News 11/30/15

Top News

MIT Startup Exchange graduate Healthjump acquires DataTrade Solutions for an undisclosed price. The Phoenixville, PA-based medical record exchange vendor will leverage DataTrade’s consulting and development services in an effort to expand its customer footprint and interoperability capabilities.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

As the frantic Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping blitzes wind down, consider sending some of your resources to DonorsChoose via HIStalk. Mr. H has established quite the reputation for funding a ton of STEM-related DonorsChoose projects courtesy of generous reader donations, and matching funds provided by an anonymous vendor executive for donations of $100 or more. Companies or individuals interested in contributing and having their funds matched can follow these steps:

1. Purchase a gift card in the amount you’d like to donate.
2. Send the gift card by the email option to mr_histalk@67.225.140.230/~histalk (that’s his DonorsChoose account).
3. He’ll be notified of your donation and you can print your own receipt for tax purposes.
4. He’ll pool the money and apply the matching funds, with an emphasis on STEM-related projects as the matching-funds donor prefers. You can check out weekly updates of what projects get funded at HIStalk.com, where Mr. H runs photos and thank yous from classroom recipients.

Webinars

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Patient is In, But the Doctor is Out: How Metro Health Enabled Informed Decision-Making with Remote Access to PHI.” Sponsored by Vmware. Presenters: Josh Wilda, VP of IT, Metro Health; James Millington, group product line manager, VMware. Most industries are ahead of healthcare in providing remote access to applications and information. Some health systems, however, have transformed how, when, and where their providers access patient information. Metro Health in Grand Rapids, MI offers doctors fast bedside access to information and lets them review patient information on any device (including their TVs during football weekends!) saving them 30 minutes per day and reducing costs by $2.75 million.

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Tackling Data Governance: Doctors Hospital at Renaissance’s Strategy for Consistent Analysis.” Sponsored by Premier, Inc. Presenters: Kassie Wu, director of application services, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance; Alex Eastman, senior director of enterprise solutions, Premier, Inc. How many definitions of “complications” (or “cost” or “length of stay”…) do you have? Doctors Hospital at Renaissance understood that inconsistent use of data and definitions was creating inconsistent and untrusted analysis. Join us to hear about their journey towards analytics maturity, including a strategy to drive consistency in the way they use, calculate, and communicate insights across departments.

December 2 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Creating HIPAA-Compliant Applications Without JCAPS/JavaMQ Architecture.” Sponsored by Red Hat. Presenters: Ashwin Karpe, lead of enterprise integration practice, Red Hat Consulting; Christian Posta, principle middleware architect, Red Hat. Oracle JCAPS is reaching its end of life and customers will need a migration solution for creating HIPAA-compliant applications, one that optimizes data flow internally and externally on premise, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. Explore replacing legacy healthcare applications with modern Red Hat JBoss Fuse architectures that are cloud-aware, location-transparent, and highly scalable and are hosted in a container-agnostic manner.

December 3 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “501(r) Regulations – What You Need to Know for Success in 2016.” Sponsored by TransUnion. Presenter: Jonathan Wiik, principal consultant, TransUnion Healthcare Solutions. Complex IRS rules take effect on January 1 that will dictate how providers ensure access, provide charity assistance, and collect uncompensated care. This in-depth webinar will cover tools and workflows that can help smooth the transition, including where to focus compliance efforts in the revenue cycle and a review of the documentation elements required.

December 9 (Wednesday) 12 noon ET. “Population Health in 2016: Know How to Move Forward.” Sponsored by Athenahealth. Presenter: Michael Maus, VP of enterprise solutions, Athenahealth. ACOs need a population health solution that helps them manage costs, improve outcomes, and elevate the care experience. Athenahealth’s in-house expert will explain why relying on software along isn’t enough, how to tap into data from multiple vendors, and how providers can manage patient populations.

December 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Health Care Payment Evolution: Maximizing Value Through Technology.” Sponsored by Medicity. Presenter: Charles D. Kennedy, MD, chief population health officer, Healthagen. This presentation will provide a brief history of the ACO Pioneer and MSSP programs and will discuss current market trends and drivers and the federal government’s response to them. Learn what’s coming in the next generation of programs such as the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the role technology plays in driving the evolution of a new healthcare marketplace.

