without all the hustle and bustle of the exhibit hall and sessions. It also makes it easier to meet with people that might have booth assignments during the show and who would otherwise be working the floor or too tired to get together.

I’m breaking my own rule this year for a couple of reasons. First, because we’re in Las Vegas, where the shift in the start/end times that happens when the meeting is there always throws a wrench in things. We also recently opened several new locations in my clinical world, so we’re a little thin on physician coverage and I have to see patients Sunday. I’ll be heading out before the sun arrives on Monday, though, so I should have time to meet with a couple of people and get settled.

My second general rule is to choose a hotel that doesn’t involve a significant commute, or if it does, that I’m OK with it. In the past, I’ve stayed at places that are a bit of a hike from the expo center, mostly due to cost, with varying degrees of shabbiness. I learned from experience in Orlando that you have to book early to get the hotel you want for the dates you want, so I book as soon as the room blocks open up.

The last time HIMSS was in Las Vegas, I stayed at TI due to closeness and cheapness, but I wasn’t thrilled with having to walk through the smoke to get to the elevator tower. This year I’m splurging and staying at the Venetian. I’m sure there will be smoke I’ll have to walk through, but the proximity to the meeting should be a bonus. I know Mr. H is a fan of staying off strip and you certainly can get more value for your money that way, but I don’t want to hassle with figuring out transportation. It’s kind of like staying on property at Disney – it’s more expensive, but it might just be worth it.

Planning what to wear always requires some thought, although this year I’m eerily relaxed because I don’t have to figure out what to wear for HIStalkapalooza or feel the pressure to find the perfect dancing shoes. The black cocktail dresses are staying at home, which also makes packing easier. I generally dress for exhibits and sessions in layers since the climate control at most convention centers ranges from arctic to subtropical. Since I’m not representing anyone other than myself (and HIStalk anonymously), I skip the suits and go for comfort. I’m not going to surf the hall in jeans, but I don’t think suits are mandatory. Unless you’re job interviewing, which a lot of people do at HIMSS.

Planning shoes is always a big deal and becomes more important as my feet get older. My favorite trade show shoes gave up the ghost last year, and despite having been comfortable for years, they became a liability because they were a little stretched out, resulting in blisters. This year is all about comfort, with some dressy clogs and cozy loafers. Usually I worry about being able to go day-to-night with whatever I’m wearing and throw an extra pair of shoes in my bag, but I’m hoping that being closer to the action will reduce the need to haul around a spare pair of shoes. If I get too tired, I’ll wear running shoes to the exhibits on Thursday, because by that point no one cares what you’re wearing.

Also like Disney, it’s important to plan what attractions (or booths in this case) are must-see, want-to-see, or just possibilities if there’s time remaining. As I hear about different vendors and products throughout the year, I keep a list of them and use it to create my HIMSS to-do list. I make appointments for the most critical things I want to see, but the rest are just drive-bys, partly to see how the booth team interacts with a random CMIO that walks in. I do also take a peek at all the mailings that arrive, to see if something catches my eye.

This year was slim on the mailings, with fewer than a dozen pieces arriving at the house. The Imprivata goodie box that I mentioned a few posts ago was an attention-grabber, but the rest of the mailings have been largely post cards, with only two of the “bring this to our booth and see if you’ve won” or “first 50 people to the booth get a prize” type of offerings. That’s way down from the past. Usually there is at least one vendor that sends a playing card or poker chip promotion when we’re in Las Vegas. Of course, that’s not to say that those mailings won’t arrive after I leave, which also happens. I typically find at least a handful of vendor marketing pieces in my held mail when I return.

Speaking of marketing pieces, the one mailing I received that really caught my attention is from a vendor that won’t be at HIMSS but didn’t acknowledge that in their mailing. Vendor advice: if you’re doing a mailing to launch a new product in February, you might want to mention “although you won’t see us at HIMSS this year, we’d love to hear from you, here’s how” or something similar. To not even acknowledge it makes you seem like you don’t know what’s going on in the industry. Even if you’re not a fan of HIMSS, it does exist and sucks up a lot of people’s attention.

My last piece of Disney advice is to be flexible. Sometimes you arrive to something you want to see and find a long line that you don’t want to deal with, There is no Fastpass available at HIMSS. Sometimes your attention is grabbed by an attraction you didn’t know existed and you rearrange to accommodate it. You never know what you’re going to see at HIMSS or who you’re going to run into, but there is always plenty to look at and learn.

I’m putting together my final lists today. I’ll see you in Las Vegas!

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 3/1/18

Intermountain Healthcare boosts digital care for Utah patients with launch of new, more centralized ‘virtual hospital’

In Utah, Intermountain Healthcare brings its 35 telemedicine programs under one roof – that of a 20,000 square-foot facility that will be home to the health system’s new Connect Care Pro virtual hospital services.

Officials say new military health records plan on track, already showing results

Military officials are pleased with the progress of MHS Genesis, comparing the roll out of the Cerner system more favorably to similar implementations last year at three of Cerner’s private-sector customers.

Microsoft rolls out more AI-infused healthcare services, software

In another attempt at relevancy in healthcare, Microsoft launches cloud-based computing tools for precision genomics and AI-powered transcription, as well as security and compliance templates for moving health data to its Azure cloud.

HIStalk Interviews Colin Konschak, CEO, Divurgent

Colin Konschak, RPh, MBA is CEO and managing partner of Divurgent of Virginia Beach, VA.

Tell me about yourself and the company.

I’m from south Jersey originally and I’m living in Virginia Beach currently. I went to school in Philly. I should have been an Eagles fan, but I ended up a Redskins fan, so I have some slight regret this year. My career started out as a pharmacist in retail, hospital, home health, and hospice. I moved on to some positions in pharma and biotech. My final pivot is where I am now in healthcare consulting, where we saw lots of things being done really well and lots of things that could be done better. That was the impetus for founding Divurgent.

Divurgent has been a pretty good story. We are in our 10th year and have had 10 straight years of revenue growth and profitability. I’m confident that if we talk next year, I can say that that number will be 11. I’m proud of the company. I think we’ve won “Best Places to Work” in Modern Healthcare five times and three times consecutively. Certainly performance aside, we appreciate culture.

What are the top three issues that health system CIOs are dealing with?

The top three are similar to what we’ve seen in the past — implementation and training, optimization, and activation. There seems to be a huge rush in ERP right now, so we’re building out capability in that area. Of course, security, and a lot of times, return-to-basics information technology infrastructure. Physician optimization, with a lot of requests around, “We have this system in place but physicians still aren’t as happy as we’d like them to be — can you come in and help us make that happen?”

You surprised me with ERP. What kind of activities are happening around that?

Now that folks have a lot of their EHR positions in place, they’re revisiting the other side of the house from a materials perspective and otherwise. The investment, it seems, is in the beginning stages of a move in that direction.

Are you seeing much activity with customer relationship management?

We are seeing a lot with customer relationship management, both from a “customer as the patient” perspective and a “customer as the physician or provider” perspective.

What gets CIOs fired most often?

Certainly it’s not like years past where you picked the wrong vendor. We’re past that. It’s around implementations. They get a little bit out of control still, even after as long as we’ve been doing this. They go over budget and people at the end of the day are surprised. Boards don’t like to be surprised. That’s the number one reason.

Do you believe that it’s not as much what a health system buys rather than what they do with it?

We believe that’s true. The systems are great now. The ones that are still left standing are great systems. Of course as consultants, we do our best to help however we can. Client culture is different. Everybody has different access to resources in different cultures that result in very different implementations. I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think it’s so much the technology now as about just getting it right.

Do health systems have the time and interest to pursue technology innovation?

We’re getting there. Those at the leading edge are thinking more about it. They’ve been implemented for many, many years and have moved past the optimization stage. It’s interesting to talk to our clients and especially interesting when they engage us to explore those innovation opportunities that they have. It’s a bell curve and not everybody is there.

Consolidation seems to be leading us to super-regional or national health systems. Will that change the picture of how healthcare technology is used?

I think it will and I couldn’t agree with you more. The merger and acquisition wave to super systems and super-regional systems is simply the future. There’s no way to avoid it. That’s going to provide a ton of business from a vendor perspective, which is great, but it’s going to give those health systems the scope that they need to do what they do. I hope with that scope comes tremendous amounts of data, tremendous amounts of resources, and hopefully at some point we don’t just implement technology, but we take that data and do really cool things with it. I don’t think we’re there yet.

Are you seeing more relationships between health systems and life sciences and an increasing interest in sharing data?

I do. Those that are there are at the forefront. It was interesting to see, as you reported, the Cerner-Surescripts opportunity. That’s something that I hadn’t really thought of, but what a great opportunity. Once we’re implemented a really good electronic health record, what a tremendous opportunity for the life sciences. I haven’t seen any good examples of it from a client perspective of Divurgent. Certainly I’ve read some of the things that you’ve read. There’s tremendous opportunity there, but we’re just at the implementation stage. I can’t wait to start pulling that data out and doing some of those very, very innovative and cool things with it.

People argue passionately both ways whether patients are true consumers as they are in all other industries. What do you think?

I couldn’t believe that premise any more than what you just said. I certainly believe there is, to a certain extent, an age gap. The younger you are, the more of a consumer you are in everything that you buy. That’s going to turn into healthcare. The move to consumerism, and the more that younger generation demands more from their healthcare providers, will will be one of the major things that push the industry further.

Have you seen anything promising on the technology horizon that would make insurers a more welcome participant in the provider-patient relationship?

We have. We’ve seen enough that we’ve launched, towards the end of last year, a payer division. We’ve seen so much interest, particularly from the payer side, in trying to align better with the provider side. At 10 years old, we have a good understanding and good subject matter experts on the provider side. We know what the payers are looking for.

I think it’s still about cost for them. Certainly I would hope that it’s about client satisfaction and pulling whatever data that they don’t have, which probably frankly isn’t a lot. I hope the goals are more than reducing costs and improving claims processing and those types of things. I think we can get way more out of it than that.

What kind of cybersecurity problems have you seen?

From our perspective, someone has done an audit previously of the client and they look to Divurgent to come in from a remediation and project plan perspective. That’s probably the number one source of security work for us. Then there are those clients that haven’t done that, realize they probably have weaknesses, and they want us to do the assessment. Those are the two biggest opportunities right now.

User management and patch management seem to be the items that get providers in trouble most often. Is there renewed interest in revisiting those practices?

It’s renewed interest in all of the above. The threat from within is still a major threat. The bad guys are getting sophisticated. It’s to the point where sometimes you have to double-check looking at an email — it just looks so good, so tempting to do what it’s asking you to do. The threat within is huge and I’ve seen renewed interest in trying to educate users.

What healthcare IT opportunities will be most significant over the next few years?

I think it’s still going to be driven by mergers and acquisitions. Some of the common theories around the constriction around implementations, optimization, all the work on the blocking and tackling that still needs to be done is missed on super systems and super-regional systems. That amount of merger and acquisition activity is going to generate a ton of business that is underestimated.

I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next three years or five years. It will will take a little bit longer. It’s going to be a lot more of the same. Unfortunately, one of the things you’ll see is that a Cerner-using system buys an Epic-using system or vice versa. Dollars that were spent are going to be reversed to get on that same platform.

What will be the biggest theme at HIMSS18?

Data analytics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity. I think it’s still going around all of the data implications of what we can do with this. I predict this year maybe it’s around artificial intelligence. The HIMSS buzzwords and the HIMSS trends are usually a little bit ahead of the game.

Do you have any final thoughts?

First, kudos to you and your team. Your readers certainly realize that it’s not easy to do what you do, but what a valuable resource you’ve become.

As far as we’ve come, we feel in many ways that we’re at the starting line. We have highly capable systems implemented in most cases, but we’re taking very little advantage of them in the grand scheme of their abilities. We’re passionate, as are other firms, about taking advantage of those large investments and leveraging them into what they can inevitably do, whether it’s reduction in costs, improvements in patient care, and hopefully leapfrogging innovation with data, science, and technology. This is going to take many years. We’re in this for the long haul.

Morning Headlines 2/28/18

EClinicalWorks Launches Acute Care EHR & Revenue Cycle Management Starting at $599 Per Bed Per Month

EClinicalWorks launches a cloud-based hospital EHR/RCM system that will start at $599 per bed per month, with the first live hospital scheduled to be 42-bed Hamilton Healthcare System (TX).

R1 to Acquire Intermedix Corporation

Revenue cycle technology company R1 RCM will acquire Intermedix’s healthcare division, which includes physician and EMS RCM, practice management, and analytics service lines, for $460 million.

Does Fitbit have time to pull off its digital healthcare transformation?

Fitbit reports Q4 revenue of $571 million – $17 million less than analyst estimates, prompting stocks to tumble 15 percent and CEO James Park to stress that the wearables company will focus on “managing down” expenses while expanding its line of smartwatches.

Shulkin: ‘There’s one agenda … and anyone who doesn’t want to do that shouldn’t be in the VA’

At the annual American Legion conference, VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD hints at unrest within the ranks when he makes it clear that those staffers who aren’t on board with the department’s priorities – replacing VistA with Cerner, increasing access to care, and suicide prevention – should get their walking papers in order.

News 2/28/18

Top News

Apple will launch AC Wellness, an employee wellness clinic and primary care group that will begin with two Santa Clara County, CA locations.

I assume this was the end result of the rumor from last fall that Apple was talking about acquiring venture-backed Crossover Health, which runs Apple’s on-site medical clinic.

Open position postings call for “experience across EHRs,” which fits with the hint that the clinics will be run by “a dedicated independent medical group” that sounds like more of a network than an Apple-employed provider group. Nobody has mentioned Crossover Health in the context of this latest news.

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Reader Comments

From Your Epic Host: “Re: Epic’s hosting volume. No way its several new March go-lives will increase the number of live hosted systems 4-5 times as the reader’s rumor reported. Concurrent users will increase by barely over single digits. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. Epic will have no problem with all the new live hospitals.” Unverified, but the source is solid.

From Pliable: “Re: the study saying that it costs $215 to bill and collect for an inpatient surgical procedure. That seems low, especially if independent surgeons, radiologists, and anesthesiologists send out claims to a primary and secondary insurance carrier (that’s eight claims in total). Did the study include cost of AR management and pended / rejected claims processing?” I can’t say since the full article lives behind JAMA’s paywall. I’m getting increasingly annoyed that research – much of it paid for with taxpayer money – is inaccessible to those unwilling or unable to pay several hundred dollars per year to be mailed dead-tree magazines that take forever to publish submitted articles. Are publishers really adding that much value to the research process to justify their high margins and restrictive copyright practices that don’t allow authors to post their research findings elsewhere?

From HIMSS Stalker: “Re: HIMSS meeting requests. HIStalk should run a competition of who has the most meeting requests from the same vendor, showing the previous requests forwarded so you can see how shameless these people are.” We’re pretty close to the wire for starting a contest, but I’m interested – who has received the most HIMSS18 meeting requests from a single vendor? The other thing that puzzles me the “HIMSS18 Conference Deals” that HIMSS keeps emailing me, which they launched years ago as yet another way to spam me about high-paying event sponsors way back when Groupon was considered cool. My problem is that there’s no actual deal, just a pitch to visit some vendor’s booth for a demo or “free consulting session” that fails miserably to answer the “what’s in it for me” question.

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HIStalk Announcements and Requests

“I should have done it SOONER!” is the most recent response to What I Wish I’d Known Before I Quit My Job to Go to Work for Myself. That is, until you add your thoughts.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor IMAT Solutions. The Orem, UT-based company provides a flexible data management solution for hospitals, HIEs, and ACOs that was designed upfront to ingest thousands of data sources – including unstructured data such as physician and visit notes – in seconds, providing a solution that’s easy on the budget, compatible with existing software, and usable by non-technical clinicians who need to see a 360-degree view of every patient. Clients use it to analyze hospital and clinic population data to find disparities in care, conduct clinical documentation quality reviews, identify at-risk patients who are drifting towards critical, and reduce admissions. IMAT’s consolidated patient record and reporting interface provides an integrated view of data from multiple sources (HIE, PACS, lab, EHR), its EMPI performs record-patient matching, and its validation and normalization rules are applied to incoming data for accurate quality and population health reporting. Specific solutions address Meaningful Use reporting, population health management, and medical research. Drop by HIMSS18 Booth #11418 to get a peek under the hood or hunt and gather from their downloadable resources page. Thanks to IMAT Solutions for supporting HIStalk.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

R1 acquires revenue cycle, healthcare analytics, and emergency preparedness technology vendor Intermedix for $460 million.

CNBC reports that Alphabet-owned Verily – the former Google Life Sciences – is talking to insurers about participating in at-risk population health management contracts.

The leaked Nokia internal memo from the company’s chief strategy officer paints a bleak picture of its recently acquired (from Withings) digital health business:

Rather than only falling in love with our technology, we must be honest with ourselves. In its entirety, our digital health business has struggled to scale and meet its growth expectations. Currently, we don’t see a path for it to become a meaningful part of a company as large as Nokia … We will continue to have opportunities to address the IoT opportunity in digital health with private connectivity solutions, platforms, and software, just no longer from a consumer product perspective … As I commented in our internal story today, “Failing fast isn’t failure, it is accelerated learning.”

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Sales

Lancaster General Hospital (PA) chooses Mobile Heartbeat’s MH-CURE for smartphone-based clinical communications and collaboration.

Ascension expands its revenue cycle agreement with R1 to cover its medical group.

BJC HealthCare launches a Perficient-powered cloud-based enterprise data warehouse.

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People

Healthwise promotes Elizabeth Beem to CFO.

Will Weider is named SVP/CIO at PeaceHealth (WA), where he was serving as interim.

Huntington Hospital (CA) hires Scott Groom (Bassett Healthcare Network) as SVP/CIO. He is a rarity in apparently having left no photographic evidence of his existence anywhere on the Internet that I can use here, so we’ll just have to picture him our minds.

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Announcements and Implementations

Meditech renames its Web EHR to Expanse.

Healthwise publishes its patient education app on Epic’s App Orchard, with the app and its supporting API allowing health systems to integrate patient education content into Epic’s EHR and patient portal.

EClinicalWorks launches a cloud-based hospital EHR/RCM system that will start at $599 per bed per month with no upfront capital cost. The first live hospital will be 42-bed Hamilton Healthcare System (TX). That’s a pretty big deal given the lack of competition in the full hospital systems market as ECW and Athenahealth take their first steps into it.

Document Storage Systems (DSS) launches Juno EHR for acute care and behavioral health, which I assume (since the company didn’t actually say) is based on the VA’s VistA, as is its VxVistA product. 

Change Healthcare announces InterQual AutoReview, which automates the medical review process by extracting clinical data directly from the EHR that produces and submits a medical necessity review, then reports the result back to the EHR.

Wolters Kluwer Health launches UpToDate Advanced, a guided clinical decision-making solution.

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Government and Politics

CMS says that as of March 3, teaching physicians no longer need to re-enter the patient information that was entered by medical students under their own name to get paid.

In Western Australia (which is apparently has healthcare problems similar to ours), a government-commissioned health report finds that WA Health has spent a lot of money on IT projects in questionable areas and with little benefit to patients. It broadly notes that Western Australia’s overall health budget has doubled in the past decade to now consume 30 percent of the total budget but hasn’t correspondingly improved health outcomes since “the system focus remains on treatments rather than keeping people healthy” and embraces a provider-focused health approach. It recommends that the government address lifestyle choices, implement a navigator service to connect people with the right parts of the health system, run telehealth pilot projects, redesign mental health care around patients rather than by service provider, and improve patient-level data sharing among public and private providers.

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Technology

UCSF launches the My BP Lab app, jointly developed with Samsung for its just-announced Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones. It uses the phone’s built-in optical sensor and thus does not require an external blood pressure cuff. Users will be invited to join a UCSF study that will look at blood pressure and stress levels through the day.

