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Morning Headlines 1/11/23

January 10, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/11/23

LeanTaaS Acquires Hospital IQ to Create AI Innovator for Hospital Operations Optimization

Capacity management and patient flow software vendor LeanTaaS acquires Hospital IQ, which offers hospital automation solutions.

Avel eCare Announces the Acquisition of NightWatch to Expand Pharmacy Telemedicine Services

National telemedicine provider Avel ECare acquires after-hours remote pharmacy service NightWatch.

20 Ontario Hospitals Transition to Meditech Expanse as Members of the ONE Shared Service Organization

In Canada, 23 hospitals form a shared services IT organization as they implement a shared instance of Meditech Expanse.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/11/23

News 1/11/23

January 10, 2023 News 7 Comments

Top News

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Capacity management and patient flow software vendor LeanTaaS acquires Hospital IQ, which offers hospital automation solutions.


Webinars

January 19 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Supercharge Your Clinical Data Searches.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Paul Robbins, MSMBA, VP of product, Particle. Particle’s team will preview the exciting results of Specialty Search, a new condition-specific record locator service. This webinar will review how to collect patient records from top Centers of Excellence across the entire country; how healthcare organizations of all types are benefiting from Specialty Search capabilities, using Particle’s simple API; and why a focused search of chronic condition data — in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and more — has an outsized impact on care outcomes.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Kaufman Hall will acquire six-employee advisory firm and media publisher Gist Healthcare.

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Behavioral health clinical database company Holmusk raises $45 million in a Series B funding round led by Veradigm, which will incorporate segments of its behavioral health and related de-identified patient data into Holmusk’s NeuroBlu Database.

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CVS Health is reportedly interested in acquiring senior-focused primary care provider Oak Street Health in a deal that could be worth $10 billion. The retail pharmacy chain is in the midst of an $8 billion acquisition of home healthcare company Signify Health. Chicago-based Oak Street, which went public in 2020, operates 170 clinics across the country.

Tech-enabled kidney care company Monogram Health raises $375 million, bringing its total to $547 million.

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Carbon Health announces a $100 million investment from CVS Health Ventures less than a week after announcing layoffs and the shuttering of several business lines. CVS will pilot the primary and urgent care company’s operating model and software within several of its CVS Health locations.

Wolters Kluwer Health acquires nursing education and training company NurseTim.

National telemedicine provider Avel ECare acquires after-hours remote pharmacy service NightWatch. Avel ECare got its start at South Dakota health system Avera Health before it was sold to private equity buyers and renamed in 2021.

Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion in ChatGPT owner OpenAI at a valuation of $29 billion


Sales

  • Connecticut Children’s Care Network will offer nursing mothers Nest Collaborative’s virtual lactation consultation service.
  • The VA will integrate Renalytix’s KidneyIntelX kidney disease assessment and management software with its EHR.
  • Bon Secours Mercy Health (OH), Adventist Health (CA), Northside Hospital (GA), Duly Health and Care (IL), and Onsite Women’s Health (TN) select Volpara Health’s breast cancer screening and detection software.
  • Meditech UK will use CloudWave’s OpSus Cloud Services to power its Expanse EPR at East Cheshire NHS Trust and Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

 


People

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Retired Army Colonel Bobby Saxon, MS (CMS) joins Leidos as a VP focused on customer advocacy.

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Curve Health names Matthew Michela, MBA (Life Image) CEO.

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R1 RCM promotes Kyle Hicok, MBA to chief commercial officer.

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Nordic Consulting promotes Terri LeFort, RN, MBA to president of Nordic International and hires Kieran Hughes (Tegria) as president of its markets in Europe and the Middle East and Thomas O’Shaughnessy, MSc (Deloitte) as president of its Canada-based subsidiary Healthtech.

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Ventra Health hires Steven Huddleston (Pelitas) as CEO.

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Consulting firm Brightwork Health IT hires Eliza Corrigan (Tasman Global) as chief sales officer.

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Divurgent promotes Hannah Ellerbee, MBA to chief customer officer.

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Colin Ashby (Talkdesk) joins Healthmap Solutions as VP of sales for healthcare systems.


Announcements and Implementations

Ardent Health Services (TN) will implement remote patient monitoring and virtual care services from Cadence as part of its remote care programs for patients with chronic conditions.

In Canada, 23 hospitals form a shared services IT organization as they implement a shared instance of Meditech Expanse.


Other

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The Bermuda Hospitals Board provides a breakdown of costs and timelines associated with the rollout of its Oracle Cerner-based PEARL system, noting that its staff had to work through several COVID waves and a hurricane as its October 29 go-live approached. The board saved $1.3 million by hosting planning meetings remotely, though it spent $1.7 million to feed and house 160 extra support staff at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. The net cost of the project is expected to be $30 million paid over 10 years.

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The Better Business Bureau alerts consumers to the shady business practices of North Texas-based telemedicine company Doctor Alexa. The bureau revoked the company’s accreditation last June after it failed to address 24 of the 46 consumer complaints filed on the BBB’s website. Complaints related to paying for services never rendered, chronic lack of communication, and failure to send prescriptions to pharmacies after virtual consults. The BBB received over 300 complaints related to telemedicine between 2019 and 2021.


Sponsor Updates

  • AdvancedMD announces that it has been awarded 21st Century Cures Act Certification from ONC.
  • Baker Tilly releases a new BuzzHouse Podcast, “Fostering healthcare and housing through relationships as a community investment.”
  • ChartSpan welcomes Lauren Wyatt (Change Healthcare) as client success director and Shelby Statom (Everly Health) as implementation project manager.
  • Netsmart’s MyUnity earns ONC’s Cures Update certification, the first post-acute EHR to do so.
  • CHIME releases a new Leader2Leader Podcast featuring Symplr Chief Product Officer Brian Fugere.
  • Diameter Health again achieves the Certified Partner designation in NCQA’s Data Aggregator Validation program.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

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Morning Headlines 1/10/23

January 9, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/10/23

Carbon Health Secures Series D Investment to Drive Primary and Urgent Care Expansion

Carbon Health announces a $100 million investment from CVS Health Ventures as part of a Series D funding round, and that CVS will pilot the primary care company’s operating model and software within several of its CVS Health locations.

