News 1/10/25

Top News

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

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

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

Reader Comments

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

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

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sales

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

People

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

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

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

Other

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 1/9/25

The hot topic around the virtual water cooler this week was the push to use real-world evidence (RWE) while caring for patients. This topic has become more relevant as increasing number of clinicians have access to RWE while caring for patients.

This kind of data can have particular strengths, including demonstrating how medications and other treatments actually work with real patient populations versus those found in clinical trials. It can also be used for post-marketing surveillance of new drugs and treatments.

However, there can be challenges depending on how clinicians are looking at the data. For example, if you’re looking at how clinicians are treating certain types of patients, one has to still understand why they might be choosing those therapies and whether those patterns are consistent with the evidence from rigorous clinical trials.

If you don’t take that into consideration, there can be a slippery slope where “everyone’s doing it, I should too” overrules graded recommendations. Depending on how data is sourced, there’s the potential for RWE to function as an echo chamber.

For example, if a large health system is pulling RWE data from their EHR, it’s going to be influenced by the formularies that are in place at its facilities. One might not see more appropriate treatment patterns that better match conventional evidence because the majority of drugs that are being prescribed for a given condition are done so in order to achieve formulary compliance and to avoid prior authorizations or additional work.

The consensus among physicians in the discussion was that real-world evidence has its place, but it shouldn’t overshadow the recommendations that are gleaned from robust clinical trials or gathered through expert consensus.

Mr. H. mentioned it earlier this week, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include my own mention of the Lown Institute’s 2024 Shkreli Awards, recognizing “the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare.” The list is named after so-called pharma bro Martin Shkreli. If you’re not familiar with his exploits, I would recommend spending a minute or two with your favorite search engine.

There have been a number of terrible individuals and organizations in healthcare over the last several decades. I might have reconsidered my career choices had I known how bad it could be. My academic advisor had a sweet job lined up for me in the world of publication, and although I’m sure it would have been interesting, I can’t imagine it would have been as much of a thrill ride as healthcare has been.

For people who are new to the industry, I would encourage you to look at previous iterations of the Awards. Many of you are inspired and altruistic, and previous lists will provide some clues about things to watch out for.

This year’s list includes a medical school that failed to notify the next of kin before selling the body parts of the deceased, inappropriate procedures to “treat” infant tongue ties, exorbitant air ambulance bills, the focus on profits of private equity hospitals, and insurance companies behaving badly. Although it only ranked fourth on the list of 10, my personal pick for the worst of the worst is an oncologist who recommended unnecessary cancer treatment for patients. Let me know if you have other callouts for folks that should have made the list but didn’t.

Speaking of tacky behavior, I recently received a so-called “grateful patient” solicitation from an organization where I recently received care. The problem is that the care I received was not in keeping with the standard of care and left me confused, concerned, and a witness to a HIPAA violation. I reported these issues to the provider at the time of care and was asked to reflect them in my patient survey when I received it. I did that and have had exactly zero contact from the institution. Let’s see if attaching a summary of my recent visit to the grateful patient response card inspires anyone there to reach out.

I admit that I fall victim to clickbait-style headlines as much as the next person, so this one caught my attention: “Hospital at home needs an ‘Uber app,’ Mayo Clinic leader says.” The piece features comments from Michael Maniaci MD, chief clinical officer of advanced care at home for the organization. He notes that Mayo Clinic can’t scale beyond its current volume of 30-35 patients per day due to lack of coordination for staffing, supply, and other patient needs. He states, “Imagine an Uber app where the car chassis, the tires, the fuel, the engine, and the driver all show up separately. You have the tubing coming from someplace, prescription medication coming from another place, the nurse coming from one place, the DME and the pump coming from another place — and they all have to show up at the same time.”

Sounds a bit like what healthcare organizations have been doing in other developed countries for years, minus the “we need an app” bit. I have a medical school classmate who worked for an organization in Germany that provided care to patients in their homes. It sent out a fully equipped medical vehicle that was stocked with almost everything you could receive from a high-acuity urgent care or freestanding emergency department. Another classmate who worked in the United Kingdom was partnered with public health nurses who rounded on patients and provided care beyond what we consider typical nursing care in the US.

For these models to be successful, you need a certain degree of vertical integration that we don’t typically have in our fragmented healthcare system. When your insurance contracts with a home care agency that isn’t affiliated with the hospital from which you were just discharged, there will be disconnects. I’m not convinced that an app is the answer, and would instead put my money on concepts that align all facets of care with the patient and their outcomes rather than aligning with profit motives or passing the buck to other agencies.

