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News 8/14/19

August 14, 2019 News Comments Off on News 8/14/19

Top News

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Canadian health IT company Telus Health acquires Akira Health, which offers app-based and in-person care at the high-tech Union Health clinic in Toronto. Telus reps say the acquisition will help to bring mental health and diagnostics to Akira’s virtual care offerings.

Telus Health has been busy over the last several years in terms of partnerships, acquisitions, and investments. It was an early investor in US-based Get Real Health, which has since been sold to CPSI; acquired Canadian e-prescribing company ZRx Prescriber in 2014 and EHR vendor Nightingale in 2016; and last year partnered with NHS-friendly Babylon Health to launch a Canadian telemedicine app.


Webinars

September 5 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Driving 90% Patient Adoption Across Your Network: How US Dermatology Partners is Showing Us The Way.” Sponsor: Relatient. Presenters: Michele Perry, CEO, Relatient; Sara Nguyen, VP of applications and integrations, US Dermatology Partners. US Dermatology Partners is helping its physicians reclaim time they can spend with patients and is turning patient engagement strategies into business results across its 90 locations in eight states. Attendees will learn how US Dermatology Partners defined its patient engagement objectives and physician-optimized strategies. They presenters will provide advice on starting or accelerating  patient engagement goals.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Fertility app startup MedAnswers raises $5 million in a seed funding round led by the Special Situations Life Sciences Innovation Fund. The financing will help the company with hiring and recruiting clinical experts, and adding content and fertility service-matching capabilities to its app. Femtech, and digital fertility services in particular, have definitely attracted investors of late. The most recent figures put femtech investments at over $400 million in 2018, while the global fertility services market is expected to be worth $21 billion by next year.

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Urgent care company CityMD and Summit Medical Group finalize their merger. First announced in June, the merger brings together CityMD’s 120 locations in New York City with the independent 900-provider medical group and its 80 locations in New York and New Jersey. SMG CEO Jeffrey Le Benger, MD will head up the combined organization.


Announcements and Implementations

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The Nebraska Health Information Initiative selects health information exchange software from Secure Exchange Solutions.


People

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Men’s virtual care and health and wellness company Ro names Todd Levy (BuzzFeed) CTO.


Other

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Eye Care Associates is recovering from a ransomware attack that hit the Ohio practice two weeks ago. The practice declined to pay the unspecified ransom, and has been working to restore its system using backups. The cost to the practice in terms of disruption to patient care – no new-patient appointments have been scheduled and many have been delayed – may end up being just as expensive as the ransom.


Sponsor Updates

  • Aprima will host its annual user conference August 23-25 in Grapevine, TX.
  • Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at East Coast CORE August 14-16 in Boston.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 8/12/19

August 12, 2019 News Comments Off on News 8/12/19

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WebMD acquires QxMD, a Canadian company that offers digital, point-of-care educational resources and medical calculators for clinicians.


HIStalk Practice Musings

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Summer’s not over yet. If you’re still looking for reading suggestions to get you through the last few weeks of vacation season, check out this list of the “10 most influential books for doctors.”

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Murder mysteries and psychological thrillers more your style? Check out the writings of Franciscan Health (IN) cardiologist Louis Janeira, MD. He has published eight books and 11 plays under the pseudonym L. Jan Eira. Fitting writing into his schedule was no easy task; he wound up hiring a driver so that he could write in the backseat during his three-hour commute. “I always knew I wanted to be a doctor,” Janeira told the local paper, “but my writing makes me feel good and ‘lights up’ a part of my brain I don’t get to do in daily life.”


Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.


Announcements and Implementations

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Henry Schein Medical announces GA of cloud-based, digital behavioral assessments.

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DrChrono incorporates OutcomeMD’s patient-reported outcomes tracking capabilities with its tablet-based EHR.


Telemedicine

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signs a bill into law enabling primary care physicians and pediatricians to bill Medicaid for virtual visits.