December 16 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “A Sepsis Solution: Reducing Mortality by 50 Percent Using Advanced Decision Support.” Sponsored by Wolters Kluwer Health. Presenter: Stephen Claypool, MD, medical director of innovation lab and VP of clinical development and informatics for clinical software solutions, Wolters Kluwer Health. Sepsis claims 258,000 lives and costs $20 billion annually in the US, but early identification and treatment remains elusive, emphasizing the need for intelligent, prompt, and patient-specific clinical decision support. Huntsville Hospital reduced sepsis mortality by 53 percent and related readmissions by 30 percent using real-time surveillance of EHR data and evidence-based decision support to generate highly sensitive and specific alerts.

December 16 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Need for Integrated Data Enhancement and Analytics – Unifying Management of Healthcare Business Processes.” Sponsored by CitiusTech. Presenters: Jeffrey Springer, VP of product management, CitiusTech; John Gonsalves, VP of healthcare provider market, CitiusTech. Providers are driving consumer-centric care with guided analytic solutions that answer specific questions, but each new tool adds complexity. It’s also important to tap real-time data from sources such as social platforms, mobile apps, and wearables to support delivery of personalized and proactive care. This webinar will discuss key use cases that drive patient outcomes, the need for consolidated analytics to realize value-based care, scenarios to maximize efficiency, and an overview of CitiusTech’s integrated healthcare data enhancement and analytics platform.

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

People

Jim Adams (Endeavor Quest) joins Syncordia Technologies and Healthcare Solutions Corp.’s Board of Advisors.

Culbert Healthcare Solutions promotes Jaffer Traish to VP of its Epic practice, and names collegiate soccer phenom Art Lopez (Telcare) Mid-West Regional Account Manager.

Announcements and Implementations

Athenahealth adds MedStatix patient survey technology to athenaOne EHR, PM, and care coordination services. Athenahealth customers will have complimentary access to overall satisfaction scores, with the option to upgrade for deeper insights.

Chiropractic Health Services (WI) selects iPatientCare’s EHR and RCM services.

Government and Politics

CMS releases its updated quality strategy, outlining the methods by which it proposes to tie 30 percent of traditional Medicare payments to alternative payment models and 85 percent of all traditional Medicare payments to quality or value by the end of 2016.

Telemedicine

Singular Sleep launches a “virtual sleep center” offering telemedicine services in 13 states to consumers suffering from sleep disorders. The Mt. Pleasant, SC-based startup is led by former Orlando Magic Director of Medical Services Joseph Krainin, MD.

Research and Innovation

Providers seem to have enough weeks under their stethoscopes to finally begin offering less-than-rosy assessments of their transitions to ICD-10. A survey of 298 healthcare stakeholders reveals that 28 percent found the transition to be smooth, while 51 percent experienced “a few technical issues.” Eleven percent classified the process as a “failure to operate in an ICD-10 environment.” The biggest hurdles included (and likely still include) rejected medical claims, clinical documentation and physician education, and reduced revenue from coding delays and IT fixes.

Other

The local paper profiles the development of the Practice Transformation Institute, a collaboration between Arizona Health-E Connection, Mercy Care Plan, and Mercy Maricopa Integrated Care that aims to help Arizona physicians transition to value-based care models. Funded by a $3.6 million HHS grant, the Institute will make the focal point of its strategy data collection and information sharing between stakeholders via The Network HIE. Near-term goals include helping physicians reduce unnecessary procedures and hospitalizations; and increasing well-child visits, pediatric dental care, breast cancer screenings, and diabetes care.

Regenstrief Institute Investigator and Indiana University School of Medicine Professor of Medicine Richard Frankel develops the POISED model to help physicians develop and reinforce good exam-room computer use. While the model’s tips are certainly relevant, it’s Frankel’s take on gender disparities that caught my eye: Female physicians typically look up from the computer screen every 30 seconds or so, making eye contact with the patient to signal that they are still actively engaged in the relationship. Males, however, rarely look up.

Singaporean professor Rachid Yazami develops a smart chip that has the potential to charge smartphone batteries in less than 10 minutes. The fingernail-sized chip, which can be embedded in most types of batteries, will likely be ready for licensing and manufacture by the end of 2016. Yazami has already approached Sony, Sanyo, and Samsung about marketing opportunities.