Another article that caught my eye this week was a viewpoint piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association that addressed health privacy and the use of synthetic data. Although this approach can help mitigate issues with insufficient private health data, it introduces additional challenges due to the fact that healthcare is a complicated and highly regulated environment. The authors note difficulties in creating data points that accurately represent rare conditions or highly complex clinical presentations such as scenarios that take place in the intensive care unit. There is also the risk of bias with synthetic data particularly when it is used at scale.

They go on to state the need for standards to generate and evaluate synthetic data. I woud be interested to hear from readers who are involved in organizational use of synthetic data and the approaches that are being taken to ensure that the promise is fulfilled.

Shortly after many people around the world rang in the New Year with a cocktail, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a recommendation that alcohol products receive a warning label that advises consumers of the increased cancer risk associated with alcohol consumption. This would literally require an act of Congress. As we head towards HIMSS and another year of conferences, it will be interesting to see if health-forward organizations continue hosting alcohol-laden happy hours in their booths or if they use it as an opportunity to trim budgets as well as to promote health.

Will you reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption based on these recommendations? Whether yes or no, what’s your favorite beverage pick for 2025? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 1/9/25

Transcarent To Acquire Accolade

Transcarent, which offers a member-focused benefits navigation, clinical guidance, and virtual care platform, will acquire personalized healthcare platform developer Accolade for $621 million.

Red Rover Health Raises $4 Million in Funding to Grow Healthcare App Store Platform

Healthcare app integration company Red Rover Health raises $4 million in seed funding.

Warburg Pincus explores $5 billion-plus sale of Modernizing Medicine, sources say

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus is reportedly considering selling Modernizing Medicine, which it first invested in eight years ago and considered selling in 2022.

MDaudit Announces Strategic Growth Investment from Bregal Sagemount and Primus Capital

Medical billing company MDaudit announces new funding from Bregal Sagemount and Prime Capital.

Net Health Acquires Alinea Engage to Further Optimize Patient Engagement and Outcomes in Rehab Therapy

Wound care and rehab therapy software company Net Health acquires rehab therapy-focused automation and patient engagement software vendor Alinea Engage.

Healthcare AI News 1/8/25

News

FDA issues draft guidance for supporting development and marketing of AI-enabled devices throughout the Total Product Life Cycle. It also publishes draft guidance for the use of AI to support development of drugs and biologicals.

Women’s health smart ring maker Movano announces EvieAI, a chatbot that was trained on peer-review medical journals. The company said in its CES announcement that the chatbot’s accuracy is 99%.

Law professors suggest that the Supreme Court’s recent overruling of the Chevron Doctrine — which allows federal agencies, rather than courts, to interpret and implement statutes when authorized by Congress — could impact the FDA’s ability to regulate AI, as its approach often relies on non-binding guidance documents and position papers.

Business

Hartford HealthCare implements Aidoc’s AI platform, which includes 17 FDA-cleared algorithms.

UK-based digital pathology vendor Deciphex raises $32 million in a Series C funding round.

Research

Researchers in China develop a health insurance fraud detection model for insurers and auditors.

A study finds that while AI is effective at making a diagnosis when fed exam-style questions, if fares worse when analyzing real-world conversations. The authors make these recommendations for AI developers:

• Train and test systems on conversational, open-ended questions as are found in unstructured doctor-patient conversations.
• Assess the model’s ability to ask the right questions.
• Design models to work across multiple conversations.
• Design models that can capture both textual data and images.
• Incorporate non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, voice tone, and body language.

Other

A health news site lists ways that North Carolina providers are using AI:

• Analyzing lung nodule scans to predict cancer risk (Atrium Health).
• Electronic follow-up with patients who have received a hip or knee replacement (OrthoCarolina).
• ED scanning of images to detect serious conditions (Novant Health).
• AI-drafted responses to patient portal messages (Atrium Health and WakeMed).
• Cognitive impairment detection (Wake Forest University School of Medicine).
• Flagging patients who are due a follow-up visit or imaging (Wake Forest Baptist).
• Early detection of sepsis (Duke Health, UNC Health).
• Suicide risk assessment (Novant Health).
• Optimizing OR use by predicting the length of surgical procedures (Duke Health).
• Answering provider administrative questions (UNC Health).

