The White House issues an executive order, “Unlocking Cures for Pediatric Cancer with Artificial Intelligence,” that doubles HHS funding for the National Cancer Institute’s AI-driven childhood cancer data initiative.
The FDA issues a Request for Public Comment on how to measure and evaluate real-world performance of AI-enabled medical devices.
Amazon announces a new generation of Echo devices that support its Alexa+ ambient AI assistant. The company says that Early Access users of Alexa+ are engaging the device in deeper conversations and using it to complete tasks related to smart home devices, booking reservations, and managing the family calendar. The Echo Show 8 costs $180, while the no-display Echo Dot Max runs $100. All models feature enhanced audio capabilities and the ability to be paired for richer sound.
AI-powered revenue management vendor SmarterDx acquires Pieces Technologies and launches SmarterNotes, which retrieves EHR data to create patient notes and flag missed revenue.
Business Insider reports that ambient scribe vendor Abridge, once closely partnered with and partly owned by Epic, now competes with the EHR giant as Epic develops its own AI tools. Abridge has raised $700 million at a $5 billion valuation.
Cardiac data management vendor RhythmScience licenses a heart failure algorithm from Cedars-Sinai, whose venture arm also led its Series A round.
Ambience Healthcare launches the first ambient AI inpatient CDI assistant, built on OpenAI, to capture compliant diagnoses at the point of care with explainable audit trails and EHR integration.
A 20-year-old biomedical engineering student creates ShotCaller, a mapping tool that helps Children’s Hospital Los Angeles oncologists target radiation for treatment-resistant tumors. Clinicians say their use of the tool has reduced the time required to create a radiation hotspot map from two hours to eight minutes.
Not healthcare related, but don’t forget to check your ChatGPT setup. A Reddit user whose wife uses their shared ChatGPT account to obtain marriage advice adds custom instructions.
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Switchboard Health Acquires Conduce Health, Expanding AI-Enabled Specialty Care Capabilities
Specialty care coordination company Switchboard Health acquires Conduce Health, which offers AI-powered referral management and analytics software for specialty care.
HHS Doubles AI-Backed Childhood Cancer Research Funding
HHS announces additional funding for the National Cancer Institute’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, which will incorporate AI into its efforts to use EHR and claims data for research and clinical trial development.
Clearwater Receives Strategic Growth Investment from Sunstone Partners
Sunstone Partners acquires a majority stake in healthcare cybersecurity and compliance company Clearwater.
Confido Health raises $10 million in a Series A round to expand its AI voice agent platform for appointment scheduling and patient access.
Healthcare automation and insights company Smarter Technologies acquires care delivery automation vendor Pieces Technologies.
Specialty care coordination company Switchboard Health acquires Conduce Health, which offers AI-powered referral management and analytics software for specialty care.
I interviewed Conduce Health CEO Najib Jai, MD, MBA earlier this year.
Survey: “What’s your take on the value of IT Managed Services?” Sponsor: CTG. Due to recent legislative changes, Healthcare organizations are under growing pressure to balance cost, performance, and innovation. CTG wants to hear from leaders like you on how IT managed services can help — or hinder — those goals in this quick, 5-minute survey. Your insights will help inform industry understanding and provide a clear picture of how IT managed services is currently being used.
Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Sunstone Partners acquires a majority stake in healthcare cybersecurity and compliance company Clearwater.
CareCloud will acquire the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s MAP App, a revenue cycle performance benchmarking tool used by providers.
Assort Health raises $76 million in a Series B round, bringing total funding to $102 million since launching in 2023. It offers specialty-specific AI voice agents for inbound patient phone calls.
Confido Health raises $10 million in a Series A round to expand its AI voice agent platform for appointment scheduling and patient access.
Investors file a class action lawsuit against online weight loss clinic operator LifeMD, claiming that executives touted strong Q1 results and raised guidance without disclosing high acquisition costs and refunds. The company then missed Q2 targets, cut guidance, and saw shares fall 44% in one day. LFMD shares are down 80% from their all-time high in early 2021, valuing the company at $322 million.
Huntzinger Management Group renames itself to Avarion.
Elsevier promotes Brent Gordon to president of its Health Education business unit.
Clearwater promotes Baxter Lee to president. He takes over from Steve Cagle, who becomes a board advisor.
ChristianaCare names Petrena Saunders, DNP, RN (Vizzia Technologies) CNIO.
David Bartley, MBA (MedeAnalytics) joins Iris Telehealth as chief solutions officer.
Beebe Healthcare (DE) will go live on Epic next month.
RevSpring announces GA of its new referral management software.
Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in England will roll out Altera Digital Health’s Sunrise EHR in November.
Innovaccer develops a Social and Community Health Information Exchange for public sector agencies.
Trilliant releases SimilarityIndex Hospitals, a free tool that allows hospitals to compare their key operating metrics with those of the 50 most similar US hospitals.
Ambience Healthcare launches an inpatient ICD-10 CDI assistant that helps hospitalists capture precise, compliant diagnoses during the encounter.