Other

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This article profiles Liine, a Raleigh, NC-based startup that has developed sales lead software that sits on top of a physician practice’s phone system. The technology helps front-office staff turn prospective patients into repeat customers, identifies what service patients are calling about, and helps administrators better understand how their patients find their practices. “Phones are a black box,” says co-founder Bradley Blaser. “Doctors don’t know how many new lead calls are or what marketing channels are driving them. There’s no real process to optimize those conversations to increase their conversion rate.”


Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

News 8/7/19

August 7, 2019 News Comments Off on News 8/7/19

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Menopause-focused telemedicine and wellness company Genneve raises $4 million in a seed round led by BlueRun Ventures. The three year-old startup offers its services in 23 states, and will use the new funding to expand to all 50 by the end of next year.


Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Chronic care management software vendor TimeDoc Health raises $2.5 million. The Chicago-based company will use the financing to double its staff, and expand its technology to include behavioral health and remote patient monitoring.


People

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Nathan Walcker (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) joins practice management company American Oncology Network as CFO.

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Practice EHR names Chris Baltas (Fellow Health Partners) chief business development officer.


Announcements and Implementations

In Delaware, Kent Diagnostic Radiology Associates selects RCM software and services from Healthcare Administrative Partners.

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Axia Women’s Health (NJ) will offer expecting and new moms at its 115 health centers access to the Babyscripts app, which offers targeted messaging, reminders, and evidence-based educational content.

The State of Idaho implements a custom-made online youth mental health screening tool developed by FEI Systems across its network of mental health providers and clinics, and administrative services organizations.


Telemedicine

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ClearHealth Quality Institute releases draft accreditation standards for telemedicine outcomes as part of its American Telemedicine Association-approved Telemedicine Accreditation Program. Comments are due September 7. If approved, the standards will enable virtual care providers to have their outcomes measured and validated in the areas of:

  • Access to care.
  • Clinical effectiveness.
  • Clinical experience/satisfaction.
  • Financial impact.
  • Operational benchmarks.    

Other

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The local paper in Grand Junction, CO covers the work Quality Health Network is doing to integrate social determinants of health data and resources with its HIE. QHN will soon pilot its Community Resource Network in Mesa County using a $5,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Social Determinants of Health Innovation Challenge, in which it is a second-phase contestant.

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The authors of this Health Affairs article make their case for the development of a standard, publicly reported measure of primary care to provide stakeholders with benchmarks; better enable them to make investment and resource decisions, and evaluate value-based care programs.

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“We’re just innocent bystanders:” Eye care professionals who have leased space within a medical building in Salt Lake City deny they are linked to the building’s owners after that group is found guilty of laundering $511 million through its businesses and real estate. News outlets have been quick to pick up on the fact that the guilty group is also part of a polygamous sect known as the Kingston Group.


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

News 8/5/19

August 5, 2019 News Comments Off on News 8/5/19

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Ambulatory health IT reseller and consulting company DAS Health acquires the WRT collection of companies, which includes WRT Specialties, Easy PC Solutions, EasyMed Billing, and Systech Solutions. It’s the company’s fifth acquisition in the last year.


Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

Check out the recording of last week’s webinar from Mercy Technology Services titled “Modern Imaging Technology for the Enterprise: Improve Imaging Cost, Speed, Capacity and Care Quality.” Mr. H called it “among the best ever.”


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Imaging center and software company RadNet uses assets from newly acquired Nulogix to launch a division focused on developing, acquiring, and investing in AI technologies that better enable image interpretation and radiology business processes.


Announcements and Implementations

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DirectTrust announces that more than 1 billion messages have been sent and received using its secure messaging system since it began tracking transmissions in 2014. The milestone follows last week’s news that the nonprofit is developing a standard for secure instant healthcare messaging.