A popular TV journalist in Israel who lost his voice due to Lou Gehrig’s disease returns to Channel 12 by using AI that was trained on his voice to narrate his stories.

Health authorities in Sudan are hoping that AI can perform some of the work of doctors who have been killed in the country’s civil war.

A bioethicist warns that healthcare AI systems that allow customization could restrict exposure to important information in catering  to the user’s preferences and biases. She presents distinctions between systems that are customized for information discovery and those intended for information delivery.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Morning Headlines 1/8/25

NeuroFlow Announces Strategic Deal to Incorporate Intermountain Health’s Sophisticated Behavioral Health Risk Model into NeuroFlow’s Analytics Suite

Behavioral health technology and analytics vendor NeuroFlow acquires a behavioral health analytics module developed by Intermountain Health.

Highlander Health Announces Inaugural Investment of Target RWE

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

Onrad Inc. Acquires Direct Radiology in a Move That Expands Capabilities, Enhances Quality and Outcomes

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

Providence Ventures spins out, forms Allumia Ventures

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

HHS Office for Civil Rights Settles 8th Ransomware Investigation with Elgon Information Systems

Massachusetts-based Elgon Information Systems will pay $80,000 to settle federal allegations related to its failure to prevent a March 2023 ransomware attack that would up exposing the protected health information of 31,000 patients.

News 1/8/25

Top News

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

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

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

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

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

Sales

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

People

Direct Recruiters promotes Stephen Benson and Bradley Morrison to partners.

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

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

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

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

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

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

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

Other

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

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

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

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 1/7/25

Virtual visits to play an increased role as a part of Marshfield, Sanford merger

Sanford Health (SD) and Marshfield Clinic Health System (WI) expect to offer additional virtual care services to their respective patient populations as a result of Sanford’s recently finalized acquisition of Marshfield.

AirStrip Technologies Adds Clinical Decision Support Capabilities with Strategic Acquisition of DECISIO Health

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

FDA Issues Comprehensive Draft Guidance for Developers of Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Medical Devices

The FDA publishes draft development and marketing recommendations for developers of AI-enhanced medical devices, with comments due April 7.

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 1/6/25

Since the Snowpocalypse is upon large portions of the US, I decided to show solidarity by staying home, making baked goods, and working on my reading list.

I’ve gravitated towards audiobooks in a big way. They have become my preferred way to consume fiction because I can enjoy them while doing household tasks, driving, and in many more situations than I can enjoy a paper book or even one on my trusty Kindle. For non-fiction, I still like to have a physical book in hand, especially one that references previous sections or chapters since it’s so much easier to flip back and forth.

This weekend’s paper read was one I had picked up from the library a number of weeks ago. I decided to finish it so that it could go back into circulation. I was originally drawn to the book through a reference in an article I was reading that talked about how the internet is responsible for making people “dumber.”

Barely into the first chapter, I was seeing parallels between the book’s discussion of how true expertise is being devalued and the conversation I had recently with a colleague who cited “patients arguing with me all the time” as the chief source of her burnout. The first chapter addresses the idea of differentiating “experts” from “citizens” and the role that each has played in society. Experts typically have specific credentials, although the book identifies different levels of experts bearing credentials: those with aptitude or talent or experience in the field who also have credentials, and those who just have credentials.

We see the latter in medicine and I see it often in the startup world. People who have the MD or DO degree decided to go into business rather than completing a residency, and thus have never cared for patients independently or learned to bear the direct individual responsibility for another person’s life. It’s different when you’re talking about lives in the abstract or in the aggregate than when you’re sitting at the bedside with a patient and family whose treatment didn’t go the way they expected. Those with credentials but not experience or aptitude may be charismatic and may be recognized as entrepreneurs, but they will never be recognized in the same way as a physician who actually went through the steps to be board certified and to carry that kind of a load personally.

Partway through the first chapter, I had to check on its publication date. The copy I had in hand was a first edition version from 2017. On one hand, I was relieved, because reading about the debacle that was the first couple of years of COVID is still triggering for me as a frontline provider who had COVID deniers coughing in my face during the 12-hour shifts that were nearly always 14 hours long.

A lot of us who went through that experience felt at the time that COVID had magnified the willingness of patients to argue with us, largely due to conspiracy theories and medical misinformation that was found all around us. But the book reminds us that it was happening well before then, which reminds me of a patients who would arrive with stacks of pages printed from internet blogs that they would cite as evidence for the treatments they were demanding.

