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Morning Headlines 8/31/22

August 30, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/31/22

Software Firm Everbridge Is Exploring Potential Sale

Critical event management technology company Everbridge reportedly considers putting itself up for sale, causing its share price to jump in after-hours trading.

Healee lands $2M to grow customizable telehealth solution in the U.S.

White-label digital health technology startup Healee raises $2 million in a seed funding round led by Nina Capital.

Genesis Growth Tech (GGAA) to Combine with Biolog-id in $312M Deal

Medical product RFID tracking vendor Biolog-ID announces plans to go public in a $312 million SPAC merger.

$1 billion digital-health startup Wheel cut 17% of its staff in August. Read the CEO’s full memo announcing the layoffs.

White-label telemedicine and staffing company Wheel reportedly lays off 17% of its staff.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/31/22

News 8/31/22

August 30, 2022 News Comments Off on News 8/31/22

Top News

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Politico points out that the HHS Office for Civil Rights can’t keep up with investigating healthcare cyberattacks, helping healthcare organizations better protect themselves against attacks, and enforcing HIPAA.

The office lacks funding, staff, and other resources. Fewer than 100 OCR investigators, some of whom are tasked with other duties, are expected to deal with 53,000 cases this year.

A 2023 budget increase, if passed, will allow the office to hire 37 more investigators.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I failed to add some of Dr. Jayne’s photos in her Monday recap of Epic UGM, so check out the updated version.


Webinars

September 22 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2023 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, marketing director, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, marketing manager, IMO. The yearly update to ICD-10-CM is almost here. Prepare your organization for a smooth transition, and avoid any negative impacts to your bottom line, with an in-depth look at the upcoming changes. Listen to IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders discuss the 2023 ICD-10-CM coding changes. This webinar will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the ICD-10-CM code set and how to make sure you get properly reimbursed.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Post-acute care coordination software vendor Olio Health raises $13 million in a Series A funding round.

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Critical event management technology company Everbridge reportedly considers putting itself up for sale, causing its share price to jump 17% in after-hours trading. The Vermont-based company went through a proxy fight earlier this year with an activist investor who called for Everbridge’s sale in the midst of falling share prices. David Wagner (Zix) joined the company as CEO in July.

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Healee raises $2 million in a seed funding round led by Nina Capital. The company’s white-label technology helps providers set up telehealth, digital appointment scheduling, and patient check-in services.

Medical product RFID tracking vendor Biolog-ID announces plans to go public in a $300 million SPAC merger.


Sales

  • ScionHealth (KY) will implement Cadence’s remote patient monitoring and virtual care technology across its 18 community hospitals.

People

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Former National Coordinator and Health Evolution founder David Brailer, MD, PhD joins Cigna as EVP/chief health officer.

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Nilesh Patil (Emids) joins WellStack as chief growth and strategy officer.

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Medhost names CFO Matthew Higgins president of MedTeam Solutions, its newly consolidated and expanded line of business services.

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Steve Gottfried (Curasev) joins Myndshft as VP of business development.

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New York-Presbyterian Hospital promotes Rhonda Bartlett, DBA, RN to VP of digital services.


Announcements and Implementations

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Blessing Health System (IL) implements Wolters Kluwer Health’s POC Advisor for sepsis detection and patient management at Blessing Hospital and Illini Community Hospital.

Conduit Health Partners announces GA of remote patient monitoring nursing services.

Children’s Hospital New Orleans will use Cleveland Clinic’s e-radiology service to ensure that its clinicians have around-the-clock access to pediatric radiology experts.

Lee Health (FL) expands its virtual care services with remote patient monitoring capabilities from Health Recovery Solutions.

Redox announces a major expansion of its interoperability operations in Canada.


Government and Politics

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The VA names Lynette Sherrill deputy assistant secretary for information security and CISO.

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Lyster Army Health Clinic at Fort Rucker Army Base (AL) and the 78th Medical Group at Robins Air Force Base (GA) will go live on MHS Genesis next month.


Other

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Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centers (IL) recognizes Nikki Jackson as its Fire Starter of the Month for her work as an applications specialist within its IT department. CIO John Wilcox says Jackson’s value was especially evident during the Kronos timekeeping outage last year: “Nikki was able to build a temporary timekeeping system for us through iShare, something many organizations that were in the same situation weren’t able to replicate. It really displayed what Nikki is able to do for our organization every day.”

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West Virginia University Medicine opens its first pediatric telemedicine and specialty clinic in an effort to help families in rural, southern parts of the state access care.


Sponsor Updates

  • Surescripts joins Civitas Networks for Health as a strategic business and technology partner.
  • Ascom receives FIPS 140-2 certification for the Myco3 smartphone.
  • Baker Tilly publishes a new case study, “Real-world evidence help medical device company navigate CMS reimbursement rule.”
  • Bamboo Health donates technology to Jefferson County Public Schools, the Louisville Tool Library, and UpLouisville.
  • Nordic releases a new video highlighting its metadata-driven pipeline.
  • Oracle Cerner releases a new podcast, “How data and tech advancements enabled innovation in the Middle East.”
  • KLAS rates Clearwater as a top performer in its new research report reviewing the security and privacy consulting services market.
  • Clinical Architecture celebrates its 15th anniversary.
  • Direct Recruiters hires Guru Brandes-Swamy (LetsGetChecked) as director of analytics for its healthcare IT and life sciences practice.
  • Texas Children’s Hospital CIO Myra Davis joins Divurgent’s advisory board.
  • Ellkay publishes a new customer success story, “WakeMed Health. Connectivity and Error Reduction Produce Big ROI.”
  • KLAS recognizes Impact Advisors for exceeding client expectations in its new research report reviewing the security and privacy consulting services market.

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 8/31/22

Morning Headlines 8/30/22

August 29, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/30/22

Fulcrum Equity Partners Announces $13M Series A Growth Equity Round for Olio Health

Olio Health, which specializes in care coordination software for post-acute care, raises $13 million in a Series A funding round.

Psych Hub Expands the Nation’s Go-To Mental Health Education & Navigation Platform

Psych Hub, a digital mental healthcare education and navigation resource for providers and patients, raises $16 million and announces plans to offer provider-patient matching.

Theranica Secures $45 Million Series C Funding Round

Migraine-focused digital therapeutic company Theranica raises $45 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $86 million.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/30/22

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 8/29/22

August 29, 2022 Dr. Jayne 4 Comments

I spent most of last week at the Epic Users Group Meeting and I’m finally recovering. Although I’ve been to the Epic campus on other occasions, this was my first UGM. It was an outstanding experience.

This year’s theme was “Midnight at the Museum.” I can only imagine the amount of work that went into putting it on. Although most vendor user group meetings that I’ve attended have a theme, this was over the top, with many of the Epic staff dressed as characters from paintings, movies, museum exhibits, or as historical figures. Although many paid tribute to a movie of a similar theme — such as cave people, a centurion, and security guards — my favorites were those from paintings such as “American Gothic” and “Girl With a Pearl Earring.”