Veradigm Announces Strategic Investment in Holmusk

Behavioral health clinical database company Holmusk raises $45 million in a Series B funding round led by Veradigm.

Monogram Health Closes $375M Growth Capital Raise to Support Continued Expansion of Innovative In-Home Kidney and Polychronic Care Model

Tech-enabled kidney care company Monogram Health raises $375 million, bringing its total raised to $547 million.

CVS Is Exploring a $10 Billion-Plus Acquisition of Oak Street Health

Bloomberg reports that CVS Health may acquire senior-focused primary care provider Oak Street Health in a deal that could be worth $10 billion.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/10/23

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 1/9/23

January 9, 2023 Dr. Jayne 3 Comments

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I read a number of articles this week that addressed various hot topics about how people spend their time and how employees should be treated.

It was quite ironic that the best thing I saw on Facebook this week was a link to a piece in The Atlantic titled “The Age of Social Media Is Ending.” I have a love/hate relationship with social media depending on how much I feel like I’m being forced to use it versus how much I’m electively using it to keep up with things I care about. I despise it when community organizations (including our local schools) decide that Facebook is the best way to communicate important information. They don’t seem to understand that Facebook isn’t a static place you go to view things, like a bulletin board. The algorithm serves up different things to different people at different times and depending on your settings it’s possible to miss information unless you’re stalking a particular group or page on the daily.

I also dislike the fact that social media posts from individuals have become newsworthy. Outlets like MSN are constantly posting stories about things that people share on TikTok. Often, these stories are about happenings that we’re supposed to find outrageous, but I can’t take any more earnest-appearing people complaining about things that aren’t really that outrageous. I enjoy social media when I see updates from friends I don’t often see or use various groups or forums to get advice about my hobbies. Rather than broadcast to the entire universe on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, I prefer to be part of smaller platforms that let me connect in a deeper way with my actual friends, like private workspaces on Slack or chats on GroupMe. I still can’t figure out why Twitter thinks I want to see most of the tweets it recommends for me, or what behaviors to exhibit to see content I would actually read.

The piece from The Atlantic talks about the evolution of social media from the early days of collecting friends to the recent explosion of its use as a “latent broadcast channel” where “all at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.” Social media has certainly made it more difficult for primary care physicians to do our jobs, with the constant barrage of headlines touting so-called “things your doctor doesn’t want you to know about” and the proliferation of people trying to make a buck with pseudo-medical “wellness” offerings that physicians have to spend time debunking.

The author notes that “as the original name suggested, social networking involved connecting, not publishing.” The evolution to “social media” happened around 2009, according to the article, “between the introduction of the smartphone and the launch of Instagram. Instead of connection – forging latent ties to people and organizations we would mostly ignore – social media offered platforms through with people could publish content as widely as possible, well beyond their networks of immediate contacts.”

The piece notes that the 2006 introduction of Twitter “amounted to a giant, asynchronous chat room for the world.” It goes on to discuss “the data-driven advertising profits that the attention-driven content economy created,” including the influencer economy, where people are essentially paid for sharing marketing messages or for product placements, creating the idea that becoming an influencer “became an aspirational role, especially for young people for whom Instagram fame seemed more achievable than traditional celebrity – or perhaps employment of any kind.”

It talks about the potential decline of social media given the current state of things, and what a remodeling might look like – drawing an analogy from the cultural changes needed to drive a decline in smoking across several decades. The idea that social media could play a smaller role in our lives is an interesting one. Many people check their accounts, feeds, and streams compulsively and I wonder what they would do with all the time they might get back.

Speaking of time, I also enjoyed this read from Forbes: “Companies Fret About Time Theft – But Who’s Taking From Whom?” Time theft has traditionally been defined as the hours when employees do things like managing personal business while on the company clock, or otherwise wasting time that is seen as belonging to their employers. With the rise of remote work, employers have taken to doing things like monitoring laptop use, the time spent in various applications, or the calendars of employees.

The article looks at the idea that time theft can go both ways. It talks about employers who demand work outside of normal working hours, but who don’t provide additional compensation or mandating unpaid training. It notes that “this kind of time theft more often affects marginalized people who are asked to go the extra mile and work harder than others to be considered for advancement opportunities.”

The author describes the pathway by which people who are constantly battling additional demands “grow weary of their work time encroaching so insidiously on their personal time…They lose their desire to shine and they focus on self-preservation instead.” I’ve worked in plenty of organizations like this, including one health system where the IT team was constantly expected to deliver the impossible. The teams sacrificed themselves on the altar of this principal and what resulted was global burnout and the departure of key leaders and high performers from the organization.

The author notes that “Workers shouldn’t feel that their private time can be snatched from them at a moment’s notice for questionable reasons, and that if they balk at putting in those additional hours their chances of advancing in the organization will be compromised.” In my experience, healthcare IT organizations are particularly at risk for this due to the 24×7 nature of our work. When someone has to be on call, it’s easy to reach out to them as opposed to thinking carefully about whether the situation needs to be addressed immediately or whether it can wait until the next business day.

Also in my reading, I came across a number of articles about the proposed end to non-compete clauses. Companies seem to love them, workers hate them, and states have done variable jobs regulating them. Most physicians are subject to non-compete clauses.