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Other

The New York Times describes the concept of “digital phenotyping,” in which companies analyze a person’s social media posting patterns or phone usage in trying to detect mental health issues, although concerns about efficacy and privacy remain unaddressed. 

Campbell County Health (WY) will lose up to $200,000 in Medicaid payments due to sending out delayed bills following its acquisition of a private surgery center. The hospital’s billing system was unable to handle billing as a hospital-based surgery center for more than a year after the hotly debated acquisition, requiring the surgery center to bill manually.

A JAMA op-ed piece questions whether high-IQ medical students make the best doctors, also noting that medical schools overemphasize MCAT scores and science grades that don’t correlate to intelligence anyway. The authors say it’s equally important for physicians and healthcare leaders to have high emotional intelligence (EQ) that allows them to work with others in leading teams, coordinating care, and motivating behavior changes. They postulate that team-based care of chronically ill and terminal patients has failed because participants have low EQs. The article suggests that medical school admission committees add an EQ test component to the MCAT and stop obsessing over pre-med science scores and require training in psychology and leadership.

I don’t know how “smart” this healthcare startup is in advertising on Craigslist for a “booth sales intern” for HIMSS18 in which candidates must send a “full body shot” to the unknown Craigslist advertiser. Somehow I don’t think two days working on the HIMSS exhibit floor is much of an internship, nor does it seem necessary to examine the full bodies of “local college students” to vet them as acceptable booth help.

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Sponsor Updates

A Message from Medicity

The healthcare industry has seen a significant shift in how it creates, shares, and uses information. The key is to empower the complete exchange of clinical data and the ability to use it. As the industry unites in the pursuit of integrated, actionable data, Medicity is uniquely qualified to lead the next generation of interoperability. We collect patient data from any and all connected external sources. With just one click, providers can access a single, de-duplicated, comprehensive Continuity of Care Document (CCD). This clinical intelligence supports point-of-care decision making and gives providers more time to spend treating patients. See our video on Medicity Community Interchange or visit us at Booth # 2449 at HIMSS18.

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• Optimum Healthcare IT matches the $5,000 raised by its client Southcoast Health for those affected by Hurricane Harvey, allowing a $10,000 donation to the American Red Cross.
• Mental Health Center of Denver adopts the Carequality interoperability framework via its Netsmart EHR.
• Frost & Sullivan recognizes Fortified Health Security with its Healthcare IoT Cybersecurity Company of the Year Award.
• AdvancedMD and ChartLogic will exhibit at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons conference March 6-10 in New Orleans.
• Aprima Medical Software selects ChartSpan Medical Technologies as one of its primary CCM partners.
• IDC names Arcadia Healthcare Solutions a leader in US healthcare clinical and financial analytic BPO services.
• 904 Magazine recognizes CSI Healthcare IT as a “Company with Heart” for the third consecutive year.
• Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at the AMGA 2018 Annual Conference March 7-10 in Phoenix.
• Santa Rosa Consulting assists Harrison Memorial Hospital (KY) with its migration from Meditech Magic to 6.1.
• Divurgent publishes a new success story, “EHR Readiness Investment Yields Activation Savings.”
• Outcomes Rocket features Docent Health Senior Director Client Development Addison Hoover in a new podcast.
• Elsevier collaborates with the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine to enable deeper research into traditional Chinese medicine.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the California Primary Care Association 2018 Quality Care Conference March 1-2 in Sacramento.
• Healthgrades publishes its annual list of America’s best hospitals.

Blog Posts

• Medicity’s CEO Attends White House Meeting on Interoperability (Medicity)
• Experts in Home Health Give Thoughts and Advice for 2018 – Part 1 (Netsmart)
• Four tips to improve office productivity & accelerate payments (AdvancedMD)
• Is a Virtual CISO Right for Your Organization? (Impact Advisors)
• La Sapienza Hospital in Rome and Agfa Healthcare discussing how to streamline the workflow for transplant patients, using the Integrated Care Suite (Agfa Healthcare)
• The FDA Digital Health PreCertification Program (Datica)
• Try These 5 Tips for Reducing Stress in Nursing (CareSync)
• Invest in the Relationship, Not the Technology (Casenet)
• When Code Becomes Magic: The Power of Interoperability (Spok)
• Key Elements in the 2018 ePA National Adoption Scorecard (CoverMyMeds)
• Introducing the Dimensional Insight Book Club (Dimensional Insight)
• Managed IT Services for Healthcare: 3 Must-Have Benefits (The HCI Group)
• SQL Tip: Parsing Packed Fields in Meditech 6.x (Iatric Systems)
• Trust in Healthcare: The Key to Our Future Technology Ecosystem (Imprivata)
• CRM: More Than a Marketing Play for Healthcare (Influence Health)
• What Vegas Can Teach Healthcare About Tokenization (InstaMed)
• Oceans, Elephants, and the Promise of Interoperability (InterSystems)
• Five Reasons Patient Access Requires a Multi-Channel Approach (Kyruus)

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Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 2/27/18

New System Makes it Easier for Patients to Talk to Doctors

The Wall Street Journal describes OurNotes, the next step in the OpenNotes movement in which patients will be able to share their own notes with their doctors.

Hospital taking steps to resolve billing issues

Western Missouri Medical Center struggles with its billing system conversion to Cerner, notifying patients that they may receive catch-up bills going back to January 2017.

Apple is launching medical clinics to deliver the ‘world’s best health care experience’ to its employees

Apple will launch two employee clinics near its California headquarters called AC Wellness and is listing open positions for doctors, health coaches, and health behaviors program designers.

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 2/26/18

I spent a good part of last week trying to help a client sort out their strategy for Patient-Centered Medical Home. The client is a mid- to large-sized multispecialty group, which started as a mostly primary care group that was forced to take on specialists as it acquired smaller multispecialty groups. They didn’t really think much about having to integrate the specialist documentation with the primary care documentation until they decided to enter into some risk-sharing contracts. They’re also trying to attest for just about every incentive program out there, including smaller, payer-centric contract bonuses, and trying to navigate from the older NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home requirements to the redesigned program and are really struggling.

Their EHR vendor supports both primary care and specialty workflows, which are often siloed because of how the content was developed. For example, there’s a completely separate “urgent care module” that some of the primary care physicians have taken to using for the half days when they are assigned to see only acute patients. They like the separate module because the documentation is faster and easier than what they typically do for “regular” primary care patients, but the problem is that the data doesn’t always flow to the same tables used by the rest of the documentation screens. This is creating a problem with their Patient-Centered Medical Home reports, which were custom built by a third party that didn’t know the application and so only designed them to use data from a single workflow.

This isn’t the first EHR I’ve seen that works like this, with different pieces being built at different times and not being fully integrated with the rest of the application. In addition to the urgent care workflow, there are separate streams for documenting OB/GYN and GI procedures that account for integration with different ultrasound and imaging devices. This is frustrating to the client as well, since of course the supported devices aren’t the ones they use in their clinic. When they talked to the vendor about it, they were told that the specialty flows were built as contractual requirements for specific clients. When vendors enter into those kinds of agreements, it’s more likely to result in workflows that don’t necessarily meet the needs of the entire client base, but work well for a unique client.

As we began to dig deeper into the needs for Patient-Centered Medical Home, it became evident that the client had entered into some agreements that were going to cause challenges for designing an ideal documentation path. They recently agreed to work with embedded care managers from insurance companies, who will be documenting in two separate systems depending on the insurance coverage of patients selected for the care coordination program. The IT team decided that they would bring the documentation from those systems back into the client EHR as a PDF, which would then be inserted into the document management system. Of course, that means no discrete data and no availability for the Patient-Centered Medical Home reports to make use of the information that represents the work that has been performed.

Situations like this always lead to discussions of governance and a need for greater understanding of how this client’s situation evolved to put them in this place. The chief medical officer is apparently the one pushing the Patient-Centered Medical Home agenda, but the director of nursing lobbied the group to engage in the embedded care management programs. The nursing side of the house saw participation in the program as a way to get some flex on staffing since they were struggling with care management services, but didn’t understand the ramifications of having those coordinators documenting outside the EHR. To their credit, nursing worked with the IT team to make sure the patient contacts made through that program were represented in the EHR and IT found a relatively easy solution, but neither of those groups understood the impact on PCMH.

The CMO didn’t do a great job helping the rest of the team understand what was going on with Patient-Centered Medical Home and its requirements or that they were having customized reports created to meet those needs. IT wasn’t involved with the creation of the reports since the CMO outsourced them at a time when he perceived the IT team to be too busy implementing newly-acquired practices. And while the third party that built the reports did a great job creating really nice reports, they didn’t understand how the different specialties work together and just built what the CMO had described in a broad-strokes overview. It’s one of those situations where they built exactly what was requested but didn’t know that the request wasn’t completely formulated. As a result, IT is doing a lot of finger-pointing at the third party, which is defensive and doesn’t understand why their beautiful reports are being questioned.

The other wild card here is the group’s understanding of the redesigned Patient-Centered Medical Home program. They’re trying to make the transition from being at a low level of recognition under the previous program to being more robust participants in the new program, but haven’t identified sufficient resources to learn the new requirements and figure out how to mesh them together with what the group needs. They brought me in specifically to deal with the new requirements, but as is common with organizations like this that are trying to dive into many different pools at the same time, we’re peeling back the layers and finding out there are many more issues that need to be addressed.

My task for this week is to bring together the administrators and to lay out the various initiatives and how they interact and/or compete. The goal is to get them to prioritize which programs they want to lead with, along with getting them to all start moving in the same direction. No one has infinite resources and they’re not likely to be successful if they continue to try to do all of this at the same time and all of it in a way that is under-resourced and doesn’t really fit in with a long-term strategy.

Although it sounds easy to lock everyone in a room and lay things out, I’ll be particularly challenged by the fact that this group just came out of their annual strategic planning retreat and thinks they have a master plan and a strategy. Either these items weren’t discussed at the retreat (which I’d say makes it less than strategic) or they weren’t discussed in a way that had meaning for everyone and led to actionable decisions.

Sometimes these conversations can turn towards the consultant with a bit of hostility or there can be a lot of finger-pointing, so I’m readying my strategies to try to wrangle this meeting. I haven’t been working with them long enough to know if they’re open to some give and take, or it’s going to be a turf battle, or I’ll end up the bad guy. Consulting is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.

How does your organization prioritize initiatives? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

HIStalk Interviews Tom Borzilleri, CEO, InteliSys Health

Tom Borzilleri is CEO of InteliSys Health of San Diego, CA.

Tell me about yourself and the company.

I spent many years in the finance business. My first dive into the healthcare space was back in the late 1990s, having founded and operated the second-largest patient finance company in the country. As I progressed on through the years and had a successful exit of that company, I then moved into the PBM space in the mid-2000s. I spent five years founding and operating a pharmacy benefit management company, where I learned and deployed many of the processes and tricks of the PBM industry.

I realized that there had to be a better way to be able to address the market and deliver value, savings, and benefits to patients and companies across the board. I set out to create a solution that would disrupt what had become the status quo of that industry, or for a better description, the profiteering by the PBM industry, to specifically deliver the ability of true price transparency and ultimately deliver the absolute lowest drug cost for all patients, consumers, and at-risk stakeholders.

How do PBMs make money?

PBMs are exactly what they’re described as — pharmacy benefit managers. They manage the pharmacy benefit, or the prescription benefit, on behalf of plans, payers, insurance carriers, ACOs, and self-insured employers. Those functions include setting up a formulary and creating a network of pharmacies in which members can acquire their prescriptions through the plan.

PBMs negotiate the price of a drug with the manufacturer and then negotiate a contract rate with the pharmacy. They profit by creating an ingredient spread, the difference between the acquisition cost to what they are charging their clients or customers, which would be those clients, payers, ACOs, and insurance carriers.

Why are insurance companies willing to overpay for the PBM’s services instead of pressuring manufacturers to give them lower prices?

Their contracts are convoluted. Most insurance carriers really don’t understand or have an ability through the language in those contracts to determine what the actual acquisition cost is. There’s a lot of functions that the PBM fulfills, especially with regard to patient management and formulary management. The role of the PBM is as a buffer between the pharmaceutical manufacturers and doctors.

Pharma manufacturers used to send their reps into doctors’ offices, bringing in lunch or other compensation to doctors. That got them to prescribe their medication or their brand. PBMs took over the role of managing which drugs are included in that formulary. They acted as a buffer to eliminate what was called steerage, where it was illegal to compensate a doctor to prescribe a specific brand over another. It’s kind of like payola in the radio industry for playing songs on the radio many years ago.

PBMs acted as the intermediary, but at the same time, it also opened the door for them to set their profitability in acting as pseudo wholesaler, buyer, and then reseller of those prescriptions or drugs to the insurance carriers insuring those members.

How can technology help doctors answer the deceivingly simple patient question of, “How much is this drug going to cost me?”

We have brought together all the necessary components to offer true price transparency. First off, we have created our own network of pharmacies. We operate on what is called the no-spread model. Whatever the acquisition cost is of that drug, that’s what is being charged to the patient or insurance carrier at the end of the day.

A great deal of price disparity exists between pharmacy chains as well. You can go to a CVS or Walgreens and expect to pay anywhere from 30 percent to 75 percent more than you would pay at a local independent or even a grocery store pharmacy. It’s really amazing the price disparity that exists.

Consumers assume that the large chains buy in volume and therefore get the best pricing on drug ingredients, but that is far from the truth. Because they maintain such a significant footprint, they can command that price. Patients ultimately don’t know and they don’t have the time nor the resources — and that includes doctors as well — to do the research to find out find which chain or which store — which may be even a store closer to my home — has a price that’s 50 percent less than what they’re paying.

That goes for the insurance carriers as well. Insurance carriers are looking for convenience for their members. They’re forced to enter into these contracts to provide access to pharmacies so that when the patient arrives, they only pay their co-pay and then the insurance carrier will reimburse that pharmacy for whatever remains on the cost of that ingredient.

How do free consumer coupon programs like GoodRx work?

In my PBM, I administered what were called DDCs, or drug discount card programs. In the GoodRx model, they are signed up with multiple PBMs. Their mobile application searches out the lowest-cost drug discount card programs to provide the best discount to the patient.

But there are ingredient spreads that the PBMs have built into those prices, as well as very high admin fees. The patient who is uninsured or underinsured will save money, but until you strip out those admin fees and that ingredient spread, they’re not saving as much as they could.

DDC products, because they’re sponsored by the largest PBMs in the country using their networks, pricing spreads, and admin fees, generate $5 billion in annual profit for PBMs and programs like GoodRx.

Did you say $5 billion? Wow.

Between 60 and 100 companies are marketing these drug discount cards under a plethora of names. In some instances, it’s the same PBM and the same program. There are basically only five PBMs in the market today — following our exit four years ago — that still sponsor and administer these drug discount card programs.

So GoodRx isn’t some kind of disruptive organization demonstrating transparency, but rather just another way for PBMs to make money by working with consumers directly instead of through an insurance company?

That’s correct. GoodRx gives comparison prices across different pharmacy chains. I mentioned that there is price disparity across the pharmacy chains, but there is also price disparity across the PBMs that administer the drug discount card programs. PBM A will have a different price on an ingredient versus PBM B.

The GoodRx model looks at the discount card program pricing across multiple PBMs to give the lowest price — of those inflated prices — that all the PBMs are charging. It is a form of transparency, but it’s really not true price transparency because it is not providing the actual cost to the PBM on that drug.

Our model strips out all the ingredient spread. We strip out all the administrative fees that are built into these prices. It’s delivering the price that the PBM is paying themselves to the pharmacy down directly to the consumer. We’re undercutting and disrupting that entire drug discount card market with our tool.

Why did you decide to work with prescribers rather than consumers?

The primary objective of physicians is to get their patient on therapy, get them well, and create a better health outcome. They have a dog in the hunt because essentially their scores will increase based on their ability to get that patient well and have a positive outcome.

Physicians prescribe a drug based on a familiarity of the condition. Physicians have no idea whatsoever what the cost of the medication is. They leave that up to the patient to find out at the pharmacy. In many instances, the patient is hit with sticker shock.

In addition to that, patients may either not have insurance or they have insurance with high co-pays or high out-of-pocket minimums. There is such vast variety of insurance coverage currently on the market that patients don’t know what is going to be covered, if it’s on formulary, or if they’ve met their minimum. They know they have prescription coverage, but they don’t know what it’s going to cost until they get to the pharmacy.

Our software analyzes the patient’s plan information. We’re conducting a real-time benefit check on that patient, so we know what their co-pay will be based on the drug that the doctor has chosen. They will know at that time if the co-pay is inflated, meaning that there could be a cash price that is less than their co-pay, which eliminates a claim being processed through the insurance carrier and gives a lower cost to the patient.

It also looks at the drug that the doctor has chosen. As I said, doctors prescribe based on familiarity of a drug with the condition. That may not be necessarily the cheapest drug for the insurance carrier that’s going to pay them that claim. Our software analyzes the formulary of the plan and identifies, if one exists, a clinically and therapeutically equivalent alternative drug to what the doctor has chosen that will cost the insurance carrier the least amount of money.

Insurance carriers today have no idea what the doctor is prescribing. They only know what they have paid on after the claim has already been submitted and adjudicated. They’re in a very awkward position, a disadvantage, because they can’t control or they have no input and ability to be able to help that doctor choose the most cost-effective and most therapeutically-effective drug because they don’t find out until after the fact.

Our software brings that price transparency. The patient can see the drug price before it’s sent to the pharmacy, eliminating sticker shock. When they get hit with sticker shock, one of three things happen. They’re on the phone with the doctor, creating a second encounter that disrupts the workflow and takes staff time and the doctor’s time to re-prescribe because they just found out that their insurance company is not going to cover the drug or they’re going to have to pay a ridiculous amount of money out of pocket. Or if the doctor chose a brand drug when there was an available generic that could have been prescribed instead at a fraction of a cost and the pharmacist is on the phone with the doctor doing the same thing. Worst-case scenario, the patient abandons at pharmacy and never gets on therapy, which opens up the issue of financial risk on the part of the insurance carrier and obviously health risk on the part of the patient for never getting on therapy.

We can eliminate this in the encounter as we’re sitting in the exam room with that patient, providing actionable, beneficial, and valuable data to the patient and their doctor before that prescription is sent out. That is the most efficient method for addressing these problems.

What impact will the CVS – Aetna merger have?

It’s not going to be of any benefit to the patient. I think it’s going to reduce options and locations in which patients will be able to get their prescriptions filled.

Number two, I believe that they will try to herd patients into CVS to create pull-through revenue. Pharmacies don’t make their money in the pharmacy in the back of the store. Their profits are generated through products sold in the front of the store.

This is a mechanism in which that they may incentivize patients to go to CVS rather than going to Walmart or their local independent or grocery chain to get their prescriptions filled, to be able to pull patients out of other chains and herd them directly into theirs.

I think it’s going to eliminate options for patients. It may in turn increase cost for patients, because they’ll have fewer choices. Ultimately it will probably be a very profitable opportunity and enterprise for CVS and Aetna.

Do you have any final thoughts?

With our software and our technology today, we are addressing price transparency as well as price and drug affordability, which will benefit the patient, the payers, and somewhat the doctors. We will be introducing in the coming weeks a new product, which is a e-prescribe solution that was specifically developed and designed to address affordability for the doctors themselves, to help them save money and have positive and financial impact on them.

What’s so unusual about this solution is that there are over 400 EHR systems in the country that use third-party e-prescribing tools. Those doctors are forced to have to pay anywhere from $15 to $150 a month to be able to prescribe.

Our product will be 100 percent free to every doctor who uses it and every EHR system that integrates it. It will also create an alternative revenue center for the EHR company. We hope those profits will turn into savings and reduction on the rest of the subscription fees that these doctors have to pay to have access to an EHR system.