The book also talks about influencers and uses Gwyneth Paltrow and her GOOP brand as a prime example. I’ll admit my bias upfront here – it is my strong personal belief that “influencers” will be the death of Western Civilization as we know it. I remember when I was a kid, and there was such a focus on the idea of peer pressure and how it was something to be avoided, and that people should be critical thinkers and use their own values rather than doing something just because their friends were doing it.

The in-your-face nature of influencers and the rise of social media and TikTok have been terrible for many segments of the population, whether it’s because they wind up in the emergency room after doing some inane TikTok Challenge or whether they waste their money on unproven treatments or so-called wellness products that are more multilevel marketing than evidence-based.

The book has a short section on conspiracy theories that made me chuckle. At least to me in hindsight, the conspiracy theories that were out there in 2017 were far more benign than some of those we hear today. There’s an interesting section on how changes in higher education have led to the death of expertise, including the up-branding of small local colleges to universities without a commensurate change in the education they’re delivering, along with an attitude that people attend college or university because they are pressured to do so or feel they have to as a next logical step in their lives.

The author talks about the difference between “having a college experience” and “getting an education” and how the former has changed attitudes at institutions of learning. We’ve definitely seen this in healthcare and I’ve seen it quite a bit in the for-profit healthcare training programs out there. Graduates come out of some of these programs with no experience other than shadowing, which is truly a travesty.

My favorite chapter is the one titled “Let Me Google That for You,” which really should be the anthem for my generation. I run into a lot of people who think that because it’s on the internet it must be true, and I agree with the author that many people don’t have the skills to critically appraise their sources and to determine whether they should be trusted. Honestly, if I see one more friend posting on “cough CPR” — which is where if you think you’re having a heart attack while driving you are supposed to cough forcefully while driving yourself to the hospital — I am going to scream. This is a myth and that has been debunked by numerous reputable sources. I always post links to those sources when I see that post and remind people that if you think you’re having a heart attack while driving, you should pull over and dial 911 or hit the emergency button on your phone rather than trying to drive yourself and risk the lives of those around you.

Even in 2017, the author touches on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and vaccines and other medical misinformation. He reminds us that “a search for information will cough up whatever algorithm is at work in a search engine, usually provided by for-profit companies using criteria that are largely opaque to the user.”

He notes that “The deeper issue here is that the Internet is actually changing the way we read, the way we reason, even the way we think, and all for the worse. We expect information instantly. We want it broken down, presented in a way that is pleasing to our eye – no more of those small-type, fragile textbooks, thank you – and we want it to say what we want it to say.”

People do not do research so much as they “search for pretty pages online to provide answers they like with the least amount of effort and in the shortest time.” The resulting flood of information, always of varying quality and sometimes of uncertain sanity, creates a veneer of knowledge that actually leaves people worse off than if they knew nothing at all. It’s an old but true saying: “It ain’t what you don’t know that will hurt you. It’s what you do know that ain’t so.”

He also tackles the evolution of journalism (fun fact: I now know the origins of the TV show “Nightline”) and reviews some specific studies from the University College of London about how people often interact with the internet by “reading” articles by consuming the first few lines or sentences and then going on to the next thing.

The phrase “power browse” was used and I definitely see that in some of my own behavior, usually when I’m trying to cull through all the noise out there in order to write for HIStalk. It’s useful in that context, but might be dangerous if I’m trying to read about patient care or learn the nuances about a specific course of treatment. It makes me wonder how easily people can shift between those approaches in the fragmented timeline of a day caring for patients.

The book is a relatively quick read at 230 pages, and of course you can power browse it if you’re not quite ready for a deep read. I’d encourage the latter, however, because they author has a couple of really funny statements in there that I would have missed by skimming.

Have you read it and what did you think? Any other good reads you’d recommend for 2025? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 1/6/25

Telehealth Company Pays $386,000 to Resolve Allegations of Overbilling for Medicare Telehealth Time

Meditelecare will pay $386,000 to settle federal allegations that it knowingly overbilled Medicare for virtual psychotherapy sessions that didn’t meet minimum time requirements using falsified time records.

Veradigm interim CFO gets another term extension

Veradigm extends the six-month contract of interim CFO Leland Westerfield for the second time after having fired its CEO and CFO in December 2023 for failing to comply with financial reporting.