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Workit Health, an addiction care company that offers its programs and services through telemedicine, will open a brick-and-mortar clinic in Kern County, CA. It received grant funding last month from the Center at Sierra Health Foundation to expand its services in California, and start pilot projects with emergency departments in certain counties.

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Choices Counseling Center (OR) selects EnSoftek’s behavioral health-focused DrCloudEHR.


Government and Politics

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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announces that the state’s PDMP has reached record utilization levels, recently surpassing 1 million daily queries on two separate occasions. In 2016, Ohio became the first state to offer direct integration of its PDMP into EHRs and pharmacy dispensing systems free of charge.


Telemedicine

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Baton Rouge, LA-based startup Relief Telemed raises $150,000 in a family-and-friends seed-funding round. Co-founder and CEO Vishal Vasanji is also the co-founder of Patient Plus Urgent Care. CMO Ronald Andrews, MD is the owner of Pediatric & Internal Medicine Associates in Baton Route. Vasanji says the company just signed its first payer, and that eight clinics in and around the city are using the company’s software. He added that practices will eventually be able to buy a white-label version of the technology.


Sponsor Updates

  • Nordic will exhibit at the CORE Conference August 5-7 in Salt Lake City.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

News 7/31/19

July 31, 2019 News Comments Off on News 7/31/19

Top News

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This JAMA editorial highlights the fine line pediatricians must walk when engaging in portal messaging with parents. The physician authors point out that in one large group practice, the average pediatrician responds to 10 portal messages a day – none of which are eligible for reimbursement and all of which likely add to administrative burden and burnout. Additional challenges include managing patient expectations when it comes to response times, and taking the right tone so responses aren’t misconstrued. The authors recommend that physicians:

  • Develop standards and establish expectations for what constitutes a reasonable period between a parent’s message and a physician’s reply.
  • Create guidelines for parents about what types of concerns are appropriate for a message as opposed to a telephone, video, or office appointment, and how quickly parents should expect a response.
  • In a group practice setting, develop templates to enhance the consistency of written instructions.
  • Create electronic in-basket coverage structures and cohesive expectations for how thoroughly covering clinicians should address issues.
  • Train other clinicians to be part of a team that addresses portal messages from parents.

HIStalk Practice Musings

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Pure literary torture: The Booker Prize includes Lucy Ellman’s “Ducks, Newburyport” in its list of finalists. The book is actually a single sentence that runs over 1,000 pages. Just typing that reminds me of the pain I felt trying to get through “Moll Flanders” in high school. Chapters, not to mention full stops, were created for a reason!


Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.


Announcements and Implementations

BetterPT incorporates patient engagement and telemedicine tools from BlueJay Mobile Health into its patient app, which features provider search and appointment scheduling capabilities.


People

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Patient check-in company Clearwave names Mike Lamb (SimplyWell) CEO.

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Shailendra Sharma (Nuance) joins Precision Point Specialty Analytics as president.


Other

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They’re coming for you, Claire’s: Rowan launches at-home ear-piercing services in New York and Connecticut, cutting out the mall middleman and ensuring the blood-drawing rite-of-passage is done by a licensed nurse. The company’s real bread and butter will come from its subscription service, which offers monthly boxes of earrings and tween-friendly trinkets. Founder Louisa Schneider says RNs will be key to the company’s success: “We found that nurses were very interested in an opportunity to earn another stream of income that did not involve things like end-of-life care or home care. This is typically a fun experience for them. It’s a celebration.”

This article about medical students serving on the Little League World Series medical team reminds me how much I’ve enjoyed reading about Dr. Jayne’s adventures at the World Scouting Jamboree. I’d love to hear from any readers that may have served in similar capacities at large gatherings like these. Any Olympic or Paralympic clinicians out there? Email me with your anecdotes.


Sponsor Updates

  • AdvancedMD will exhibit at APA2019 August 8-11 in Chicago.
  • Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at West Coast CORE August 7-9 in Salt Lake City.
  • LightSpeed Technology Group achieves SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 attestation.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

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