UK Prime Minister Keith Starmer announces NHS Online, a virtual service launching in 2027 that will let GP-referred patients speak to specialists by phone or video. The model draws on projects such as University Hospital Southampton’s, where irritable bowel disease patients could request help as needed, cutting in-person visits by 73% and wait times by 58%.
Golisano Children’s Hospital’s NICU increases the survival rates for babies born at 22 to 24 weeks from 14.3% to 70% after creating a collaborative initiative that includes adding protocols to its EHR.
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Steve Cagle, MBA was CEO of Clearwater at the time of this interview. He transitioned to board advisor on September 30.
Tell me about yourself and the company.
Clearwater is a healthcare-focused solutions firm that provides cybersecurity compliance and managed security services to hospitals, health systems, physician practice management groups, digital health, and health IT companies. Really all types of organizations in the healthcare ecosystem. We help those organizations to be more secure, be more compliant, and be more resilient so that they can achieve their missions.
I’ve been CEO of Clearwater since May 2018. My background is in healthcare. I started my career in a software company that provided quality management software to help pharmaceutical companies comply with FDA regulations, such as good manufacturing practices. I then spent some time in the pharma industry in consumer healthcare products, running a business before returning back to technology and compliance here at Clearwater.
How do health systems decide how much effort and money to invest in cybersecurity?
Unfortunately in healthcare, most organizations have been historically underinvested in cybersecurity. However, we have seen over the last five years or so an increased focus, especially following the pandemic, when we saw a wave of ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations. Then we had the Change Healthcare incident a year and a half ago, which affected about 70% of the providers and caused very extensive damage.
As healthcare organizations have continued to adopt new technology, technology has become critical to operating their businesses or providing care to patients. They have realized that cybersecurity mission critical and requires them to have the appropriate protections in place to reduce risks.
That’s really the key word. It’s about understanding your organization’s risks beyond the high level. A lot of organizations have done high-level risk assessments. They may be helpful as a starting point. But we need to go much deeper in today’s environment, where attack techniques have evolved to become difficult to defend and protect against.
Organizations have had significant impacts from ransomware attacks and breaches. That’s why the Office for Civil Rights of HHS, which enforces HIPAA regulations, has been focused on risk analysis and their risk analysis initiative. Risk analysis in healthcare requires that organizations understand where they have electronic protected health information, where they have those critical systems that support their operations or are connected to those systems with EPHI, and that they evaluate the vulnerabilities and threats, assess the controls that are in place, and determine the level of risk that exists with each system.
By doing that, organizations will be better informed as to where those high risks are. Based on their risk threshold, they can then identify those risks that fall above that threshold and put specific risk remediation or risk management plans in place to address those risks.
That’s a business-focused way of approaching cybersecurity. It’s not checking boxes. It’s not trying to have the best security program in the world. It’s really understanding your risk at a level that is appropriate. Then, taking actions to bring those risks to an acceptable level.
What were the most important lessons learned from the Change Healthcare incident?
Risk analysis. Clearly there’s been a lot of uptick in organizations really understanding, “I need to get to that next level. I’ve been doing the same type of assessment for many years. I’m going to invest more money into doing that risk analysis so that I can have better information about my security program.“
We’re seeing a lot of attention on cybersecurity and risk from the board of directors and the executive teams. From a cultural perspective, there has been a change in healthcare where this has become a priority that organizations need to focus on.
We’ve seen big changes in resiliency, where organizations have plans in place to not only respond to a security incident, but also to contain it to operate under duress through a business continuity plan. Having updated disaster recovery plans and testing those to make sure that they are effective.
As we look at all the solutions out there that are based on artificial intelligence, we have new concerns. There was a big rush to implement a lot of these new technologies that are based on AI. Unfortunately, many organizations did not take the time to establish policies and procedures about how they will use them and to assess the risks around these technologies.
It is still risk analysis, but it’s a different set of risks and different set of controls. We are seeing a lot of interest from our clients in helping them to establish governance around artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and privacy, or to assess their risks of those programs and to help make sure that they are implementing these technologies in a responsible way.
The mainstream press loves headlines about the devastating impact to patients of a local provider that has gone down from a cyberattack. How much do we not hear about providers who are successful in preventing that kind of attack?
That’s a very important point that you’re making. We hear about the bad news, but we don’t hear about the good things that are happening.
We’ve done over 650 NIST Cybersecurity Framework assessments for our clients over the last 10 years. We track and trend maturity levels over time. We see that the industry is becoming more mature. We track over time the organizations that adopt the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which is a commonly accepted and used framework in healthcare, and we see that they are improving above the bar of the rest of the industry. There’s really good data that we can point to that demonstrates that we are making progress.
The challenge is that the bar keeps getting higher. You have more vulnerabilities, more threat actors. Threat actors have been very successful in obtaining ransomware payments from healthcare. They pay more often than any other industry. When it’s easier to attack a certain sector that is more willing to pay and pay more, that’s going to attract more threat actors.
You don’t hear about organizations that are being responsible. They are assessing risks, maturing their security programs, and not having those attacks. Or if they do have a security incident, they are able to address it quickly and with minimal impact. They have network segmentation and other types of controls in place that make it difficult for threat actors to exfiltrate the data or to do damage.