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The theme was even used in unexpected ways, including as an explanation for a last-minute substitution of the conference bags they had planned to give out. It’s important to have a sense of humor when the best-laid plans fail to happen, and I give them full credit for running with it.

After checking in and picking up my badge and the substituted tote bag, my colleague and I headed to the traditional Campfire event, which is also a “Taste of Epic” and a chance for the legendary Epic culinary team to shine. The menu included pulled pork sliders, two kinds of stuffed grape leaves, shrimp with tortilla chips, and fried lotus root. I had never tried the latter and was pleasantly surprised. The campfires are real and there were s’mores stations, but I opted to go for the “deconstructed s’more” approach to avoid getting next to the heat since it was already unseasonably warm. The banana pudding did not disappoint. There were plenty of Epic executives out chatting with attendees.

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Monday morning I was up bright and early for the trek to campus because I wasn’t sure what traffic would be like. Although they run buses from most of the conference-related hotels, I decided to drive myself due to some post-conference commitments. It was an easy commute. After breakfast, we dove straight in for educational sessions.

I like the Epic format better than other conferences I’ve attended. The majority of the sessions are 40 minutes in length to allow for a 30-minute presentation, 10-minute Q&A, and then a 20-minute passing period. That’s a good length that forces presenters to be concise and focused and allows for attending more presentations versus being in longer ones. Some of the Epic-presented sessions are longer because they are going more in depth with functionality, but they still felt well paced. Audiovisual setups in the presentation rooms were solid, with most rooms having dual projection of the presenters’ slides.

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Lunch was my first trip to “the Tent,” which can only be described as ginormous. There was outdoor seating via picnic tables and high-top tables along with lawn games. Inside was a tremendous amount of seating along with various museum-themed exhibits, photo opportunities, costumed staff, and ample buffet lines to keep thousands of attendees moving. I appreciated the nod to sustainability with refillable water bottles and easily accessible filling stations along with recycling bins everywhere that trash bins were located. The short walk from the classrooms to the tent was a nice excuse to get out and enjoy a little fresh air and the beautiful blue skies.

After lunch, I spent a few minutes perusing some local vendors that were set up in one of the common areas. Vendors were sampling cheese, chocolate, and of course mustard since the National Mustard Museum is located just a short hop from campus.

In the afternoon, I stopped by the exhibit hall, which I really enjoyed. Half the space was full of Epic’s “Meet the Experts” booths, where attendees could connect with developers and other key staff for each of the products. I’ve been to other user meetings where development and product teams all but hid from the attendees. It was great to see so many good conversations and plenty of ideas being exchanged. I look forward to seeing some of the ideas I heard discussed make their way into the software.

The other thing that’s different about the exhibit hall is the vendor space. Each vendor has the same size booth and they are relatively uniform. It’s more about substance than glitz, and the smaller format was conducive to conversations. I had a good conversation with IMO (Intelligent Medical Objects) and enjoyed their customized M&M giveaway as an afternoon pick-me-up. As always, the team from Healthwise was friendly and engaging and I enjoyed learning about the volunteer service that one of their reps does in their free time.

Tuesday morning contained the executive address, which was definitely something to behold. Thousands of clients pack the Deep Space auditorium, and many organizations bring decorated umbrellas, balloons, and signs to allow co-workers to find each other to sit together. All of the presenters were costumed in a way that tied to their presentations, with several teams re-creating famous paintings. Part of the presentation involves introductions of all the new clients, and Epic selects a song for each that ties to their name or location.

I wasn’t surprised to see some of my former consulting clients joining the Epic community and I’m certainly looking forward to collaborating with them on a new adventure. No matter where I’ve worked, the informatics community has been full of people who are willing to share best practices and work together to improve care for our patients and communities.

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Dr. Jayne’s “Best in Show” vendor award goes to Nemours KidsHealth, which always has cute giveaways. This year they had mummy-shaped chocolates to match the museum theme. I mentioned their HIMSS giveaway of insulated grocery totes and their rep offered to send one to my teammate, which was sweet. The rep was hilarious and definitely held our attention. The Nemours booth was next to Iron Bridge, whose reps were also engaging and funny. The two of them were doing a little riffing off of each other along with the Nemours rep, which was fun to watch. I’ve staffed the booth at conferences in a past life and it can be exhausting, so kudos to these three for keeping it fun. They were still at the same energy level later in the week, which was impressive.

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Kudos also to the Epic customer service desk, which happily produced an ice pack for my co-worker’s aching foot. She had injured it prior to the event and soldiered through the week, although she did take advantage of a cow-print golf cart to get to her car at the end of a particularly long day. I know I walked more than 19 miles and talked with what seemed like a thousand different clinical informatics professionals while learning dozens of things I want to take home and implement. I have numerous presentations to review since there were often multiple interesting sessions running at the same time. Our team did its best to divide and conquer, so we still have to put our notes together and share all the thoughts and ideas.

When I’ve written about visiting Epic in the past, readers comment about the cost of the campus. However, in talking with a couple of friends who work in the marketing and trade show space, being able to host your major events on your own property is a smart play. They’re not paying exorbitant convention center fees year after year, but rather are able to invest those expenditures in their own infrastructure. They’re not flying staff across the country, and their in-house culinary team delivered the best conference food I’ve ever encountered, probably at a fraction of the cost that vendors pay for hotel and convention catering. They’re not paying for big-name entertainment or keynote speakers-for-hire. Everything about the event just screams “good clean fun, and you’ll learn something, too.”

What’s the best or worst vendor conference you’ve attended, and why? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 8/29/22

August 28, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/29/22

NHS cyberattack causing ‘total chaos’ in hospitals could take a year to recover

An August 5 ransomware attack on software vendor Advanced that took down England’s 111 service along with mental health and community systems may not be resolved for several weeks, hospital employees are told.

PRL Launches Nationwide Expansion Adding Strategic Advisory Services

Specialty practice- and ambulatory surgery center-focused RCM company PRL rebrands to Koha Health and adds strategic advisory services.

Hackers have laid siege to U.S. health care and a tiny HHS office is buckling under the pressure

Politico points out that the HHS Office for Civil Rights can’t keep up with enforcing HIPAA and helping healthcare organizations better protect themselves against cyberattacks due to a lack of funding, staff, and other resources.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/29/22

Monday Morning Update 8/29/22

August 28, 2022 News 1 Comment

Top News

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An August 5 ransomware attack on software vendor Advanced that took down England’s 111 service along with mental health and community systems may not be resolved for several weeks, hospital employees are told.

Hospitals say that updating patient information after the systems are restored usually requires two weeks for each day of downtime, meaning that it could take up to a year before clinicians have access to full patient records online.

