News 9/13/16

Top News

Diabetes management technology companies Glooko and Diasend merge under the Glooko brand. The companies, which both offer remote monitoring technologies for patients and analytics software for physicians, will serve 4,000 clinics in 23 countries, no doubt aided by a recent $8 million round of equity financing.

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Webinar

September 27 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Stanson Clinical Decision Support: Survival Kit for Evolving Payment Models and Other Regulatory Requirements.” Sponsored by Stanson Health. Presenters: Anne Wellington, chief product officer, Stanson Health; Scott Weingarten, MD, MPH, SVP and chief clinical transformation officer, Cedars-Sinai. Reimbursement models are rapidly changing, and as a result, health systems need to influence physicians to align with health system strategy. In this webinar, we will discuss how Stanson’s Clinical Decision Support can run in the background of every patient visit to help physicians execute with MACRA, CJR, et al.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. View previous webinars on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

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HIStalk Practice Musings

 

I’m in Nashville this week to take in the sights and sounds of the HERe conference put on by HFMA, and the Summit of the Southeast put on by Tennessee HIMSS. It’s been at least a decade since I visited the country music capitol. While the downtown bike-sharing kiosks are new, the odor of stale beer and aspiring musical talent is definitely not. I didn’t get the chance to cycle, though former Olympian and Knoxville native Missy Kane had us doing squats, lunges, and modified planks during her HERe keynote. I’m a sucker for pretty much any city with a river running through it, and so I hope to get out and see more of “Music City USA” over the next several days.

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People

Bridget McKenzie, RN (McKesson) joins Conifer Health Solutions as CNO and vice president of medical management.

Mandy Long (Modernizing Medicine) joins the HIMSS EHRA as chair of its clinician experience workgroup.

New York City-based multispecialty group AdvantageCare Physicians promotes Navarra Rodriguez, MD to president and CMO, and officer at ACP partner Emblem Health.

Nicole Bradberry (Citra Health Solutions) joins Captify Health as CEO.

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Telemedicine

AMD Global Telemedicine will add 10,500 square feet of office space to its headquarters in Chelmsford, MA. The company, which supplies telemedicine software, equipment, and services, recently helped Cherokee Health Systems (TN) complete 11,000 patient encounters in local schools.

California approves Medicaid reimbursement for schools using speech therapy services via telemedicine.

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Announcements and Implementations

Availity develops a series of on-demand HIPAA training classes to help physician practices better understand its requirements, the ins and outs of data breaches, and relationship to business associates.

Mediware Information Systems adds PQRS reporting capabilities from Healthmonix into its MediLinks Rehab EMR.

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Government and Politics

New York-based Empire BlueCross BlueShield announces its participation in the CMS Comprehensive Primary Care Plus five-year program, which kicks off January 1. The payer will likely build off its experience with the Capital District-Hudson Valley Region Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, a pilot that launched in 2012 and will wrap up at the end of this year. Eligible practices located within the 14 CPC+ regions have until September 15 to apply for the program.

AAFP highlights several priorities over the coming year alongside its request for members of Congress to pass the federal budget. They include keeping AHRQ and its $334 million budget intact, funding state grants to implement PDMPS, and working with CMS to ensure a MACRA implementation that is as pain-free for physician practices as possible.

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Other

USBKill.com creates a USB stick that uses a high-voltage electrical discharge to effectively sabotage unauthorized computers. The device was created to test against “power surge” and to prevent data theft via a form of malware known as “juice jacking.”  

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Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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