We will continue to see that maturity improve over time. But we have to realize that unless we stop developing and implementing new technologies and increasing the attack surface, it’s not going to stand still. The bar is always going to become higher.
How often do providers pay a ransom, and if they do, what is a typical outcome?
Fewer providers are paying than in the past. A few years ago, it was 67% of the time, and that number has gone down probably closer to 50%.
You really can’t trust criminals. A lot of them will try to uphold their end of the bargain because they want people to continue paying, but that’s not always the case.
There’s also double extortion. You get the encryption keys to unlock your systems. Maybe some of these organizations have good backups in place and are willing to take the downtime that it takes to restore those systems, which could take days or weeks, or longer. In some cases, those encryption keys do not work. They’ve done so much damage that it doesn’t really help them.
Then the second extortion is to get the data back. Often the data will end up somewhere else in the future. Paying the ransom doesn’t give you any guarantees. You’re really taking your chances. That’s why you are seeing fewer organizations making that payment.
How do organizations allocate their spending across prevention, detection, and rapid recovery?
We always recommend starting with a baseline set of controls and adopting industry standard best practices. We can point to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. We can also point to the 405(d) health industry cybersecurity practices. Those are both recognized security practices in healthcare based on an amendment to the HITECH Act in January 2021.
The 405(d) HICP is a great place to start because it is provided in different volumes for small, medium, and large organizations. It was developed through collaboration with over 600 firms in healthcare — providers, vendors, and the government. It’s a practical way of setting up those baseline controls.
Once you’ve picked a framework and standard, you go back to how much more you need beyond that. That comes down to the other requirements that you have. Do you have compliance requirements that you need to meet? Maybe even ones outside of HIPAA. Do you have clients, partners, or payers that require you to meet certain security standards, maybe a SOC 2 audit or HITRUST certification? What’s your risk profile? What kind of risk as an organization are you willing to accept?
Then you do that risk analysis to see where you have gaps between your current level of risk and what’s acceptable. Using all that information, we create a target profile. It’s a long-term roadmap of where we want to focus. That will help determine where to make those additional investments. We know the minimum requirements for standards and practices, but going beyond that, what is the organization’s specific situation?
What is the value of health systems communicating regularly with their boards about cybersecurity, and what metrics are most useful for board members to understand the situation?
We speak to a lot more boards now than we did maybe five years ago. It’s pretty frequent. One of the key functions of a board is risk management. If the board is being informed of the other types of risks across the organization, cybersecurity has become an important area of risk, and one that they need to be informed about.
Typical things that we will talk to boards about are trends, particularly across the sector, and the higher-level concerns or risks that they need to think about.
The board should be putting the governance in place. What higher-level policies do we want to have as an organization? What is the level of risk we are willing to accept?
Sometimes, but not as much any more, we see risk tolerance levels being set by more at the operating level, the IT department. The IT department is not the risk owner. If a security incident renders a hospital in a position where it can’t see patients, that’s a board level issue. That’s all the way up to the board. So the board needs to decide how much risk we are willing to take. How many resources are we willing to apply? And then put the management team to work with the mandate and the support to implement a program that will ensure that the organization is in line with those policies and is on a path to meet that risk threshold.
We have to keep in mind that risk changes over time. Just because we are below our risk threshold today doesn’t mean that tomorrow we’re not. We do M&A, acquire a new part of the business, partner with somebody else that includes new third-party risk, changing the threat landscape. It’s constantly changing, so the board needs to make sure that that risk management program is prioritized and resourced. Then getting information to know that it’s actually being executed appropriately.
What changes do you expect to see in HHS OCR’s enforcement of HIPAA and security?
The Office for Civil Rights has been focused a lot this year on its risk analysis initiative, where it’s making sure that organizations are prioritizing that risk analysis that I spoke about earlier. The notice of proposed rulemaking was released at the beginning of the year. Part of that rule contains updates to the risk analysis requirement that reflect its current enforcement actions and guidance.
A lot of other requirements are more specific and are required under the rule. I don’t think that rule in its current form will necessarily be the one that is eventually published. I do think, however, there will be an update to the rule or at least some additional standards that organizations will need to meet. The HIPAA security rule was last updated in 2013. The world has changed a lot since that time.
Most of the industry is looking for something specific we can point to, not overwhelming, but addressable. Ideally with some support and help from the government, especially for those smaller organizations or rural health organizations that don’t have the resources or the money to improve the programs the way that they would like.
What does the company’s strategy look like over the next 3-4 years?
Our strategy is to be a market leader in healthcare cybersecurity and compliance. To do that, we need to have a full set of capabilities that are relevant to healthcare organizations. Not just today, but over the next several years. Our strategy is to continue to ensure that we can provide those services to our clients in a way that helps them reduce costs, become more efficient, and focus more on their mission, whether it’s treating patients or driving their business. Being a partner and extension of the organization to help them address cybersecurity compliance.
We are excited about our growth at Clearwater. We are grateful to have dedicated professionals in the organization, as well as a growing list of clients that we collaborate closely with. We are dedicated to this industry and looking forward to continuing to serve this industry and help make a difference in healthcare.
