News 4/19/16

Top News

Greenway Health brings on Scott Zimmerman as CEO. Zimmerman replaces company co-founder Tee Green, who will stay on as executive chairman. Zimmerman has done stints at TeleVox, Merck, Boston Scientific, and GE Healthcare. His expertise also extends to patents, including a “simplified user interface that prescribes, creates, and presents images ready for a radiologist to review” and a “method and apparatus for providing messaging to targeted lifestyle segments.”

Webinar

April 26 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Provider-Led Care Management: Trends and Opportunities in a Growing Market.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenter: Matthew Guldin, analyst, Chilmark Research. This webinar will provide a brief overview and direction of the provider-led care management market. It will identify the types of vendors in this market, their current and longer-term challenges, product capabilities, partnership activity, and market dynamics that influence adoption. It will conclude with an overview of key factors for vendors and solutions moving forward.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Private equity firm GI Partners completes its joint venture acquisition with Allscripts of Netsmart Technologies. The new venture will merge the Allscripts homecare software business unit with Netsmart.

People

OptumLabs CEO Paul Bleicher, MD joins medical wearables company MC10’s Board of Directors.

ZirMed promotes Jay Volk to vice president of partner and corporate development.

Announcements and Implementations

The New Hampshire Health Information Organization selects secure messaging software from TigerText for its 100-plus HIE participants.

PrecisionBI partners with PractiSource to offer RCM and analytics services to physician practices and labs.

Better Day Health adds Isabel Healthcare’s differential diagnosis decision support engine to its clinical documentation technologies for orthopedic and ambulatory clinics.

The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers selects consulting services from EMedApps to assist its 49 member organizations in connecting to The Massachusetts Health Information Highway, the state’s HIE.

The OPIE/Futura Software Group, a company that caters to physicians working with orthotics and prosthetics, taps ZirMed to serve as the clearinghouse for its client base.

Telemedicine

Chiron Health joins the Greenway Health online marketplace of partner companies.

Physician’s Computer Company signs an MoU with ThinkMD to bring its Medical Evaluation and Diagnostic System for Infants, Newborns and Children (MEDISINC) technology to the US market starting this spring. PCC, which helped develop MEDSINC, will presumably integrate it with its pediatric EHR.

Contacts

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

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5 Questions With Robin Zon, MD Michiana Hematology Oncology

Robin Zon, MD is a medical oncologist at Michiana Hematology Oncology, an Indiana-based practice with six locations and 180 staff that care for up to 350 patients on a daily basis. The practice, which has attested for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use, uses Elekta’s Mosaiq v.2.62 EHR and Navigating Cancer’s patient portal. It is working with area hospitals on the coordination of care criteria required for their ACOs and its Commission on Cancer Oncology Medical Home accreditation, both of which are scheduled for survey in 2016. MHO is one of the eight initial practices that rolled out the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s CancerLinq data-aggregation software late last year.

What was the impetus for implementing CancerLinq?
While serving on ASCO’s Board of Directors, I had the privilege on learning about CancerLinq at its inception and was a strong supporter of the initiative. The idea of using “Big Data" to better enhance our overall learning as it applies to improving patient care and advancing scientific knowledge was gaining attention in several venues, including in IT, provider, and patient groups. In fact, my community oncology colleagues would often comment on how wonderful it would be to share our collective wisdom and lessons learned from taking care of our thousands of patients over the many years in a collective electronic system.

Similarly, patients sitting before me in consultation would patiently listen to my explanation of our medical recommendations based on clinical trial evidence and FDA approvals, which they learned were based on less than 5 percent of patients who usually did not mirror their health status and demographics. Patients would often ask, "Have you or the clinical trials upon which you base your treatment ever taken care of a patient just like me? And how did they do?" Based on these experiences, as soon as I learned about CancerLinq, I knew that my practice needed to participate and be contributors and eventual benefactors from this Rapid Learning System.