Our objective is to lower cost and bring benefit and value to the entire healthcare value chain across the board. That’s the focus of InteliSys Health.

Morning Headlines 2/26/18

Changes in hospital bond ratings after the transition to a new electronic health record

Researchers looking at how hospital bond ratings fared after implementing a new EHR conclude that it’s tough to prove any relationship between EHR implementation and the macro financial picture provided by bond ratings, even though ratings announcements often reference either the cost or the financial benefit of a new EHR.

Cerner deal creeps closer

The VA could sign its Cerner mega-deal as early as this week, with both parties agreeing to 50 minor contract changes recommended in Mitre’s interoperability evaluation.

Your next activity tracker could be a pair of glasses

After a year of beta testing, vision care insurance company VSP will give Intel a run for its money with the launch of its Level activity-tracking smart specs.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS18

Access

Booth 1417

Contact Lindsey Keith, marketing operations director
lindsey.keith@accessefm.com
913.752.9938

Looking for a better way to do paperless? Stop by booth 1417 to see how Access integrated eForms eliminate the efficiency, security, and patient experience gaps in any EHR. Check us out for electronic signature capture on surgical and radiology informed consents, registration packets, back office documentation, and more. Grab one of our cuddly stuffed Green Paper Monsters for the little swag lovers back home!

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Agfa Healthcare

Booth 4043

Contact: Lenny Reznik, IT Business Unit VP, commercial product leader
lenny.reznik@agfa.com
864.421.1735

Join Agfa HealthCare at the HIMSS18 Lunch & Learn, "The Big Picture Made Tangible: Realizing the Value of Enterprise Imaging," Wednesday, March 7, from 1– 2 pm. Agfa HealthCare Enterprise Imaging completes your EHR strategy by providing a multidisciplinary platform to improve patient care and revenue capture. Agfa HealthCare Enterprise Imaging solutions are purpose-built to help health systems aggressively pursue quality improvement and mitigate risk. The modular services empower clinicians to make informed decisions through continuity of care and value-based collaboration. Capture, share, and normalize imaging data so it can be utilized for predictive analytics and quality patient care, making images a strategic asset of the entire organization. Talk to Agfa HealthCare to solve clinical, operational, and financial challenges with a proven integrated IT platform to ensure constant monitoring, hardened security, and simplified upgrading.

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Aprima Medical Software

Booth 3610

Contact: Mark Richards, SVP of sales and marketing
mrichards@aprima.com
410.465.9645

Stop by booth 3610 at HIMSS and find out why Aprima has been named the 2018 Best in KLAS in the Small Practice Ambulatory EMR/PM Category (1-10 physicians). Aprima serves physicians in primary care and more than 70 specialties with a fast, flexible design that adapts automatically to a physician’s workflow and sets the benchmark for ease-of-use, speed, and flexibility. You’re also invited to a Surescripts Panel Discussion, Aprima’s Happy Hour, and a Precision Medicine + Genomics round table. Join us at the Surescripts booth, 632, on Tuesday, March 6 at 11 am as Aprima COO Neil Simon participates in the Surescripts Prescription Price Transparency: Not Just a Pipe Dream panel discussion, which will address issues like the challenges prescribers face when making medication decisions for patients. Networking reception to follow. Please join Panasonic in helping us celebrate Aprima’s 2018 Best in KLAS EHR/PM win in the Small Practice Ambulatory EMR/PM Category (1-10 Physicians)! during a reception at our booth from 4-6pm on Tuesday, March 6.  On Wednesday, March 7 from 5-6 pm, Aprima will host a Precision Medicine Roundtable with Andrew Ury, MD of ActX, which focuses on actionable genomics – evidence-based genetic risks that you can do something about. Aprima is one of the few EHRs providing innovative EHR, PM, population health, and RCM solutions under one roof and with a 20-year track record of success. To set up an appointment, or to let us know you’ll be stopping by, please click here.

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Arcadia

Booth 4221

Contact: Alyssa Drew, director of strategic marketing
alyssa.drew@arcadiasolutions.com
781.202.3775

Once again, Arcadia and HIStalk are jointly giving away "conference survival kits," which include Band-Aids, pain relievers, breath mints, and other necessities for getting through a conference as large as HIMSS! Other highlights at booth 4221: Our Data Gallery will premiere our latest 2018 data visualizations. HIT thought leader and CIO John Halamka, MD will do a Q&A on digital health March 7 from 11– 12 pm. Cocktail receptions at 4:30 pm each afternoon; come meet our clients. Check out our full schedule of event,s including our client speakers.

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AssesURhealth

Booth 3286

Contact: Caitlyn Manning, marketing coordinator
CaitlynM@assessURhealth.com
202.449.9646, Ext. 501

AssessURhealth is an electronic screening tool used for identifying varying mental and behavioral health risks in depression, opioid risk, alcohol misuse, anxiety, somatic symptoms, and more. AUH provides mission-critical data to providers in order for them to create comprehensive cares plans and help save lives – all while generating ROI to multiple verticals and without bogging down their resources. Join us at HIMSS18 Tuesday, March 6 through Thursday, March 8 for a chance to learn how to increase your ROI through innovative patient screening technology. AUH’s hosted events will feature daily coffee talks with product demos and daily happy hours with industry leader speaking series.

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Black Book Research

To arrange a meeting during the show, call or text 727.463.7806.

Contact: Doug Brown, managing partner
doug.brown@blackbookmarketresearch.com
727.463.7806

Black Book will present at the Investment Banking & Venture Capital Breakfast Tuesday morning before the exhibit hall opens. Black Book awards will also be distributed Tuesday. Download our IOS or Android Survey Apps during HIMSS18 and complete a vendor evaluation to be in the running for 10 Amazon gift cards valued at $50.

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Boston Software Systems

To arrange a meeting on the show floor, contact Matt Hawkins.

Contact: Matt Hawkins, EVP of sales and marketing
Matt.Hawkins@bossoft.com
603.343.5296, Ext. 823

Boston Software Systems revolutionizes how healthcare works by providing error-free automation for any application, enabling successful EHR migration, streamlined business processes, and improved productivity. Our products are the most sophisticated automation platforms available, giving customers peace of mind that critical data is 100-percent error free. We have the best reputation for ease of use and customer support helping organizations bridge the gap between technologies.

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Cantata Health

Booth 1621

Contact: Lauren DiGiuseppe, marketing and events manager
communications@cantatahealth.com
631.430.9022

Join Cantata Health at HIMSS! If you’re tired of forcing big EHRs and billing systems to fit your organization, join us at booth 1621 and take a look at something just for you – billing and RCM products that get you paid more and faster, and a certified EHR that is cost-effective and easy to use. Looking for more reasons to visit Cantata? Enjoy our entertainment featuring the fascinating skills of mentalist Bob Garner and enter to win a Bose speaker in our daily drawing! Come by our booth for details. Sign up for a free RCM Health Check, learn more about our products by participating in free software demonstrations, and explore our other exciting activities!

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CarePort Health

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Careport@careporthealth.com.

CarePort Health, an Allscripts company and part of the next-generation care management solution, improves post-acute outcomes by providing solutions to guide patients to high-quality providers upon discharge and to track patients – and results – in real-time across the continuum. The end-to-end platform bridges acute and post-acute EHRs, providing visibility into the care that patients receive across post-acute settings so that all providers can efficiently and effectively coordinate patient care. Founder and CEO Lissy Hu, MD will participate in a #healthITchicks panel at HIMSS focusing on how women can forge their own career paths on Tuesday, March 6 from 2-2:45 pm at the HIMSS Spot.

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CareSync

Booth 373

Contact: Alex Korpita, manager of strategic partners
alex.korpita@caresync.com
860.455.5351

CareSync, founded in 2011, is the leader in chronic care management, serving over 1,000 healthcare providers at more than 300 locations that span the United States. We’re successful because we partner with our clients, following their preferences and protocols to deliver exceptional care coordination services to their patients on their behalf. The CareSync platform includes industry-leading technology and clinical support, enhanced by our proven patient and caregiver engagement tools and workflows such as our Remote Enrollment Program, educational onboarding tools, personalized member cards, pharmacy discount cards, and more. Patients benefit from 24/7/365 phone and online access to CareSync Health Assistants who can answer healthcare questions, provide clinical support, and help eliminate barriers to patient care, such as finding transportation to appointments, identifying special programs like smoking cessation classes, or locating discounts for prescribed medications. The scope of care coordination services offered by CareSync is broad with a goal to not just meet Medicare’s requirements, but exceed them. And the combination of our technology, integrations, services, patient engagement tools, and partnerships, all wrapped in a HITRUST-, Drummond-certified, secure framework, position CareSync to remain the leader in care coordination services for the foreseeable future. To learn more, visit www.caresync.com.

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Casenet

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Kelli Bravo.

Contact: Kelli Bravo, VP of product marketing
kbravo@casenetllc.com
978.375.9532

Casenet is a leading provider of population health solutions. Casenet gives healthcare organizations around the world a single, comprehensive experience with their members so they can effectively coordinate the delivery of care to individuals and populations at appropriate costs. Casenet aligns data and resources, so you can manage care with confidence. As a result, you can improve the delivery and quality of healthcare for everyone. Contact Kelli Bravo at HIMSS to learn more about how Casenet can help your organization.

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CenTrak

Booth 7221

Contact: Adam Peck, VP of marketing
apeck@centrak.com
215.860.2928, Ext. 225

Meet healthcare’s leading location services experts and schedule a live demo of the latest RTLS and environmental monitoring technologies.

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The Chartis Group

To arrange a meeting during the show, contact Gregg Mohrmann.

Contact: Gregg Mohrmann, director
chartis@chartis.com
877.667.4700

The Chartis Group provides comprehensive advisory services and analytics to the healthcare industry. With an unparalleled depth of expertise in strategic planning, performance excellence, informatics and technology, and health analytics, Chartis helps leading academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, children’s hospitals and healthcare service organizations achieve transformative results. Chartis has offices in Boston, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. For more information, visit www.chartis.com. Chartis has been privileged to work with over two-thirds of the academic medical centers on the US News & World Report “Honor Roll of Best Hospitals,” seven of the 10 largest integrated healthcare systems, four of the five largest not-for-profit health systems, nine of the top 10 children’s hospitals,  emerging and leading ACOs, hundreds of community-based health systems, and leading organizations in healthcare services.

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Clinical Architecture

Booth 5754

Contact: John Wilkinson, EVP of strategic partnerships
john_wilkinson@clinicalarchitecture.com
317.313.0013

Founded in 2007 by a team of healthcare and software professionals, Clinical Architecture is the leading provider of innovative healthcare IT solutions focused on the quality and usability of clinical information. Our healthcare data quality solutions comprehensively address industry gaps in content logistics, master data management, reference data management, data aggregation, clinical decision support, and text analytics.

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CloudWave

Booth 1060

Contact: Christine Mellyn, director of marketing
cmellyn@gocloudwave.com
781.636.8169

CloudWave builds multi-cloud solutions for healthcare with on-premises private cloud infrastructure, managed cloud services in our OpSus Healthcare Cloud, and public cloud services like Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. CloudWave’s focused portfolio of OpSus Healthcare Cloud services include hosting, disaster recovery, systems management, security, backup, and archiving services. CloudWave architects healthcare IT solutions with the goal of helping hospitals achieve operational sustainability. Visit us in booth 1060 to enjoy a cup of coffee and learn more about how our OpSus Healthcare Cloud can help you achieve your IT goals.

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ConnectiveRx

Booth 1117

Contact: Kim Marich, senior director of product marketing
kim.marich@connectiverx.com
201.358.7136

Visit us at booth 1117 to learn about all the new additions to our Prescriber Inform and ScriptGuide @EHR product lines, including prescriber support in the e-prescribing and immunization modules, and patient information delivered in the prescriber’s office, via SMS/MMS and patient portal. Get an interactive tour of ConnectiveRx, our extensive network, and our new capabilities! Learn more at ConnectiveRx.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

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CSI Healthcare IT

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Kate Mays.

Contact: Kate Mays, president
kmays@thecsicompanies.com
904.716.1209

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Culbert Healthcare Solutions

To arrange a meeting at the show with Rob Culbert, Brad Boyd, Jim Murray, Michael Cleary, Wayne Thompson or Joel Szymanski, contact himss2018@culberthealth.com.

Contact: Brad Boyd, president
bboyd@culberthealth.com
617.797.2076

Culbert provides healthcare providers and vendors with unique and integrated solutions in the areas of management consulting, clinical operations advisory, and IT advisory.

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Datica

Booth 5077

Contact: Marcia Noyes, director of communications
marcia@datica.com
303.877.4846 or 888.377.3184

Winners will be walking the exhibit floor in style and powered up for a full day of learning courtesy of Datica. Visit booth 5077 to enter hourly drawings for Yeti limited edition Rambler Lowballs! You can also sip a can of Nitro Cold Brew coffee while you have your HIPAA compliance and security platform discussion. Discover how the HITRUST CSF-certified Datica Platform manages all ongoing compliance and security burdens not covered by AWS and Microsoft Azure. Stop by and learn how you can deploy cloud-native applications and integrate with EHRs. Schedule your HIMSS18 appointment with the Datica team here.

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Definitive Healthcare

Booth 12042

Definitive Healthcare is the leading provider of data and intelligence on hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers. The product suite provides the most comprehensive and highest quality data, updated in real time. This data provides clients with the analytics and insight needed to effectively segment and research the healthcare market.

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Diameter Health

Interoperability Showcase 39

Contact: Tom Gaither, VP of marketing
tgaither@diameterhealth.com
781.249.9475

Diameter Health enables clinical insight through the normalization, cleansing, de-duplication, and enrichment of clinical data from across the care continuum. This creates a single, unified source of longitudinal structured patient information for improved care and actionable analytics. For more information, visit www.diameterhealth.com. Stop by kiosk 39 in the Interoperability Showcase to learn more about Diameter Health’s new solutions and pick up a mobile phone wallet.

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Dimensional Insight

Booth 6232

Contact: Natalie Cantave, marketing manager
ncantave@dimins.com
781.419.2146

At Dimensional Insight, we specialize in developing powerful business intelligence software solutions. Our mission is to make organizational business analytics accessible and usable, so everyone from analysts to line-of-business users can get the information they need to make informed, data-driven decisions with the Diver Platform. Dimensional Insight has been recognized as a five-time “Best-in-KLAS” Winner for Business Intelligence/Analytics. Why should you stop by our booth? Learn more about our product offerings and enter a raffle! We will also be giving out playing cards.

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Direct Consulting Associates

To arrange a meeting during the show, contact Ranae Rousse.

Contact: Ranae Rousse, VP of Sales
rrousse@dc-associates.com
919.741.9454

Direct Consulting Associates is the relationship-focused executive search and contract staffing firm that assists top-tier organizations with recruiting and acquiring high-impact HIT talent for mission-critical technology initiatives. We are constantly in contact with hiring managers, candidates, and opportunities across the healthcare IT space.

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Docent Health

To arrange a meeting during the show, contact Bailee Walker.

Contact: Bailee Walker, commercial development manager
bailee.walker@docenthealth.com

Docent Health’s mission is to help health systems build and retain lasting patient relationships. We combine best practices from other industries to help health systems deliver the vision of customer-centric care by combining cutting-edge consumer technology, retail-based strategic marketing, and hospitality-inspired service excellence with deep provider experience to increase customer lifetime value and grow market share. For more information or to schedule a demo, please visit our website: www.docenthealth.com. 

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EClinicalWorks

Booth 145

Contact: Laura Bujnowski, sales
ecwhimss@eclinicalworks.com
508.836.2700

Visit booth 145 to see how EClinicalWorks combines innovation and technology to produce products and services that are helping transform healthcare IT, from the smallest independent practices to large hospital systems. See our latest developments, including V11, the latest version of our cloud-based ambulatory EHR, featuring thousands of improvements; Eva, the EClinicalWorks virtual assistant, a first in the EHR industry; how free interoperability through CommonWell and Carequality is developing a truly connected office; and our acute care EHR, a complete cloud-based solution for the needs of hospitals and healthcare systems, creating unified medical records across care communities and offering the advantages of a fixed, per-bed pricing model. Providers now have the ability to receive patient baseline genomic data in the EHR, along with alerts and updates to help guide more effective clinical decisions. The EClinicalWorks Open Interoperability (EOI) development platform supports third-party, patient-facing apps through FHIR. Also stop by to see the latest in telemedicine, including enhancements to TeleVisits and our new Healow Virtual Room, which allows remote specialists to join in a traditional office visit. And payers won’t want to miss Healow Insights, an innovative, cloud-based solution with service offerings designed to automate the bidirectional exchange of actionable data between health plans and providers. Through on-demand medical record retrieval, EHR data aggregation, and point-of-care alerts, health plans may reduce overhead costs, improve compliance, and boost ratings on key quality measures.

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Ellkay

Booth 7823

Contact: Ajay Kapare, VP of marketing
ajay.kapare@ellkay.com
480.620.5848

As a nationwide leader in healthcare connectivity, Ellkay has been committed to enabling interoperability for more than a decade. With connectivity to over 45,000 practices across over 600 EHR/PM systems, Ellkay builds the data pipeline for hospitals, health systems, EHR/PM systems, laboratories, payers, HIEs, ACOs, and other healthcare organizations. Specializing in extracting and converting clinical data from virtually any source EHR system, we are the healthcare industry’s "Data Plumbers." Visit us at HIMSS booth 7823 to learn more about how Ellkay is making interoperability happen with three innovative new solutions. LKClinicalDataExchange is a powerful data exchange platform that empowers hospitals, clinics, laboratories, payers, population health companies, and other healthcare organizations with real-time patient information. LKeMPI maintains consistent and accurate patient demographic data across multiple systems, assigning a unique identifier that links patients’ disparate records at an organizational level. LKTransferMonitoring enables you to track and monitor every interface with the Advanced Monitoring Dashboard, which allows users to monitor each interface endpoint connection. To learn more, visit www.ELLKAY.com, call 201.791.0606, or email himss@ellkay.com.

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Elsevier

Booth 2843

Contact: Chris Capot, director
C.Capot@elsevier.com
212.633.3164

Elsevier, a global information analytics business, leads the way in advancing science, technology, and health. We empower healthcare professionals and patients by integrating world-class, evidence-based content into the EHR and clinical workflow at the point of care. With a strong 135-year history of delivering trusted clinical information to providers, our solutions are used by the top hospitals in the US and over 20 million healthcare professionals worldwide. We combine our unique content with technology to turn information into actionable knowledge to help healthcare professionals and patients make better decisions, leading to improved outcomes and more cost-effective care. Our solutions support reference and decision support, patient engagement, order sets and care plans, clinical pathways, learning and competency management, and professional practice services.

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Emids + Encore

Booth 8232

Contact: Sara Moggio, manager of conferences and events
sara.moggio@emids.com
615.484.3453

In 2017, Emids technologies acquired Encore Health Resources. Emids+Encore is a global provider of healthcare technology expertise and consulting services and solutions that serve both payer and provider organizations. Headquartered in Nashville, Emids helps bridge the critical gaps in accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare by providing advisory consulting services, custom application development, and data solutions. Services include EHR application deployment and management, analytics, data integration and governance, software development and testing, and business intelligence. This year at HIMSS, we are showing our CoreSuite software product, which lets you calculate regulatory measures across EHRs. We also have a group of CXOs participating in a CXO Challenge to log the most steps during HIMSS. The winner receives a $5,000 donation to his/her charity of choice, and HIMSS receives a $5,000 donation to their scholarship fund in the winner’s name.

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Engage

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Brian Malone.