2025’s Top-Rated EHR Vendors Across 40 Medical & Surgical Specialties: Black Book Insights Into Innovation and Client-Centric Excellence

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

Monday Morning Update 1/6/25

Top News

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

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

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

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

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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

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

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

People

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

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

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

Announcements and Implementations

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

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

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

Sponsor Updates

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

Blog Posts

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

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 1/3/25

Watsonville hospital says data of some patients may be at risk after cyber attack

Watsonville Community Hospital (CA) begins notifying patients that their data may have been compromised in a late November ransomware attack.

DoD announces completion of pilot to identify medical AI vulnerabilities

The DoD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office finds 800 potential vulnerabilities and biases during a recently concluded large language model pilot that compared three LLMs and their ability to enhance military medical care as a part of clinical note summarization and an advisory chatbot.

Implementation of Billing for Patient Portal Messages as E-Visits in a Large Integrated Health System

A Mayo Clinic analysis finds that patient portal messaging dropped 8.8% from the previous year after the health system implemented billing for select e-visits.

Morning Headlines 12/31/24

UnitedHealth’s Army of Doctors Helped It Collect Billions More From Medicare

Patients who switched to UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage plans and were seen at the company’s owned and affiliated practices saw an immediate 55% rise in sickness scores as its software pushed doctors to consider often irrelevant or incorrect diagnoses to boost payments.

Will AI Help or Hurt Workers? One 26-Year-Old Found an Unexpected Answer.

A study finds that use of AI boosted the scientific output of the top 10% of researchers, had little impact on less-accomplished ones, and was disliked by 82% of scientists overall because it took away the parts of their job they enjoyed most.

Siemens reviewing Healthineers majority stake, CFO tells Handelsblatt

Siemens says the synergies of its 75% ownership of Siemens Healthineers don’t justify its $47 billion investment, leading it to review the business’s prospects and announce its intentions toward the end of 2025.

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 12/30/24

The end of the year is within striking distance. I was fortunate to have a nice break since nearly everyone who I work with was taking time off.

Running your own business can be labor intensive, so now it’s time to finish up those end of year accounting reports and get ready to open the books on a new one. I enjoy opening a nice, clean spreadsheet, probably a holdover from the heady days of picking out school supplies and having brand new Pink Pearl erasers at your disposal. Maybe I should start the new year with some brand new shoes as well. I’m sure there will be something sparkly in the post-New Year’s sales that would be suitable for HIMSS. 

Plenty of people ask me what I predict will happen in healthcare and healthcare IT in the coming year. I think we are going to see a lot more conversation about the role of insurance in the healthcare system and how it needs to change. Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be all talk and little action, as powerful lobbying forces work to prevent any kind of substantive change. Profit is a powerful motivator, and shareholders aren’t going to stand for lower returns when more dollars are spent on patient care.

There will also continue to be resistance to any kind of universal healthcare, despite the fact that other developed nations do a pretty good job at it, with better clinical outcomes at a lower overall cost. Anecdotal stories about people who had to wait for care in Canada will continue to sway opinions, despite the fact that care rationing and delays have been the norm in the US for years if you don’t have “good” insurance that comes at a hefty price.

One prediction that I think many of us would agree with is that Epic will continue to grow market share. Given the uncertainties at Oracle Health, Epic is a safe bet when you’re about to open your wallet to the tune of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Small to mid-sized practices might continue to select niche EHR vendors for a particular specialty, especially if they have a low need to integrate with the local health system, but everyone else is gravitating towards the folks in Wisconsin.

Hopefully, this leads to more patients demanding full use of the Epic solutions, including self-scheduling or the lower-key ticket scheduling option, which would allow patients to have greater control over the services they receive without having to make inconvenient phone calls to try to book appointments. I still marvel at the number of organizations that haven’t implemented these features and am always happy to have a conversation with the physicians who are typically blocking their implementation.

Another prediction: physicians will continue to leave medicine earlier than they planned, particularly if they are in primary care. I hear from a number of former colleagues who are trying to find non-patient-care roles and who think that informatics is a logical jump. I advise them that it takes more than being an EHR user to be a successful informaticist and recommend that they do some formal coursework before they decide that it’s the next phase of their career.

It feels like the majority of physicians I know have some kind of side hustle (including real estate, life coaching, crafting, baking, and photography) that they are hoping to grow to a point where it can generate income if they are too burned out to practice. I’ve already received notice of three retirements this year, along with one offer to buy a practice for an insanely low price that I gently declined.