How do you hope its utilization will benefit MHO and its patients?
The promise of this technology lies, in part, in being able to better care for our patients. I hope one day we will be able to answer the question so often asked by our patients regarding our experiences in caring for patients just like them. Additionally, patients may derive some comfort and reassurance in knowing that another set of expert eyes is looking at their case via mass data collection and analysis, thereby comparing what we are recommending to what was learned from the RLS. Furthermore, the RLS may also be able to use the patient data in better informing research questions, which complements the expressed desire of patient willingness to contribute to advancing cancer care. From the practice standpoint, we have and want to continue to be involved in cutting-edge initiatives that will benefit our patients while simultaneously making us better doctors and oncology providers. By being early adopters, we hope to not only contribute as a vanguard practice, but be the first in the region adopting this emerging technology.

What other technologies have had a significant impact on MHO?
We currently use Flatiron Health’s OncoTrials as a workflow tool, assisting with screening, eligibility, and task assignment. OncoTrials serves as an efficiency workflow tool at this point, but also gives good data on enrollment and why a patient may be ineligible.

What sort of healthcare technology adoption/implementation challenges are unique to oncology clinics/practices?
Although a majority of oncology practices currently use an EHR, there are a number of identified challenges that impact patient care and provider/practice efficiencies. This includes the publicly discussed interoperability problem between systems. In caring for our patients, important health information is not able to be exchanged easily. In fact, there is posed danger in that patients do not always truly understand their medical history or even the know the medications they have been prescribed. Unless the IT systems are able to talk to each other, we may be missing information that would be critical to know in selecting the appropriate therapy for a patient. The EHR is also contributing to physician burnout, as physicians and patients alike often note the interruption to the physician/patient interaction with the presence of technology in the exam room. Additionally, physicians comment that they spend more time inputting a record than they actually spend with the patient.

Challenges also include having the IT support within a practice to support technology adoption. Considering the increasing demands on practice data, there is competition on a daily basis on how to prioritize, implement, and support multiple technologies. Remember, there is no payment system fully supporting IT in a practice, so this is an expense paid for by the physicians. Finally with quality reporting requirements, compliance with multiple pathways and differing portals for communication, these tasks are overwhelming some practices in many ways, including financially.

Given that you’re past the implementation phase of CancerLinq, what tips can you share regarding implementing new healthcare technologies?
An in-depth analysis of the problems you are trying to solve or the efficiencies you are looking to achieve are critical when determining the "need" for technologies. Map the flow and use of the technology before implementing for it to be successful. I would also recommend engaging a team of stakeholders that includes your IT department, practice managers, CFO, billing manager, nurse managers, physicians, and research staff. There should be clear communication of expectations and what is practical and not feasible. It is equally important to understand the cost associated with technology implementation and support. There should be a willingness and ability of the practice to dedicate resources to support IT personnel and the technology.

Contacts

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

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News 4/18/16

Top News

AMA launches the Healthier Nation Innovation Challenge to encourage physicians, residents, and medical students to come up with game-changing ideas that use technology in the areas of education; helping people live healthier, longer lives; and improving physician practices. AMA will award prizes of up to $50,000 to help move the ideas from concept to reality. Submissions are due May 16.

Webinars

April 26 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Provider-Led Care Management: Trends and Opportunities in a Growing Market.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenter: Matthew Guldin, analyst, Chilmark Research. This webinar will provide a brief overview and direction of the provider-led care management market. It will identify the types of vendors in this market, their current and longer-term challenges, product capabilities, partnership activity, and market dynamics that influence adoption. It will conclude with an overview of key factors for vendors and solutions moving forward.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

Allscripts integrates ClearWave’s patient check-in kiosk into its PM platform after certifying the tool through its developer program.

MiraMed Global Services makes available a Qualified Clinical Data Registry through its Anesthesia Business Consultants subsidiary. The registry will help anesthesia and pain-management practices report performance data to CMS.

Nashville, TN-based Urgent Team implements DocuTap’s EHR, PM, and billing software across its 21 urgent and family care centers in the Southeast.

Diversified Radiology of Colorado signs on with Zotec Partners for RCM services and analytical tools via its Medical Administrative Professionals managed services organization.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Madison, WI-based startup EnsoData raises $550,000 in a round led by venture capital fund Health X Ventures. The company’s flagship product, EnsoSleep, automates sleep study scoring for sleep clinics.