When I left the medical practice that I had built from the ground up (literally it was a slab when I started), one of the things the health system used to sweeten the deal was voiding my non-compete clause. I’m not a fan of them, especially in medicine, because they jeopardize the patient-physician relationship. They force employees to decide between uprooting their families and preserving their livelihoods and I’ve seen them hasten the demise of numerous relationships. Employees who feel handcuffed aren’t going to be as productive or successful as those who feel they’re remaining at their employer by choice. The best way to keep an employee from leaving to go work for the competition is to treat them with respect, pay them fairly, and support them.

Those concepts were among the topics at the most recent session of my leadership intensive. The theme of one of the presentations was “What fills your bucket?” We were asked to visualize our psychological bucket and the things that fill or drain it. Your bucket might be filled by support from co-workers, knowledge of a job well done, or completion of a difficult task. It might be drained by an overly demanding boss, stressful working conditions, or a chaotic environment. When people feel forced to remain in situations where they can’t fill their bucket, letting them leave might be the best option for all parties. There are plenty of other things that can fill or drain our buckets, including our own habits. When thinking about social media or time theft or a number of different things, it’s useful to determine the impact they have on our buckets.

What has filled your bucket lately, and what has drained it? Leave a comment or email me.

JAYNE-125x125_thumb_thumb

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 1/9/23

January 8, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/9/23

Carbon Health to cut more than 200 jobs, narrow focus

Primary and urgent care company Carbon Health lays off 200 employees and will end its initiatives in public health, remote patient monitoring, and chronic care.

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Walgreens says during its most recent earnings call that it will pause M&A activities short term and will eventually consider smaller acquisitions that advance its core business, stressing that it won’t “go out and do a $2 billion or $3 billion acquisition on a health tech company.”

Codex IT Acquires Utah Managed Services Provider

Healthcare IT consulting and managed services company Codex IT acquires competitor Intranet Consulting.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/9/23

Morning Headlines 1/6/23

January 6, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/6/23

KeyCare Completes $27M Series A Investment Round to Expand Adoption and Grow Capabilities of its Epic-based Virtual Care Platform

Epic-integrated virtual care platform vendor KeyCare completes its $27 million Series A funding round.

Onc.AI Raises $25 Million Series A Financing Co-Led by MassMutual and Action Potential Venture Capital

Onc.AI, which offers a medical oncologist clinical decision-making platform, raises $25 million in Series A funding.

Porter Raises $5.4M in Seed Funding

Porter, a Miami-based software and services startup specializing in care coordination and quality optimization, raises $5 million in seed funding.

Careficient Acquires Home Health, Hospice, Home Care, Palliative and RCM Solutions and Services from Net Health

Home health, hospice, and home care management company Careficient acquires Net Health’s HealthWyse, Hospicesoft, and RCM division.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/6/23

News 1/6/23

January 6, 2023 News 6 Comments

Top News

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Allscripts changes its company name to Veradigm.

The company sold many of its health IT assets in the past two years. It says it has now consolidated its remaining portfolio of EHR, PM, and patient communication systems into the Veradigm Network.

Shares will continue to trade under the MDRX ticker symbol. They are down 8% in the past 12 months versus the Nasdaq’s 34% drop.


Reader Comments

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From Publius: “Re: non-competes. This would significantly impact Epic, which would have a mass exodus of employees. I assume they would fight it in court.” The Federal Trade Commission proposes banning the use of non-compete clauses that prevent employees from taking jobs with competitors or starting their own businesses. FTC says the clauses are exploitative, affect one in five American workers, and are sometimes imposed by companies on low-earning employees who don’t have significant company knowledge. Previous studies have shown that non-compete agreements protect established companies from startups, reduce competition, and limit the ability of companies to hire the best-suited workers. FTC says the change would provide new opportunities for 30 million Americans and raise wages by $300 billion per year. The proposed change would not affect non-disclosure agreements, but those could be subject to FTC review if they interfere with workers changing jobs. Among the companies named in FTC’s complaints are two Michigan-based security companies that prevented low-wage security guards from working within a 100-mile radius for two years after leaving.

From Pure Energy: “Re: M&A in a down market. Predictions?” Previously overvalued but cash-burning startups that have no obvious path to profitability will find themselves selling out to larger competitors – assuming any are interested in attaching new weights to their corporate ankles – at barely more than asset value as being ‘disruptive” and “innovative” without making money causes newly focused eyes to roll. Modestly or selectively successful companies will shed non-core business in hopes of generating quick cash from carve-outs. Companies that went public during the recent boom, especially those that took the sketchy SPAC route, will have to figure out how to continue operating (or not) based on trashed share price with zero chance of obtaining favorable funding. This is healthy and necessary, just like thinning and pruning deadwood, and survivors will emerge stronger. Also important is that the profitable aspects of the entire hospital and health system market may be consolidated into a couple of dozen big provider and provider-insurer players over the next 10 years, so it will be feast or famine for companies who sell into that market whose participants are focused on decreasing their vendor count.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I’ll be migrating HIStalk to a new server shortly, which includes a lot of changes to the underlying programming and databases, so expect the usual (hopefully minor and short-lived) glitches.


Webinars

January 19 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Supercharge Your Clinical Data Searches.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Paul Robbins, MSMBA, VP of product, Particle. Particle’s team will preview the exciting results of Specialty Search, a new condition-specific record locator service. This webinar will review how to collect patient records from top Centers of Excellence across the entire country; how healthcare organizations of all types are benefiting from Specialty Search capabilities, using Particle’s simple API; and why a focused search of chronic condition data — in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and more — has an outsized impact on care outcomes.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Salesforce will reduce its workforce by 10%, about 7,000 jobs, and will close offices in some markets, reductions the company blames on reduced customer spending and its own excessive hiring during the pandemic’s boom times. It not break out how many of the job cuts were related to healthcare. The company’s market value has dropped more than half to $134 billion from its late-2021 high.