Contact: Brian Malone, general manager
brian.malone@thinkengage.com
509.218.0598

Engage provides complete IT solutions for your hospital. As a Meditech collaborative solutions provider and Ready-Certified partner, Engage can help you achieve the best EHR possible, and provide you with the peace of mind and freedom you need to focus on the business of providing the best care for your patients. Visit us at www.thinkengage.com.

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EviCore healthcare/Qpid Health

Booth 2871

Contact: Amy Krane, marketing lead
akrane1@evicore.com
617.982.5425

We will feature two solutions in our booth that address operational costs and drive ROI from your EHR. Automated Prior Authorization eliminates the pain of prior authorization and cuts operating costs by 50 percent in one simple EHR-integrated solution. The solution streamlines workflows and eliminates manual and disconnected processes, speeding provision of pre-approvals for medical benefits. It leverages EviCore’s integrations with over 100 payers and advanced Qpid technology for analysis of clinical information to inform and automate the review process. The Chronic Care Management Optimizer makes it easy to track and bill for non face-to-face services that are eligible for reimbursement by CMS under the CCM program. Many organizations are leavings millions of dollars on the table, but with CCM Optimizer, you get reimbursed appropriately, and fund provision of more services for chronically ill patients.

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Experian Health

Booth 7329

Contact: Cindy Dullea, CMO
Cindy.Dullea@experianhealth.com
615.661.5657

Is your system prepared for a value-based and technology-driven patient care approach? Stop by booth 7329 and let Experian Health demonstrate how our solutions can prepare your facility for a more holistic approach to patient care. Schedule a time to talk with an Experian Health representative and you will be entered to win a $350 American Express Gift Card. Conference activities include coffee and conversation with Sharlene Seidman from Yale New Haven Health on March 6 from 9:45 – 11 am. Sharlene will answer questions about her presentation at HIMSS, and how Yale New Haven Health implemented a patient engagement strategy that went beyond patient self-service tools and focused on empowering staff to be efficient and consistent in their interactions with patients. Join us for a session entitled “How to Create A World-Class Financial Service Center” on March 7 from 4:40 pm – 6pm in Palazzo B (ID 91).

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FDB

Booth 2121

Contact: Scott Ashworth, VP of sales
sashworth@fdbhealth.com
800.633.3453

FDB is the leading provider of drug and medical device knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise decisions. With thousands of customers worldwide, FDB enables our information system developer partners to deliver valuable, useful, and differentiated solutions. We offer more than three decades of experience in transforming medical knowledge into actionable, targeted, and effective solutions that help improve patient safety, operational efficiency, and healthcare outcomes.

HIMSS activities:   

1. Product Launch: Patient-specific/targeted medication warnings decision support. 
2. Product Launch: Opioid risk management decision support. 
3. Product Launch: Specialty pharmacy decision support. 
4. Product Technology: Meducation (simplified medication instructions) implementation through Epic, Meditech, Cerner, Allscripts, and other HIS vendors. 
5. Presentation: Customer Case Study Session (ID IH26) –Improving Medication Adherence at Dignity Health, Terri Wilson, director of EHR enterprise standards; Tiffany Shields Tettamanti, clinical architect, Dignity Health.
6. Presentation: Customer Case Study Session (ID 298) – Zeroing in on the Patient to Reduce Alert Fatigue, Charlie Hart, pharmacy informatics, MercyHealth. 
7. Presentation: Customer Case Study Session (ID 207) – Point-of-Care Display of Relative Cost Information, Gregory Hall, inpatient CMIO, New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
8. Serving coffee in the booth!

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Formativ Health

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Michael Lovett.

Contact: Michael Lovett, chief commercial officer
michael.lovett@formativhealth.com
844.818.1020, Ext. 1808

Formativ Health is a tech-enabled health services company dedicated to helping hospitals and health systems improve the patient experience. We will have a meeting room at HIMSS18. If you’d like to schedule a meeting, please reach out to Chief Commercial Officer Michael Lovett. In addition to our meeting room, we’ll be demoing the new Patient Engagement Center solution we’re releasing in conjunction with Salesforce. Those demos will be happening Tuesday at 5:30 pm and Wednesday at 1pm. Reach out to Michael Lovett for more information.

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FormFast

Booth 4825

Contact: Aaron Vaught, director of marketing
avaught@formfast.com
314.603.9674

We encourage you to “Rethink Forms” this year at HIMSS18 as we showcase our latest industry-leading electronic forms, workflow, and eSignature technology for healthcare at booth 4825. With the spotlight on our eConsent solution, play our Sign & Win game where you will see FormFast’s mobile eConsent solution in action while getting a chance to win a trip to Europe! Featuring our new mobile app, guided forms view, dynamic pre-fill, patient wristband scanning, and other new capabilities – we invite you to see how we’re reinventing healthcare forms for the modern era.

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Fortified Health Security

Booth 3632 / Cybersecurity Pavilion

Contact: Gala Wilson, sales and marketing manager
gwilson@fortifiedhealthsecurity.com
813.966.1920

Come visit Fortified Health Security at booth 3632 or in the Cybersecurity Pavilion (Veronese Ballroom) 8500-33. We are a cybersecurity firm exclusively focused on healthcare, and that means that we understand the value of your data, the regulatory pressures you face, and the need to make it all work within a budget. With Fortified, you have a dedicated force keeping you ahead of the threats and the regulations. We look forward to meeting you and finding out how we can assist you to increase your security posture. Our services include connected medical device and IoT security program, HIPAA risk analysis, virtual info security program, security information and event management, penetration testing, data loss prevention, business associate lifecycle management, HITRUST assessment, and security point solutions. Presentations include “Challenges in Securing Connected Medical Devices” (ID CS11) on Tuesday, March 6 at 3 pm in the Cybersecurity Pavilion Veronese Ballroom 8500; and “Avoid the Threat of Ransomware” (Fortified Health Security & CloudWave joint presentation)  on Tuesday, March 6 at 11:30 am, Wednesday, March 7 at 2 pm, and Thursday, March 8 at 11:30 am in CloudWave’s booth, 1060.

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Forward Health Group

Booth 127

Contact: Jason Niosi, director of marketing operations
jason.niosi@forwardhealthgroup.com
608.658.4968

Top-rated for clinician engagement in the KLAS 2017 Population Health Management report, Forward Health Group drives clinical, financial, and network performance in the shift to value. See us in booth 127. Go directly to booth 127 if any of these problems apply to you – how to use claims data to support CINs and better manage high risk populations, network performance strategies for high risk populations, why getting attribution right is critical for managing high risk populations, and management of high risk populations in Medicare Advantage. See you at HIMSS18!

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GetWellNetwork

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Leah Bruch.

Contact: Leah Bruch, director of marketing strategy
lbruch@getwellnetwork.com
240.482.4313

GetWellNetwork is the Precision Engagement healthcare company. Our solutions engage patients and families, empower clinicians, and deliver outcomes that matter. From inpatient to outpatient, to physician practices and urgent care clinics, to patients on the go, GetWellNetwork offers the only cross-continuum platform that performs across every care setting.

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Glytec

Contact us to arrange a demonstration of our SaaS solution for inpatient and outpatient diabetes therapy management.

Contact: Christine Lippincott, executive clinical solution director
clippincott@glytecsystems.com
816.509.6326

Glucose control is a fundamental tenet of high-reliability care, yet variation is pervasive and systemization is sorely lacking. Not unlike blood pressure, temperature, and other vital signs, when a patient’s blood glucose levels are outside the normal range, safety risks escalate and incidence of complications and sentinel events increase dramatically. The bottom line – greater resource utilization, prolonged lengths of stay, and higher 30-day readmission rates. Glytec’s SaaS eGlycemic Management System coupled with our clinical change management services help you achieve best practices in glucose control across the entire continuum – all settings and transitions of care – creating the standardization, personalization, and workflow efficiencies that drive costs down and ensure your clinical teams are equipped to provide the very best care to your patients.

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HBI Solutions

Booth 14022

Contact Laura Kanov, SVP of product strategy
lkanov@hbisolutions.com
615.392.5201

HBI Solutions gives organizations the power to predict and the power to act. We deliver actionable information that helps healthcare organizations identify population, quality, and cost risks to improve patient health and lower costs. Come by and see how we are tackling some of healthcare’s biggest challenges, like suicide and opioid abuse, using place-based risk and social determinants of health with next-generation predictive analytics and risk management solutions. Eric Widen, co-founder and CEO, will present "Social Determinants of Health: The Impact on Patient Risk" in the Population Health Solutions Lab Theater on Wednesday, March 7 at 3:30 pm. Visit us in the InterSystems booth, 4444, on Tuesday, March 6 from 1-4 pm. Widen will present, "Predicting Suicide and Opioid Abuse Using Clinical & Social Determinant Data" at 1 pm. And on Thursday, March 8 from 10- 11 am, Laura Kanov, SVP of product strategy, along with Theo Siagain, director of HIE and interoperability at Providence St. Joseph Health, and Matt Simon, director of connected health at Himformatics, will present "Leveraging the Connected Health Record for Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) Performance Improvement."

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The HCI Group

Booth 854

Contact: James Kjellman, global marketing manager
james.kjellman@thehcigroup.com
904.337.6316

Click here to schedule a time to meet. We are committed to improving healthcare globally through a combination of disruptive innovation and cost reduction. Meet with us to discuss any of the following = IT managed services, integration and interoperability (demos available), cybersecurity and compliance (demos available), advisory services/EMRAM consulting, EHR implementation, EHR training and go-live, EHR extension/community connect, revenue cycle and optimization, sustaining support/service desk, population health, automation, and artificial intelligence.

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HCTec

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Rob Barella.

Contact Rob Barella, VP of marketing
rborella@hctec.com
615.577.4030

HCTec is a leading provider of healthcare workforce solutions across the full range of clinical and business applications including ERP, technical services, and revenue cycle initiatives to some of the largest healthcare networks in the US. HCTec provides the highly qualified, on-demand human capital, strategy, and innovative tools that hospitals need to thrive in an evolving landscape geared to support better patient outcomes. Based in Brentwood, TN, HCTec is privately owned and operated by healthcare industry leaders and technology veterans. HCTec is hosting two exciting receptions at HIMSS18 on the evening of Tuesday, March 6. Email Rob Borella at rborella@hctec.com to register.  March 6 from 6-8 pm at Gilley’s Saloon Las Vegas, Treasure Island 3300 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109.  March 6 from 7-9 pm at Sushisamba Las Vegas, The Palazzo 3327 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

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Health Catalyst

Booth 1332

Contact: Patty Burke, program manager
patty.burke@healthcatalyst.com
801.708.6800

Come have a cup of coffee with us at booth 1332 and learn more about DOS, a new data-first analytics and application platform. Click here to schedule a personalized demo with one of our solution experts.

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Healthcare Growth Partners

Booth 10450  VHQ 161

Contact: Christopher McCord, managing director
chris@hgp.com
713.955.7935

Healthcare Growth Partners is an exceptionally experienced investment bank and strategic advisor exclusively focused on the transformational health IT market. We unlock value for our clients through our Sell-Side Advisory, Buy-Side Advisory, Capital Advisory, and Pre-Transaction Growth Strategy services, functioning as the exclusive investment banking advisor to over 100 health IT transactions representing over $2 billion in value since 2007.

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HealthCast

Booth 10128

Contact: Mike O’Marra, national sales director
momarra@gohealthcast.com
510.338.0689

Ranked #1 Single Sign-On by KLAS Research for both 2017 and 2018, HealthCast’s Identity and Access Management solutions are designed to increase clinician productivity, strengthen security, and help organizations meet HIPAA regulations. Our solutions include award-winning SSO, fast proximity badge access to VDI, Secure Patient Identification, DEA-compliant EPCS, and SSO Auditing. To schedule a meeting or request a demo, please contact Mike O’Marra at momarra@gohealthcast.com or visit us at booth 10128. HealthCast will give away 500 free licenses for its award-winning single sign-on, eXactACCESS, to one lucky company during HIMSS18. Register at booth 10128, downstairs, for your chance to win.

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Healthfinch

Booth 12629

Contact: Dawn Burke, marketing manager
dawn@healthfinch.com
608.561.1844, Ext. 17

Healthfinch’s practice automation platform, Charlie, leverages EHR data to automate, delegate, and simplify routine, repeatable tasks like prescription refill requests and visit planning. Used by major health systems across the country, it improves workflows and enables providers to work top-of-license by reducing their inbox volume. Learn more at healthfinch.com. Join us for a Healthfinch happy hour at our booth, 12629, on Wednesday, March 7 from 4-6 pm. Meet the team, enjoy some refreshments, and take home a plush Charlie! Listen to Healthfinch CEO Jonathan Baran give a fireside chat about Healthfinch being an Innovation Award recipient at the Athenahealth booth on March 7 at 3 pm. Email sales@healthfinch.com to set up a dedicated time to meet our team and view a demo while at HIMSS.

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Healthgrades

Booth 11111

Contact: Steve Leibforth, VP, solution consulting
sleibforth@healthgrades.com
630.229.2843

Healthgrades is the leading digital healthcare brand connecting consumers, physicians, and hospitals to make the right data-driven care decisions. We provide health marketing and technology solutions that enable customer acquisition, patient engagement, and lifetime value. Learn more about our solutions at www.healthgrades.com/hospitals.

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HealthLoop

Booth 10607

Contact: Phoebe Byers, associate director of marketing
pbyers@healthloop.com
408.418.0280

HealthLoop’s software solution enables care teams to engage all patients before and after admission through automated daily check-ins. By sending the right information at the right time, HealthLoop identifies those patients that need help in real-time, allowing care teams to reach more patients and proactively intervene before costs and complications escalate. HealthLoop facilitates over 70,000 non-face-to-face visits every month. To learn more, please visit www.healthloop.com.

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Healthwise

Booth 4228

Contact: Michael Lauber, business development director
mlauber@healthwise.org
208.331.6940

Since 1975, our singular mission has been to help people make better health decisions. The Healthwise mission, combined with our innovative spirit, leads to patient education, technology, and services that power patient relationships. From point of care to coordinating patients beyond the clinical setting, Healthwise easily embeds within existing workflows to deliver enterprise-wide solutions. Patients access relevant education wherever they are, on any device.

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Iatric Systems

Booth 7505

Contact: Judy Volker, marketing director
judy.volker@iatric.com
978.805.3191

Booth 7505 is going to be entertaining as well as educational, with Chef Anton — the two-time National Pool Trick-Shot Champion and star on Penn & Teller’s "Fool Us" — lining up one amazing shot after another, and giving out Visa gift cards after each show. Make sure to attend our Lightning Session, "Interoperability within the EHR Workflow," Wednesday, March 7 at 10 am in Hall G.

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Imprivata

Booth 2854

Contact: Ron Piccioli, VP of inside sales
rpiccioli@imprivata.com
781.761.1916

Imprivata, the healthcare IT security company, provides healthcare organizations globally with a security and identity platform that delivers authentication management, fast access to patient information, secure communications, and positive patient identification. Imprivata enables care providers to securely and efficiently access, communicate, and transact patient health information to address critical compliance and security challenges while improving productivity and the patient experience. Meet with Imprivata at HIMSS and learn more about positive patient identification, governance, risk-management and compliance,  single sign-on and virtual desktop access, secure communications, multifactor authentication for EPCS and other clinical workflows, and medical device authentication management. Book your meeting before the end of February and you’ll be eligible to win luxury accommodations during your HIMSS stay. Don’t wait – book your meeting now!

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InstaMed

Booth 5062

Contact: Meg McDonald, marketing manager
events@instamed.com
215.360.0823

InstaMed is healthcare’s most trusted payments network, connecting providers, payers, and consumers on one platform. HIMSS conferences can get a little crazy. They don’t call it HIMSSanity for nothing! Take a break from it all with InstaMed. On Wednesday, March 7 at 4 pm, don’t forget to catch Anthem’s Dave Krause present "Create a Frictionless Healthcare Payments Experience." In the session, Dave will discuss how Anthem is working with InstaMed to make healthcare payments better for everyone. Stop by booth 5062 all week to speak with our industry experts about opportunities to improve your healthcare payments experience. Plus, we’ll have treats from our hometown of Philadelphia, including warm, soft pretzels and Tastykakes!

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Intelligent Medical Objects

Booth 1821

Contact: Dennis Carson, director of marketing and tradeshows
dcarson@e-imo.com
847.728.4997

IMO is the developer of the most widely-accepted medical terminology solution for the management of medical vocabularies and software applications at healthcare organizations worldwide. IMO terminology is used by more than 3,800 hospitals and 500,000 physicians daily, and this trusted terminology platform supports innovations by provider systems. IMO medical vocabulary and mapping products effectively capture clinical intent and help EHRs preserve and communicate this across the entire spectrum of care. IMO clinical terms are mapped to all standard coding systems including ICD-9, ICD-10, and SNOMED. The accuracy of IMO’s interface terminology was found to be “nearly perfect” in an independent study published by the CDC. Visit us at HIMSS18 to see how our new IMO 2.0 platform provides terminology solutions for a wide range of enterprise needs, leading to better healthcare delivery. Our terminology services are the foundational platform for analytics, clinical documentation and problem list management, clinical decisions support, RCM, machine learning and AI, patient care management, and population health management. Stop by booth 1821 on Tuesday and Wednesday after 4 pm to enjoy a glass of wine and receive a cool wine tumbler, while they last. Listen to our Lightning Round Sessions on Tuesday at 3 pm and Wednesday at 3:30pm in Hall G, booth 9947 and receive an insulated metal water bottle, while supplies last. Take a short survey in the booth to get an IMO performance T-shirt, while they last. Learn more at www.e-imo.com.

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Ivenix

Interoperability Showcase

Contact: Julie Kuhlken, director of marketing
jkuhlken@ivenix.com
978.775.8050

Ivenix is a medical technology company with a vision to eliminate infusion-related patient harm. Ivenix designed an infusion system from the ground up to streamline medication delivery and bring legacy technology into the digital age. The Ivenix Infusion System includes a large volume infusion pump supported by a robust infusion management system designed to set new standards in usability, medication precision, and interoperability. The Ivenix Infusion System is currently under 510(k) review by the FDA. See Ivenix’s system at the Interoperability Showcase as part of the Transplant Care Use Case, and in the Discovery Center for a hands-on demonstration Wednesday, March 7, from 10:30 am – 1:30 pm.

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Kyruus

Booth 12128

Contact: Lindsey Cohen, senior event marketing manager
events@kyruus.com
617.419.2060

Kyruus delivers proven provider search and scheduling solutions that help hospitals and health systems match patients with the providers best suited to care for them. The ProviderMatch suite of solutions — for consumers, access centers, and referral networks — enables a consistent patient experience across multiple points of access, while aligning provider supply with patient demand. The company’s proprietary provider data management platform forms the foundation of its solutions, powering them with accurate data by coupling data processing with administrative applications. To find out why a Better Match Means Better Care, please visit www.kyruus.com or come see us in booth 12128 at HIMSS! We’ll be demoing our solutions in the booth and handing out our custom Kyruus socks!

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Legacy Data Access

Booth 4265

Contact: John Hanggi, director of business development
jhanggi@legacydataaccess.com
678.701.5589

Running old applications just to get to the data? Stop – we need to talk! For organizations retiring or replacing healthcare systems, Legacy Data Access offers the industry’s most comprehensive set of software tools and solutions for working with data from retired systems. Our LegacySuite products provide comprehensive functionality for the storage, access, management, and reporting of the retired healthcare data. No time-consuming, labor intensive, and risk-filled data conversions are required. The data is seamlessly accessible in its original format, with no loss of detail or integrity. Please visit us to discuss how we have successfully retired 249 different healthcare applications – a total of 621 applications. Giveaways include key chains, tote bags, and the best dark chocolate in the exhibit hall. Drop a card for a chance to win a Fitbit Ionic or one of two Amazon Echoes.