We are thrilled to announce a growth investment from Sunstone Partners, which is a private equity firm that focuses on tech-enabled services with a particular focus in cybersecurity and healthcare. That makes them a great partner for Clearwater going forward. We are excited to have a great partner that can help us better serve our clients. We will be investing in more technology, as well as continuing to scale the organization.
Virtual neurology clinic Neura Health raises $11.4 million in Series A funding, bringing its total raised to $22 million.
RCM and consulting business Vee Healthtek acquires Precision Practice Management, which offers RCM and technical support services.
CareCloud will acquire the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s MAP App, a revenue cycle performance benchmarking tool used by provider organizations.
We are approaching yet another threatened US government shutdown. In the virtual physician lounge this weekend, the hot topic was the telehealth mess that a shutdown would create.
Congress has not agreed on temporary funding for that modality, and the deadline is Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. Last Friday at 5 p.m., a colleague at a local institution received a message from the “administrator on duty” that encouraged clinics to move telehealth visits to in-person types. The timing shows little understanding of how medical offices run. Hordes of schedulers are not standing around at the end of the workday looking for things to do.
My colleague also lacks space in the clinic to convert those visits to in-person since his telehealth hours overlap with times when three other clinicians are occupying the practice’s exam rooms. Rescheduling into available space would require double-booking, which harms both the clinician and care quality, or pushing patients four or more months out.
US healthcare decision makers often miss the value of long-term policy and the realities of frontline delivery. A quote from one of my favorite movies is street racer Dominic Toretto saying, “I live my life a quarter mile at a time.” Many of us in the US healthcare system are unfortunately living our lives one Congressional budget cycle at a time.
I envy other parts of the world that take a longer view in the policy process. It’s not only in healthcare. As an avid outdoor enthusiast, I recently read an article about New Zealand and its 50-year plan to control invasive wild pine trees. The country has reached a consensus on the hazard that specific pine species create. It is working in a coordinated way to manage the issue while limiting the cost of the program and protecting the specific segments of the economy that would have been negatively impacted by expanding invasive species.
It’s the old “ounce of prevention” adage that makes both logical and financial sense, but is often lacking here in the US. Just thinking of some of the healthcare policies I’ve seen during my career makes me cringe. Medicare at times wouldn’t pay for diabetic testing supplies, which can help patients manage their blood sugars and prevent complications However, they would pay for the complications. That makes no sense at all.
I’ve spent the last couple of decades working on projects using Lean methodologies and creating cultures where continuous improvement and long-range planning is the norm. I’ve attended countless courses that addressed building high-performance teams and figuring out how to achieve consensus and move forward around specific clinical goals.
I’ve seen that mindset do amazing things in healthcare organizations. I have watched teams continuously deliver results that initially seem impossible, to the credit of the principles of incremental change as part of a bigger effort, continuous improvement, and having a genuine desire to make things better. It’s been a privilege to work on so many high-performance teams, although I’ve certainly worked on some that haven’t been models of peak performance.
The most challenging teams I’ve worked on have been those that set ambitious goals without curating the teams that are charged with meeting them. They may take an existing team and assign tasks on top of their regular responsibilities, which isn’t a recipe for success.
Another common pitfall is to expect the team to not only be good at their principal areas of expertise, but also to be great at project and program management. I’ve seen multiple teams fail when they didn’t have the management support to keep tasks on track, ensure that project milestones were being accomplished steadily, and keep their efforts within budget.
I also see teams that focus entirely on the end point while forgetting that the team is made up of individuals who have needs of their own. Whether it’s a need to understand the “what’s in it for me” related to a project or a need to have some semblance of work-life balance, good leaders make sure that they not only understand the needs of individual team members, but that they are doing their best to ensure that those needs are met.
I feel particularly privileged to be working in my current environment, where the team and its leadership truly care about each other. During my career, I’ve been in plenty of meetings with the usual “what did you do this weekend” kind of small talk while everyone is gathering, but often there’s a sense that people are just talking to fill the time as opposed to really being interested in what is going on in the lives of their colleagues.
I recently had an experience where a colleague reached out on Slack to ask me about a personal event that I had mentioned in small talk several weeks prior, wanting to know how it had gone. I was humbled by that, by the idea that someone would care enough to remember the comment for a couple of weeks (or make note of it) and then take the time to reach out to ask about it. That kind of colleague interaction is worth its weight in gold. It is so different from what I often see elsewhere, which is a group of people just trying to get through the day, week, or month and not really building relationships.
I’m also impressed by leadership that wants to make sure that employees grow regardless of where they are in their careers. It’s common to see professional development for those early in their careers, but by mid-career, sometimes there’s an assumption that we already know what we need to know and just need to go about our work.
I was recently asked to put together a real professional development plan for myself, not just as a box-checking item in the annual corporate process. I was shocked. The idea of getting asked the equivalent of what I’d like to be when I grow up, at this stage of my career, really made me think. I’ve had loads of experiences, but the idea of being able to learn or do things that haven’t crossed my path yet was refreshing. It caught me off guard, and I’ll have to do some focused thinking about the question.