People who call 111 are waiting on hold for an average of 6.5 minutes versus the target of 20 seconds. Public health campaigns are urging people to call 111 instead of visiting hospital emergency departments in anticipation of backups this winter that are caused by “fuel poverty,” with gas and electricity bills expected to double in October.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents would not post a “looking for work” item on LinkedIn. Some say that strategy might work for a new grad or someone who needs a job, any job quickly, but basically LinkedIn is just another resume that will be ignored, especially with the “Facebook-ization” of the platform. I concur with DrShowoff’s advice: clean up your profile, add quantifiable numbers that illustrate your performance, use words that will help Linkedin searchers find you, and make sure your headshot is current and of high quality. To which I would add:

  • Don’t refer to yourself in the third person as though an unseen, admiring biographer penned your profile.
  • Write like you talk.
  • Make your “About” summary the story you would want to tell a potential hirer first.
  • Be concise in your “Experience” items and don’t waste space describing the business that each employer was in (anyone likely to hire you knows that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a hospital, for instance).
  • The objective is brevity, so omit anything that won’t impact your being hired – your GPA, your one-month try at consulting between jobs, and the membership groups that anyone can join by writing a check.
  • Consider writing posts that show what you know, including videos if that’s a strength.
  • Use the platform for messaging specific contacts instead of passively hoping that someone finds your profile.
  • I usually pay no attention to bottom part of the profile (Skills, Interests, Honors and Awards, Organizations, etc.) although I’ll sometimes glance at “Recommendations.”

Speaking of LinkedIn advice, I’m spending my morning removing connections or unfollowing folks who hopefully understand that their repeated likes and comments are pushed into my newsfeed. I can grit my teeth through “humbled” self-promotion, company pitches, topics unrelated to healthcare IT, and vapid “inspiration” posts written as one-sentence paragraphs, but I’m not here (or anywhere else) for individual insights about politics, sports, or just about any topic that starts with “I don’t usually share personal posts on LinkedIn” and ends with doing exactly that. Surely we all know that potential employers or customers look people up on LinkedIn and make decisions accordingly, and that social media platforms power their most annoying and evil activities via newsfeeds that intentionally push content that you didn’t ask for.

New poll to your right or here: What is the #1 reason you think Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Care primary care business? I couldn’t list every possible answer, so feel free to add a poll comment with yours.


I’m feeling the need to learn. Who outside of the vendor world would make a good interview? Should I review a book or other creative work? I’m most interested in the less-represented folks rather than those who are amply promoted by themselves or others, although it’s often a challenge for the rank-and-file people to get employer permission to be interviewed.


Webinars

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


Sales

  • SAP-owned marketing technology vendor Emarsys contracts for cybersecurity and HIPAA compliance managed services from Clearwater.

People

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Net Health hires Gabe Hesse (Arrive Health) as CTO and promotes Kevin Keenahan, MSE to chief product officer.

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Kidney care company Somatus hires Joe Kimura, MD, MPH (Atrius Health) as chief medical officer.

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Gene Sawyer (Optum) joins Evergreen Nephrology as CIO.


Announcements and Implementations

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A eight-customer KLAS review of Microsoft cloud technologies in healthcare is favorable, with clients reporting stable cloud solutions that aren’t oversold. However, they are less enthused about the company’s delivery of new technology and its track record of keeping promises, noting specifically that Teams needs work and the company’s licensing and cost issues are concerning. Amazon Web Services rates stronger in technology and keeping promises, while Microsoft performs better in executive involvement and partnership. Common uses of Azure are virtual desktops, virtual data centers, digital pathology image storage, AI/ML computing, and EHR hosting. More than half of customers say Microsoft’s cloud technologies reduced specific costs and shortened project timelines.


Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

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Morning Headlines 8/26/22

August 25, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/26/22

Alma Raises $130M in Series D Funding led by Thoma Bravo to Advance its Mission to Simplify Access to High Quality, Affordable Mental Health Care

Mental healthcare network development company Alma raises $130 million, bringing its total raised to $220.5 million.

Breakthroughs for All: Delivering Equitable Access to America’s Research

The White House eliminates the optional 12-month journal article paywall embargo for federally-funded research projects, requiring journal publishers to make the articles and their associated data promptly available at no charge starting in 2026.

MediCardia Health Inc. with Human Longevity Inc. to Deploy Nation’s First Remote Monitoring Platform for Precision Medicine

Cardiology virtual care vendor MediCardia Health and aging-related genomics company Human Longevity launch a platform that uses extracted EHR data for patient risk assessment and remote patient monitoring.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/26/22

News 8/26/22

August 25, 2022 News 3 Comments

Top News

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Amazon will close Amazon Care on December 31. It says that despite high patient satisfaction, the three-year-old virtual care offering did not provide a complete solution for its target audience of employers, concluding in an internal email that the business “wasn’t going to work long term.”

Amazon says it knew the business was not likely to be successful before it decided to acquire primary care chain One Medical, which was announced July 21. Some observers speculate that Amazon decided to focus on One Medical, which also sells to employers and offers telemedicine services. That acquisition has not yet received regulatory clearance.

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Amazon had recently announced an expansion of Amazon Care locations and services for 2022.

A Washington Post article from last week quoted company nurses who questioned Amazon’s heavy-handed operation of the business despite its limited healthcare knowledge.

Shares in Medicare Advantage home care operator Signify Health, which is reported to be the target of acquisition interest by Amazon (along with UnitedHealth and others), jumped on the news.

Some of the online reactions:

  • The company may have concluded that it makes more sense to work with providers instead of self-insured employers since the most expensive patients aren’t usually covered by employer insurance.
  • Amazon Care may have hit a wall in hiring clinical employees.
  • One Medical offers telehealth services, but also runs in-person clinics.
  • Some speculate that Amazon is closing the business to ease any regulatory concerns that are related to its One Medical acquisition.
  • The implications of Amazon not finding a go-forward path in telehealth may spill over into traditional providers.
  • The failure of both Amazon Care and its Haven joint project may have caused Amazon to realize the challenges of building versus acquiring a healthcare business.

Webinars

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


Sales

  • Baptist Health South Florida will implement Innovaccer Health Cloud for population health analytics, provider engagement, and care management.
  • Northern Ireland’s Department of Health chooses Lyniate to connect health and social systems to Epic, which goes live nationally in 2023.
  • MedAllies will implement Lyniate EMPI by NextGate.

Announcements and Implementations

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Epic CEO Judy Faulkner says at the company’s UGM conference that the records of 162 million Americans are stored in its Cosmos research database, which was used to author an article with the CDC that progressed from first draft to publication in one month. The company also announced a Cosmos feature called “Look-alikes” that will allow physicians to submit symptoms of a puzzling diagnosis to identify patients who have similar issues and to share information with their doctors . An Epic developer took the stage to lay out the benefits that are accruing from moving to a web-based platform, including easier upgrades and the ability to improve usability.