People

Jennifer “Jenna” Geiger (Accenture) joins Alignment Healthcare as COO.

Government and Politics

Happy birthday MACRA! CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt commemorates the act’s one-year anniversary, pointing out that one of its most significant changes has been working to pay physicians based on quality rather than volume.

ABC News digs into the “arcane” work of the six year-old Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, focusing on some of its more high-profile programs to date including the brand-new Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program. Hoangmai “Mai” Pham, MD director of the center’s seamless care models group, has the enviable task of helping physician practices transition to value-based care models like ACOs. “You have to build up a lot of trust,” she explains, adding that giving physicians access to Medicare data has gone a long way towards helping that relationship.

AAFP urges the House Appropriations Committee to restore AHRQ’s budget to its 2015 level of $364 million to support research vital to primary care. “Without AHRQ research,” the academy posits, “too little is known about appropriate care for real patients in primary care practices. More attention and research need to be directed to patients with more than one mental or physical health condition.” AHRQ’s budget, once thought to be entirely on the chopping block, was pared back to $334 million for 2016.

Telemedicine

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn keynotes the California Telehealth Network’s annual conference in San Diego, focusing on the commission’s work to decrease the digital healthcare divide and increase broadband access across the country. She highlighted the FCC’s Connect2Health Task Force and its efforts to develop a nationwide mapping tool that will integrate broadband and health data, down to the county level.

Other

The Washington Nationals win Fitbit’s Step Up to the Plate Challenge, which pitted seven Major League Baseball teams plus the commissioner’s office against each other during spring training. Minor league Nationals outfield/baserunning coordinator Gary Thurman logged one million steps alone.

The local paper profiles Ezdan Fluckiger, MD a former family physician who now toils in both the local hospital ER and at The Bread Doctor, the artisanal bakery he started with his family in Wyoming a little less than a year ago. Born out of a desire to create a long-term job opportunity for Eleanor, his teenage daughter with Down syndrome, Fluckiger also sees it as a nice foil to his typically stressful time in the ER. “(The bakery) is really fun,” he says. “It’s just positive. It’s like dispensing bread love all day long. People don’t come to the bakery to be mad. They come to the bakery to get something yummy.”

Now that you’re hungry, how about a little vino? Vital Wines gives back nearly all of its profits to SOS Health Services, a free clinic for the uninsured and underserved in College Place, WA. Wine industry veteran Ashley Trout spearheaded getting Vital Wines off the ground in order to better support the clinic, which serves a patient population largely made up of seasonal vineyard workers who speak English as a second language, if at all. She points out that, “It’s clearly not a problem 30,000 of us are going to solve in Walla Walla for the whole country. But if you can’t get something done in a small community, where can you?”

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Large EHR implementations: two critical success factors (Nordic)
• A Patient’s Advocate: Nurses and Technology (PerfectServe)

Contacts

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

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News 4/14/16

Top News

Athenahealth acquires physician scheduling startup Arsenal Health for an undisclosed sum. The four year-old, Boston-based company formerly known as Smart Scheduling made its way through the Healthbox accelerator program before joining Athenahealth’s More Disruption Please program in 2014. Athenahealth has added Arsenal’s technology to its AthenaNet platform, and hopes to take further advantage of its machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities. Arsenal CEO Chris Moses will take on the title of product innovation director; the Arsenal team will report to AthenaCoordinator General Manager Doran Robinson.

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Venture capital funding in the first quarter of 2016 increases 27 percent over Q1 2015, totaling $1.4 billion via 146 deals. The top-funded technologies include wearables ($260M), data analytics ($197M), telemedicine ($171M), mobile health apps ($120M), and consumer health ($100M). Wearables, analytics, and consumer health also earned top spots on Rock Health’s recent list of top-funded digital health categories for the same timeframe.

Announcements and Implementations

Map Health Management launches a population health management platform for behavioral health and addiction providers that includes patient population analytics, and risk assessment and patient engagement tools.