As the new federal fiscal year begins, and as the calendar-year fourth quarter starts for many of us, what is your organization doing to develop and retain people? Leave a comment or email me.
Email Dr. Jayne.
Veradigm to Release Business Update September 30th and Host Investor Call October 1st
Veradigm will provide a business update after Tuesday’s market close, raising speculation that it will make an announcement about Nasdaq relisting.
Google, Flo Health to pay $56 million in period-tracking app privacy case
Google and Flo Health will pay a combined $56 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed Flo Health collected its users’ menstrual cycle data for targeted Google advertising without their permission.
What a shutdown could mean for telehealth
Politico reports that a looming federal shutdown, which can be avoided only if Congress passes a funding bill by Tuesday night, would end Medicare’s coverage of telehealth visits this week.
KLAS interviews 35 Epic customers at UGM following the company’s AI announcements. Most said that Epic’s move into ambient speech was expected.
Customers generally expect Epic’s product to be cheaper and better integrated than those of competitors.
Some respondents worry that Epic’s expanding footprint will stifle competition and innovation, although more than half expect to implement Epic’s ambient speech offering within two years.
From Skeptical CIO: “Re: Epic’s ambient speech. Everyone assumes it will be cheaper than Nuance or Abridge, but Epic add-ons haven’t exactly reduced overall costs. The Epic tax keeps going up while reducing competitor innovation. I don’t buy the argument that Epic will run this as a loss leader.”
From Grizzled Analyst: “Re: federal telehealth coverage. Ending with a shutdown and turning off a decade of progress with the stroke of a Congressional pen. Hospitals spent millions on virtual care platforms, patients got used to access, and now it’s all at risk because of political brinkmanship.”
Most poll respondents don’t expect personal financial improvement next year, with federal government volatility most often cited as the cause.
New poll to your right or here: Would you change doctors over non-clinical problems such as staff behavior, billing errors, bad tech, or scheduling headaches? It probably depends on how much you rely on continuity of care, whether you perceive your physician as better than the alternatives, or who takes your insurance. Medical practices are odd that much of the management and public-facing behavior is left to unqualified or unmotivated employees because doctors are poor managers.
Pondering:
Listening: The Favors, a collaboration between apparently popular (judging from Spotify stream counts) Finneas O’Connell (“Finneas,” a 10-time Grammy winner and Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator) and Ashley Willson (“Ashe”). They wrote all the songs on their new release. It’s not usually my kind of genre, but I’ve played the album several times and can’t get enough. My painfully obvious prediction is that they will soon approach household name status, probably both individually and collectively.
Meanwhile, I’m cooling on podcasts just as quickly as I embraced them. I tried all the reader suggestions, but endless commercials are so jarring and distracting that I can’t focus on the story.
Survey: “What’s your take on the value of IT Managed Services?” Sponsor: CTG. Due to recent legislative changes, Healthcare organizations are under growing pressure to balance cost, performance, and innovation. CTG wants to hear from leaders like you on how IT managed services can help — or hinder — those goals in this quick, 5-minute survey. Your insights will help inform industry understanding and provide a clear picture of how IT managed services is currently being used.
Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Veradigm will provide a business update after Tuesday’s market close, raising speculation that it will make an announcement about Nasdaq relisting.
Bonsai Health, whose AI agents automate the front-office workflows of medical practices, raises $7 million in seed funding. Founders Travis Schneider and Luke Kervin have launched three previous companies together, most recently PatientPop, which merged with Kareo in late 2021 to form Tebra.
Randall Sanborn, MS (MyMichigan Health) joins Aspirus Health as VP of system IT process and emerging technologies.
A Black Book Research poll of physician practice managers finds rapid growth in digital tool use and stronger EHR/RCM vendor ties, but half worry that collections will drop with medical debt removed from credit reports, while 81% don’t trust their system’s AI prompts due to lack of transparency and auditability. The report notes that practice managers often don’t recognize or use the capabilities of their current systems.
A sponsored 9to5 Mac article highlights 100-bed Emory Hallandale Hospital’s deployment of Macs, IPads, IPhones, and Apple Watches that run Epic Hyperspace, including its native MacOS app.
A Canadian news network warns patients that Epic MyChart’s new user agreement requires arbitration and a class action waiver, though such clauses aren’t enforceable under the consumer protection laws of some provinces. It also notes that patients can instead use hospital-specific web version of MyChart, which doesn’t include those terms.
Yale School of Medicine researchers validate that consumer prices increase when hospitals acquire medical practices. Interesting facts:
Politico reports that a looming federal shutdown, which can be avoided only if Congress passes a funding bill by Tuesday night, would end Medicare’s coverage of telehealth visits this week.
The UK government creates a National Commission on the Regulation of AI in Healthcare, which will accelerate NHS adoption of AI by advising on regulation and reviewing technology such as ambient voice that falls into a regulatory gray area. The group’s chair is University of Birmingham medical professor Alastair Denniston, MBBChir, MA, PhD.
My favorite headline of the week calls Oprah an influential “woo-woo wellness” aficionado, only lightly mentioning that she gave our Medicare leader an early, scrub-wearing medutainment platform to peddle miracle cures and fad diets.
