The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 4/26/16
Top News
Veritas Capital acquires Verisk Health from Verisk Analytics for $820 million, confirming rumors that have been circulating since last fall that the company was looking to sell. After closing, most likely at the end of June, Verisk Health will be renamed and operate as an independent company at its Waltham, MA headquarters.
Webinars
May 5 (Thursday) 1:00 ET. “Reducing CAUTI and Improving Early Sepsis Detection Through Clinical Process Measurement.” Sponsored by LogicStream. Presenters: Jen Biltoft, director of quality improvement, SCL Health; Marla Bare, EHR architect, SCL Health. This webinar will describe how SCL Health reduced catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 30 percent in just three months through clinical process measurement. The SCL Health presenters will also share their plans for applying a similar process to the early detection of sepsis.
Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.
Announcements and Implementations
Just in time for summer camp season, CampDoc.com releases a public API so that camps can sync camper and staff data with the company’s EHR and registration system.
Healthix, a HIE serving 500 healthcare organizations in New York, selects predictive analytics and performance analysis services from HBI Solutions. Healthix piloted HBI’s Spotlight Data Solution earlier this year with New York City-based behavioral health organization ICL.
Practice Fusion signs the HHS Interoperability Pledge, joining 22 vendors, 17 health systems, and 23 industry organizations since the pledge was introduced in February.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Nokia announces plans to acquire Withings, a France-based developer of popular connected health devices, for just over $191 million dollars. The transaction, expected to close in the third quarter of this year, seems to be part of Nokia’s push back into the consumer devices market. It sold its devices business to Microsoft in early 2014.
E-MDs completes its bi-annual NCQA Credentials Verification Organization review and has received the NCQA CVO certification through May, 2018.
People
Faye Stetch (Falcon Physician) joins the HIMSS EHR Association as vice-chair of its Clinician Experience Workgroup.
Telemedicine
Health benefits consulting firm Mercer signs a three-year renewal with Teladoc for telemedicine services for its employees and clients.
The American Telemedicine Association pens its support for the Rural Health Care Connectivity Act, which would permit skilled nursing facilities to apply for funding from the Universal Service Fund’s Rural Health Care Program and enable them to receive funding for broadband and telecommunications services. The ATA asks in its letter to the House that the bill also include sites where telemedicine services are provided under Medicaid or Medicare, school-based clinics, and EMS providers.
Research and Innovation
The AMA partners with student-run biotechnology incubator IDEA Labs to support healthcare technology development of students at Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, and Washington University. “We look forward to collaborating with the AMA to spread the IDEA Labs model to more institutions and clinicians,” says IDEA Labs Incubator Network President Stephen Linderman, MD. “By bringing together top universities across the country, connecting budding companies with the talent, mentors, and investors needed to thrive, this new collaboration will accelerate medical technology development and entrepreneurial education.”
Government and Politics
CMS issues an updated rule on Medicaid – the first time it has done so in a decade. CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt summarizes the 1,425-page rule in a blog post, emphasizing the adoption of “21st Century tools” a new Medicaid and CHIP quality rating system, electronic notices, and online provider directories.
Other
The University of Florida hosts the first thought-controlled drone race. Sixteen pilots used a brain-computer interface – a device that measures electrical signals from their brains – to direct the drones with thoughts of moving forward.
Contacts
Jennifer, Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg
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