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Shares of GE spinoff GE HealthCare begin trading on the Nasdaq under the GEHC ticker. Shares closed their first day of trading Wednesday up 8%.

Epic-integrated virtual care platform vendor KeyCare completes its $27 million Series A funding round.

Onc.AI, which offers a medical oncologist clinical decision-making platform, raises $25 million in Series A funding.


Sales

  • East Tennessee HIN chooses 4medica’s patient matching system.

People

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Ardent Health Services hires Brad Hoyt, MD (Utica Park Clinic) as CMIO.

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Acadia Healthcare Company hires Laura Groschen (Medtronic) as CIO.

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Experity promotes Brian Berning, MS to CFO.

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Curve Health hires Matt Michela, MBA (Life Image) as CEO.

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Nicholas Anderson (G2o) joins Olah Healthcare Technology as VP of product management.


Announcements and Implementations

EHNAC publishes new versions of its program criteria for its accreditation programs.

The new quarterly market report of Pivot Point Consulting, A Vaco Company makes these points:

  • Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical gives the company partnerships with big health systems and a business that has off-the-charts member satisfaction, 90% retention, and 300% member growth over five years, plus a growing Medicare and Medicare Advantage business via its Iora Health.
  • Amazon’s relaunched virtual service of Amazon Clinic will be challenged to attract both consumers and providers to its platform, with modest synergies with its pharmacy business but little impact on expensive chronic condition spending.
  • CVS Health gained 10,000 contracted clinicians with its September 2022 acquisition of Signify Health, which also gives it a Medicare presence with its Caravan marketplace.
  • The acquisition of Summit Health by Walgreens-controlled VillageMD, which closed Thursday will double the company’s PCP count to 2,800 working in 680 locations.
  • Walmart made no healthcare acquisitions in 2022, but expanded its telehealth and Medicare preventive care markets using its 4,000-stores footprint.
  • Pivot Point recommends that providers start with the digital front door to enhance patient and staff experience, use data to innovate, and build partnerships with payers since the big retailers have shown little interest in hospital care.

An EpicShare article describes how University of Michigan Health – West uses Nuance’s DAX to reduce physician time spent writing notes, with some doctors reporting a total daily effort of 10 minutes to review the results. The organization says the cost can be high and DAX works better in primary care than with specialties, but notes got better and faster over time, more prior authorization requests were approved on the first try, and patients say they enjoy seeing their own words in the doctor’s notes in MyChart.

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Withings announces U-Scan, a toilet bowl device that takes daily biomarker readings. The device, which is pending US FDA clearance, will debut in Europe with consumer health cartridges for women’s cycle tracking and hydration.


Government and Politics

A JAMA Network opinion piece warns that clinical algorithms may be found to violate antidiscrimination laws under the Affordable Care Act or may be regulated by FDA as medical devices, both of which the authors urge the federal government to avoid for lower-risk algorithms and until discrimination aspects are better defined. 


Other

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Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD, who runs Verily’s life sciences clinical studies platforms, discusses the state of clinical trials in a brief Politico interview:

  • Clinical trials will move to using existing data from EHRs and claims, along with sensor data, although data quality mismatches need to be resolved.
  • Clinical trials need to involve a low burden for participants to generate representative participation.
  • Clinical trials recruitment needs to include digital marketing, call centers, and extra service.
  • Future clinical trials will involve long-term following of participants, which will require new ways of thinking about keeping people enrolled.

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This is an interesting observation by Will Weider, although perhaps less relevant than it seems to healthcare since ordering is the focus at Amazon and most of us have done it many times. I don’t mind a chat bot as long as it doesn’t hog the screen, make sounds, or pop up on every new page after I’ve already dismissed it. I always renew my car registration online and DMV’s chat bot is like a nicer, field-prompting version of an online form. At least even the dumbest chat bot is smarter than the smartest telephone auto attendant.


Sponsor Updates

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  • Availity associates volunteer at the 24th annual Make-a-Wish Request-a-Thon.
  • Medicomp Systems releases a new Tell Me Where IT Hurts Podcast featuring National Coordinator Micky Tripathi.
  • Wolters Kluwer Health marks the 30th anniversary of its UpToDate clinical decision support solution by announcing that it has donated over 100,000 subscriptions to UpToDate to caregivers and organizations in 159 countries.
  • EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story featuring Orthopaedic Institute of Ohio, “Prisma: How Better Data Improves Care and Reduces Costs.”
  • Everbridge appoints RSA CEO Rohit Gai and Blackbaud EVP David Benjamin to its Board of Directors.
  • Nordic launches a new podcast series titled “In Network.”
  • The Empowered Patient Podcast features First Databank VP of Product Management Virginia Halsey, “Improving Access for Pharmacists to Appropriate Drug Interaction and Dosing Data.”
  • Get Well offers a digital inclusivity toolkit to help healthcare teams address workplace violence.
  • InterSystems announces it has been positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of the recently published Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems.
  • Juniper Networks announces it has been named a leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure for the third consecutive year.
  • Meditech publishes a new case study, “Frederick Health Aligns Workflows Across Care Settings with Meditech Professional Services.”

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

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EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 1/5/23

January 6, 2023 Dr. Jayne Comments Off on EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 1/5/23

I’m a big fan of my Withings blood pressure cuff, which captures readings wirelessly and syncs them with health management software. It is useful to show my physicians what my blood pressure actually runs at home, as opposed to the elevated values I have when I walk into a healthcare facility and start having anxiety symptoms related to the last few years I spent working in emergency department and urgent care facilities.