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Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
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AmplifyMD Raises $20 Million Series B to Accelerate Transformation of Health System Care Delivery
AmplifyMD, which offers hospitals a multispecialty virtual care platform and physician network, raises a $20 million Series B round.
Tech-enabled cancer care company Thyme Care announces $97 million in Series D funding, bringing its total raised to $275 million.
Open@Epic Highlights: Expanded Data Connections for Developers and Patients
Epic announces several product updates and new capabilities at Thursday’s Open@Epic developer conference.
Bonsai Health Raises $7M Seed to Transform Healthcare With Agentic AI
Bonsai Health, which has developed AI agents to assist physician practices with front-office tasks, raises $7 million in seed funding.
Sunrise Group Raises $29 Million to Expand Dreem Health and Build the Largest U.S. Sleep Clinic
Sunrise Group will use $29 million in new funding to expand its Dreem Health digital sleep clinic across the country.
Epic announces these items at Thursday’s Open@Epic:
From Concerned Clinical Staff: “Re: Children’s Mercy Kansas City. Rolling out the Go Helen Nurse Concierge app ahead of Epic implementation. Does anyone have more information on the company? It seems duplicative with Epic’s Rover and Bedside and lack of Epic integration seems like a prime situation for errors in allergies, NPO, etc.” My understanding is that patients use the company’s voice app to make non-clinical, hospitality-type requests from their rooms (bring ice, order meals, etc.) that are then routed internally by the company’s concierge team. Nurses can also make in-room requests to have supplies brought to the room. The hospital is piloting Helen.
HIStalk sponsors who are participating in the HLTH conference October 19-22: tell me about your activities and I’ll include them in my conference guide.
I’m slowly warming up to podcasts after years of dismissing them, and I now see why they’re perfect for long walks and road trips. My first full series, which I’ve actually listened to twice, is the Peabody-winning investigative documentary “S-Town.” It’s gripping, provided you aren’t put off by profanity. Since its 2017 release, it has been downloaded 200 million times, which may make it the most-listened-to podcast ever. The experience reminds me of 1940s radio drama, where intimacy and imagination fill the mental space more powerfully in the absence of visuals.
Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Concord Technologies. Concord Technologies is a leading provider of Secure Document Exchange, Intelligent Document Processing, and Interoperability solutions to healthcare providers, payers, and other highly regulated businesses. For more than 20 years, billions of sensitive records containing valuable patient information have been reliably, accurately, and securely exchanged across Concord’s digital health network, and today, the company processes more than 4 billion pages of protected data each year. The company is also recognized for its best-in-class development of new artificial intelligence technologies, including Concord’s Practical AI approach to solving the most pervasive administrative challenges in the healthcare industry and for pioneering end-to-end Straight-Through Processing of healthcare data into the system of record. Thanks to Concord Technologies for supporting HIStalk.
None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Datavant acquires DigitalOwl, which summarizes patient records for law and insurance firms.
AmplifyMD, which offers hospitals a multispecialty virtual care platform and physician network, raises a $20 million Series B round.
Oracle awards its newly announced co-CEOs stock options worth $350 million, $250 million for Clay Magouyrk and $100 million for Mike Sicilia.
Intermountain Health promotes Mike Harmer, MPA to VP of ERP digital services.
CommonSpirit Health will use ESO’s EMS–hospital integration platform to give nearly 4,000 Utah first responders real-time access to the hospital outcomes data of patients they have transported.
CareCloud launches a hospital-focused physician relationship management platform obtained from its acquisition of Medsphere one month ago.
AI meeting assistant vendor Fireflies.ai rolls out Fireflies for Healthcare, a HIPAA-compliant documentation platform that integrates with EHRs via Chrome and generates clinical notes, patient summaries, referral letters, sick notes, and follow-up scheduling. Plans start at $10 per provider per month.
WellSky launches the AI-supported WellSky CarePort Referral Intake solution.
Wolters Kluwer Health announces UpToDate Expert AI, which allows clinicians to access evidence-based answers at the point of care.
The Joint Commission recognizes Tampa General Hospital with its inaugural innovation award, citing its work with Palantir, implement of ambient documentation, use of Apella’s OR safety computer vision technology, and its hospital-at-home program.
Ambience Healthcare introduces HCC Compliance Validator, which verifies in real time that clinician-selected diagnoses are substantiated for CMS compliance.
Access Community Health Network collaborates with Epic and the Social Security Administration to exchange medical records electronically to speed up disability benefit review.
Sutter Health launches Sutter Sync, developed with Epic, to send readings from its proprietary blood pressure cuff, scale, and glucometer directly to Epic’s MyChart app on the patient’s phone, eliminating the need for a separate device app. Epic mentioned its Bluetooth Generic Health Sensor specification this week at Open@Epic.
A study finds that private equity hospital takeovers are linked to staff and salary cuts, more patient transfers to other hospitals, and increased ED deaths.
ProPublica details an insurer’s denial of mental health coverage for a man who tried to commit suicide twice. His wife accuses the company of “weaponized incompetence” for intentionally throwing up barriers such as publishing incorrect fax numbers and blocking her access to billing codes, denial reasons, and medical records that her husband had authorized her to see.