Modernizing Medicine develops an EHR/PM/RCM software platform for pain medicine physicians.

Compass Chiropractic and Wellness (WI) selects EHR and RCM software and services from IPatientCare.

People

The Western North Carolina Medical Manager Association elects Sherry Davis (Midway Medical Center) to its Board of Directors.

Tarek Elsawy, MD (Cleveland Clinic) joins Reliant Medical Group (MA) as president and CEO.

Research and Innovation

An ACO study in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that providers who entered the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 saw greater savings than those that entered in 2013. The authors note that “if meaningful savings from the expanding MSSP materialize, our findings suggest that they may be slow to develop, because participants with less advanced systems for managing care may enter later and require more time to improve care efficiency.”

Canadian researchers develop a portable, paper-based method for diagnosing HIV and hepatitis C virus infections. The new low-cost, point-of-care testing platform is capable of wirelessly sending test results to a smartphone or computer for further relay to a provider or lab.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 4/13/16

Top News

CVS MinuteClinic partners with American Well to offer its Ohio-based patients access to Cleveland Clinic physicians via a new Express Care Online program. Cleveland Clinic Medical Director of Distance Health Peter Rasmussen, MD believes the three-way partnership is a logical extension of the clinic’s mission: “Our long-term view of telehealth is that it’s not only a new, welcome service that we can offer our existing patients, but it’s a way for Cleveland Clinic to extend our reach and serve more people who need help. We believe that it is important to remove barriers to great care like time, travel and distance, and we’re making that possible through this partnership in Ohio.”

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

Navicure develops Navicure Perform, an analytics solution that helps providers identify and rectify cash-flow bottlenecks from within the company’s claims management software.

Ogden Clinic (UT) collocates its IT equipment at two ViaWest datacenters. The multispecialty group practice will also take advantage of ViaWest’s HIPAA Compliance services.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Physician use of Toronto-based Figure 1’s app passes the 1 million mark. Medical images on the app, which has been compared to an Instagram-like clinical decision support tool, have been viewed 1.5 billion times. Figure 1 has raised nearly $11 million since it was founded three years ago, and counts two-thirds of North American medical students among its user base.

Telemedicine

Social services nonprofit Impower (FL) partners with health kiosk company Higi to give its Medicaid patients the ability to wirelessly send biometric and activity data to Impower physicians in real time at no charge.

MyTelemedicine.com develops an Advanced API, giving physicians the ability to integrate virtual visits into their organization’s applications.

Government and Politics

ONC releases a whopper of a report on the REC program, highlighting the fact that nearly 70 percent of EPs who received Meaningful Use incentive payments under Stage 1 were assisted by a REC, compared to just 12 percent of those that didn’t work with a REC.

Other

Buffalo Cardiology & Pulmonary Associates (NY) closes its doors after 40 years due to declining reimbursement rates; cost-inducing regulations; and the ACA-induced trend of private practice consolidation, acquisition, or closure. BC&PA Administrator Gina Gray explained the reasoning for the closure in a letter to patients and partners:

“When BC&PA formed in the mid-’70s, the large private practice model for physician specialists made sense. But it no longer does. We are in the midst of a new era of health care that forces specialists to link in practice with primary-care physicians, either employed by a hospital system, or at extremely large conglomerations of integrated care. This change in practice model allows the doctors to be "physicians first," caring for patients. We no longer have to handle a building, lease equipment, meet payroll, manage employees or administer human resources. We wish to sincerely thank everyone involved with Buffalo Cardiology & Pulmonary Associates over the years. We’ve come to think of ourselves as a family, and like any family, growth and aging leads to new directions and opportunities.”

Sponsor Updates

• Healthwise will exhibit at the Cerner Southeast Regional User Group Meeting April 20-22 in Charlotte, NC.

Blog Posts

• Practice Management Software: The Benefits of Integration (AdvancedMD)
• The Importance of Continuing Education (Aprima)
• New York Issues Electronic Prescribing Waivers for Exceptional Circumstances (E-MDs)
• Five Myths About Shared Decision Making (Healthwise)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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