Pacific Dental Services completes the implementation of Epic in its 900 practices, which it says will support the role of oral health in overall health. The company trained 14,000 employees in converted the records of 10 million patients in the transition from its previous practice management system.

In England, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust goes live on GE Healthcare Edison True PACS on Amazon Web Services, which it says allows continuous cybersecurity patching and reduced carbon footprint.

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Cardiology virtual care vendor MediCardia Health and aging-related genomics company Human Longevity launch a platform that uses extracted EHR data for patient risk assessment and remote patient monitoring. MediCardia founder and CEO Indrajit Choudhuri, MD completed fellowships in nuclear medicine, cardiovascular disease, and cardiac electrophysiology before starting the company in 2020.

First Databank launches FDB Navigo, which provides retail pharmacists with the patient’s most important risks, as derived from the pharmacy’s computer system, to help determine the “next best step.” 

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Google announces the next generation of Fitbit wearables that includes the advanced, $300 Sense 2 smartwatch, which includes continuous heart rate monitoring and tracking of sleep and stress.

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A new KLAS report on security and privacy consulting services finds high customer satisfaction with First Health Advisory and Impact Advisors, lowest overall scores for Intraprise Health and Meditology Services, and high satisfaction with managed services firms Fortified Health Security and CynergisTek (which will be acquired by Clearwater).


Government and Politics

The White House eliminates the optional 12-month journal article paywall embargo for federally-funded research projects, requiring journal publishers to make the articles and their associated data promptly available at no charge starting in 2026.

The Federal Trade Commission files a complaint about advertising technology vendor Kochava, saying that the company’s tools potentially violate the health privacy of consumers whose location and time are logged and then sold. The company denies the allegations, but says it will stop collecting mobile device user locations that involve health.


Other

A study of Epic Cosmos data finds that while 50% of suspected overdose patients are tested for opiates in the ED, only 5% of them are also tested for fentanyl, which was involved in 56,000 overdose deaths in 2020. The authors speculate that fentanyl testing is uncommon because it is usually not included in ED toxicology screening panels.

The New Yorker takes an on-the-ground look at what it’s like for residents of a nursing home that is acquired by a private equity firm. Spoiler: executives care only about cutting costs, always painfully and sometimes dangerously, and using complex corporate structures to protect the parent organization from the inevitable lawsuits over lower care quality.


Sponsor Updates

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  • NTT Data staff serve children and families staying at The Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health.
  • Intelligent Medical Objects publishes a new case study featuring Piedmont Healthcare, “Optimizing OR scheduling and perioperative workflows.”
  • Juniper Networks announces key milestones that highlight the company’s growth in the wired and wireless access space, including gaining the largest US healthcare provider as a customer.
  • Nordic joins KLAS’s Arch Collaborative that looks at EHR best practices and clinician burnout.
  • Surescripts joins interoperability organization Civitas Networks for Health.

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 8/25/22

August 25, 2022 Dr. Jayne 2 Comments

This week has been a bit disjointed due to travel. I’m starting to wonder how I survived being a road warrior for so long earlier in my career. I traveled at least twice a month for a number of years and there was a predictable routine to it, unlike today. In the current state, it seems like delays and difficulties have become the norm and a smooth trip is a rarity. Whether it’s due to labor shortages, supply chain issues, or other factors, I’ve grown used to airports where restaurants are closed, amenities are limited, and rental cars are less than plentiful.

I’m working on a project right now to increase accessibility to behavioral therapy services, particularly for patients who are dealing with anxiety, depression, and overall stress. The need for these services far outstrips the supply in some areas, and patients are looking for solutions that they can access during non-traditional hours as they try to juggle responsibilities at work and home. There is a particular need for services targeted towards adolescents, who are experiencing mental health diagnoses in ever-growing numbers.

As I was looking for statistics, I came across this opinion piece from the spring that suggested “It May Be Time to Ban Kids From Social Media.” I certainly know plenty of adults that struggle with social media. Family physicians and pediatricians have been speaking for years about the amplifying effect it can have on already existing social issues in pre-teens and teens.

The author cites a study that was published in Nature Communications that looks at which specific time windows of development have the most sensitivity to social media’s influence. The study, which looked at data from the UK, found that there were distinct impact windows for both males (14-16 years old) and females (11-13 years old), where higher estimated social media user predicts a decrease in life satisfaction ratings one year later. Both sexes also experienced a dip at age 19. He notes that it’s difficult to study these phenomena because of challenges identifying correlation versus causality and that using the one-year lag is helpful in trying to “tease out causality.” The authors of the study noted a feedback loop where increased social media use led to decreased life satisfaction, which led to increased social media use, and so on. The study was unable to separate the different types of social media use or platforms used, which is also a limiting factor.

Mental health issues in adolescents have been on the rise long before the COVID pandemic, and social media seems to be a significant contributing factor for many of the youth I encounter regularly. Gossip that used to spread within a given class grade level over several days at school can now spread to the entire school in seconds. Legislation to prevent children under 13 from having social media accounts has been in place for more than two decades, but I’m constantly encountering parents (including physicians) who help their children subvert these protections due to perceived fear of missing out or frankly giving into peer pressure. It’s interesting and often appalling to listen to the explanations given for parents who know they’re doing something that could harm their children but who don’t feel empowered to say no. Only time will tell how much of a public health threat social media really is, but it seems like we’re already past the point where the genie could be put back in the bottle.

Speaking of the teenage years, I started my medical career in earnest as a Candy Striper in a local hospital. That designation is likely long gone, replaced by “teen volunteer” in the early 1990s in most hospitals where I’ve worked. In a post-HIPAA era, I’m sure there were privacy concerns with regard to underage volunteers, and in many institutions, volunteer roles were significantly impacted by the pandemic. I volunteered with my best friend who wanted to be a nurse and it was a great experience.

Especially if they are considering healthcare, it’s important for young people to take a closer look at the careers they are considering. Our local school district has a health careers program as part of its vocational education offerings, where students can learn formally and build experience while completing their normal high school course work. I enjoyed reading a recent article about what hospitals should consider when hiring teens. One of the executives noted the emotional toll of his own daughter’s employment in the hospital’s food and nutrition area, especially when working with sick patients.

The article notes that Ohio’s Mount Carmel Health System lowered its hiring age from 18 to 16 in September 2021. Initial teen hires are working in environmental services, nutrition services, and patient transportation roles. Earlier this year, the organization created a patient-facing student support associate position and is working to onboard those who are enrolled in nursing or pre-nursing programs. The associates assist with tasks that are normally assigned to patient care technicians, such as taking vital signs, assisting with bathing patients, and helping manage equipment and supplies.

It’s a smart move, especially given the nationwide nursing shortage, since young people who have a positive experience with a given hospital might be more likely to consider a long-term role there once they have completed their training. It’s challenging, however, due to the limited hours that students can work.

