The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 2/8/23
Top News
CVS Health will acquire Oak Street Health, a Medicare-focused primary care provider based in Chicago, for $39 per share in a deal valued at $10.6 billion.
Oak Street will become part of CVS Health’s Health Care Delivery unit, and will remain under the leadership of CEO Mike Pykosz. It employs 600 physicians across 170 clinics in 21 states, and anticipates opening an additional 130 by 2026. The company leverages its homegrown Canopy platform to power its clinical and operational workflows.
Oak Street patients account for about two-thirds of Aetna’s Medicare Advantage membership, according to Reuters. CVS Health acquired Aetna in 2017 for $68 billion.
Webinars
March 7 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Prescribe RPA 2.0 to Treat Healthcare Worker Burnout.” Sponsor: Keysight Technologies. Presenters: Anne Foster, MS, technical consultant manager, Eggplant; Emily Yan, MPA, product marketing manager, Keysight Technologies. Half of US health systems plan to invest in robotic process automation by the end of this year, per Gartner. The concept is evolving to help with staff burnout and physician productivity. The presenters will introduce RPA 2.0, explain how to maximize its value, demonstrate how to quickly start on RPA 2.0 and test automation in one platform, and answer questions about healthcare automation.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
CVS Health beats analyst expectations for Q4 revenue and earnings, posting $83.85 billion in revenue and earnings of $1.99 per share.
Announcements and Implementations
CareCloud integrates the Quippe Clinical Data Engine from Medicomp Systems with its EHR to ensure providers have the most relevant, usable data at the point of care.
Complete Care implements EHR software from EClinicalWorks across their 31 facilities in Central Florida.
Research and Innovation
Researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine determine that site-specific EHR usability testing can help improve user efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction before software goes live for patient care. During their EHR user testing event, more than 70% of the 33 usability concerns identified were found to be correctable.
A medication adherence survey of 1,023 patients finds that 49% say they’ve had conversations with their doctors about saving money on their prescriptions; 83% of those say that led to more affordable options being made available.
Other
Regal Medical Group (CA) notifies patients of a December ransomware attack that enabled hackers to access some patient data.
Russell Johnson, MD bemoans the frenzied pace of EHR inbox alerts he must cope with on a daily basis, and shares the ways in which he has begun to manage patient messaging:
“To preserve my sanity, I have stopped responding to messages from patients that require more than a one-line response from me, and instead ask my assistant to schedule them for visits. I take the same approach for abnormal laboratory and imaging results. That way, the time I spend seeing patients is just that, and I’m not trying to juggle my time between my inbox and my patients, even if that means I’m overbooked.”
Contacts
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