It’s never too late for a sweet Thanksgiving story: Southwest Louisiana Primary Healthcare Center staff make surprise pie deliveries to 30 elderly and home-alone patients on Thanksgiving. “We think we have a lot to be thankful for,” says Medical Director Leone Elliot, MD. “In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’re going to extend that to our patients.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 11/29/15

Computer Programs and Systems Inc. (CPSI) announces that it will acquire its main small-hospital technology competitor Healthland Holding Inc., which includes Healthland Inc., American HealthTech, and Rycan Technologies. CPSI will pay $250 million, 65 percent in cash and 35 percent in stock. “As the healthcare industry transitions to value-based reimbursement, our combined solutions will connect communities, patients, and providers to facilitate more effective population health management, better patient engagement, and the advancement of quality and care coordination,” explains CPSI President and CEO Boyd Douglas. “In addition to an expanded client and solution base, the acquisition will also create synergies in our healthcare services offerings to address the acute and post-acute care markets’ demand for improved financial and operational performance.” Mr. H provides a more in-depth look at the transaction here. There’s a good possibility HIStalk regular Vince Ciotti will put together a webinar on the acquisition. (Keep track of upcoming HIStalk webinars here.)

Dell integrates Zebra Medical Vision’s analytics and research platforms into its Cloud Clinical Archive, offering providers access to algorithms that provide decision support, disease-based risk profiles, and the ability to identify candidates for preventive care and wellness programs. The company has also added MphRx’s cloud-based analytics software to the clinical archive’s portal, enabling providers to access key performance indicators culled from clinical and operational data.

CentraForce Health adds data from the Nielsen ScarboroughMARS Consumer Healthcare Module to its Population 360° Health Intelligence Platform, offering providers, researchers, and payers over 100,000 measures surveyed across millions of locally sampled respondents. (The Nielsen module combines data on ailments, healthcare advertising impact, and attitudes toward wellness with consumer patterns, and media and lifestyle habits.) The news comes less than two months after the formal launch of the company, a division of Austin, TX-based marketing intelligence firm CentraForce.

Dignity Health (CA) selects Athenahealth’s cloud-based AthenaCommunicator Enterprise platform to support population health initiatives across its network of 400 facilities in 21 states.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 11/25/15

Top News

Consumer telemedicine company VitalAlert announces it will give 50 percent of its earnings to MAP International, a Christian-based health organization that provides health and relief services to patients in underserved countries around the world. The company, which contracts with Teladoc physicians, has partnered with the charity to a lesser degree since 2014.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Happy early Thanksgiving! Still struggling to come up with a side dish to take to the family get together tomorrow? Try your hand at homemade creamed corn. It’s super easy, requiring minimal prep and cooking time. Gobble til you wobble!

Webinars

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Patient is In, But the Doctor is Out: How Metro Health Enabled Informed Decision-Making with Remote Access to PHI.” Sponsored by Vmware. Presenters: Josh Wilda, VP of IT, Metro Health; James Millington, group product line manager, VMware. Most industries are ahead of healthcare in providing remote access to applications and information. Some health systems, however, have transformed how, when, and where their providers access patient information. Metro Health in Grand Rapids, MI offers doctors fast bedside access to information and lets them review patient information on any device (including their TVs during football weekends!) saving them 30 minutes per day and reducing costs by $2.75 million.

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Tackling Data Governance: Doctors Hospital at Renaissance’s Strategy for Consistent Analysis.” Sponsored by Premier, Inc. Presenters: Kassie Wu, director of application services, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance; Alex Eastman, senior director of enterprise solutions, Premier, Inc. How many definitions of “complications” (or “cost” or “length of stay”…) do you have? Doctors Hospital at Renaissance understood that inconsistent use of data and definitions was creating inconsistent and untrusted analysis. Join us to hear about their journey towards analytics maturity, including a strategy to drive consistency in the way they use, calculate, and communicate insights across departments.