It’s nice to see students be paid for the work that we did for free as Candy Stripers. We did a lot of running between our assigned floors and the central supply department, refilled ice and water pitchers, prepared ice packs on the postpartum unit, ensured that linen carts were filled, and sometimes even delivered medications from the pharmacy to nursing units. One of my favorite jobs was working in the hospital gift shop, which was a nice break from using the addressograph machine to apply unique demographics to paper chart pages. Keeping the shelves stocked appealed to my sense of order and helping the adult volunteer who was intimidated by the brand-new electronic cash register might have been the beginning of my career in technology and end-user coaching as well.

Here’s to all of us in healthcare who started as Candy Stripers. If you have a favorite story to share, leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 8/25/22

August 24, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/25/22

Amazon is shutting down its telehealth service, Amazon Care

Amazon decides to shut down Amazon Care, its employer-focused virtual care company, after determining that it is not a “complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers” the retail giant has been targeting.

Firmament Backs Healthcare Revenue Integrity Technology Platform Panacea Healthcare Solutions

Firmament makes an undisclosed investment in Panacea Healthcare Solutions, a revenue cycle software and services company that recently acquired competitors Holliday & Associates and First Healthcare Compliance.

Epic’s Judy Faulkner dresses as Amelia Earhart for global conference

Epic announces a new Cosmos “look-alikes” feature that will enable providers to diagnose rare diseases more quickly using its database of 149 million patients.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/25/22

Morning Headlines 8/24/22

August 23, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/24/22

Babylon Disrupted the UK’s Health System. Then It Left

Struggling Babylon Health cancels its last NHS contract eight years early, saying that the projects aren’t profitable enough to continue in a cost-cutting environment.

HITRUST Selected for TEFCA Security Certification

The Sequoia Project selects HITRUST as the certifying body for organizations looking to prove compliance with TEFCA security requirements for designation as Qualified Health Information Networks.

Sanford breaks ground on transformative Virtual Care Center

Sanford Health (SD) begins construction on a 60,000 square-foot Virtual Care Center that will serve as a hub for the health system’s virtual clinics and telemedicine services.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/24/22

News 8/24/22

August 23, 2022 News 5 Comments

Top News

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Struggling Babylon Health cancels its last NHS contract eight years early, saying that the projects aren’t profitable enough to continue in a cost-cutting environment.

Babylon had offered an AI-based chatbot for triaging patients and a telehealth service.

The company will focus on the US market, where the for-profit healthcare system generates more potential funding.

BBLN shares are down more than 90% since the company went public in a SPAC merger in October 2021.


Reader Comments

From Long Island IT: “Re: Northwell. Word in metro New York is that it is talking to Epic now that its CIO, who was tied tightly to Allscripts, is gone and the product set has been sold to Harris.” Unverified. Northwell and Allscripts announced in October 2019 that they would co-develop a next-generation EHR (which never happened) and Northwell extended its Allscripts contracts through 2027.


Webinars

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Shares of Signify Health jump on the news that Amazon is reportedly interested in acquiring the home healthcare company, joining CVS Health and UnitedHealth. Final bids for Signify, which could achieve an $8 billion valuation, are due around Labor Day. UnitedHealth’s bid of $30 a share has made it the frontrunner thus far, followed by Amazon, which acquired membership-based primary care company One Medical last month for nearly $4 billion.

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Virtual care company Recuro Health acquires Competitive Health, which offers digital health programs to employers. Recuro, which was founded last year by Teladoc founder Michael Gorton, acquired virtual primary care company WellVia in April.

Shares of Zoom took a beating on Tuesday as the company reported mixed quarterly results and lowered its forecast after enterprise sales failed to offset the loss of consumer users. A huge growth in Microsoft Teams users isn’t helping. ZM shares peaked in October 2020 at $559. They are now at $81, having lost 75% of their value in the past 12 months.


Sales

  • Baptist Health chooses Censinet for vendor and product risk assessment.
  • BronxCare Health System will implement virtual physical therapy, care paths, and remote education from Force Therapeutics for its orthopedic patients.

People

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Suki names Belwadi Srikanth, MBA (Google) VP of product and design.

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Brittany Carter, MBA (Cboe Global Markets) joins ChartSpan as CFO.

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Todd Garlitz, MBA (LexisNexis Risk Solutions) joins virtual genomic services company Genome Medical as VP of growth marketing.

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David Wardlaw, MBA (MobileSmith Health) joins Avant-garde Health as SVP of sales.

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Tamara Elias, MD (Merck) joins Nuance / Microsoft as SVP of strategy and business incubation.


Announcements and Implementations

Cone Health’s payer subsidiary, HealthTeam Advantage, implements Bamboo Health’s Pings real-time care notification technology.

Brown & Toland Physicians makes e-consults with Stanford Health Care (CA) subspecialists available to its network of primary care physicians.

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The Sequoia Project selects HITRUST as the certifying body for organizations looking to prove compliance with TEFCA security requirements for designation as Qualified Health Information Networks.

Payments technology vendor Anomaly announces an AI-powered claims prediction engine that it says can identify likely actionable denials with 97% accuracy.

The National Cancer Institute awards a grant to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to publish best practices for telehealth-enabled cancer care, which will include a study of its MSK@Home program for breast and prostate cancer.


Privacy and Security

Methodist McKinney Hospital (TX) refuses to pay hackers to retrieve 360 gigabytes of data that was stolen in a recent ransomware attack, which also affected two Methodist surgery centers. The attack occurred between May and July. The hackers have threatened to sell the data on the dark web.

In France, ransomware hackers demand $10 million to restore the systems of 1,000-bed CHSF Hospital Centre, which is sending patients to other hospitals.

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The federal government warns hospitals about voice phishing attacks, in which hackers use telephone calls to convince computer users to install malware. The targeted user receives an email indicating that a subscription that they never signed up for is ending or from what is claimed to be a government entity or technology company, with instructions to call a provided telephone number for more information.


Other

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The Verona paper profiles Epic’s artist-in-residence Manabu Ikeda, whose on-campus studio is open for visitors each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.

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A reader sent this shot of the famous opening campfire of Epic UGM. They offered kudos to the Verona fire department for managing the actual campfires. Meanwhile, I’ve read quite a few horror stories about would-be attendees who are sitting home because the airlines couldn’t figure out how to get them to Verona.

I had a photo of Judy’s keynote at Epic UGM inserted here that I should have noticed (as a couple of readers did who told me) that it was actually from last year’s conference, when the hall seemed emptier with distancing in place. That’s what I get for just searching Twitter for “EpicUGM” and forgetting that I would get old results since I almost never do a Twitter hashtag search. Anyway, Deep Space was apparently packed this week with 11,000 people in the audience. Thanks for the folks who let me know I goofed, and thanks in advance to whomever sends me a photo from this year’s session.