Withings has announced U-Scan, which it claims is “the first hands-free connected home urine lab.” The device is 90 mm in diameter and is placed in the toilet bowl to provide “an immediate snapshot of the body’s balance by monitoring and detecting a large variety of biomarkers found in urine.” It also promises to offer “actionable advice for health improvements.” The unit contains a cartridge that holds “test pods” and chemical reagents, along with a reader that transmits data by Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The cartridge and its battery are designed to last for three months and the website notes that it is “designed to be compatible with most Western-style toilets” and can be mounted with an included fixation arm. The battery can be charged via USB-C during periodic cleaning and maintenance.

Other language on the website notes it can follow menstrual cycle-related monthly hormonal fluctuations and deliver “key hydration and nutrition biomarker analysis, recommended actions based on cycle phases, and data correlation for an optimized menstrual cycle.” Since none of this data is protected by HIPAA, as a woman of reproductive age, I would be leery of giving a private company access to this data, but I’m sure a number of potential users won’t even think of that as a problem.

It also promises to give information on hydration status, but I was surprised to see that the smartphone app featured on the website recommended the “eight glasses of water” each day that has been widely debunked. As someone who has medically managed cohorts of people doing strenuous activities in the backcountry, I know that people can also learn a lot about their hydration status by following the collective wisdom to keep urine “clear and copious,” and that advice is free to boot.

Withings makes it clear that the Nutri Balance and Cycle Sync cartridges are not considered medical devices and are intended to encourage a “healthy lifestyle,” which is the same advertising speak used by a lot of quasi-medical items including nutritional supplements and non-regulated devices. Nutri Balance will measure specific gravity, pH, ketones, and vitamin C, but to be honest, I’m not sure how useful those markers are to the average person. The site doesn’t make it clear how often it will be testing which components, but states that each cartridge includes “more than 100 biomarker results” which should be a three-month supply “when following the recommended measurement plan in the Withings App.”

They do mention that they have a U-Scan for Professionals cartridge for monitoring of urinalysis data, which is likely where the real utility of this device might lie. The website notes that remote patient monitoring will be subject to “appropriate regulatory clearances.” They’ll be unveiling the device at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, with a plan to move to a public launch in Europe during the second half of the year. The consumer-grade starter kit contains one cartridge and a reader for 500 Euros ($526), with a 30 Euro monthly subscription. Pricing for the professional model is by request only. I’m sure plenty of people will be lining up to purchase one, though if nothing else than to have something that’s latest and greatest, especially if they are deeply into analyzing their quantified selves.

The New Year always brings out plenty of articles for predictions about the coming year, and I got a chuckle out of one that surveyed a few dozen investors, founders, and other startup and corporate folks for their take on 2023. The best question in my book: If Elon Musk were to buy and operate one healthcare company (for better or worse), what company would you suggest he buy? Oscar Health came in first, with Epic and Bright Health tied for second place. UnitedHealth Group ranked third, with the next cohort being a tie between Cerebral, Athena, and “Will not happen/please stay away from healthcare.” Based on recent events I don’t think Mr. Musk will be buying any companies soon, so we are safe at least from that kind of drama.

My second favorite question was “Where will VBC be on the Gartner hype cycle curve at the end of 2023?” with 55% of respondents saying it will be in the “trough of disillusionment.” Let’s face it – preventive care and the kinds of routine chronic care that are the hallmark of value-based care are not sexy and they are not big moneymakers, and many primary care providers agree that short of something miraculous or stemming from massive government regulations and a complete realignment of incentives, we are never going to be at the forefront as we’d need to be to really drive change. Needless to say, I won’t be leaving clinical informatics for the primary care trenches any time soon.

The New Year came in with a bang in my area with spring-like temperatures and the chance to take care of some yard cleanup tasks that didn’t happen before the holidays. It was good to get outside and do something that created a visible change. Sometimes in healthcare IT, we work on large projects for a significant amount of time, but since the work is largely behind the scenes, it doesn’t feel as productive as it might be if it were more visible. Still, we create tangible changes that benefit users and patients regardless of whether they see them or not.

Sometimes we work on projects that don’t even see the light of day. I’ve had entire upgrade projects that were shelved when organizational priorities shifted. During my career I’ve helped build two complete EHRs that never saw broad adoption. The work helped me get where I am today, and some experiences can only be learned through the school of hard knocks.

Here’s to hoping the new year brings us projects that are complete successes, upgrades that are smooth, and projects that run on time and on budget. What are you most excited to work on in 2023? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Comments Off on EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 1/5/23

Morning Headlines 1/5/23

January 4, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/5/23

HealthStream Acquires Electronic Education Documentation System, LLC (d/b/a “eeds”)

Healthcare workforce management company HealthStream acquires continuing education management vendor Electronic Education Documentation System for $7 million.

CommonSpirit Health sued over data breach involving 600,000 patients

Multistate CommonSpirit Health faces a proposed class action lawsuit over its alleged negligence in protecting the private data of 600,000 patients during an October ransomware attack.

Salesforce to cut workforce by 10% after hiring ‘too many people’ during the pandemic

CRM software vendor Salesforce, which includes healthcare among its verticals, will lay off 7,000 employees and close offices in certain markets.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/5/23

Morning Headlines 1/4/23

January 3, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/4/23

Allscripts Announces Corporate Name Change to Veradigm Inc.

Allscripts rebrands to Veradigm after transitioning many of its products over the last year to the Veradigm name.

Ransomware gang gives decryptor to Toronto’s SickKids Hospital

The LockBit ransomware group apologizes for a cyberattack on Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and gives the hospital a free decryptor to release their files.