As for non-physician workers, I think we’ll continue to see more of the so-called “quiet quitting” and “coffee badging” phenomena. People are continuing to realize that employer loyalty is a thing of the past in many areas. They will work the amount that they feel is appropriate for what they are being paid.

I think we’ll see this more in people who feel they have been forced to be physically present in the office when it does nothing for their productivity. It’s hard to build culture when you demand that people interact just because they receive a paycheck from a common employer even though they don’t even work in the same sector as others who are also forced into the office. I have a couple of friends that drive 20 to 30 minutes to their offices every day to engage in back-to-back Zoom meetings with team members who are located in other states. One goes to an office that is a non health-related division of a large corporation, but it has the same logo as their paycheck and is within 60 miles, so it’s required. Based on our conversations it’s not making for a happy work environment and employees will do the bare minimum in person so as to not be penalized. 

My final prediction is that we’ll continue to see companies try to enter the health sector because they think that they are smarter than everyone else who has been there before, which positions them uniquely to solve problems that are significantly more complex than they think. They will raise a fair amount of money along the way by convincing people that they are unique or have special skills, but I think we’ll see the majority of these companies fizzle out in the same way as their predecessors. I’m hoping that they’ll be smarter about how they operate than the last crop of startups, but I guarantee that we’ll see plenty of them blowing through cash and parading around at the trade shows. It’s what makes the industry interesting at times, and even though you want to look away, you can’t, because it’s just such a spectacle.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t end 2025 with a mention of the passing of former US President Jimmy Carter, who reached age 100 and died at home after choosing hospice care over more invasive treatments. His desire to pass with grace and dignity is admirable and resonates in a particular way with those of us who have had to perform so-called heroic measures on patients who most likely would not have wanted them had they fully understood what was involved. Carter is remarkable less for his presidency than for what he did following it, working to advance the democratic process around the world and to demonstrate a culture of service at home. He embodied service throughout his life, from his time with the US Navy to the White House to Habitat for Humanity and beyond. There’s a lot of talk about servant leadership out there, but he embodied it. Today’s leaders could learn a lot from his example. My condolences to his family and loved ones.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 12/30/24

HIPAA Security Rule to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Electronic Protected Health Information

HHS OCR issues a proposed update to the HIPAA security rule.

Equasens: strategic acquisition of Calimed, a SaaS software expert for private practitioners and surgeons

France-based medical professional software vendor Equasens acquires Calimed, which sells practice management systems to specialty practices.

Health Tech Company Laying Off 430 – Missouri Workers Impacted

GetInsured by Vimo, which operates healthcare marketplace shopping and enrollment websites in seven states, files a WARN act notice that it will lay off 430 US workers.

Monday Morning Update 12/30/24

Top News

HHS OCR issues a proposed update to the HIPAA security rule, which hasn’t been changed since 2013, to modernize the required cybersecurity practices of covered entities and their business associates.

Reader Comments

From Opus Two: “Re: VA salary cuts. A friend who is a VISN executive is about to finish reclassification of 4,000 lower-level, non-clinical jobs, which will result in sharp pay cuts. The reclassification was recommended in 2012, but the VA was able to avoid cuts by arguing that the jobs are critical. The VA also plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000 FTEs, primarily within medical facilities, during FY2025.” The American Federal of Government Employees union is pressing the VA to stop considering all position downgrades, arguing that they will hurt hiring and retention. Like all federal agencies, the VA claims that that it is understaffed (at 471,000 employees) and disputes the characterization that it never fires underperformers.

From E: “Re: Philips. More ‘silent layoffs’ that avoid drawing attention to their stock dropping.” The company has reportedly laid off around 10,000 employees in the past year or two. PHG shares are up 10% over the past 12 months, but are off nearly 60% from their five-year high in April 2021.

From Ken: “Re: VA EHRM. Is nobody noticing that the plan is now to have no implementations in 2025?” The VA says that its next Oracle Health go-live has been moved back again, this time until mid-2026. Its most recent of its six live VA Medical Centers was in March 2024, although that’s with an asterisk because it was at Lovell FHCC, which is jointly operated between the VA and DoD. Oracle Health is live in three of the VA’s 18 VISNs (Veterans Integrated Services Networks), with the planned Michigan go-lives in 2026 adding no new ones since VISN 10 is already live in Columbus, OH. The VA originally said that all of its deployments would be completed by 2028, 10 years after it signed a $10 billion no-bid contract with Cerner. A VA-commissioned  independent life cycle cost estimate in 2022 said the project will cost more than $50 billion.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

It’s Christmas or nothing for the most important winter holiday, most poll respondents said.