Sponsor Updates

  • WebPT releases the Keet Remote Therapeutic Monitoring Dashboard and announces enhanced integrations with WebPT and Insight EHRs.
  • Ellkay adds CRM data archiving to its LKArchive platform.
  • CarePort will exhibit at the Chicago Care Coordination Summit August 30.
  • An OptimizeRx study finds that its Evidence-Based Physician Engagement solution successfully identified doctors whose patients have treatment plans that may lapse due to a loss of insurance coverage.
  • Biofourmis COO Jaydev Thakkar will present at the 2022 DPharm Idol Disrupt Event September 13 in Boston.
  • Diameter Health exhibits at the Civitas Networks for Health Conference through August 24 in San Antonio.
  • Bamboo Health makes its Crisis Management System available to support 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline regional call centers.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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

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Morning Headlines 8/23/22

August 22, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/23/22

Signify Health stock surges 32% on reports Amazon is bidding for the company

The shares of home healthcare company Signify Health jump on the news that Amazon is reportedly interested in acquiring the company, along with CVS Health and UnitedHealth.

Recuro Health’s Acquisition of Competitive Health Adds End-to-End Integrated Benefits to its Digital Medical Home and Portfolio of Digital Health Solutions

Virtual care company Recuro Health acquires Competitive Health, which offers digital health programs to employers.

Akili wraps up $1B deal with Palihapitiya-led SPAC

Akili Interactive, which has developed an FDA-approved video game to treat children with ADHD, goes public via a merger with Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/23/22

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 8/22/22

August 22, 2022 Dr. Jayne 3 Comments

In many ways, I’m still recovering from the years I spent as an in-person urgent care physician, especially during the COVID pandemic. The organization where I spent a good chunk of my career was a well-run practice when I joined, but a series of events led to an ongoing downward spiral that resulted in tremendous staff turnover and contributed at least in part to loss of more than one life.

An event that finally convinced me to leave was the acquisition of the organization by a private equity firm and the subsequent chaos that change introduced. My former partners and the PE firm are still suing each other years later and the practice is in shambles. Staff members who were relocated to other states to grow the business by developing new locations were stranded when those sites were put on pause.

I was gratified to learn that there is an organization that keeps an eye on these things. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) released a recent report that looks at the impacts of PE firms acquiring urgent care facilities. To be honest, private equity is everywhere in frontline healthcare delivery these days. Ambulatory surgery centers, dermatology practices, OB/GYN practices, and ophthalmology practices are big targets due to their revenue streams.

The PESP issue brief notes how urgent care centers benefit from a lax regulatory environment that allows them to escape the level of scrutiny that is paid to hospitals and other healthcare providers. Only 10 states require facility licenses for urgent care clinics, while in the rest, they operate under an individual physician’s license or a hospital’s license. Not surprisingly, private equity was involved in approximately 50% of all urgent care transactions from 2012 to 2020.

Additionally, the report notes that recent surprise medical billing regulations may provide loopholes for urgent care centers that will negatively impact patients. It’s no surprise that patients are drawn to urgent care centers, which can treat a variety of non-life-threatening conditions more quickly and economically than the emergency department. The brief notes that as of 2019, it was estimated by the Urgent Care Association that urgent care visits counted for 23% of primary care visits and 12% of all ambulatory physician visits. That’s a significant amount of primary care that is potentially being delivered in environments that don’t have the same supports in place as a traditional primary care practice, or by those who are not actually trained in delivery of high-quality primary care. I’ve used several EHRs that are specifically marketed to urgent care practices and those systems lack the content that is needed to manage chronic conditions or to ensure that preventive care is being delivered.

It goes on to note the tactics used by PE firms to improve cash flow, including adding service lines, reduced staffing, expanding the use of unlicensed staff, and pushing unnecessary high-dollar procedures. I’ve had a front-row seat to all of these, and unfortunately, it’s often reinforced by patient perceptions of technology and its role in good care. For example, patients often place more value in a CT scan than they do in a physician’s clinical skill. They specifically ask for laboratory testing and x-rays when they’re not clinically indicated, and physicians who don’t order the studies anyway are often penalized with poor reviews. Technology has become a proxy for experience and skill. That approach not only raises costs, but can lead to worse outcomes when there are slightly abnormal incidental findings on the tests that weren’t needed in the first place, which in turn leads to more testing, patient anxiety, and costs.

Prescription medications and polypharmacy are also part of the equation, especially when clinics are running their own pharmacies and dispensing medications on a cash basis. One urgent care I consulted for actually maintained a metric on their providers, scoring them on how many prescriptions they issued per visit. Leadership dinged them if they sent scripts to an outside pharmacy where patients could use their insurance. This was all supported through elaborate “talk tracks” that the staff was forced to memorize and use.

The process went like this. First, all prescriptions were filled in-house without asking the patient their preference. When the clinical associate went into the room to discharge the patient, they carried the medications with them and walked the patient to the checkout counter with no mention of the fact that the prescriptions had been filled on a cash-pay basis. When the patient arrived at the checkout counter, they were asked to “please sign here to indicate you received your medications” without explanation that the sheet was approval to charge for the medications.

If the patient complained, the checkout team had a speech about “filling the medications here as a convenience” without mentioning that some of the commonly used generics were more than four times more expensive than pharmacies charge cash-paying patients. When you have providers giving four or five questionably-indicated medications per urgent care visit, that really adds up.

If patients still balked, there was a speech about how important it was for patients to be compliant with all the provider’s treatment recommendations, and that failing to do so could place their health at risk. While that’s  generally a true statement, using it to coerce patients into purchasing prescription versions of medications they can buy over the counter or might already have at home is quite a stretch. There were a couple of additional talk tracks that staff could use at that point. 

If the patient still refused, the staff would take the medications and the billing sheet and walk them back to the clinical area to try to find a provider who could send the prescriptions to the pharmacy. The practice refused to install the capabilities needed to legally prescribe controlled substances electronically, so  those had to be manually printed and signed. Patients who had been to the practice before and knew the game and knew their insurance coverage or how to get the cheapest medications in town were savvy enough to tell the provider to preemptively send the prescriptions to the pharmacy versus going through the whole in-house pharmacy charade.

There are times where having a prescription filled in-house is worth an upcharge for convenience. A couple of those situations might include treatment of an infection requiring antibiotics that is diagnosed at 7 p.m. when many pharmacies are closed, or filling a prescription for a harried parent with four children in tow who doesn’t want to deal with lines or delays at a short-staffed pharmacy. Still, it should be the patient’s choice, and for many of us, ethics dictates that they should understand their options before choosing. That takes more of someone’s time at the bedside, whether it’s a licensed individual or a clinical associate, and practices simply aren’t willing to expend those resources.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but the continued growth of for-profit care delivery organizations is only going to fuel more sticky situations. Patients will continue to be left holding the bag, and clinical care will continue to be diminished in the name of profits.