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Autumn has arrived in the US, and with it the corporate compliance season. Nearly all the companies I’ve worked for do their mandatory training programs in September, October, and November, so I’m getting hit from all directions.
For those of us who have a patchwork of clinical employment and appointments, it means doing training programs from different entities. There is no single national training or certification that everyone can follow.
I’ve done four “Medicare Fraud, Waste, and Abuse” training programs in the last week, and I am at the point where I could teach the class. Online offerings range from “read this document and take a quiz” to videos that have to be watched at normal speed and in one sitting, which adds to the frustration.
Just one of my employers offers a choice of modalities (video versus reading a transcript), which highlights the fact that we need better recognition of different learning styles when we’re considering our corporate training offerings. Today I’m planning to tackle all my HIPAA training, so wish me luck.
It’s also the time of year when organizations update their ICD-10 codes since updates, additions, and deletions become effective on October 1. Changing codes is usually invisible to users, although depending on the EHR and revenue cycle management systems, a fair amount of behind-the-scenes work can be required.
Ideally, the transition involves more than just code changes. Coding and billing experts should ensure that providers understand the nuances of the annual changes. They should share that information with end users in the weeks leading up to the transition date.
Early in my informatics career, it was my job to write the provider bulletin that would highlight some of the new codes. Although that was important work at the time, in hindsight it seems a bit dull compared to the AI projects and large strategic projects I’ve had my hands in more recently.
Details about disbursement of the recently approved $50 billion in assistance for rural health projects are becoming public. The initial phase has states applying for funds that they can then use to augment their own rural health initiatives.
It’s always interesting to see how things go once the money starts flowing. Several states where I’ve lived practiced the bad habit of accepting federal funds for something and then cutting any pre-existing state funds. That doesn’t do much to move projects forward compared to applying federal funds in addition to existing state-level funding.
Rural health varies widely across the US. Some states have many rural health facilities, while others have few due to denser populations. How the funds are allocated will be telling.
The program has five strategic goals that vary in their vagueness. They range from “make rural America healthy again” to “workforce development.” States will employ different approaches to goals like workforce development, recruiting, and retention given the challenges of working in a rural environment.
I’ve practiced primary care in a rural setting and it is daunting. Being a family physician without a lot of subspecialty support requires you manage more conditions than in a suburban environment or at an academic medical center. Some of my rural friends are on call nearly 24/7, which is not necessarily attractive to new graduates even though they might find the environment both challenging and rewarding.
Increasing pay, not only for physicians but for all members of the healthcare team, would improve recruiting. It would require more than $50 billion to do that in a meaningful way in the US.
Other somewhat nebulous focus areas involve “the growth of innovative care models” designed to improve outcomes and “promote flexible care arrangements.” I’m hoping that these phrases aren’t used to advance programs that lead to increasing numbers of less qualified providers in rural areas. A couple of states have put together programs to increase access that allow physicians who are not fully licensed to practice in rural areas.
As someone who did a specialty residency in primary care, I would argue that just because one graduates from medical school doesn’t mean they are qualified to care for patients in the rural environment. I come from a long line of rural folk and have seen the health challenges they face. We need to make sure that we are incentivizing our best and brightest to go to those areas rather than just trying to supply warm bodies with incomplete training.
There is room for innovation in telehealth, team-based care that might involve subspecialists consulting remotely and other worthwhile areas. I hope we see plenty of those in funding proposals.
States must submit applications in by early November, so the timeline will be tight since awards will be announced by the end of the year. Are you involved in proposal submissions? What kinds of projects are on your wish list? Do you think your odds of being funded are good? Feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email.
A recent study caught my attention. It highlights how low-tech interventions might be better than high-tech ones. It found that when trying to identify health-related social needs such as housing instability, transportation needs, or food insecurity, simple questionnaires were more effective than advanced machine learning techniques. Using a combination was even more effective. The study examined 1,200 patients from two health systems in Indianapolis and included techniques such as using natural language processing of clinical notes to identify health-related needs.
Many of the clinicians who practice the US were trained in an environment where social determinants of health weren’t routinely covered. They have gradually been added to curricula, as research has shown that the environments in which people live and work have a significant impact on health outcomes and quality of life.
Some of the elements of the rural health initiative should help address this for patients who live in those areas. But we also need more support for urban populations that are dealing with similar challenges and others such as increasing levels of gun violence.
Is your organization working on initiatives to improve health in a particular community or trying to do so across the board? What are your priorities for these efforts in the coming year? Leave a comment or email me.
Email Dr. Jayne.
Cognitive rehab program startup Moneta Health raises $4.5 million in seed funding.
Privia Health acquires Evolent Health’s Evolent Care Partners primary care business in a deal valued at up to $113 million.
Oura ring maker raising $875M Series E, bringing valuation to $11B, report says
Smart ring maker Oura announces $875 million in expected Series E funding, bringing its valuation to $11 billion.
A new ASTP report says that 71% of hospitals used predictive AI tools in EHRs in 2024, mainly for outcomes, but increasingly for billing and scheduling.
Cleveland Clinic will expand its rollout of AI-powered sepsis detection system from Bayesian Health, in which it is an investor.