EHNAC Announces Finalized 2023 Accreditation Criteria Versions for All Accreditation Programs

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission finalizes and publishes criteria for its accreditation programs focused on the electronic exchange of healthcare data.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/4/23

News 1/4/23

January 3, 2023 News Comments Off on News 1/4/23

Top News

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Congress approves an omnibus spending bill that includes $300 billion in 2023 funding for the VA, with $1.8 billion of that earmarked to continue to support the rollout of the department’s Oracle Cerner-based EHR across 25 facilities beginning in June.

Implementations were paused last summer after numerous reports of system outages, patient safety concerns, and cost increases.

Oracle’s progress dashboard shows that it has resolved eight high-priority software issues identified by the VA, and a dozen more in various stages of progress.

The VA purchased the Oracle Cerner system in 2018 for $10 billion. More recent estimates of total project cost exceed $50 billion over 28 years.


Webinars

January 19 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Supercharge Your Clinical Data Searches.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Paul Robbins, MSMBA, VP of product, Particle. Particle’s team will preview the exciting results of Specialty Search, a new condition-specific record locator service. This webinar will review how to collect patient records from top Centers of Excellence across the entire country; how healthcare organizations of all types are benefiting from Specialty Search capabilities, using Particle’s simple API; and why a focused search of chronic condition data — in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and more — has an outsized impact on care outcomes.

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


Sales

  • Outpatient radiology service provider Akumin will implement cloud-based enterprise imaging and informatics software from Mach7 Technologies.
  • Virtual consultation software vendor SmileSnap subscribes to Clearwater’s managed cybersecurity and compliance services program.

People

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Fuse Oncology promotes James Bauler, MA to CEO.

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Jessica Hadley (CHIME) joins Divurgent as associate VP of client engagement.

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Direct Recruiters promotes Trevor Yasinow to partner.

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Carl Bertrams, MBA (Collateral Opportunities) joins Prevounce Health as VP of sales.

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Atrium Health promotes Dawn Ross, RN, DNP, MS to chief clinical informatics officer.


Announcements and Implementations

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San Juan Regional Medical Center (NM) acquires an Amwell telemedicine cart that it will use as part of its new telehealth partnership with Presbyterian Hospital’s NICU team.

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Tampa General Hospital (FL) launches a remote monitoring pilot program for patients with chronic conditions using technology from Stel Life and remote care management services from Signalamp Health.


Government and Politics

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Staff at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (MD) prepare for the spring transition to MHS Genesis.

Hawaii’s prison and jail medical records system has not been working since June, leaving staff unable to determine inmate COVID-19 vaccination status. The department apparently purchased EClinicalWorks in 2008 but failed to budget software maintenance and has not applied updates since. It  launched a replacement project in 2021 with a 2025 implementation deadline, but hasn’t signed a contract.


Privacy and Security

The LockBit ransomware group apologizes for a cyberattack on Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and gives the hospital a free decryptor to release their files, 13 days after the initial attack. The ransomware group, which sells its technical services to hackers as ransomware-as-a-service, says that its partner that was responsible for the attack violated its rules and has been kicked out of its affiliate program.


Other

Burnout among clinical support staff appears to be on the wane, according to an Artera survey that found a 20% year-over-year decline in staff reporting moderate to severe burnout. A similar decline was found among those reporting high or severe burnout. Of the 300 surveyed, 41% say a patient has noticed their burnout and 33% report that burnout has negatively impacted patient care.

A study of 2,000 consumers by prescription discount card vendor CharityRx finds that two-thirds of Americans Google before they contact their doctors; 37% get health advice from influencers (most commonly for anxiety, weight loss, and depression where clinicians may not have personal experience); and 20% claim they discovered they had a health condition after seeing a drug ad and 25% of those regularly take the advertised product.

Security guards at Beaumont Hospital (MI) threaten to arrest a patient in the ED waiting room for recording a confrontation between a doctor and another patient on her phone, claiming that she was violating HIPAA. The guards told her she could either delete the TikTok video or go to jail, after which they locked her in a room. Local police who were called determined that she had broken no laws, but the hospital refused to hand over her discharge paperwork and prescription. A lawyer who was contacted by the local TV station noted that the patient is not a covered entity and therefore has no obligation under HIPAA.


Sponsor Updates

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  • AdvancedMD employees deliver gifts to three local schools and help 14 families and 35 children this holiday season as part of the Sub for Santa program.
  • The Champion Hospital in Kuwait selects Oracle Cerner’s Millenium EHR.
  • Pivot Point Consulting publishes its first quarterly Healthcare IT Market Report for 2023.
  • EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Clinical Testing Hackathon for V12 Release.”
  • Arrive Health employees put together holiday gift bags for residents at WellPower in Denver.
  • Ascom Americas hires Alexandre Gauthier as regional sales director, and Christopher Fant as project manager, professional services group.
  • Nordic publishes a technical paper titled “Healthcare Modernization Through Cloud-Enhanced Application Accessibility.”
  • AvaSure, which specializes in acute virtual care and remote safety monitoring, experiences record-breaking growth in 2022 as its customer base tops 1,000 hospitals.
  • Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “The Inflation Reduction Act and its Effect on Healthcare Providers.”
  • CarePort publishes a 2022 Year in Review infographic.
  • Censinet announces new portfolio management capabilities to accelerate cyber risk management and incident response.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

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Comments Off on News 1/4/23

Morning Headlines 1/3/23

January 2, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/3/23

Nectar Raises over $24M in Funding to Scale Personalized Allergy Care Platform Nationally

Web-based allergy care company Nectar will use a $24 million Series A funding round to expand its online business and open its first brick-and-mortar clinic.

Howard Memorial Hospital in Southwest Arkansas says patient and employee data stolen in cybersecurity attack

Howard Memorial Hospital (AR) officials believe data pertaining to patients and current and former employees may have been stolen during an early December cyberattack.