December 2 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Creating HIPAA-Compliant Applications Without JCAPS/JavaMQ Architecture.” Sponsored by Red Hat. Presenters: Ashwin Karpe, lead of enterprise integration practice, Red Hat Consulting; Christian Posta, principle middleware architect, Red Hat. Oracle JCAPS is reaching its end of life and customers will need a migration solution for creating HIPAA-compliant applications, one that optimizes data flow internally and externally on premise, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. Explore replacing legacy healthcare applications with modern Red Hat JBoss Fuse architectures that are cloud-aware, location-transparent, and highly scalable and are hosted in a container-agnostic manner.

December 3 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “501(r) Regulations – What You Need to Know for Success in 2016.” Sponsored by TransUnion. Presenter: Jonathan Wiik, principal consultant, TransUnion Healthcare Solutions. Complex IRS rules take effect on January 1 that will dictate how providers ensure access, provide charity assistance, and collect uncompensated care. This in-depth webinar will cover tools and workflows that can help smooth the transition, including where to focus compliance efforts in the revenue cycle and a review of the documentation elements required.

December 9 (Wednesday) 12 noon ET. “Population Health in 2016: Know How to Move Forward.” Sponsored by Athenahealth. Presenter: Michael Maus, VP of enterprise solutions, Athenahealth. ACOs need a population health solution that helps them manage costs, improve outcomes, and elevate the care experience. Athenahealth’s in-house expert will explain why relying on software along isn’t enough, how to tap into data from multiple vendors, and how providers can manage patient populations.

December 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Health Care Payment Evolution: Maximizing Value Through Technology.” Sponsored by Medicity. Presenter: Charles D. Kennedy, MD, chief population health officer, Healthagen. This presentation will provide a brief history of the ACO Pioneer and MSSP programs and will discuss current market trends and drivers and the federal government’s response to them. Learn what’s coming in the next generation of programs such as the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the role technology plays in driving the evolution of a new healthcare marketplace.

December 16 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “A Sepsis Solution: Reducing Mortality by 50 Percent Using Advanced Decision Support.” Sponsored by Wolters Kluwer Health. Presenter: Stephen Claypool, MD, medical director of innovation lab and VP of clinical development and informatics for clinical software solutions, Wolters Kluwer Health. Sepsis claims 258,000 lives and costs $20 billion annually in the US, but early identification and treatment remains elusive, emphasizing the need for intelligent, prompt, and patient-specific clinical decision support. Huntsville Hospital reduced sepsis mortality by 53 percent and related readmissions by 30 percent using real-time surveillance of EHR data and evidence-based decision support to generate highly sensitive and specific alerts.

December 16 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Need for Integrated Data Enhancement and Analytics – Unifying Management of Healthcare Business Processes.” Sponsored by CitiusTech. Presenters: Jeffrey Springer, VP of product management, CitiusTech; John Gonsalves, VP of healthcare provider market, CitiusTech. Providers are driving consumer-centric care with guided analytic solutions that answer specific questions, but each new tool adds complexity. It’s also important to tap real-time data from sources such as social platforms, mobile apps, and wearables to support delivery of personalized and proactive care. This webinar will discuss key use cases that drive patient outcomes, the need for consolidated analytics to realize value-based care, scenarios to maximize efficiency, and an overview of CitiusTech’s integrated healthcare data enhancement and analytics platform.

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

Announcements and Implementations

ActX integrates its new real-time genomic decision-support service into NewCrop’s e-prescribing system for controlled substances. The tool will deliver prescribing physicians alerts about medication efficacy, dosing, and adverse reactions based on patient genetic profiles.

People

Ray Good (SCI Consulting) joins Cognosante as vice president of capture management.

Government and Politics

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) announces a $600 million emergency funding bill to help combat the opioid and heroin abuse epidemic. The Senate Appropriations Committee member proposes to allocate $50 million to CDC for development of prescription drug monitoring programs, intervention programs, and rapid response projects. Shaheen notes in a corresponding letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell that 325 people died of opioid overdoses last year in New Hampshire, an increase of 76 percent over the previous year. “Communities across the country are working hard to fight this epidemic on all fronts, but more needs to be done,” she explains. “I urge you to use any and all authorities you have to address this public health emergency.”

Research and Innovation

JAMA offers a high-level overview of PCP perspectives on healthcare delivery system changes, noting that half of surveyed physicians believe greater use of healthcare IT has positively affected quality of care. A similar number of PCPs view the use of quality metrics as an assessment tool in a positive light. While no direct correlation to health IT is noted, nearly the same amount are considering early retirement.

