News 8/30/16

Top News

AMA adds population health data to its health workforce mapping tool, which visually healthcare workforce statistics  in each state. The new feature, developed with help from AAFP and HealthLandscape, serves up data on healthcare access and quality, demographics, and a bevy of social health determinants such as graduation and unemployment rates.

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Webinars

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel. Some recent ones that are available for replay:

• Surviving the OCR Cybersecurity & Privacy Pre-Audit
• Your Call is Very Important
• Ransomware in Healthcare: Tactics, Techniques, and Response
• rise of the small first letter vendors
• Six Communication Best Practices for Reducing Readmissions and Capturing TCM Revenue

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Compliance and risk management software vendor CAEK relocates from Fayetteville, AR to Reno, NV, where it plans to hire 150 employees within the next five years. The company, which currently employs nine, targets its “TurboTax for HIPAA compliance” software to dental and physician practices of all sizes.

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Announcements and Implementations

Greenway Health and ambulatory surgery center software vendor HSTpathways add San Jose, CA-based VMDOC’s cloud-based patient management software to their respective technologies.

Community health centers in Fresno, Merced, and Contra Costa counties in California roll out Emocha Mobile Health’s MiDot medication adherence app for tuberculosis patients. The company, which licensed its technology from Johns Hopkins University, is based out of the university’s FastForward East accelerator.

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Telemedicine

Turnkey telemedicine technology vendor SnapMD adds advanced scheduling, single sign-on access, and workflow tools to its virtual care management platform. The Los Angeles–based startup raised a $5.3 million Series A at the beginning of the year, and has since developed partnerships with Konica Minolta and TelehealthOne.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) visits the Alcona Health Center’s Oscoda Clinic as part of his five-day motorcycle tour of Michigan. Peters, who introduced The Telehealth Innovation and Improvement Act to allow Medicare to cover additional telemedicine services for patients late last year, had a chance to view the clinic’s telemedicine capabilities during his visit. “The only way you can write good legislation and good policy is by coming out and seeing things first hand – hearing directly from the people who do this day in and day out,” Peters explains. “The only way I can really learn and be their advocate in Washington, DC for practical common sense solutions is by being here in the local community and talking to the people that do it everyday.”

And now for something completely different: Prepaid cellular company ROK Mobile teams up with Human Health Organization (a Studio City, CA-based business that seems to deal mainly in electronic cigarettes and vaporware) to develop a low-radiation smartphone using technology developed by NASA. In addition to the phone, subscribers to ROK Mobile plans will have access to telemedicine services, roadside assistance, burial insurance, and ROK’s music-streaming app.

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Other

Interfaith Medical Center (NY) launches a prescribe-a-bike program at its Bishop Orris G. Walker Jr. Health Care Center in Brooklyn. The program will enable physicians to prescribe free one-year memberships to a local bike-sharing service in an effort to help patients stave off diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity. The prescriptions also include a free helmet and reflector arm band, access to group rides, and a journal.

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Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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