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Liaison Technologies

Booth 2270

Contact: Janet Russell, healthcare solutions
jrussell@liaison.com
770.442.4039

Visit Liaison Technologies at booth 2270 to learn about achieving true interoperability, collaboration, and insights. Liaison’s Alloy platform for healthcare provides intelligent integration, simplified data management, and continuous compliance enabling health systems to break down data silos and exchange data when and where needed. Pick up our “7 Steps for the Interoperability Journey” data sheet, join us for a cookie break, grab our 2018 badge ribbons (always fun), and enter to win Apple AirPods.

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LifeImage

Booth 2465

Contact: Emily Citrone, senior marketing manager
ecitrone@lifeimage.com
781.864.9537

LifeImage is putting the spotlight on interoperability at HIMSS18. We are hosting a series of in-booth sessions on how we are helping the industry mature and move beyond access to data to the real stuff that matters – better care coordination, patient engagement, better (and faster) informed decision-making, and accelerating innovation. Learn more and register for sessions here. We’ll also host a drawing for a Google Home.

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Lightbeam Health Solutions

Booth 11447

Contact: Eric Rosenberger, director of marketing
erosenberger@lightbeamhealth.com
972.831.7270

Lightbeam Health Solutions delivers a revolutionary model for managing patient populations and associated risk. Lightbeam’s vision is to bring health data into the light through the use of analytics and to provide the insight and capabilities healthcare clients need to ensure patients receive the right care at the right time. Lightbeam’s platform facilitates end-to-end population health management for ACOs, payers, provider groups, health systems, and other healthcare organizations aspiring to provide superior care at a lower cost. Our solutions help you move the needle on admissions, readmissions, number of preventative visits, care gaps, cost of drug utilization, and total cost of care to name a few areas. Case studies can be found here. We have helped MSSP ACO clients generate more than $300 million in savings while achieving an average quality score of 99 percent in the most recent year.

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LogicStream Health

Booth 1473

Contact: Nicole Nash, marketing manager
nicole@logic-stream.net
651.269.2454

LogicStream Health software is trusted by high-performing healthcare systems across the United States. Our clinical process improvement and control software platform is the first and only technology capable of helping clinicians gain highly actionable, instant insights into improving vital clinical processes, and automating and achieving better control over the care they deliver to patients. Visit us at HIMSS18, booth 1473, to learn how our customers have improved outcomes and increased clinician satisfaction by eliminating 12M annual alert firings, reducing C. diff rates by 50 percent, saving $4M on high-cost medications per year, and increasing VTE protocol compliance by 95 percent. Our software is rapidly implemented and easily adopted by clinicians, informaticists, and executives striving to improve, automate, and better control vital clinical processes. Our mission is clear – helping clinicians improve and better control the care they deliver to every patient, every day. HIMSS18 attendees who come see a demonstration will be entered in a drawing for an iPhone X. We’ll have on display our clinical process modules targeting some of healthcare’s highest priorities, including sepsis, VTE, CAUTI, medication utilization, and C. diff. Contact Nicole Nash (nicole@logic-stream.net) to schedule your demo today!

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Loopback Analytics

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact CEO Neil Smiley (nsmiley@loopbackanalytics.com).

Contact: John McGhee, VP of sales
jmchgee@loopbackanalytics.com
972.998.0071

Loopback Analytics provides a cloud-based platform that enables health systems to proactively identify at-risk populations, match patients to appropriate services, and evaluate the impact of interventions on outcomes. The platform allows provider organizations to selectively and securely share data with network partners across care settings to coordinate care beyond the walls of their owned facilities, while protecting data that should not be shared. Real-time data analytics monitor patients as they move across the care continuum, and predictive analytics flag patients of rising risk for early intervention. Data collected from patient engagement loops back into machine learning models to provide timely visibility into what is working and what is not, to enable continuous improvement. Areas of significant focus include specialty pharmacy, behavioral health, and bundled payments.

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Loyale Healthcare

Booth 13131

Contact: Shirley Straka, EVP of sales and account management
ShirleyStraka@loyale.us
608.770.9504

Better revenues, lower costs, higher patient satisfaction, and first-year ROI – that’s what Loyale Healthcare’s Patient Financial Manager delivers. PFM is the industry’s most robust patient financial engagement platform. Built from the ground up for virtually limitless interoperability in any healthcare setting, Loyale’s suite of fully integrated solutions applies predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, automated administration, and the industry’s most engaging patient self-service experience. Loyale is offering free Patient Revenue Cycle assessments to providers who are interested in implementing their own patient financial engagement initiatives. Make an appointment or stop by our booth to pick up a free cell phone wallet and set up your assessment. Healthcare providers interested in improving patient collections, reducing costs, and driving higher patient satisfaction are invited to contact Shirley Straka at ShirleyStraka@loyale.us. Partners in healthcare finance, revenue cycle solutions, and revenue cycle services who are looking to expand their product portfolio, reduce operating costs, and grow their top and bottom lines should contact Channel Strategy EVP Grattan Smith at Grattan@loyale.us.

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MedData

Booth 1465

Contact: Chris Farrell, VP of marketing
chris.farrell@meddata.com
800.835.7474

MedData offers a single platform to increase hospital revenue, patient satisfaction, and compliance while decreasing the number of vendor interactions. Our technology-enabled solution combined with our proven expertise enhances the patient financial experience so hospitals can focus on the clinical experience.

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Medecision

Booth 4269

Contact: Michelle Malgesini, director of demand generation and strategic events
michelle.malgesini@medecision.com
610.540.0202

Leading health plans and risk-bearing providers depend on Medecision’s cloud-based Aerial platform to deliver personalized, predictive and prescriptive decision support for their clinicians, physicians, consumers and their caregivers. Our next-generation care management applications leverage powerful insights and interoperability to connect and inform consumers and their care teams. The Aerial platform is generations ahead of EHR and traditional care management systems incorporating workflow-embedded analytics, evidence-based medical protocols, prescriptive care plans, and a comprehensive EHR – all in a single view for care managers, consumers, and their extended care team. Visit Medecision at HIMSS booth 4629 as we showcase how our clients use our innovative and powerful Aerial solution to modernize their care management programs and realize significant operational efficiencies and cost savings. See for yourself how Aerial simplifies care management by delivering advanced analytics, smart utilization management, mobile care planning, summarized member data sharing, and tools that drive real engagement. Come and talk with us at booth 4629 and make the future of care management your reality! And, while you’re there, enter to win one of the many Amazon Echoes that we will give away. We’re liberating healthcare one cool app at a time! Learn more at www.medecision.com.

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Medhost

Booth 2514

Contact: Samra Khan, enterprise brand manager
samra.khan@medhost.com
615.761.2119

For over 30 years, more than 1,000 healthcare facilities have partnered with Medhost and enhanced their patient care and operational excellence with our fully integrated clinical and financial solutions. Our Enterprise EHR solution can also be hosted and managed by our highly qualified IT teams. Medhost solutions can help you be even more efficient in what you do best — providing excellent care to your patients. Our solutions, supported by market-leading support and implementation, include a fully integrated EHR, enterprise clinical and financial system, emergency department information system, IT hosting and management solutions, and consumer engagement platform. Come to the Medhost’s booth, 2514, for a custom playing card deck and to speak with an expert to discover why over 1,000 healthcare facilities have the perfect hand with Medhost, and how to be a part of that winning team. Also, let’s chat in the Medhost’s Live Podcast Lounge. Stop by our live podcast lounge in booth 2514 for a quick 20 minute guided interview about the trends and challenges in healthcare IT. Space is limited, so sign up now!

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Medicity

Booth 2449

Contact: Lauren Tilelli, VP of marketing
ltilelli@medicity.com
858.414.4117

Leveraging 20 years of experience aggregating clinical data, Medicity is ushering in the next generation of interoperability. Medicity transforms data into a single, comprehensive clinical document, which streamlines clinical workflows. Providers now have usable clinical intelligence at the right time and place to provide the best care; organizations can create a consolidated data asset required for population health and care quality initiatives. By aggregating and normalizing multiple, diverse data streams, Medicity enables analytic interoperability and creates a valuable strategic asset for the entire community. As the industry unites in the pursuit of integrated, actionable data, Medicity is uniquely qualified to unlock the benefits of Interoperability 2.0, which include providing one-click access to a de-duplicated, comprehensive clinical document; optimizing decision-making at the point of care; revolutionizing provider workflow to improve outcomes and reduce costs; and aggregating and sharing meaningful data for population health. Medicity will be raffling off two iPhone Xs for eligible attendees who demo Interoperability 2.0.

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Medicomp Systems

Booth 3616

Contact: James Aita, director of business development
jaita@medicomp.com

Medicomp’s Quippe Clinical Solutions resolve clinicians’ toughest challenges through intelligent interoperability, seamless MACRA compliance and increasing provider productivity. To learn more, visit the Medicomp booth, 3616, to play our Quippe Virtual Experience game. The Quippe Virtual Experience is a real-world EHR exercise that gives attendees the chance to think and work like a physician using Medicomp solutions. Plus, we’re giving away $100 every 30 minutes to a lucky winner. Learn more at www.medicomp.com.

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Meditech

Booth 1360

Contact: Paul Berthiaume, senior manager of marketing communications
pberthiaume@meditech.com
781.774.5742

The next digital transformation of healthcare is underway, and Meditech is leading the charge with the only full-scale EHR designed specifically for the post-Meaningful Use era. As a leading EHR vendor for over 45 years, Meditech’s solutions have empowered over 2,350 customers across 22 different countries to provide higher quality care, with greater efficiency, to more people, at a lower cost. Today, our cutting-edge solutions are helping organizations to see healthcare through a new lens and navigate this virtual landscape with unparalleled vision and clarity. Whether your destination is clinical efficiency, analytical prowess, or financial success, Meditech’s bold innovation, passion, and expertise will get you where you want to go. Visit booth 1360 to learn more about the first full-scale Web-based EHR designed for the post-Meaningful Use era. Initiatives like MaaS, population health, and patient engagement will be front and center. Hear from peers who have gone all-in with Meditech. Physicians, nurses, and healthcare executives are here to share their story. In addition, Meditech will offer a number of demos in our booth focused on population health, care coordination, managing sepsis, physician experience, revenue cycle, patient experience, and more. Don’t forget to check us out at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase, as we participate in the Nationwide Care Transitions use case with Commonwell Health Alliance. Stop by booth 11955 and discover how Meditech not only advocates for interoperability, but also practices it every day. For more information, visit our HIMSS18 event page. Stop by booth 1360 for our Executive Booklet and Meditech freebies.

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MModal

Booth 4416

Contact: Lisa Martin, senior manager of marketing
lisa.martin@mmodal.com
267.535.7222

Our cloud-based clinical documentation solutions connect workflows for efficient and accurate medical speech recognition, medical transcription, CDI, and coding. We facilitate physician-patient relationships by making it easy for doctors to capture the patient story, and by delivering information when it is needed most – at the point of care.

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Mobile Heartbeat

Booth 2461

Contact: Jamie Brasseal, VP of sales and marketing
jamie.brasseal@mobileheartbeat.com
781.238.0000

Mobile Heartbeat will demonstrate the latest version of the MH-CURE Unified Clinical Communications and Collaboration Platform at HIMSS18 in booth 2461. MH-CURE is a secure clinical communications and collaboration platform enabling unified communications and improved patient-specific workflows featuring a real-time clinical team directory connecting all members of a patient’s care team. New features announced in the latest version of MH-CURE will be showcased, including advanced application integration configuration, video chat, text-to-speech, and lock screen viewing of notifications received via broadcasts and other systems, as well as other features optimizing clinical workflows and benefiting the healthcare enterprise. Mobile Heartbeat customer Rosemary Ventura, CNIO at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, will provide a user’s perspective on MH-CURE at the HIMSS Digital and Personal Connected Health Forum March 5 at the Wynn Las Vegas. Ventura’s session, scheduled for 10:40 am, is entitled, "Go Mobile and Modernize Clinical Communication and Collaboration," and will present a case study on NYP’s enterprise-wide roll out of MH-CURE to 11,000 users.

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National Decision Support Co.

Booth 2265

Contact: Bob Cooke, VP of marketing and strategy
rcooke@nationaldecisionsupport.com
855-475-2500

National Decision Support Co. is the leading provider of enterprise-wide clinical decision support solutions worldwide. The company’s CareSelect Platform simplifies the delivery of point-of-order clinical guidance. Seamless EHR integrations combine with Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) from standard-bearing medical specialty societies to provide comprehensive coverage for imaging, lab, blood management, and pharmacy. National Decision Support Co. enables stakeholders in the healthcare process to deliver more efficient and appropriate care, improve population health, and save money. Variations and gaps in care delivery cost providers and patients billions of dollars annually and result in life-threatening medical errors. NDSC’s CareSelect decision support platform enables the transition to value-based care and payment models and risk-sharing payment models while reducing inconsistencies in patient care.

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Netsmart

Booth 1917

Contact: Cory Harden, lead business representative
info@ntst.com
800.472.5509

Netsmart is connecting the MISSING PIECES of healthcare – addiction treatment, behavioral health, home care, and senior living. Stop by booth 1917 to learn more and enter to win a Canary View.

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Nordic

Booth 5154

Contact: John Pollard, VP of marketing
john.pollard@nordicwi.com
608.358.6600

Nordic is a consulting firm that helps healthcare organizations improve the health of their patients and business through EHR expertise, strategy, and managed services. Nordic offers advisory services, Epic implementation, optimization, population health, data and analytics, managed services, revenue cycle, and affiliate extensions. In 2017, KLAS rated Nordic as the only firm to be a top performer in both Clinical and Revenue Cycle Optimization. In 2016, KLAS rated Nordic a top performer in Epic IT Advisory Services, Comprehensive Healthcare IT Advisory Services, and Optimization Services.

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Nuance Communications

Booth 1143

Contact: Larissa Falzone, director of marketing
larissa.falzone@nuance.com
781.565.5000

Nuance provides a more natural and insightful approach to clinical documentation, freeing clinicians to spend more time caring for patients. Nuance healthcare solutions capture and communicate more than 300 million patient stories each year helping more than 500,000 clinicians in 10,000 healthcare organizations globally. Nuance’s award-winning clinical speech recognition, medical transcription, CDI, coding, quality, and medical imaging solutions provide a more complete and accurate view of patient care, which drives meaningful clinical and financial outcomes. For more information, visit www.nuance.com/healthcare or call 1-877-805-5902. Connect with us through the healthcare blog, What’s next, Twitter, and Facebook.

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NVoq

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Kristen Ayers.

Contact: Kristen Ayers, director of marketing
kristen.ayers@nvoq.com
303.304.7021

NVoq provides a HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based speech recognition and workflow automation platform for healthcare. NVoq’s SayIt dictation solution converts speech to text in seconds, while its powerful Shortcuts make short work of template reports through voice or touch. SayIt is available as a standalone client application that works seamlessly with any EHR or clinical documentation system, without the need for integration. SayIt works on either a PC or a Mac, and includes a free wireless mic application. Save 25 percent or more charting time daily while minimizing errors. SayIt gives you productivity that’s off the charts! Contact us today to find out more.

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OmniSys

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Dean Braun.

Contact: Dean Braun, SVP of business development and marketing
dean_braun@omnisys.com
214.459.2574, Ext. 2579

OmniSys is a technology company that helps pharmacies drive profitable growth through unique insights derived from our market share and the ability to build valuable workflow solutions. With over 25 years of domain expertise, OmniSys is the market leader in medical, immunization and DME claim billing, patient communication and adherence, as well as consumer engagement workflow. We are integrated into the pharmacy management systems of more than 25,000 pharmacies and provide connectivity to more than 200 medical payers. OmniSys core SaaS platforms are designed to help pharmacies engage patients, compete on value, and distinguish their brands.

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Optimum Healthcare IT

Booth 1655

Contact: Larry Kaiser, VP of marketing
lkaiser@optimumhit.com
516.978.5487

Visit the Optimum Healthcare IT booth to learn how we develop true business partnerships with our high-touch, customer-service focus. We would love to talk with you about your healthcare IT needs and how one of our nine mature service lines can assist you in meeting those needs. Be sure to inquire how you can register for our raffles when you are in the booth. Click here to schedule a meeting in our booth with one our subject matter experts.

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Parallon Technology Solutions

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Phil Sobol (phil.sobol@parallontechnology.com) or Taylor White (taylor.white@parallontechnology.com).

Contact: Chelsea Lankes, marketing
chelsea.lankes@parallontechnology.com
615.618.7844

Parallon Technology Solutions provides EHR implementations, IT help desk, application support, IT managed services, hosting, technical staffing, and strategic IT consulting services to hospitals, outpatient facilities, and large physician groups nationwide. With a team of over 400 clinical, financial, and technical professionals, PTS has implemented EHR systems in more than 300 facilities. PTS offers staffing and remote support services for all major EHR acute and ambulatory platforms, as well as their ancillary applications.

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Patientco

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Josh Byrd.

Contact: Josh Byrd, director of marketing
josh.byrd@patientco.com

Patientco is reimagining the patient financial experience by bringing health-specific payment infrastructure together with consumer-focused tools backed by industrial-strength analytics to create a superior payment experience that predictably yields more dollars.

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PatientKeeper

Booth 4616

Contact: Cristina Christy, senior events manager
cchristy@patientkeeper.com
781.373.6378

At HIMSS18, PatientKeeper will showcase its applications that deliver the next-generation physician experience. With an intuitive interface tailored to physician specialties and patient situations, PatientKeeper removes the obstacles that have hindered EHR usability and transforms the computer into an indispensable tool for care delivery. Available as a comprehensive suite or as targeted workflow solutions, PatientKeeper delivers a single electronic environment that streamlines workflow — enabling physicians to maximize time with patients and access actionable information wherever they are, whenever they need to.  And PatientKeeper works with existing transactional and clinical information systems, enabling provider organizations to preserve current IT investments and avoid costly, time-consuming, and highly disruptive EHR replacement projects. Visit PatientKeeper at booth 4616 to enter for a chance to win a Concept2 Model E indoor rower.

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PatientPing

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Brian Manning.

Contact: Brian Manning, head of growth
BManning@patientping.com
617.701.7816

PatientPing is a health technology company that is building a national community of engaged providers who are sharing information, coordinating care, and working together to get patients healthier faster. Through Pings, real-time notifications, and Stories, critical patient data accessed at the point of care, PatientPing connects disparate providers who share patients across the entire continuum. PatientPing’s national care coordination community includes physicians, nurses, case managers, and care coordinators across hospitals, emergency departments, ACOs, physician practices, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation centers, payers, and other healthcare providers. By connecting care teams through real-time information sharing, PatientPing enables providers to deliver higher quality and more cost-effective care, ultimately improving patient outcomes and experiences. Visit www.patientping.com to learn more.

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PatientSafe Solutions

Booth 229

Contact: Kim Tucker, VP of marketing
ktucker@patientsafesolutions.com
858.746.3318

PatientTouch unifies clinical communication and workflow in on app on one smartphone device.  It’s the only platform that provides a unified inbox for quick message triage and response. One inbox prioritizes all texts, voice calls, critical results, alerts, and pages. Reminders, notifications, and acknowledgements too. Deeply integrated with your EHR and clinical systems, PatientTouch provides one-touch access to up-to-date clinical and patient information for more efficient, safer decision making. And you can access the entire care team – on call, assigned care team members, and providers across your health system network. Join us in booth 229. Experience our new physician communication features. Pick up your copy of our new HIMSS Analytics study on “The State of Clinical Communication and Workflow” to find out how your peer organizations are managing their clinical mobility journey. Get a free clinical communications assessment and roadmap to improving care collaboration efficiency. View a demo and be entered to win an Apple Watch 3 or an iPad Pro – drawings daily!