Researchers discover that patients with narcotics prescriptions largely take to social media to discuss their medication’s side effects. Out of 2.5 billion tweets and posts to social networking forums like askapatient.com, researchers found that patients largely focused on gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, vomiting, and constipation. “[The study] highlights that many patients need more information, more education, and perhaps a more meaningful relationship with their doctors,” said study author Brennan Spiegel, MD. “If doctors can carefully and thoroughly explain the side effects of pain medicines with their patients, then it may lead to less misunderstandings and misuse of opioids.”

Other

The Altarum Institute opens enrollment in Michigan for the Great Lakes Practice Transformation Network, a three-state quality improvement project funded by CMS. The program, which kicks off next spring, will offer qualifying physicians practice coaching, as well as assistance with quality reporting requirements and value-based payment initiatives.

Data scientists at Columbia University create Venom Knowledge Base, the first online catalog of known animal venom and their 42,000-plus effects on humans. Scientists hope that the catalog will accelerate the discovery of new medical treatments.

The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the nation’s first health center in 1965, taking advantage of the festivities to highlight the need for revamped medical school curricula. “We’re making great progress, says Antonia McGuire, president and CEO of the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center (MA), “but it’s clear that medical schools have not adjusted their training approach to address issues of team coordination, process improvement, patient engagement and better use of technology – all of which are basic requirements in practicing primary care in the post-ACA era. Medical schools should draw upon the community-based expertise of community health centers in developing their curricula and training programs in primary care.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 11/24/15

Top News

AcademyHealth announces it will take over Health Datapalooza from The Health Data Consortium, which is closing up shop after running the event since it was founded six years ago. Rumor has it HDC’s funding ran out, and its attempts at lobbying for the liberation of health data proved unsuccessful, at least in terms of revenue generation. AcademyHealth President and CEO Lisa Simpson explains that, “As hosts of the Health Datapalooza, we’ll build on our work … to shape an agenda that engages the broad community of data liberation champions – patients, advocates, researchers, and delivery system and industry leaders – in focused discussions about how we turn data into evidence, and evidence into actions that improve health outcomes.”

Webinars

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Patient is In, But the Doctor is Out: How Metro Health Enabled Informed Decision-Making with Remote Access to PHI.” Sponsored by Vmware. Presenters: Josh Wilda, VP of IT, Metro Health; James Millington, group product line manager, VMware. Most industries are ahead of healthcare in providing remote access to applications and information. Some health systems, however, have transformed how, when, and where their providers access patient information. Metro Health in Grand Rapids, MI offers doctors fast bedside access to information and lets them review patient information on any device (including their TVs during football weekends!) saving them 30 minutes per day and reducing costs by $2.75 million.

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Tackling Data Governance: Doctors Hospital at Renaissance’s Strategy for Consistent Analysis.” Sponsored by Premier, Inc. Presenters: Kassie Wu, director of application services, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance; Alex Eastman, senior director of enterprise solutions, Premier, Inc. How many definitions of “complications” (or “cost” or “length of stay”…) do you have? Doctors Hospital at Renaissance understood that inconsistent use of data and definitions was creating inconsistent and untrusted analysis. Join us to hear about their journey towards analytics maturity, including a strategy to drive consistency in the way they use, calculate, and communicate insights across departments.

December 2 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Creating HIPAA-Compliant Applications Without JCAPS/JavaMQ Architecture.” Sponsored by Red Hat. Presenters: Ashwin Karpe, lead of enterprise integration practice, Red Hat Consulting; Christian Posta, principle middleware architect, Red Hat. Oracle JCAPS is reaching its end of life and customers will need a migration solution for creating HIPAA-compliant applications, one that optimizes data flow internally and externally on premise, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. Explore replacing legacy healthcare applications with modern Red Hat JBoss Fuse architectures that are cloud-aware, location-transparent, and highly scalable and are hosted in a container-agnostic manner.

December 3 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “501(r) Regulations – What You Need to Know for Success in 2016.” Sponsored by TransUnion. Presenter: Jonathan Wiik, principal consultant, TransUnion Healthcare Solutions. Complex IRS rules take effect on January 1 that will dictate how providers ensure access, provide charity assistance, and collect uncompensated care. This in-depth webinar will cover tools and workflows that can help smooth the transition, including where to focus compliance efforts in the revenue cycle and a review of the documentation elements required.