Clinic operator Akido Labs uses a proprietary LLM to let medical assistants conduct visits that are guided by ScopeAI, which generates and adapts questions, then summarizes the encounter for physician review. The company says the approach allows doctors to see four to five times more patients.
Apple says that it applied AI to its Heart and Movement Study data to build an algorithm that powers blood pressure monitoring in the new Apple Watch.
An AI model that was trained on population data forecasts rates and outcomes across 1,000 diseases more accurately than many standard models, while also identifying comorbidity patterns over time.
A study says that the rollout of imaging AI in NHS hospitals has proven harder than expected, citing long procurement and contracting timelines, challenges in integration with legacy systems, resistance from skeptical clinical staff, and uneven governance. The authors conclude, “While AI tools may offer valuable support for diagnostic services, they may not address current healthcare service pressures as straightforwardly as policymakers may hope.”
Albania’s government pledges a healthcare transformation that will be based on introducing AI in hospitals and expanding international alliances.
Expper Technology’s “huggable” AI robot Robin is being used in 30 nursing homes and pediatric units to offset staff shortages, engaging patients with music, conversation, jokes, and memory games. Thirty percent of Robin’s actions are autonomous, while remote operators control the rest under clinical supervision.
Mayo Clinic nurses help build an AI-powered, EHR-integrated virtual assistant that creates nurse-specific patient summaries with links to clinical references.
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Oracle Names Co-CEOs to Replace Catz as Software Provider Raises AI Bets
Oracle promotes Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia to co-CEOS, replacing Safra Catz.
RevSpring to Acquire Kyruus Health, Creating a Connected Care Journey from Search to Final Payment
Patient communications and payment solutions RevSpring will acquire Kyruus Health, which offers provider search and scheduling.
Pharmacy benefit manager and administrator Capital Rx rebrands to Judi Health, the name of its AI-powered health benefit management platform, and announces $400 million in new funding.
Glooko acquires Monarch to advance diabetes platform reach
Diabetes software vendor Glooko acquires Monarch Medical Technologies, which offers a glucose management system.
Caregility Raises $25 Million to Drive the Future of Hospital-Based Virtual Care
Enterprise telehealth vendor Caregility announces $25.1 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to $92 million.
Oracle promotes Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia to co-CEOS, replacing Safra Catz.
Magouyrk was president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and has been with the company 11 years. Sicilia joined the company in 2008 and most recently was president of Oracle Industries. Both were heavily involved with Oracle’s AI work.
Sicilia, a former lobbyist, was an early post-acquisition spokesperson for Oracle in several federal hearings about the VA’s stalled Oracle Health project. He is a regular critic of Epic and CEO Judy Faulkner. CTO Larry Ellison said, “Mike has spent the last several years modernizing Oracle’s Industry applications businesses, including Oracle Health, by completely rebuilding those applications using the latest AI technologies.”
The promotions were first disclosed in a June SEC filing.
None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Patient communications and payment solutions RevSpring will acquire Kyruus Health, which offers provider search and scheduling.
Pharmacy benefit manager and administrator Capital Rx rebrands to Judi Health, the name of its AI-powered health benefit management platform, and announces $400 million in new funding. The company has raised $732 million since its 2017 launch. I interviewed CEO AJ Loiacono last October.
Patient Square Capital will acquire tech-enabled group purchasing and supply chain company Premier Inc. in a $2.6 billion take-private deal. Premier, which went public in 2013, has been evaluating strategic alternatives for two years.
Prosper AI raises $5 million in seed funding. The company develops AI voice agents for patient access and administrative workflows.
Enterprise telehealth vendor Caregility announces $25.1 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to $92 million.
Diabetes software vendor Glooko acquires Monarch Medical Technologies, which offers a glucose management system. Glooko’s CEO says the acquisition will support its efforts to deliver a full hospital-to-home service.
ReferWell names Loren Koerber (Medecision) VP of strategic account management.
Jason Bond, MBA (CareAbout Health) joins Sevaro Health as CFO and SVP of strategy.
Matt Rockhold (GE HealthCare) joins Thynk Health as chief commercial officer.
Joe Moscola, PA, MBA (Northwell Health) leaves the organization and will offer advisory consulting services.
Allymar Health Solutions hires Cecil Lynch, MD, MSc (Accenture) as CMIO.
Scottsdale Institute appoints John Glaser, PhD (Harvard Medical School) as board chair, replacing co-founder Don Wegmiller.
Sutter Health (CA) will use Epic-connected medical devices in its Sutter Sync digital care program for patients with chronic conditions and pregnancy.
Quest Diagnostics announces a collaboration with Epic to integrate its lab operations nationally, streamlining ordering, results, billing, and patient engagement through technologies like MyChart as part of its Project Nova initiative
Micromedex adds AI-powered drug information search for clinical decision support.
VA Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office CNIO Toni Phillips, RN touts the new Oracle Health-based federal EHR’s streamlined medication administration capabilities, noting that the clicks to scan patient IDs have been reduced from 15 to two.
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I dont think anything will change until Dr Jayne and others take my approach of naming names, including how much…