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PerfectServe

Booth 8023

Contact: Lavonta McVicker, event manager
lmcvicker@perfectserve.net
704.608.6804

Stop by PerfectServe for a candy pick-me-up and device PopSocket.

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PMD

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact sales@pmd.com or 800.587.4989, Ext. 2.

Contact: Tracy Hensley, marketing communications specialist
thensley@pmd.com
800.587.4989

PMD gives doctors and staff powerful, intuitive mobile software that improves patient care. With PMD’s mobile communication and data capture platform, healthcare teams finally have an elegant and simple technology to maximize efficiency and collaboration. PMD provides free interfaces with most major EHRs, hospital information, and medical billing systems. The PMD team is committed to developing the best solution and providing superior customer service. For more information, contact PMD.

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PokitDok

Booth 12306

Contact: Vivian Li, senior product marketing manager
vivian.li@pokitdok.com

PokitDok’s platform-as-a-service enables hospitals, digital health, and telehealth companies to quickly build modern commerce experiences across the healthcare value chain. Its modular marketplace platform includes benefits verification, claims submission, appointment scheduling, and RCM. DokChain, an evolution of PokitDok’s platform utilizing distributed technologies such as blockchain, enables the patient experiences, business models, and security that healthcare deserves.

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QuadraMed

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Miranda Hahn.

Contact: Miranda Hahn, director of marketing
mhahn@quadramed.com
231.360.7063

QuadraMed will host a premier dining event for clients and prospects on Wednesday, March 7. Hospitals and providers are invited to attend "Who is the REAL Elvis?" -  a session on preventing patient identity errors with Lorraine Pozzanza, MD ECRI Institute’s program director for health IT patient safety. The session includes lunch at Delmonico’s Steakhouse, a short walk from the HIMSS18 Expo floor. Sign up here. [No vendors please.]

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Qventus

Booth 9900

Contact: Venkat Mocherla, business development
venkat@qventus.com
925.699.7496

The Qventus mission is to simplify how healthcare operates so that hospitals and caregivers can focus on providing the best possible care to patients. The company offers an AI-based software platform that helps hospital teams make better operational decisions in real-time, making sense out of the terabytes of data they generate every day. Qventus addresses operational challenges across the hospital including emergency departments, perioperative areas, patient safety, inpatient, and outpatient. Visit the Qventus kiosk in the Innovations Live Pavilion to learn how hospitals across the country are extracting real-time insights from existing data sources. And, enter to win a FItBit Ionic watch.

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Reaction Data

Booth 8123

Contact: Taylor Madsen, director of marketing
tmadsen@reactiondata.com
801.358.7106

Come see if you can navigate our mountain bike obstacle course, and enter to win a new, full-suspension bike. While you’re here, learn how you can use Reaction for all your customer, market, and employee research needs.

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Redox

Booth 1275 / Interoperability Showcase 30

Contact: Paige Goodhew, marketing
paige@redoxengine.com
574.850.6914

Come by one of our booths or schedule a meeting ahead of time here. You’ll definitely want to visit Redox’s booth (1275) this year. Beyond talking integration and getting some sweet swag, enter a raffle to win a 5lb bag of gummy bears or Wisconsin Cheese Basket. Find all things Redox HIMSS18 here. Redox Party!

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Santa Rosa Consulting

Booth 3632

Contact: Gala Wilson, sales and marketing manager
galawilson@santarosaconsulting.com
813.966.1920

Come visit Santa Rosa Consulting at booth 3632. At Santa Rosa Consulting, we combine strategic insight with unmatched execution to simply do one thing for healthcare providers – deliver results. We focus on developing practical and actionable solutions that specifically address the problems facing healthcare providers today. We provide a foundation for better healthcare by designing, creating, staffing, and sustaining value through outcomes-based results that improve performance as well as patient experience and care. Advisory solutions include BI and analytics, PMO as a Service, interoperability integration, system evaluation/selection, and CIO partnerships. EHR solutions include Meditech, Epic, and Cerner. E2E activation services include Activation as a Service, training, go-live support, and optimization. Payer solutions are coming soon. Talent On Demand gives you the right resources when you need them most – interim, temporary, or permanent. Meet with the Santa Rosa team at HIMSS18 and complete a brief survey to be registered to win a free Executive Workshop of your choice for your organization! (Example Executive Workshops include BI & Analytics Success, PMO Performance, and EHR Transition Lessons Learned.)

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Softek Solutions

Booth 7801

Contact: Jason Hungate, VP of marketing
jason.hungate@softekinc.com
913.649.1024

Softek is your Cerner expert, whether you’re a longtime Cerner user or just implementing the EHR. Softek delivers a full suite of software and consulting services to assess and optimize EHR performance and revenue integrity at Cerner hospitals. We provide independent, objective measurement of the issues others miss or can’t even detect. Only Softek offers Panther technology for visibility into the source of performance and charging issues, plus easy access to patient accounting data; and consultants who have specialized in Cerner’s unique architecture since 2000. We will give a $25 Amazon gift card to any Cerner client just for stopping by our booth.

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Spok

Booth 7607

Contact: Derek Kiecker, business solutions adviser
Derek.Kiecker@spok.com
800.231.2556

We know you’re on a quest to deliver the highest standards of care. To do so, your communication technology needs to integrate with existing workflows in your hospital and enable you to deliver information to clinicians who need to take action. Stop by the Spok booth, 7607, to see a demo of Spok Care Connect, the industry’s most comprehensive suite of enterprise critical communication solutions; hear the latest enhancements to Spok Care Connect, including more robust EHR and real-time location system integrations; and scan your badge to enter our daily drawing for an Apple Watch 3!

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Stanson Health

Booth 465

Contact: Ryan Nellis, chief commercial operations officer
ryan.nellis@stansonhealth.com
612.865.7742

Stanson Health helps clinicians align to health system strategy. We create and integrate sophisticated, real-time clinical decision support, and provide rich analytics to guide and influence clinician behavior. During HIMSS 2018, Stanson will unveil its digital prior authorization solution.

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Strata Decision Technology

Booth 8225

Contact: Dan Michelson, CEO
dmichelson@stratadecision.com

Strata #1 Ranked in KLAS financial analytics and performance platform, StrataJazz, marries clinical, operational, and financial data to deliver accurate and actionable cost data across the entire continuum of care.  With an advanced cost accounting engine that integrates with EDW, ERP, and EHR solutions including Epic, you can see what is driving up costs at a patient, service, and entity level. As a result, you can determine where to focus your energy to improve margins and quality. We wrote the book on cost … and you get a free copy! Strata just released the second edition of Margin + Mission: A Prescription for Curing Healthcare’s Cost Crisis, which was​ published in hopes to fuel a conversation and drive action to make a meaningful difference in bending the cost curve. Click here to learn more. The first 50 get a free book!

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Sunquest Information Systems

Booth 1326

Contact: Trish Moxam, VP of corporate marketing (trish.moxam@sunquestinfo.com); or Roberto Madrazo-Estrada, digital and content marketing (roberto.madrazo-estrada@sunquestinfo.com)

Sunquest Information Systems, booth 1326, provides enterprise laboratory information solutions for clinical, anatomic, and molecular pathology, enabling interoperability for world-class labs, including multi-site, multi-disciplinary support for complex anatomic, molecular, and genetic testing. Since 1979, Sunquest has helped over 1,700 labs and healthcare organizations across the world enhance efficiency, patient care, and financial results. For more information, go to www.sunquestinfo.com.

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Surescripts

Booth 632

Contact: Kelly Jeffers, VP of corporate communications
kelly.jeffers@surescripts.com
571.384.4776

Since 2001, Surescripts has led the movement to turn data into actionable intelligence, and convened its network allies to enhance e-prescribing, inform care decisions, and advance the healthcare industry. Come see us at HIMSS in booth 632, or visit us at www.surescripts.com.

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Sutherland Healthcare

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact healthcare@sutherlandglobal.com.

Contact: Tom McCormick, chief commercial officer
Thomas.mccormick@sutherlandglobal.com
973.986.0804

Headquartered in Clifton, NJ, Sutherland Healthcare is a leading provider of process transformation solutions to the entire healthcare ecosystem. Sutherland brings a different approach to the healthcare industry by leveraging digital and design thinking methodologies to understand every aspect of a client’s unique situation to transform the services, tools, and experiences of their patients and employees. Our process transformation solutions bring a new way of thinking while delivering traditional services that adapt to the consistently changing expectations of customers in the digital era.

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SymphonyRM

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Sheetal Shah.

Contact: Sheetal Shah, VP of market development
310.916.7379

We think today’s world of CRM in healthcare has been dismal for health systems. Cost over-runs, weak industry flavor that doesn’t match workflow, little value for patients or providers. If the goal is to drive patient acquisition and retention, provider loyalty, and make it financially viable, we’d love to demo our HealthOS as it combines CRM and analytics, and is delivered as a flat monthly subscription (already live and supporting over 4M patient lives). Give us a ring or catch us on stage as we compete for most disruptive startup at HIMSSVentureConnect – our journey to make health systems less reactive, and more proactive with their consumers.

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T-System

To arrange a meeting, contact Roger Davis.

Contact: Roger Davis, president and CEO
efeid@tsystem.com
469.426.7746

T-System is a healthcare IT company that advances care delivery and financial outcomes for episodic care. Specializing in emergency department documentation since 1996, T-System has since expanded its focus to include the development of innovative solutions for the rapidly expanding episode-based care market, including hospital-based emergency departments, freestanding emergency centers, and urgent care centers. Today, our company continues to innovate by leveraging a strong team of industry experts who lead our clinically-driven services and documentation solutions, as well as charge capture and coding solutions that serve 40 percent of the nation’s hospital-based emergency departments, freestanding emergency centers, and urgent care centers.

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Versus-Midmark

Booth 5850

Contact: Stephanie Bertschy, senior marketing manager
skb@versustech.com
231.577.4094

It’s time to RETHINK the status quo of health system operations. Versus, a member of the Midmark family, uses both precise and WiFi real-time locating system technology to effectively manage mobile assets, enhance safety, and improve patient flow. Let our lean workflow consulting, implementation services, and industry-leading location accuracy help you improve the delivery of quality care and enhance the patient experience. We combine location data with powerful workflow intelligence to drive efficiency in the moment while automatically documenting key performance indicators – helping you measure and manage your operations. Visit the Versus-Midmark booth, 5850, for live demonstrations featuring a fully operational Versus patient flow and asset tracking system. Want to know more? Don’t miss the following sessions by clients who have experienced first-hand some of the benefits. Real ROI: Using RTLS to Improve Pump Utilization & Save $1M  Presenter: Dave Dickey Tuesday, March 6 from  4-5pm in Galileo 901. Use of RTLS to Support a Model of Patient Centered Care Presenter: Kevin Hoover, MD  on Thursday, March 8 from 4-5pm in Galileo 901.

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Voalte

Booth 7131

Contact: Naila Maroon, marketing communications director
nmaroon@voalte.com
305.975.3327

Check us out at HIMSS18 to see how Voalte Platform connects care teams inside and outside the hospital, integrates with the EHR, and makes it easy for health IT professionals to deploy HIPAA-compliant smartphones. Our booth isn’t the only place at HIMSS where you’ll hear about how Voalte Platform is improving care team communication and collaboration. Voalte will be highlighted at the Avera Health Lightning Session Wednesday, March 7 at 5 pm, where Candice Friestad, RN, director of clinical informatics at Avera Health, will discuss how the health system integrated its communication platform with nurse call, patient monitoring, EHR and ADT data to give care teams access to up-to-date patient information. We also encourage you to attend an education session Thursday, March 8 at 10 am presented by James Jones, VP of patient care services and nursing operations at UW Medicine’s Valley Medical Center. He will discuss how they improved patient outcomes after moving to a smartphone-based platform for clinical communication and alarm and alert notification. Voalte also will be featured in the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase in the Labor and Delivery use case, which demonstrates the need for strong care coordination and communication when managing high-risk pregnancies. Visit the showcase to witness the impact of collaborative systems on clinical outcomes, quality, and the patient experience.

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Vocera Communications

Booth 2824

Contact: Shanna Hearon, manager of PR and communication
shearon@vocera.com
865.769.2028

The mission of Vocera Communications is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operational efficiency. More than 1,400 hospitals and health systems around the world have selected Vocera solutions for care teams to text securely using smartphones or make calls with our hands-free, wearable Vocera Badge. Interoperability between Vocera and more than 120 clinical systems helps reduce alarm fatigue; speed up staff response times; and improve patient care, safety, and experience. HIMSS18 attendees are invited to visit the Vocera booth, 2824, to get a sneak peek at the latest version of the Vocera Collaboration Suite mobile application, which enables real-time situational awareness. Learn more at www.vocera.com, and follow @VoceraComm on Twitter.

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Waystar

Booth 1665

Contact: Tina Newman, director of events
tnewman@navicure.com
678.955.4080

Waystar simplifies and unifies the healthcare revenue cycle with innovative technology that allows clients to collect more with less cost and less stress, so they can focus on their goals, patients, and communities. The combination of Navicure and ZirMed uniquely positions Waystar to provide an end-to-end, cloud-based revenue cycle technology platform across all care settings – empowering healthcare organizations to improve the overall financial health of their business by preventing problems, streamlining processes, and removing friction in the revenue cycle process. In addition to enjoying in-booth snacks each afternoon during HIMSS, join Waystar in booth 1665 for you opportunity to win a stress-less weekend at The Meritage Resort & Spa. Waystar will also be hosting an invite-only Premier Party Wednesday, March 7. Request your invitation at marketing@navicure.com.

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WebPT

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Shawn McKee.

Contact: Shawn McKee, VP of marketing
shawn.mckee@webpt.com

With 30-percent market share, WebPT is the leading rehab therapy platform for enhancing patient care and fueling business growth. Offering scheduling, documentation, billing, outcomes tracking, business reporting, patient engagement tools, and system integrations, WebPT’s robust, Web-based solution is ideal for every outpatient setting — regardless of staff size, facility type, or the number of specialties. WebPT has a 99-percent retention rate and a 99.99-percent uptime rate, making it the most trusted and reliable platform in the industry. Launched in 2008 and headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, the company has ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies five years in a row. Let’s meet at HIMSS to discuss ways to improve revenue and enhance patient care within your outpatient rehab therapy business. You can also visit webpt.com to learn about our company, products, and services.

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Wolters Kluwer Health

Booth 3232

Contact Ann Joyal, VP of global communications and brand
Ann.Joyal@wolterskluwer.com
781.392.2000

Stop by booth 3232 to see how Wolters Kluwer Health is tackling variability in healthcare by helping you efficiently deliver the best outcomes and provide the best care for patients. Our trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions engage clinicians, patients, researchers, and the next generation of healthcare through advanced clinical decision support, learning, and research and clinical intelligence. Every day around the world, more than 2.5 million clinicians use our trusted solutions, such as Lippincott, Ovid, UpToDate, Medi-Span, Health Language, Sentri 7, and Emmi. Learn more here: Leadership panel at the Patient Engagement & Experience Summit, Monday, March 5; Educational session by Tom Stafford, CIO of Halifax Health, “Transforming IT: The Journey to Clinical Innovation,” Thursday, March 8. In booth 3232, explore UpToDate Advanced and next-generation advanced clinical decision support, AI, and sepsis surveillance with Point of Care Advisor, interoperability and harmonizing data and terminologies with Health Language, and how compounding pharmacies are tackling compliance using Simplifi 797. Visit healthclarity.wolterskluwer.com.

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ZappRx

To arrange a meeting at the show, contact Karen Tirozzi.

Contact: Karen Tirozzi, VP of solutions
karen.tirozzi@zapprx.com
617.470.7679

For anyone looking to ease to the process of prescribing specialty medications, please reach out to KT, who will be attending HIMSS and actively engaged in customer and partnership opportunities. Have a great conference!

Monday Morning Update 2/26/18

Top News

Researchers looking at how hospital bond ratings fared after implementing a new EHR find that of the 32 health systems studied (with a focus on Epic), seven had their bonds downgraded, seven had them upgraded, and 18 had no changes. They concluded that it’s tough to prove any relationship between EHR implementation and the macro financial picture provided by bond ratings, even though ratings announcements often reference either the cost or the financial benefit of a new EHR.

As is nearly always the case, it’s not what you buy, but how you implement it and what you do with it afterward that counts.

Epic’s touting of post-implementation hospital financial improvement was likely the genesis of the article since it focused on Epic.

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Reader Comments

From Brian: “Re: vendor clueless marketing. So the HIMSS conference has been around for only 18 years? Didn’t anyone edit this press release before editing it?” I’m omitting the vendor’s name because the marketing person who wrote the release has a long health IT background, so I’m sure it was just one of those embarrassing synapse-jumps that we all have rather than a lack of knowledge. While the conference is indeed HIMSS18, this is the 57th iteration since HIMSS62 in Baltimore, when there was no such thing as healthcare IT, no exhibit hall, and just two dozen skinny-tied hospital management engineers having about as much crazy convention fun as you would expect.

From Go-Live Concerned: “Re: Epic. Has at least eight go-lives in March, some of which are multi-facility big bang. Epic has to support them and most customers also share the same third-party vendors, who are stretched to the max. Document imaging and coding vendors, for example, have to staff up to deal with the increased support volume. Epic’s remote-hosted data center will see a 4-5x increase in live systems in just a few days. If the lights dim in Madison, we’ll know why.”

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HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Dr. Jayne’s HIMSS18 Buzzword Bingo inspired me to create my own version. See if you can you call bingo (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) during the opening session, during the first 30 minutes in the exhibit hall, or in a single vendor’s quick pitch. If you need an added difficulty factor – which you probably will since it will be a target-rich environment – then see if you can get bingo purely using only overhead-dangling booth signage. Or, see if you can fill out the whole card from a single vendor. I arranged the options randomly, but I’d bet money that the easiest bingo would be from the lower left corner diagonally up. Regardless, you’re gonna need a bigger stack of cards.

Poll respondents say their hiring decisions wouldn’t be swayed much by a candidate’s CPHIMS credential. My conclusion has always been that if two candidates were exactly equally desirable (which basically never happens if you’ve done due diligence), then maybe it would offer a tiny edge as evidence of personal drive. A lot of the folks I know with CPHIMS hoped that earning it would offset their lack of experience or get them into the field as newcomers, neither of which seems likely.

New poll to your right or here, repeating one I ran awhile back: Have you experienced unwanted sexual overtures or comments during a HIMSS conference that made you uncomfortable?

Responses to “What I Wish I’d Known Before … Taking a Travel-Heavy Job” range from the practical to the heart-wrenching. When I worked for a vendor for a short time, business travel seemed exotic and carefree to those of us shoehorning like astronauts into our cubicles every day under management’s clueless but ever-watchful eye. Still, I noticed that the road warriors who I was occasionally sent out to support seemed unusually world-weary, cynical, and quick to hit the hotel bar. They avoided the sometimes miserable office conditions, but also didn’t really even seem part of the same company (except to our customers) since most of us hardly every saw them. They also rarely got promoted or taken off the road since replacement roadies were hard to find. Reading the responses makes me glad that I only traveled heavily for a few months when I worked for a large, regional health system, where I had it pretty easy in visiting the same handful of rural hospitals for just a few days at a time as a colleague instead of a vendor. Remember these comments the next time someone from several states away shows up bright and and outwardly cheery on Monday.

Next up and anxiously awaiting your response:  What I Wish I’d Known Before I Quit My Job to Go to Work for Myself. I’m interested in what you have to say even if you eventually ended back up as someone else’s employee. People always fantasize about becoming part of the gig economy, so help them out with good or bad firsthand experience.