New poll to your right or here: Where does today’s health AI fall on the Gartner Hype Cycle?

I usually throw out an invitation for companies whose marketing budget resets on January 1 to contact me about becoming an HIStalk sponsor, which unlike conference booths or pay-for-play video interviews, offers benefits for a full year. I’ll even add a spiff or two for startups (the definition of which is beneficially vague to such prospects) or former sponsors who come back.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Telemedicine provider Avel ECare acquires Hospital Pharmacy Management, which offers remote pharmacy order verification and hospital pharmacy management.

William Febbo, CEO of drug company marketing technology firm OptimizeRx, leaves the company

Sales

• Duly Health will implement Pro Medicus’s Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform in a 10-year, $19 million contract.

People

Workforce management technology vendor Hallmark hires Michelle Lichte (Nordic Consulting Partners) as chief client success officer and promotes Brandon Chamberland to chief strategy and partnerships officer.

Haffty Consulting promotes Mark Valutkevich to VP of client services.

Announcements and Implementations

Critics warn that Health New Zealand’s planned layoff of 1,100 digital and data jobs will impact patient care and increase the risk of cyberattacks. Health NZ said two weeks ago that it will cancel or defer 136 IT projects in hopes of saving $62 million following government budget cuts. It had previously diverted funds from its widely touted Patient Summary data sharing system to stabilize its aging, unstable payroll system.

A new study finds that telehealth visits are not reliable for diagnosis tonsillitis due to the lack of ability to remotely assess all of the CENTOR diagnostic criteria (fever, tonsillar exudates, lymph node tenderness, and absence of cough) to determine if antibiotics are indicated.

Other

It’s probably more true now than ever, due to declining reading comprehension and pervasive clickbait, that the headline writer is more influential than the reporter. Shame on NPR for making TL;DR types think that Y2K was an IT cry-wolf overreaction or meme-to-be, while the actual story acknowledges that January 1, 2000 was uneventful only because an army of programmers — many of them gray-haired COBOL coders who were brought out of retirement — reviewed and fixed billions of lines of legacy code by the hard-stop due date.

Contacts

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

Morning Headlines 12/27/24

Digital health companies got pummeled by Wall Street in 2024 as industry adapts to post-Covid slowdown

A CNBC analysis of 39 publicly traded digital health companies finds that two-thirds lost value in 2024 ,with high-profile stumbles by Teladoc Health, Progyny, GoodRx, Dexcom, and 23andMe.  

Adoption of “hospital-at-home” programs remains concentrated among larger, urban, not-for-profit and academic hospitals

Researchers find that CMS’s four-year-old program that encourages a home alternative to hospital admission will need to offer different incentives to expand to smaller, rural, and non-teaching hospitals.

Providers Used Medicare Part D Eligibility Verification Transactions for Permissible Purposes

An HHS OIG investigation finds minimal improper use of Medicare Part D prescription eligibility transactions by providers after CMS tightened controls.

Avel eCare Announces the Acquisition of Hospital Pharmacy Management to Enhance Pharmacy Telemedicine Services

Telemedicine provider Avel ECare acquires Hospital Pharmacy Management, which offers remote pharmacy order verification and hospital pharmacy management.

Morning Headlines 12/24/24

Health care AI, intended to save money, turns out to require a lot of expensive humans

The cost effectiveness of AI in healthcare is questioned due to the need for humans to overcome implementation and maintenance challenges as well as to monitor for algorithm performance degradation over time.

App Registration, Delay No More

ASTP says it has received reports that Certified API developers are obstructing patient access to their electronic health information through cumbersome registration practices, which may be non-conformities under the Health IT Certification Program.

Seer Medical, which received $30m from Victoria’s venture capital fund, enters administration

Australia-based Seer Medical, whose at-home epilepsy monitoring equipment was recalled in August in the US and Australia, files bankruptcy.

Health NZ’s IT cutbacks: Faults could ‘snowball’, report warns

A report concludes that the proposed layoff of 1,100 data and digital employees by Health New Zealand is likely to impact patient care, extend the time required to resolve system failures, and increase the risk of cyberattacks.