Rapid NHS rollout sees 200,000 diabetes patients get lifechanging devices

NHS England equips 200,000 diabetic patients with glucose monitoring devices and companion apps as part of a program that will eventually offer the technology across all NHS facilities.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/3/23

Morning Headlines 1/2/23

January 1, 2023 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/2/23

Possible cyberattack at CentraState prompts hospital to divert ambulances

CentraState Medical Center (NJ) suspends outpatient services and diverts ambulances after uncovering a cyberattack on Friday.

Despite Issues, VA’s EHR Deployment Remains Scheduled to Pick Up in Mid-2023

Congress approves an omnibus spending bill that includes $300 billion in 2023 funding for the VA – $1.8 billion of which is earmarked to continue to support the roll out of the department’s Oracle Cerner-based EHR across 25 facilities beginning in June.

GE Healthcare will join S&P 500 as soon as it begins trading

GE Healthcare Technologies, a new company spun out of General Electric focused on patient care solutions, imaging, ultrasound, and pharmaceutical diagnostics, will join the S&P 500 on January 4.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 1/2/23

Morning Headlines 12/30/22

December 29, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 12/30/22

Data Breach at Louisiana Healthcare Provider Impacts 270,000 Patients

Lake Charles Memorial Health System begins notifying 270,000 patients that their information was compromised in an October 20 ransomware attack.

Rural patients struggle to access expert sexual assault exams. Telehealth services are closing that gap

Sexual assault nurse examiners are using telehealth to help with examinations and evidence collection.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 12/30/22

News 12/30/22

December 29, 2022 News Comments Off on News 12/30/22

Top News

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A study of 100,000 stroke patients in NHS hospitals finds that the rate of full recovery tripled to 48% when AI software from UK company Brainomax was used to make a quicker diagnosis.

The company was spun out of the University of Oxford.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Some healthcare IT websites find themselves with nothing to pontificate about in the slow holiday news weeks, so they pad space with the 2023 digital health predictions of whoever is willing to email a response. All those I’ve seen have been vague and obvious, usually covering overworked territory such as telehealth and wearables. The real problem is that a year is a short time window to snapshot a slow transition, so truly bold predictions would be ill-advised since the Internet doesn’t forget being publicly wrong. I don’t recall any of the 2021 pundits predicting that Oracle would acquire Cerner, that digital health company shares would implode with a special toasting of SPACs, and that widespread scammery in the online ADHD prescription mills would finally draw federal attention.


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Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor Healthjump. The King of Prussia, PA-based company is driving data liquidity and interoperability efforts within the world of healthcare. Healthjump provides a cloud-hosted platform for the collection, standardization, and delivery of EHR data into applications, analytics, clinical research, quality measures reporting, and more without the complex set-up of traditional interface engines. The platform connects to any EHR/PM system to extract over 300 standardized data elements, with delivery options including API, web hooks, flat file, and HL7. The company’s webpage lists, for each EHR vendor, how it access its data, what data is available, and how it is delivered. Thanks to Healthjump for supporting HIStalk.


Webinars

January 19 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Supercharge Your Clinical Data Searches.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Paul Robbins, MSMBA, VP of product, Particle. Particle’s team will preview the exciting results of Specialty Search, a new condition-specific record locator service. This webinar will review how to collect patient records from top Centers of Excellence across the entire country; how healthcare organizations of all types are benefiting from Specialty Search capabilities, using Particle’s simple API; and why a focused search of chronic condition data — in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and more — has an outsized impact on care outcomes.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Seven care homes in Wales win awards for their use of RITA, a touchscreen app that helps patients, particularly those with memory impairments, recall and share events from their past by listening to music and speeches, watching old news reports and movies, and playing games. RITA, which is sold by Cheshire-based My Improvement Network, stands for Reminescence / Rehabilitation and Interactive Therapy activities.

Former Allscripts CEO Paul Black invests in and joins the board of Community CareLink, a Kansas City, MO company that offers software for case management, crisis calls, agency reporting, and social determinants of health referrals.

A group of Apple Watch users sues the company, claiming that pulse oximeters are racially biased because they are less accurate when testing dark skin. The plaintiffs say that the problem is that the Watch’s sensors and algorithms measure blood oxygen at the wrist, unlike medical grade units that measure at the fingertip.


Sales


People

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Carteret Health Care (NC) names CIO / VP of General Services Kyle Marek, MS as interim CEO with the retirement of Harvey Case. He has been at the health system since 1998, when he took a network engineer job there right out of college.


Privacy and Security

Scripps Health will pay $3.5 million to settle class action lawsuits over the 1.2 million patients whose information was compromised in a March 2021 ransomware attack. Each plaintiff will receive $100 in cash and credit monitoring services, while those who had their identities stolen will receive up to $7,500 to cover out-of-pocket costs.

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Lake Charles Memorial Health System (LA) begins notifiying 270,000 patients that their personal and medical information was compromised in a ransomware attack that occurred in late October, two months before the first letters were mailed.

Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children says it will take weeks to recover from a December 19 ransomware attack, during which time patients will continue to experience delays.


Other

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In England, a surgery practice’s Christmas greeting broadcast text message for patients is mistakenly replaced with one advising the recipient that they had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Panicked patients couldn’t get through on the practice’s telephone, so several lined up at its front door. Said one patient, “If it’s one of their admins that’s sent out a mass text, I wouldn’t be trusting them to empty the bins.”


Contacts

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

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Comments Off on News 12/30/22

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 12/29/22

December 29, 2022 Dr. Jayne Comments Off on EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 12/29/22

I’m pleased to report that I made it through the usual family holiday events with a minimum of drama and no outbursts from unruly drunken relatives.