Iatric invited me to get on a short conference call with their HIMSS booth staff to review some of my “Tips for HIMSS Exhibitors,” something I don’t ever do except Iatric was smart in offering up front to make a significant donation to DonorsChoose in return for a few minutes of my time. Their donation, paired with matching funds from my anonymous vendor executive and other matching sources, funded every penny of these teacher grant requests:

• Supplies for creating posters for Women’s History Month for Ms. F’s middle school class in Greensboro, AL
• Hear Myself sound phones and reading highlighting strips for Mrs. M’s first grade class in Durham, NC
• Action cameras and photo storage for Ms. F’s STEM charter school class in Naples, FL
• Floor seats and craft materials for the Winter Olympics after-school STEM club project of Mrs. M in Robbinsville, NC
• Programmable robots for Mrs. J’s second grade class in Springdale, AR
• Simple machines building kits for Mrs. H’s fifth grade class in Loachapoka, AL
• An Amazon Echo for Mrs. M’s kindergarten class in Benton, LA
• STEM creative building materials for the “I’ve been in America for less than a year” elementary school class of Ms. J in Kansas City, MO
• Math games for Mrs. J’s elementary school class in West Newbury, MA

Several of the teachers emailed me within a couple of hours, one of them Ms. F, who said, “Thank you so much for funding my students in their efforts to learn more about the women who changed history. This package was funded in such a timely manner in that Women’s History Month is in a few days. We are so grateful for your support. It is because of donors like you that we can take learning to a whole new level.”

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Loopback Analytics. The Dallas-based company is a leader in population health analytics with its EpisideInsights, a cloud-based platform that allows health systems to identify at-risk populations, match those patients with appropriate resources, and evaluate how interventions affected outcomes. It allows provider organizations to selectively share data with network partners across all care settings in participating in value-based care initiatives. Specific focus areas include specialty pharmacy, behavioral health high utilizers, and bundled payments. Organizations use EpisodeInsights to assess bundled payment opportunities, reduce clinical variation, drive change management with physician-level benchmarking, benchmark against market competitors, identify network partners, and support real-time data exchange including patient alerting. I interviewed Founder and CEO Neil Smiley – who also founded Phytel and sold it to IBM Watson Health – last week. Thanks to Loopback Analytics for supporting HIStalk.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor SymphonyRM. The Palo Alto, CA-based company offers HealthOS, healthcare’s only customer relationship management platform that identifies and orchestrates “next best actions” for consumer and provider engagement, helping to increase patient acquisition, close care gaps, increase provider utilization, and improve referral capture. HealthOS – whose tagline is “orchestrating the workforce to drive metrics” — is used by call centers to conduct outreach; marketing departments to generate and manage prospect marketing; provider outreach teams to manage activities; and front office teams to guide real-time intervention opportunities for clinical, population health, and marketing opportunities. The company’s goal is to transform healthcare providers into member-focused enterprises, using the experience of its executive team in building three data science and CRM companies that generated $5 billion of value for leading consumer service brands. Thanks to SymphonyRM for supporting HIStalk.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

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Sales

Major Health Partners Medical Center (IN) chooses CloudWave’s OpSus Healthcare Cloud to host its Meditech EHR.

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Decisions

• Winchester Hospital (MA) will go live on Epic in 2018.
• Amita Health St. Alexius Medical Center (IL) will go live on Cerner next month.
• Amita Health Alexian Brothers Medical Center (IL) went live on Cerner this month.
• Weston County Health Services (WY) will switch from Cerner to Epic.

These provider-reported updates are supplied by Definitive Healthcare, which offers a free trial of its powerful intelligence on hospitals, physicians, and healthcare providers.

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Announcements and Implementations

A new Reaction Data survey of health system leaders finds that the most-named health systems for innovation, thought leadership, and providing quality care at a sustainable cost are Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare, and Geisinger Health. KP led by far in recognition for providing high-quality, cost-effective services. It’s interesting that other than KP, those highly regarded systems haven’t shown a lot of interest in expanding beyond their own regions as opposed to less-regarded but ambitious players such as Ascension, Trinity, and Adventist. I think most of us would love to have one of the top three systems add a hospital near where we live.

Dolbey launches Fusion Narrate, a cloud-based speech recognition product that allows providers to dictate into any application without integration. The underlying technology was provided by NVoq and its SayIt speech recognition platform.

V3 Health Strategy launches its blockchain private placement Initial Coin Offering solution.

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Government and Politics

Politico reports that the VA could sign its Cerner mega-deal as early as this week. Both parties have agreed to 50 minor contract changes that were recommended in Mitre’s interoperability evaluation.

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Technology

For Bitcoin fans: analysts speculate that a single low-profile startup in China that sells bitcoin creation hardware is raking in up to $4 billion per year in profit.

Indiana-based VoCare develops a self-contained home care device that measures blood pressure, blood glucose, pulse, oximetry, temperature, and ECG, running on Android to connect via WiFi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE in uploading readings automatically to a cloud storage system. The only peripheral needed is the supplied blood pressure cuff. It has a provider mode and also an option to be used for remote patient monitoring.

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Other

A JAMA opinion piece observes the stress that opioid reduction programs have had on PCPs: having to confront patients to reduce their opioid use; kicking them out of their practice after implementing a no-opioids policy; trying to migrate patients to alternative pain drugs without a lot of knowledge or patient enthusiasm; trying to stay on top of increasingly complicated drug plan prescribing rules; and dealing with insurers that are willing to pay only for more addictive opioids because they are older and therefore cheaper. The article says the opioid crisis is due to inadequate chronic pain control and recommends further education, including telementoring clinics offered by Project ECHO (where two of the authors work).

Martin Shkreli must be rolling over in his cell. Rare-disease patients treated with a 1960s drug whose price was jacked up from $650 to $21,000 in just eight years became excited that a generic was coming out, but only until they saw the price: $18,000, still 28 times what it cost in 2010. Experts note that despite FDA’s call for competition, it’s tough to bring a drug’s price down from stratospheric levels when the Wall Street-pandering newcomer recognizes that the market will bear a slight-lower price, especially when the manufacturer covers the co-pay of patients and leaves insurers stuck with most of the tab. To make it even weirder, the original manufacturer, faced with this slight competition, rolled out its own generic priced at $19,000.

In other pharma news, states are acting to restrict pharmacy benefit management companies from inserting gag clauses in their contracts with pharmacies that prohibit pharmacists from telling customers that paying cash for their prescription would be cheaper than using their insurance. Pharmacists complained that PBMs pocket the difference from the patient’s overpayment. The drug lobby has filed suit to block a North Dakota law that bans such gag orders, saying it requires PBMs to disclose “proprietary trade secrets.”

A academic medical center study published in JAMA finds that it costs $20 to perform the billing and insurance activities required for a primary care visit and $215 for an inpatient surgical procedure, representing 3-25 percent of professional revenue. Eric Topol’s tweet says it all.

A medical resident’s New York Times op-ed piece describes treating the eminently influential 96-year-old doctor and Nobel Peace Prize winner who in 1996 wrote a book that not only warned against overuse of technology and excessive drug prescribing, but also observed that “healing is replaced with treating, caring is supplanted by managing, and the art of listening is taken over by technical procedures.” Hospitalized in a system even more impersonal than he could have imagined 22 years ago, he wasn’t happy with the lack of progress:

Each day, one person on the medical team would say one thing in the morning, and by the afternoon the plan had changed. I always was the last to know what exactly was going on, and my opinion hardly mattered … Doctors of conscience have to resist the industrialization of their profession.

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Sponsor Updates

• ACOs using population health management software and services from Lightbeam Health Solutions have generated $300 million in savings.
• National Decision Support Co. and Mayo Clinic will expand clinical guidance for NDSC’s CareSelect Lab solution.
• Obix Perinatal Data System of Clinical Computer Systems will exhibit at Kaleidoscope 2018 February 26-27 in Stafford, TX.
• The SSI Group and PatientPay partner to offer end-to-end payment services.
• Huron and The Joint Commission will host the first in a new series of hospital-focused safety and quality care workshops April 11 in Minneapolis.

Blog Posts

• Part 1: Interoperability 2.0 – How data is consumed into a healthcare data platform (Medicity)
• Four Reasons Urgent Care Patients Don’t Want an Online Appointment (DocuTAP)
• Is Your IT Department Operational or Transformational? The Two Roles of the CIO in Today’s Digital World (Liaison Technologies)
• LifeImage Races Towards Interoperability: Connectathon 2018 (LifeImage)
• Communication Solutions for Staffing in Long-Term Care and Nursing Homes (LiveProcess)
• Meeting clinical engagement, patient safety and quality, and utilization targets with instant insights and clinical process control solutions – Part 1 (LogicStream Health)
• Bundled Payment Revival: The Time has Come to Engage (Medecision)
• Do Medical Credit Cards Make Sense for Providers? (Medicomp Systems)
• CUREConnect API Integration Suite – Enabling New Workflows in 2018 (Mobile Heartbeat)
• Transform Your Revenue Cycle Like an Olympic Athlete (Waystar)
• Experts in Home Health Give Thoughts and Advice for 2018 – Part 1 (Netsmart)
• Addressing High-Utilizers Starts in the ED (PatientPing)
• Is This the Beginning of a Real Disruption in Healthcare? (Redox)
• How One National Guard Soldier Launched a Career in Tech (Salesforce)
• Time for a change. (Voalte)
• Vocera Badge – 18 Years of Healthcare Communication Innovation (Vocera)
• Instant Success: How to Increase Online Patient Reviews in One Step (WebPT)
• How we must support ACOs (Philips Wellcentive)
• Expert Solutions: The Future of Digital Value Creation (Wolters Kluwer)

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Contacts

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

What I Wish I’d Known Before … Taking a Travel-Heavy Job

I wish I’d been aware of the social isolation and pressure to get things done in my limited time at home. There are friends I used to see regularly that I haven’t been in touch with for years now. With weekends really being my only time at home, I spend the majority of that time doing things that need to get done around the house, running errands, going to the doctor. It doesn’t leave much time for a social life or even seeing family.

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Whatever your lifestyle health-wise, it will just be amplified by the travel. Work out regularly now? You’ll have an even better schedule to accommodate it. Not great about getting to the gym? Don’t romanticize that travel is going to help with a gym in every hotel. It only makes it harder and you’re eating restaurant food more than ever.

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Choose your credit cards wisely to maximize perks.

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The importance of inflatable lumbar support pillows. And how difficult it is to do any meaningful work on flights — neither the environment nor the ergonomics are conducive to productivity.

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How much I would miss my family.

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I wish I’d known I wasn’t as adventurous as I thought I was. Turns out I don’t like exploring new cities by myself.

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I wish I’d known how much of my weekend time would be spent playing catch-up: dry-cleaning, laundry, cleaning, friends, family. All the little stuff that gets spread out through a normal week is condensed into two far-too-brief days.

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I wish I’d bought shoes that were more comfortable.

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How much I would miss my son. I originally thought that early mornings to the airport, overnight stays, and getting home late at night would impact my ability to get things done, find time to exercise, eat well, etc. However, I was quickly able to adapt and those areas of my life were not impacted. The hours from my son was the toughest part. I no longer weighed the time traveling with the time or more productive time in the office. I now weighed that time with the time a way from him. I’ve since left that job and started my own company where I can control my time based on its REAL value.

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How it can strain a marriage. After doing it for 5+ years, we had not much in common. Weekends were spent catching up on chores and then getting ready to leave on Sunday or early Monday. We have no children, so we made the decision for him to spend several weekends with me at my long-term location to give us a common talking point, which did help. I gave the job up after six years and the marriage is still going strong at 41 years. The good part about the travel was the friends I met and have kept across the country and the experiences I would have never otherwise have had. I’ve been sailing in Long Island Sound and also experienced Fleet Week on a house boat in San Francisco Bay.

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That the clients were actually interested in applying best practices vs. creating more layers of status quo.

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Always bring workout clothing on a trip. You never know if you’ll get the chance to hit a great gym or run even if you’re not in the mood while packing. Always keep a charger, a pair of socks, and some cash in your briefcase or backpack.

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You have to live on the road the same way you do at home, meaning that you must have the discipline to maintain your diet and exercise routines and not succumb to overeating and drinking.

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That my employer mandates carry-ons (won’t pay for checked bags), requires adults who have never met to share rooms, believes that $45 per day will cover three square meals in major cities, and refuses to reimburse tipping of any kind.

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Working a 12+ hour day. You pretty much need to be available to meet with the customers during THEIR 8-5 day job, but you also have to prepare for those meetings, etc. after the normal workday is over. I’ve seen this in both sales and implementation roles. Some companies are cheap and insist that you stay at low-end hotels (think Ramada Inn with outside doors) and have all kinds of budgetary constraints. It’s kind of hard to ask for the travel expenses policy during the interview, but somehow try to find those things out. 

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Buy a second set of makeup and leave it in the suitcase for travel days. Get the back-office phone numbers for airlines and rental cars and call them as soon as you realize your plane is delayed and you need to book a hotel or car before the rest of the herd. I realized that there is an entirely other population of people on this earth who are “travel people” and they know a LOT of stuff. Talk to them as you wait to board your plane. They can save your hide some days.

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When you do the math after you divide the number of real hours worked into the salary you accepted, you really only earn $2.50 an hour.

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If I had one thing to do over, it would be to somehow add a day (on my own dime) and explore the city I had traveled to. Easier said than done, as most days I just wanted to get home, but sounds good anyway.

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That regardless of travel schedules, colleagues still expect you to respond in a timely manner, which means working at night to catch up on all the day’s missed emails and phone calls.

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How I would always be tired and spend my weekends doing expense reports, laundry, and sleeping.

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While during my interview process I was asked if I would be willing to travel for my job, I didn’t think much of it, given the position description stated 5-15 percent of my time would be on the road. That’s not much, right? I should have known something was up when, on my first day, I was asked if I had a valid passport. Nineteen months later and more than 300K air miles logged from monthly trips to Europe, Asia, and plenty of domestic trips, I left after I couldn’t sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time. I could never get my body clock adjusted to all those changing time zones. Some people are cut out for it, but I learned I definitely was not one of those people.

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Wish I’d known how agreeable it would be to the way I like to work. Depart, immerse, get it done, then go home. Rinse, repeat. And when I am home, I mean I am HOME.

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Get a credit card that offers lounge access. Sure, it’s good to have a quiet place to work, but I also really need a place to get drunk after a flight delay at the end of a long work week.

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You will lose all track of time and the seasons of life. I remember once sitting in a boarding lounge and a family was sitting in the row behind me and they were taking their son or daughter to college and it was an emotional discussion. I was touched by it, but was so consumed by my conference schedule that I didn’t even realize that the seasons of life was going on all around me while I was going from the Javits Center to the McCormick Place to Moscone Center and so on.

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If you are single, your friends will stop inviting you to events because, well, you are just never home.

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Flying sucks. It is exhausting for your wife who has to keep the family ship and the sailors (the kids) on course while you are gone. Eating out all the time is tough on trying to stay in good shape. As I have gotten older, the three-hour time change from West to East Coast has become a bigger impact on the sleep pattern. At least there is Uber and Lyft now so I don’t have to hassle with rental cars as often (those guys must be having a major negative impact in the revenues of Hertz, Avis, etc.)

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How much weight I’d gain if I did anything other than maintaining a disciplined diet and exercise regimen.

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That there is no benefit to letting the corporate office handle travel plans. Make sure to negotiate the ability to control your own travel, get a good travel-specific credit card, invoice for your expenses, and then reap the rewards. It took me a full year on a job (three weeks of travel a month) before someone let me know they asked and corporate agreed. Within the next six months of travel, I had upgraded status on all of my flights and hotels and had enough points to take my entire family on a vacation we’d normally never afford.

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Unless you are going to or coming from a meeting in which specific attire is required, always fly in specific travel clothes. When you get to your destination, put all of the clothes in a bag (they are covered in whatever grossness wasn’t cleaned on your flight) and don’t touch them until it is time to fly home. This way you limit your (and your clothes’) exposure to travel-related disgustingness to just one outfit. I have sat on broken airplane seats and ruined suit pants, I have had people miss the emesis bag and get it all over a nice dress shirt, I have seen and smelt unthinkable things. But luckily I am now forever wearing clothes that I don’t worry about when it all happens. When you get home, toss them in the wash on “kill everything” cycle of the washer by themselves and you’ll feel like you are keeping germs and stink (relatively) at bay.

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Try not to take travel-heavy jobs. Honestly, they are just not worth it. The novelty wears off, the lack of life balance is endemic to those you’ll meet, and in the end, you’ll be grateful you decided to find something closer to home. Unless it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, keep looking instead of being a road warrior. Very few people who have retired from travel-heavy jobs have ever told me they really enjoyed it. If you can, try NOT to take the position.

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Clinical depression is highly likely. You’ll become almost obsessed with maxing out loyalty programs. Wal-Mart becomes a source of “healthy” food in rural areas. Too many people have pre-check. Too few airports have dedicated pre-check lanes. Getting squishy/soft/fat is almost inevitable. Vented car seats are heavenly. Podcasts are your best friend.

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How much time would be wasted from flight connections when your home airport isn’t a major one.

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The impact to your family is huge. You have to have a good support structure, and if you have kids, you have to have backup plans in place for the inevitable sickness or childcare issue. You also need to really understand your company’s policy up front about scheduling your travel and the ability to dictate some home weeks when needed.

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That US companies do not consider travel time as work (contrary to labour laws where I live).

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The importance of willpower and honoring your commitments. It’s too easy to cheat, in every aspect, when you’re on the road.

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I wish I’d  had access to a company handbook to verify printed policies. The manager I was hired under explained that we travel Monday and Friday and are on site with clients the rest of the week. If we needed to travel on a weekend, we’d receive comp time. He retired and was replaced by a manager who felt that as salaried employees, we didn’t deserve comp time, so there were many go-live weeks where we worked seven days or even back-to-back weeks that formed 14-day hits without a break and with no comp time. When we investigated, it turns out the company handbook is mute on the subject and it’s up to manager discretion. This would have been different if we were consultants or if we were bonused on billable hours, but we weren’t. Needless to say, there was a fair amount of turnover under the new manager (me included).

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The negative impact it would have on my health. Too much airport food and booze and not enough sleep or exercise.

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How a travel-heavy job would negatively impact my health. The inability to exercise on a sustained and regular basis, sleep deprivation, constant exposure to sick people on airplanes and buses, and constantly being expected to lavishly entertain clients with lots of alcohol all contributed to a pretty rapid decline in overall health and fitness.

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Join an airlines club like American Admiral. if your employer won’t pay for it, you can usually use miles. When your flights get scrambled, the club staff will get you re-routed faster and with preference.

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It makes it very hard to have a normal social life in your home town. When you travel all week, you tend to want to stay home on the weekends. If you don’t have a strong local social circle, this can make it tough to meet local friends. It also makes it hard to participate in community events or take weeknight classes (i.e. personal enrichment classes). I left a strong social circle in my 30s and moved to a new town on the opposite coast just when I started traveling full time for work, and 10 years later, I have thousands of frequent flyer points (and some fabulous global travels) but not one new friend in my new town. Something to think about.

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As a business traveler, the last thing I want to do on weekends is travel some more. It has affected my desire to do weekend getaways, camping trips, and weekends away with the guys way more than I would have ever expected.

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A travel-heavy job really reduces your ability to be involved in the community, be it board involvement, local government, or coaching a kids’ sports team. Getting involved is a lot easier if you are home every night of the week.

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Sometimes an existing job you took without much travel can later turn into a job with heavy travel expectations, so apparently flexibility is just expected if you want to keep your job.

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The travel T&E policy, in detail. Preferred vendors. Expectations about traveling on Sundays and holidays. Coverage for airplane WiFi. Will I be carting executives around with me all the time? Can I get executives or experts to come with me when I need them?

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How tough it is on your body as you age. Back problems waiting to happen.