December 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Health Care Payment Evolution: Maximizing Value Through Technology.” Sponsored by Medicity. Presenter: Charles D. Kennedy, MD, chief population health officer, Healthagen. This presentation will provide a brief history of the ACO Pioneer and MSSP programs and will discuss current market trends and drivers and the federal government’s response to them. Learn what’s coming in the next generation of programs such as the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the role technology plays in driving the evolution of a new healthcare marketplace.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Radiology information systems vendor Advanced Data Systems launches EMRdirect as part of its MedicsRIS, enabling digital delivery of radiology reports to the EHRs of referring physicians via the Surescripts network.

Telemedicine

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners adopts state model legislation giving payers the ability to use telemedicine to access physicians from outside a geographic area. States must formally adopt the legislation for it to become effective.

XG Technology signs a $400,000 agreement for implementation of its turnkey telemedicine solution as part of a digital health communities pilot program in remote areas of the West Pacific. Final roll out will likely include up to 50 of the company’s xMax Telemedicine Network Solutions.

Government and Politics

Democratic presidential candidate and former governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley includes support for the development of state HIEs in his new health plan. His enthusiasm is not surprising, given his gubernatorial oversight of Maryland’s CRISP HIE. O’Malley also promises to give patients greater access to their health data, and to ensure that “comprehensive cybersecurity protections” will ensure the safety of that access.

Making no headway with CMS, the GOP Doctors Caucus asks Speaker Paul Ryan for a delay of Stage 3 Meaningful Use and a blanket hardship exemption for Stage 2. “Members of our caucus, as well as numerous congressional healthcare leaders, have engaged CMS on these issues to warn them of the potential negative consequences of placing these new requirements on providers in order to meet an arbitrary deadline. CMS has ignored Congress,” the authors vent. “Congressional action is the only solution left for preserving patient access, choice, and quality.”

Other

Just in time for Thanksgiving: Dan Munro shows his journalistic chops in a positively “delicious” piece on government force-feeding of EHRs. Never did I think to see “foie-gras,” “bouillabaisse,” or “golden goose” mentioned on the same page as FHIR or interoperability.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 11/23/15

Top News

In honor or National Rural Health Day, the USDA announces $23.4 million in distance learning and telemedicine grants for 75 projects in 31 states and Western Pacific territories. "Rural communities often lack access to specialized medical care or advanced educational opportunities necessary for stronger rural economies," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "These grants will help increase access to healthcare and many other essential services."

Webinars

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Patient is In, But the Doctor is Out: How Metro Health Enabled Informed Decision-Making with Remote Access to PHI.” Sponsored by Vmware. Presenters: Josh Wilda, VP of IT, Metro Health; James Millington, group product line manager, VMware. Most industries are ahead of healthcare in providing remote access to applications and information. Some health systems, however, have transformed how, when, and where their providers access patient information. Metro Health in Grand Rapids, MI offers doctors fast bedside access to information and lets them review patient information on any device (including their TVs during football weekends!) saving them 30 minutes per day and reducing costs by $2.75 million.

December 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Tackling Data Governance: Doctors Hospital at Renaissance’s Strategy for Consistent Analysis.” Sponsored by Premier, Inc. Presenters: Kassie Wu, director of application services, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance; Alex Eastman, senior director of enterprise solutions, Premier, Inc. How many definitions of “complications” (or “cost” or “length of stay”…) do you have? Doctors Hospital at Renaissance understood that inconsistent use of data and definitions was creating inconsistent and untrusted analysis. Join us to hear about their journey towards analytics maturity, including a strategy to drive consistency in the way they use, calculate, and communicate insights across departments.

December 2 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Creating HIPAA-Compliant Applications Without JCAPS/JavaMQ Architecture.” Sponsored by Red Hat. Presenters: Ashwin Karpe, lead of enterprise integration practice, Red Hat Consulting; Christian Posta, principle middleware architect, Red Hat. Oracle JCAPS is reaching its end of life and customers will need a migration solution for creating HIPAA-compliant applications, one that optimizes data flow internally and externally on premise, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. Explore replacing legacy healthcare applications with modern Red Hat JBoss Fuse architectures that are cloud-aware, location-transparent, and highly scalable and are hosted in a container-agnostic manner.