Unfortunately, I just received my first “hey, I’m positive for COVID” text message, so we’ll have to see if there are more on the way. That particular family gathering had way too many people in a small space and too many adolescents who were constantly wrestling around with each other and then going back to the food table, so I’ll be crossing my fingers that everyone else stays healthy. I’ve got a fat stack of COVID tests ready for whatever symptoms make an appearance at my house.

There are a lot of providers ordering expensive respiratory testing panels to try to sort out Influenza from RSV from COVID, but unfortunately in many cases, knowing what specific virus is present doesn’t change the management plan for the patient. Running the test increasees overall healthcare costs and increase the anxiety for patients who “just want to know what virus it is.” There are so many viruses beyond the big three that are running rampant now. Many of us in the trenches refer to them in aggregate as “the crud” and keep advising patients on pushing fluids, rest, and symptomatic treatments.

Apple is being sued over the potential that the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen reader is ineffective on people of color. The class action claim was filed in New York and bases its merit on known issues with pulse oximetry technology, even though it’s unclear whether the Apple devices use the same technology as other devices that are increasingly coming under scrutiny. The suit seeks a jury trial and alleges violation of New York state law as well as a federal law regarding deceptive business practices.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) placed pulse oximetry technology under review back in February of 2021, after studies found that the devices display higher oxygen readings when used on individuals with darker skin tones. Although there were questions about accuracy prior to the pandemic, the pandemic caused rapid expansion in the use of the devices in homes and other settings, which may have magnified the issue. An update by the FDA was issued last month following a virtual public meeting.  When patients have high readings that don’t reflect their actual state of oxygenation, they might not receive oxygen or other treatments that could improve their condition. The problem is believed to affect devices used by medical professionals as well as consumer-facing devices.

Speaking of consumer-focused offerings, many healthcare organizations are seeing the expected surges in requests for on-demand telehealth visits following family gatherings. Based on my experience as a telehealth physician, there are still a number of people who struggle with completing telehealth visits. Sometimes there are glitches with software and video connectivity, sometimes the patient doesn’t answer when the telehealth platform calls the patient to start the appointment, and sometimes patients are multitasking and not paying attention to the visit or the clinician trying to help them. A recent study published in JAMA Network Open looked at whether implementation of a telehealth navigator program would help improve the number of successful video visits.

The program, established at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was built around scheduled video visits. The navigator was tasked with contacting the patient a day prior to the visit to offer technical support, answer frequently asked questions, and to walk through the steps required for a successful connection. The three-month pilot ran from April 19 to July 9, 2021 in primary care and gerontology clinics. Researchers looked at over 4,000 adult patient visits. Approximately 25% connected with a telehealth navigator prior to the visit. Successful video visits were present in 92% of navigator-enabled visits but only 83% of the non-navigator control group. The cancellation rate was 6% in the navigator group and 9% in the control group. The rate of missed appointments was 2.5% for the navigator group and 8% for the control group. Overall, the navigator group had a 21% increase in successful video visits compared to the control group. In addition to providing greater care for patients, the increased volumes of the navigator group resulted in higher revenues, with a return on investment greater than the navigator’s salary.

Although this specific approach is best applied to scheduled visits, I’ve seen navigators used during on-demand visits too. Some organizations are using medical assistants to virtually “room” patients, gathering and entering the patient’s chief complaint, vital signs, and medical history data elements. One system I worked with that employed this approach reported greater patient satisfaction but some frustration on the physicians’ part if they had downtime between visits while the patient was still working with the medical assistant. Keeping a physician on schedule and reducing patient wait times is challenging whether you’re seeing patients in person or virtually. I’m looking forward to seeing more studies that help identify the best practice approach and whether organizations will adopt flows that have been successful elsewhere or whether they will continue to reinvent the wheel.

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Although most of my clinical reading revolves around surging viruses, preventive care, and strategies for better conducting telehealth visits, sometimes it’s nice to come across an article that covers a completely different aspect of medicine. A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine illustrates the relationship between major motorcycle rallies and organ donation. The authors estimated 21% more organ donors and 26% more transplant recipients per rally day compared with the four weeks before and after rallies. An accompanying editorial calls on organizations that are associated with high-risk sports to encourage members to consider organ donation.

Looking at the donor demographics, 71% were male and the mean age was 33 years. Recipients were 64% male with a mean age of 49. The most common organ transplants were kidney, liver, heart, and lungs. The authors looked at data from seven major rallies, including the Atlantic Beach Bikefest (SC), the Bikes, Blues, & BBQ (AR), Daytona Bike Week (FL), Laconia Motorcycle Week (NH), Myrtle Beach Bike Week Spring Rally (SC), the Republic of Texas Biker Rally, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (SD). Needless to say, they did not include data from the Cushman Club of America’s 2018 rally in Sturgis, where the riders were generally low speed as well as low key. Here’s a shout-out to my favorite Cushman rider for teaching me what I know about having fun on two wheels.

Are you an organ donor? Have you discussed your wishes with your family? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Comments Off on EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 12/29/22

Morning Headlines 12/29/22

December 28, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 12/29/22

Settlement: Scripps Health agrees to pay $3.5 million to patients affected in 2021 data breach

The health system settles with the 1 million patients who were affected by a May 2021 ransomware attack.

Stroke victims up to 48 PER CENT more likely to make full recovery when diagnosed using AI technology, trials suggest

Analysis of the data of 100,000 stroke patients suggests that 48% made a full recovery when AI was used to diagnose and treat them faster, versus 16% without the technology.

Ohio Supreme Court says insurance policy does not cover ransomware attack on software

The Ohio Supreme Court overrules a previous ruling that the property insurer of medical billing software vendor EMOI should cover a ransomware attack.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 12/29/22

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