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When I was in my 20s and fresh out of graduate school, I took a travel-heavy IT healthcare job that was exciting, challenging, and fulfilling. It was at the inception of the healthcare IT industry in the 1970s and everything we did was new. This lifestyle did not promote the ability to carry out personal relationships in an ideal manner. I was focused on my career and did not consider the long-term ramifications of not having met “Mr. Right.” Eventually I did meet and marry the right person, but by this time I was in my 40s and not able to start a family. We have been happily together now for 25 years and I recently retired from the healthcare IT industry. During this entire time, I continued weekly travel with the exception of a few positions I held as a direct employee of a healthcare system. The travel takes its toll, but the chance to work with many different organizations and people throughout the USA and Canada was very rewarding. My husband used my weekly Monday through Thursday absences as an opportunity to complete his PhD and he continues to work as a professor for a well-known online university.

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Weekender 2/23/18

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Weekly News Recap

• Duke Health earns the first Stage 7 analytics recognition from HIMSS Analytics.
• Practice Fusion, which is being acquired by Allscripts, abandons its ad-supported free EHR program, announcing that it will start charging each physician user $100 per month.
• A leaked Nokia memo says that the company sees no way for its digital health business to become significant, less than two years after creating the business by acquiring France-based Withings for $190 million.
• A JAMA editorial calls for CMS to release Medicare Advantage encounter data.
• Google researchers publish their work in which they applied deep learning to eye photos to accurately identify cardiac risk factors such as age, gender, smoking status, blood pressure, and likelihood of having a heart attack.
• Siemens announces that it will take its Siemens Healthineers medical technology business public in the next few months.
• The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs grills VA Secretary David Shulkin on the VA’s FY2019 budget request, questioning the project cost and interoperability capabilities of the Cerner system the VA wants to buy.

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Best Reader Comments

I’ve been able to really get in and do more work as the CMIO once I understood the company’s mission, vision, and yearly metrics, i.e. executive dashboard. Are they focusing on telehealth this year, pop health, decrease CAUTI, CLABSI, readmissions, etc.? Which one is the darkest red? Be sure to focus some time there. This gets you immediate cred with the execs and the docs if you can deliver something to them into their live environment sooner than later that is easy to use, intuitive, and aligns to the execs’ dashboard. (David Butler)

I’d like to hear more from Ed about his perspective on the current state of professional organizations in terms of their true value and the ability for execs to truly benefit from participating. Beyond local chapters – which by their very nature are limited in breadth of participants – there aren’t many intimate opportunities available. Everything seems to be centered around and in bed with HIMSS. It’s just getting too big and too overtly commercial. Do execs really benefit from these mammoth organizations and infrequent – sometimes only once a year – opportunities for networking and thought leadership development? (SteveS)

Partners will find the savings from their cuts of coders as fool’s gold. There are a lot of hidden costs running an outsourcing development organization. (BeenThere)

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Watercooler Talk Tidbits

 

Readers funded the DonorsChoose teacher grant request of Ms. M in Florida, who asked for programmable Bee-Bots and a robot mouse for her K-5 STEM classes. She reports, “My kids love these little bees and mouse. Bee-Bot is fun for all ages, but it’s a great introduction to younger kids for learning how to code. That is what the coding mouse does as well. Both of them are very similar but have the same effect and are a lot of fun for the kids to play with and learn from. Thank you so much for supporting our classroom, believing in STEM education, helping us teachers, and giving the students a hands-on education.”

CNBC notes that Amazon has launched a lineup of 50 private labeled over-the-counter drugs that it calls Basic Care, potentially drawing foot traffic away from drug chains that make most of their money from walk-ins. Amazon sells a 500-table bottle of ibuprofen 200 mg for $7, about the same as Walmart but nearly half off the price charged by CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. Costco’s Kirkland brand – also sold via Amazon as well as in its stores – has the best price I’ve seen at just $10 for 1,000 tablets.

A review of “Grey’s Anatomy” by trauma surgeons finds that it gives trauma patients an unrealistic expectation of what their stay might look like. TV trauma patients died three times more often than in real life, most went straight from the ED to the OR vs. 25 percent of actual cases, and only a small number of patients transferred to a long-term care facility vs. the real 22 percent. Half of patients left the hospital within a week of serious injury vs. the real-life 20 percent and OR surgeons are often shown not wearing masks and protective eyewear to allow the audience to recognize them. The authors worry that unrealistic patient expectations, fueled by the listing of a medical advisor in the credits, may affect hospital satisfaction scores.They summarize,

American television medical dramas tend to rely on storylines that feature rare diseases, odd presentations of common diseases, fantastic and/or quirky injuries, and mass casualty events, all framed within a ‘realistic’ representation of a typical US hospital. In addition, the dramatic construct of a television serial lend to deviations from reality or accuracy in an effort to preserve the ability to communicate a story within the constraints of a one-hour show.

Maine debates whether veterinarians should be exempt from the state’s prescription monitoring program.

A reader forwarded this mail-merged bulk email from the marketing person at a cloud services company who forgot to the add personalization to her HIMSS pitch. Not only did she recover brilliantly with a witty follow-up email, I’m impressed with her credentials – she has a PhD in neuroscience and co-founded a company that makes a line of bold-flavored organic sauerkraut (Lemon Ginger, Moroccan Fusion, Vindaloo Curry, and Green Chile). They’re offering Colorado beer (hopefully not Coors) at their HIMSS booth happy hour, although the sauerkraut sounds a lot more interesting.

The HIMSS conference is just over a week away. The weather in Las Vegas should be OK, with daytime highs in the mid-60s and nighttime lows in the mid-40s with some clouds and little chance of rain. I was happy to find that even though MGM-owned hotels all charge for parking now, the Venetian-Palazzo complex still doesn’t and that even includes valet (which I used every day last time). Lyft is a good alternative – I’ve had better luck with it in Las Vegas than Uber.

You may recall that after HIMSS18, it’s two straight years in Orlando since HIMSS moved HIMSS19 from Chicago to there, the second time it cancelled McCormick Place (the first time over expensive but indifferent union labor, the second over hotel room rates).

Since there’s no HIStalkapalooza this year, here’s a nostalgia-inducing video from what’s probably my favorite one of all time, the 2012 version in Las Vegas that was sponsored by ESD. I recognize a bunch of folks in the video. The Palazzo restaurant we held it in closed a year later. What you probably don’t know (I just now remembered myself) is that it was originally booked for a Mexican restaurant also in the Palazzo called Dos Caminos that closed without warning on November 15, 2011 following a rent dispute, but the amazing ESD folks had First Food & Bar locked down just a few days later. I seem to recall that their pear-ginger martini was a hit.

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In Case You Missed It

• News 2/23/18
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/22/18
• HIStalk Interviews Neil Smiley, CEO, Loopback Analytics
• CIO Unplugged 2/21/18
• HIStalk Interviews Kamal Patel, CIO, Ellkay
• News 2/21/18
• HIStalk Interviews Tom Skelton, CEO, Surescripts
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 2/19/18
• HIStalk Interviews Jim Causon, CIO, Memorial Hospital
• Monday Morning Update 2/19/18
• What I Wish I’d Known Before … Going to my First HIMSS Conference as an Exhibitor

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Get Involved

• Join my Rolodex to provide occasional news reaction or ideas
• Contribute regularly as a provider CIO, IT director, or informatics nurse (anonymous or not)
• Be interviewed (providers)
• Deliver an educational webinar (providers)
• Sponsor
• Report a news item or rumor (anonymous or not)
• Sign up for email updates
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Contact Mr. H

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Morning Headlines 2/23/18

Duke Health First in the US to be Recognized by HIMSS Analytics for its Advanced Analytical Capabilities

Duke Health (NC) becomes the first health system to earn all three HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 capability and maturity honors – ambulatory EHR, acute care EHR, and the new AMAM analytics model of which Duke is the first Stage 7 winner.

VA Partners With DeepMind to Build Machine Learning Tools to Identify Health Risks for Veterans 

Google’s DeepMind Health subsidiary will use de-identified veteran health records to help the VA develop machine learning algorithms that can predict patient deterioration, initially focusing on acute kidney injury.

Bon Secours Health System to merge with Mercy Health of Ohio

Bon Secours Health System and Mercy Health – both Epic shops – will merge to create an $8 billion health system serving seven states across 1,000 facilities.

News 2/23/18

Top News

Duke Health (NC) becomes the first health system to earn all three HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 capability and maturity honors – ambulatory EHR, acute care EHR, and the new AMAM analytics model of which Duke is the first Stage 7 winner.

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Reader Comments

From Early-Career Epic: “Re: education. My 20-year-goal is to be a C-suite hospital system exec. In researching advanced education, the most-recommended choice is a Master’s of Healthcare Management instead of the MPH I was planning. My undergrad is in management. What path would you suggest I take?” I’ll invite readers to comment, but I would recommend an MBA because: (a) it’s more generalized; (b) it’s more recognized should your healthcare plans not work out; and (c) my impression of the MS in Healthcare Management is that it covers general material that you could learn on the job. Also consider where in the C-suite you’d like to land – the MBA is fine for almost everything except CFO and a clinical position. I love the MPH degree for those who already hold a clinical degree (or plan to get one), but I don’t know that it has as much value as a standalone master’s. I would also suggest that if you’re looking for CEO/COO type jobs, consider a health system’s administrative internship or residency if you’ve got the connections to be named since hospitals frequently move those who are chosen up through the ranks. If your desired path is CIO, you can skip some layers and save some time by spending couple of years as a consultant if you don’t mind the travel, but you’ll still want that MBA. 

From Sunshine: “Re: new Orlando Health CIO. The new CEO came from Rex Healthcare (NC) and the new CIO worked there before Ascension. Final candidates were so weak that she looked like the best choice.” Novlet Mattus was CIO at much-smaller Rex from 2008 to 2012, while Orlando Health CEO David Strong was president of Rex for 10 years until he took the Orlando Health job in early 2015. You see all over healthcare that CEOs of both providers and vendors bring some of their executive entourage along with them when they switch jobs. Some that I’ve known personally in the past seemed to value comfortable loyalty or other unstated factors over competence, but part of being the boss is getting to choose your teams using whatever criteria you want.

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HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor HCTec. The Brentwood, TN-based company offers health IT consulting (full life cycle — including build, enhancements, optimization, and support — ERP, technical services);  revenue cycle consulting (HIM, clinical documentation improvement, case management staffing); and managed services (application support, help desk, legacy application support). The company’s 900 US-based consultants and 250 corporate team members provide services to 1,000 hospitals that can range from supplying a single expert partner to fielding fully-staffed on-site or remote teams. A recent case study describes their work with Saint Luke’s Health System to simultaneously optimize and support Epic, which improved employee satisfaction at a $20 million savings. Thanks to HCTec for supporting HIStalk. 

Listening: Strange Days by The Doors, the 50th anniversary (!) expanded edition. Mr. Mojo was definitely risin’ musically for the occasion at just 23 years of age.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

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People

Deepak Murthy (Box) joins Innovaccer as president and chief business officer.

SSI names Jeff Miller (CSC) chief product officer.

Loyale Healthcare promotes industry long-timer Grattan Smith to EVP of channel strategies.

DirectTrust President, CEO, and Co-Founder David Kibbe, MD, MBA will step down at the end of the year.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Soon to be under the Allscripts umbrella, Practice Fusion will start charging customers $100 monthly subscription fees for its previously free EHR software.

MModal investors inject $70 million into the company through a debt conversion. The speech recognition vendor acquired Landmark Transcription last fall, three years after emerging from bankruptcy.

Eight months after kicking off a $1.5 billion Epic implementation, Mayo Clinic (MN) officials report a 50 percent increase in earnings attributed to reduced Medicaid losses, greater philanthropy gains, increased efficiencies, and strong investment returns.

TractManager acquires Newport Credentialing Solutions, adding the provider enrollment software company to its stable of healthcare sourcing divisions that include MD Buyline and MediTract. TractManager’s CEO is former Cerner President Trace Devanny.

Bon Secours Health System and Mercy Health – both Epic shops – will merge to create an $8 billion health system serving seven states across 1,000 facilities.

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Privacy and Security

University of Virginia Health System notifies 1,882 patients of an 18 month-long malware attack that enabled a hacker to remotely view hospital settings, possibly including PHI, through breached devices.

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Government and Politics

A NEJM Catalyst article calls for Congress to lift its ban on a unique patient ID, enacted in 1998 due to patient privacy concerns even though other countries that issue those identifiers haven’t had problems.

Google’s DeepMind Health subsidiary will use the de-identified health records of 700,000 veterans to help the VA develop machine learning algorithms that can predict patient deterioration, initially focusing on acute kidney injury. DeepMind embarked on a similar project for the NHS last year that became mired in controversy over its failure to comply with UK data privacy laws.

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Innovation and Research

The latest Electronic Prior Authorization National Adoption Scorecard report from CoverMyMeds finds that the integration of EPA software with EHRs has increased year over year, and that prescribers who use a dedicated EPA tool spend 2.5 hours less on PAs than those who use more than one method.

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Other

The local paper highlights employee unrest at Intermountain Healthcare (UT) after it announced it would move 2,300 billing and collections employees to jobs with new outsourcing vendor R1 RCM (formerly Accretive Health). Those employees have voiced concerns about the Chicago-based company’s reputation for shaking down patients at the bedside for payment and other questionably ethical collection practices.

A historically accurate tweet from BIDMC CIO and gentleman farmer John Halamka, MD.

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Sponsor Updates

• ESD publishes an explainer video of ARI, the cloud-based project management tool that it will demonstrate at HIMSS.
• EClinicalWorks posts customer success stories for Petaluma Health Center (CA) and Prime Care Family Practice (VA).
• Idaho Business Review profiles Healthwise SVP of Consumer Health Experiences Christy Calhoun.
• Boston Children’s Hospital joins the TriNetX Global Health Research Network.
• Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency adopts the Carequality framework via its Netsmart EHR.
• ChartLogic will exhibit at the 2018 AAOS Meeting in New Orleans March 7-9.
• Health Catalyst customers document 125 performance improvements including lower mortality, higher revenue, and better patient experiences using its data, analytics, and professional services.
• Amion adds PerfectServe’s clinical communication and collaboration platform to its physician scheduling software.
• Kyruus will present at Elasticon 2018 February 28 in San Francisco.
• Visage Imaging announces GA of Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform version 7.1.11.
• PatientSafe Solutions will release new features for its PatientTouch communications software at HIMSS.
• Mobile Heartbeat releases Version 18.1 of its MH-CURE clinical communications and collaboration platform.
• Definitive Healthcare adds ICD-10 claims analytics for 2016, plus dashboards for hospital financial comparisons and quality performance, to its database of healthcare market research.
• Cerner adds real-time prescription benefit data from Surescripts to its Millenium EHR.

Blog Posts

• 3 Keys to Staying on Top of Your Underpayments (Hayes Management Consulting)
• EHR Implementation: Solutions to Common Staffing Problems (The HCI Group)
• 5 Critical Details to Include in Every HIT Project Communication Plan (Spok)
• CIO Chat – Andrew Rosenberg, MD Michigan Medicine and the University of Michigan (Huntzinger Management Group)
• 2018: The Return to Innovation (Iatric Systems)
• CTG Acquires Soft Company (CTG)
• Treating the “whole person” in vulnerable California communities (Nordic)
• How to Pick the Best CMS for Your Healthcare Organization (Influence Health)
• Checklist to Make Your Time at HIMSS18 Count (InstaMed)
• Provider Data Management: The Foundation for Successful Digital Marketing (Kyruus)
• Repair Hospital Supply Chain Data Breaks to Protect Patient Safety (First Databank)
• Treating the “whole person” in vulnerable California communities (Nordic)

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Contacts

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

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/22/18

The pre-HIMSS madness has started, with companies starting to churn out press releases that try to act very important but don’t actually say much. More than a few vendors save up even the smallest tidbits to try to release them for HIMSS, but miss the fact that their news is just going to get lost in the shuffle. The buzz words are out in full force, so for those of you playing along at home I offer up a HIMSS18 Buzzword Bingo card for your enjoyment:

Some vendors are sending out sneak peeks of what will be in their booths, but quite a few others are sending cold-call type emails that are sometimes registering as spam. One arrived today thanking me for my interest in a particular company and asking me to click to verify my email address. It was a mainstream vendor, so I didn’t think a lot about it, but on the other hand, it sounded more like phishing so I decided to take a pass. Vendors need to think twice about the wording in their messaging (or hire public relations people who will think about it) if they want to truly get attention and not be accused of spamming people.

Other vendors are going for the “wow factor,” with Imprivata shipping this HIMSS survival kit. In addition to protein bars and 5-hour energy shots, it has both plastic and metal water bottles, along with lip balm. The red survival kit has tissues, hand sanitizer, vitamin C supplements, and lollipops. The cutest part is the little black trinket stuck above the Imprivata logo – it’s a camera cover for your laptop, that slides to cover or reveal the lens depending on your needs. Usually I keep a piece of tape over my camera, but I’m going to test drive their slider and see how it does. I had some accidental camera exposure on a call several weeks ago, when I had to switch laptops at the last moment. It was one of those “crazy ponytail” days with an unmade hotel bed in the background, and the person I was talking to wondered why I covered my camera abruptly.

CMS announced its Annual Call for Measures for Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals participating in Medicare EHR incentive programs. They’re looking for measures to be included for rules that are made during 2019 and would be optional in 2020 and required starting in 2021. CMS is looking for measures that build on Certified EHR Technology and increase interoperability, along with those that might improve program efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility. Last on their list (although most clinicians might say it should be first) are measures that address patient outcomes and emphasize patient safety.

Much as there is increasing research into distracted driving, I’d like to propose some evaluation in the latter two categories that would look at distracted practicing. It’s increasingly hard to focus on the patient when you’re busy with data gathering, finding the right fields for documentation, and fielding clinical decision support popups. As systems become more sophisticated, I sometimes feel like I’m in the cockpit of a fighter jet rather than trying to care for patients.

CMS is also eager to find measures that would reduce reporting burden, avoid duplication of previous measures, and include an “emerging certified health IT functionality or capability.” It’s sexy to focus on new features, but how about allowing physicians to focus on the technology they already have and learn to use it well? I see numerous physicians who are underusing features such as order sets and clinical decision support, which should be able to drive clinical outcomes, reduce inappropriate ordering, and improve efficiency. They also tend to under use features that would make them not only more efficient but more satisfied with their systems, such as personalization features and individual preferences. Those features take time to set up on the front end but pay dividends on the back end, Shortsighted physicians who skip the pre-work wind up with many more clicks down the road.

Speaking of CMS programs, physicians continue to vote with their feet, not only opting out of the incentive programs, but by opting out of Medicare altogether. Based on data from the Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) as of the end of the year, more than 16,000 physicians have filed affidavits to opt out of Medicare. The number was down in 2017 from a peak of more then 7,000 in 2016, but the overall trend is concerning. I recently received my letter from the Department of Health and Human Services detailing the penalty I’ll be taking this year. Since I’m in an employed situation and my practice isn’t participating in the incentive programs, there’s not much to be done. But if I were back in private practice, I might start thinking twice about CMS participation vs. moving to a practice that doesn’t have a payer-based compensation system. Nearly 40 percent of my residency class is now in practices that are either retainer-based or offer substantial savings through cash-only services.

I’m in a no-travel zone leading up to HIMSS, which I desperately need after my most recent travel experience. After a flight that included some turbulence that felt a bit like the prelude to astronaut training, I made it to my hotel and found this little guy in my bed. Fortunately I spied him (or her) right when I came through the door and not after I had gotten settled in. I’m not sure what it is (it seemed too large to be a bed bug and not quite the right shape), but I am waiting to hear back from an entomologist friend. Although the hotel was apologetic (and moved me to a top floor corner suite), it’s unsettling. I’m hoping the only living thing in my room at the Venetian is a CMIO with tired feet, although a plant would be OK too.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in a hotel room? Email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.