December 3 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “501(r) Regulations – What You Need to Know for Success in 2016.” Sponsored by TransUnion. Presenter: Jonathan Wiik, principal consultant, TransUnion Healthcare Solutions. Complex IRS rules take effect on January 1 that will dictate how providers ensure access, provide charity assistance, and collect uncompensated care. This in-depth webinar will cover tools and workflows that can help smooth the transition, including where to focus compliance efforts in the revenue cycle and a review of the documentation elements required.

December 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “The Health Care Payment Evolution: Maximizing Value Through Technology.” Sponsored by Medicity. Presenter: Charles D. Kennedy, MD, chief population health officer, Healthagen. This presentation will provide a brief history of the ACO Pioneer and MSSP programs and will discuss current market trends and drivers and the federal government’s response to them. Learn what’s coming in the next generation of programs such as the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the role technology plays in driving the evolution of a new healthcare marketplace.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Practice marketing technology vendor PatientPop secures a $10 million Series A round of financing from Toba Capital. The Santa Monica, CA-based startup, which secured $3.3 million in seed funding from Athenahealth in May, plans to use the new investment to scale from 65 employees to 200.

Primary Care Partners and South Metro Primary Care combine to form the largest group of PCPs in the Denver area. The new PHPprime will serve 375,000 residents via 320 physicians across 85 practices. The new organization has tapped Denver-based Physician Health Partners to manage its operations, including care coordination and analytics.

Announcements and Implementations

Nextech develops analytics and a data exchange platform for users of its MDIntelleSys EHR for ophthalmologists.

Osis migrates from Microsoft to VMware operations management software for greater IT scalability in light of business growth. The Cincinnati-based nonprofit provides NextGen consulting services to 38 health centers across 17 states.

Synergy Radiology Associates (TX) implements ScImage’s PICOM365 Cloud PACS.

Doctors Co. subsidiary Medical Advantage Group partners with the Ohio State Medical Association to offer independent physicians access to its consulting services.

Telemedicine

Telemedicine vendor Carena expands with the opening of an office in Nashville, TN. The company, which provides turnkey, white label telemedicine clinics for health systems, will share office space with Martin Ventures, which invested $13 million in the Seattle-based company earlier this year.

TriBridge adds Schmitt Thompson clinical content to its Health 360 phone triage tool to help providers better triage telemedicine interactions.

Government and Politics

EHRA warns CMS that vendors and physicians will need more time to develop and implement advanced payment model-friendly EHR functionality and reporting capabilities in light of the steadily approaching 2017 performance year. The association also cautioned against an “over-reliance on the use of EHRs and health IT for collecting data that is outside the scope of EHRs, or is not currently defined and implemented today,” and made clear its non-support of anew certification program for MACRA’s alternative payment model track or its new Merit-based Incentive Payment Program.

HHS seeks comments on guidance for implementing NIST’s cybersecurity framework in healthcare, released earlier this month. Comments, due by November 30, will help to shape a final draft that will be submitted to the Joint Healthcare and Public Health Cybersecurity Working Group for review before publication.

Research and Innovation

Over half of patients enrolled in a national trial of the Space in Depression online treatment program recover from their symptoms and/or go into remission, outcomes maintained at three- and six-month follow ups. The eight-module program was developed by Trinity College’s School of Psychology and SilverCloud Health.

Other

Adweek takes Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush to task for his colorful explanation of the company’s success on live TV. Surely anyone who books Bush for live appearances does a little digging into his on-air demeanor – a trait that has also translated a time or two to the HIStalkapalooza stage.

I find this hard to believe: Researchers discover that, with a little training, pigeons do just as well as humans in a study testing their ability to distinguish between cancerous and healthy breast tissue samples. Study co-author and professor Edward Wasserman explains that, “Pigeons can distinguish identities and emotional expressions on human faces, letters of the alphabet, misshapen pharmaceutical capsules, and even paintings by Monet versus Picasso. Their visual memory capacity is equally impressive, with a proven recall of more than 1,800 images."

I love to see public officials giving back with gratitude.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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