I’m interested in what readers think about this situation. As a patient, how do you feel about being treated by for-profit entities? Are there any advantages? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

HIStalk Interviews Anders Brown, Managing Director, Tegria

August 22, 2022 Interviews 1 Comment

Anders Brown, MS is managing director of Tegria of Seattle, WA.

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Tell me about yourself and the company.

Tegria is a 4,000-person healthcare technology services business. We are focused almost exclusively on the healthcare provider market, but we also service the payer and insurance markets across both the US, Canada, and increasingly Europe, specifically the UK, where there’s a lot of activity happening. We were founded by Providence in October 2020. I’ve been with the organization for about four years since the inception after working most of my career in technology consulting services.

What is the strategy behind a health system acquiring and operating health IT companies?

It was quite exciting when I got the opportunity to talk to the Providence leadership team and join it. Providence is one of the largest healthcare systems in the nation, a 175-year-old organization with a mission-driven idea of creating healthcare for everybody, better healthcare systems for everyone.

The idea was, what if Providence took a lot of their learnings and a lot of the investment that they were going to make to transform their own systems and expressed that to the rest of the nation, to a certain extent, through an organization like Tegria to try to help everybody move forward in the current landscape and environment that we have? For me personally, it was a great opportunity to look at healthcare. I’ve been in many, many other industries and joined something at the very early stages that I thought could make a huge impact over time in the healthcare market.

How do Providence and Tegria work with each other?

The first important piece of context is that we have grown Tegria through both acquisition as well as organic, ongoing growth. We now count well over 400 customers in our active customer base, Providence of course being one of those. We are an independent organization, so we have to compete for work at Providence, like any other folks would compete. But certainly being close to them and having connections to them gives us some insight into how someone like Providence is trying to transform their healthcare system so that we can take those learnings out to the rest of the industry.

Does Tegria have Providence-created intellectual property?

We certainly have the idea that we would like to technology-enable many of the things that we take to market. Tegria is one of the commercial efforts that Providence has. You might have seen recently that Providence also spun out Advata, a software organization that is almost a sister company of ours, and we work together. But right now, Tegria is focused more on technology services and technology consulting.

Several big health systems have recently outsourced their IT services, revenue cycle management organization, or both. What is behind that trend and how will it impact Tegria’s strategy?

In some ways, that trend is exactly what our business strategy is and plays into. Our fundamental thesis over time is that many of the healthcare systems are better served by putting all of their capital into taking care of their communities and effectively building better healthcare for the nation. To the extent that Tegria can work with them to not only improve those on a project basis, but over time take over some of those operations so that we can essentially gain some efficiency and hopefully reduce costs for those healthcare organizations, that gives them more capacity and more capital to improve really their care delivery, which is the priority and the focus of many of them. We see the same headlines that your readers see and we are certainly are out there doing what we can to win our fair share of that work.

As big health systems get bigger and expand beyond a regional footprint, how will that change their use of technology to scale and become more efficient?

The scaling of healthcare, or the growth of some of these healthcare systems, provides an opportunity to standardize and modernize the platforms, which can now be at some scale and offer increased efficiency. That efficiency leads to reduction in costs and then an increase in capacity to deliver healthcare for people’s communities. The opportunity for smaller hospitals is to continue to look towards the larger healthcare systems for direction and for partnership. We talk to both of those kinds of organizations and are focused on delivering that kind of value across both of those segments.

How will digital transformation change the relationship between healthcare organizations and consumers?

Our position is that we are at a unique point coming out of the pandemic. On one hand, we have consumers asking for more and more convenience and are willing to change their healthcare provider for that convenience. On the other hand, we have the providers themselves, the clinicians and doctors, who are frustrated with burnout and trying to understand how technology will make their lives better. 

This idea of transformation comes up a lot in conversations that we have. The challenge with that word is that it means something different to everybody. Our perspective is that you have to meet people where they are. For some folks, transformation can mean simply moving some data to the cloud. For others, that could be full-blown EHR replacement and implementation. It’s important to move forward, but the pace and speed at which you do that will depend on exactly where our customer is in that journey.

Health systems that mostly competed only with each other are now facing big companies such as Optum and CVS Health that blur the line between insurer and provider in trying to attract the same consumers. What influence will those companies have?

You see a number of interesting trends, and you commented on a couple. One is this payer-provider connection. The idea of retail being a connection point for healthcare. The third, which just was announced, is big tech, in this case Amazon, entering these markets with their acquisition of One Medical.

Change is afoot. There are pressure points on these healthcare systems to respond to these external new entrants. Our viewpoint is that technology can help, but the idea is that people see the opportunity to create efficiency and see the opportunity to deliver better patient care. Our goal at Tegria is to help all of those organizations do that.

What is the future of deep-pockets technology companies like Microsoft and Oracle entering what seems to be an appealing healthcare IT market?

It goes back to what these large organizations, whether it’s Microsoft or Oracle or Amazon, see, which is the opportunity for technology to make a huge impact in healthcare. At the same time, the healthcare providers themselves will benefit, in theory, from some of the scale that these organizations can bring and take advantage of that technology. So again, they can focus on what they do best, which is the clinical care, having the doctors and clinicians that can take care of the patients and their communities.

Our view at Tegria is that we will continue to partner with these large organizations and help deliver some of the best solutions out there to these healthcare providers. But it’s certainly a trend that has started and that I believe will continue to move forward for a long time.

How will financial market conditions that have driven down company valuations impact Tegria’s participation in mergers and acquisitions?

Tegria is totally focused on continuing our growth. We have aspirations to continue to grow not only the service offerings that we provide, but also the geographies in which we provide them. To the extent that he macroeconomic environment changes valuations, we’ll just be there with everyone else looking for opportunities. We’ll continue to grow organically as well. But for us, it really doesn’t change our strategy as much as it continues to support where we want to take the organization.

Where you see the company in the next three or four years?

Tegria is founded on this idea of trying to bring the best technology solutions to our customers. We will continue on that trajectory. We are excited about the next decade of technology and transformation that we think this industry will go through. We want to be there arm-in-arm with our customer base to help them move forward. It’s exciting times in healthcare and will continue to be so for quite a while.

Morning Headlines 8/22/22

August 21, 2022 Headlines Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/22/22

VA data shows Oracle Cerner EHR hit with nearly 500 major incidents since initial rollout

VA data obtained by FedScoop under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the VA has had at least 45 days of Oracle Cerner downtime and 498 major incidents since its first rollout in September 2020.

Alpha II, LLC Accelerates Revenue Cycle Management Solutions with Acquisition of Health EFilings

RCM software vendor Alpha II acquires Health EFilings, which offers analytics and automated MIPS reporting.

Russian hackers plan to release data stolen from McKinney hospital onto dark web

Methodist McKinney Hospital (TX) refuses to pay hackers to retrieve 360 gigabytes of data stolen in a recent ransomware attack.

Comments Off on Morning Headlines 8/22/22

Monday Morning Update 8/22/22

August 21, 2022 News 1 Comment

Top News

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VA data obtained by FedScoop under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the VA has had a least 45 days of Oracle Cerner downtime and 498 major incidents since its first rollout in September 2020.

The VA itself was responsible for one-third of the incidents.

The system issues caused 930 hours of incomplete functionality, 103 hours of degraded performance, and 40 hours of compete downtime.

The VA lists five medical centers as being live on the Oracle Cerner system — Spokane, WA; Walla Walla, WA; Columbus, OH; Roseburg, OR; and White City, OR. It has paused deployments that were scheduled for 2022 until next year.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in response to the FedScoop report, “The bottom line is that my confidence in the EHR is badly shaken … the system is not meeting those goals and needs major improvement. We at VA could not be more frustrated on behalf of Veterans and providers, and we’re holding Cerner, Oracle, and ourselves accountable to get this right.”


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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The employers of most poll respondents haven’t had big layoffs in the past year.

New poll to your right or here: Would you post a “looking for work” article on LinkedIn if you needed a job? I’ve seen a ton of those lately and I would do the same – there’s no shame in seeking the next gig and LinkedIn’s reach is broad, although of unknown effectiveness.

The weather looks good for this week’s Epic UGM, with daytime highs barely reaching 80 and nicely cool, campfire nights in the high 50s. A few HIStalk sponsors updated me on what they’ll be doing there, so check that out. Your photos and reports are welcome.


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Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor KeyCare. The newly launched company offers health systems access to a network of independent virtual care providers via its Epic-based platform, avoiding the challenge of overwhelmed internal providers and third-party telehealth vendors that use poorly integrated technologies. Health systems can easily augment their care teams, optimize capacity, and enhance their digital front doors by partnering with a nationwide network of virtual care groups, while patients can schedule appointments with virtualists from the health system’s MyChart portal or call center. Encounters are then documented in KeyCare’s Epic system, ensuring a seamless experience. The company’s first customer is BHSH Spectrum Health West Michigan Division, which says the service provides patient convenience while ensuring robust data sharing and streamlined clinical workflows. KeyCare and Spectrum Health will present details of their work at Epic UGM this week. KeyCare’s founder and CEO is industry long-timer Lyle Berkowitz, MD, aka DrLyle. The company just announced a $24 million Series A funding round. Thanks to KeyCare for supporting HIStalk. 


Webinars

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Idaho Health Data Exchange files Chapter 11 bankruptcy after federal and state funding dries up, leaving it $4 million in debt. IHDE, which was created in 2008, says it will reduce costs and move toward heavier use of subscription and user-based fees. 


Announcements and Implementations

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NHS will pilot the use of smart glasses by home care nurses, hoping to reduce nurse administrative work by sending visit transcription to the EHR and offering them a way to obtain instant second opinions virtually. The software was developed by physician-launched Concept Health, which offers virtual and augmented reality based programs for remote consultation, chronic condition recovery, pulmonary rehab, relaxation, pain relief, and fall prevention.


Government and Politics

The Federal Trade Commission says that hospital mergers that are approved by states under Certificates of Public Advantage – state laws that shield hospital mergers from federal antitrust enforcement – usually don’t improve quality, increase employee compensation, improve access, or lower costs. FTC notes that most of the hospitals that sought COPAs to accomplish a merger ended up creating a single-hospital monopoly and that competition is the best way to improve cost and quality.


Privacy and Security

Novant Health sends 1.3 million letters to patients whose information it shared with Facebook via the Meta Pixel website visitor tracking tool. Novant says it implemented the technology in May 2020 to track the effectiveness of its marketing campaign for the use of Epic MyChart to boost virtual visits, adding that Facebook received more information than the health system intended because Novant configured the tracking tool incorrectly. Novant says it may have sent email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, emergency contact lists, appointment types and dates, and button clicks and freetext entries. Website The Markup told several hospitals in May 2022 that they were sending PHI to Facebook, after which Novant and some other named health systems removed it. Novant says it asked Meta Facebook about removing the information of its patients, but the company never responded.


Other

Amazon Care nurses say they were surprised by some of the company’s decisions in running a health business virtually. Examples:

  • Home care nurses were asked to dispose of medical waste at home and to use blood centrifuge machines in their cars.
  • The company didn’t collect patient emergency contact information until clinical staff told them it was necessary.
  • Amazon chose a “bargain basement” off-the-shelf EHR instead of waiting for a vendor to develop a custom one and equipped nurses with wireless stethoscopes that didn’t always work.
  • Nurses were sent to see patients in hotel rooms and at street protests without tracking their locations or giving them emergency button software.
  • They struggled to keep up with state-specific telehealth regulations and worried about outcomes from the company’s use of untrained contract nurses.
  • They worried about the cultural divide between nurses and Amazon employees, one of whom reportedly told a telehealth nurse that they were considered “the warehouse workers of Amazon Care.”

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A Wall Street Journal report describes the drug overdose death of a pre-med student who obtained Adderal from online mental health provider Done. Points:

  • Companies such as Done generate prescriptions for stimulants such as Adderal after video calls that list as little as 10 minutes and pressure their contracted clinicians to issue prescriptions if patients seek them.
  • The patient, who lived in a sober-living house, didn’t disclose his drug addiction history to Done’s nurse practitioner. He relapsed shortly afterward and died of a drug overdose.
  • The nurse practitioner was new to the company and had little experience with ADHD. She says she checked California’s prescription drug monitoring database as required by law, but didn’t notice the patient was  prescribed Suboxone by a rehab center.
  • The company, which was started by a former Facebook executive who has no medical background, considered firing the nurse practitioner because she was supposed to name a supervising physician as state law requires and had failed to do so.
  • Done’s clinicians are paid $10 per month for each monthly renewal, with one of them saying that she made $20,000 per month cranking out refill prescriptions at 30 seconds each.
  • The company responded to complaints about its practices from the patient’s mother by saying that it offers only a technical platform that matches patients to medical professionals, with no responsibility for any prescriptions that result.

Sponsor Updates

  • Optum publishes a new success snapshot, “Regional One amplifies utilization review effectiveness with Optum Case Advisor.”
  • Surescripts releases a new episode of its There’s a Better Way: Smart Talk on Healthcare and Technology Podcast, “The Giant Sequoia as a Metaphor for Advancing Interoperability.”
  • Vocera publishes a new white paper, “Smart, connected hospital framework.”
  • Ragan honors Well Health VP of People Marissa Morrison with a Platinum HR Award in the Future Leaders category.
  • Verato will exhibit at the Civitas Networks for Health Annual Conference August 21-24 in San Antonio.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

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