News 10/29/15

Top News

HHS extends its contract with DScape Interactive for further development of the Security Risk Assessment tool, which the company debuted in 2013 as a HIPAA-compliance application for small and mid-sized physician practices. DScape plans to upgrade the app with improved reporting functionality and compatibility with updated versions of Windows, as well as offer users the ability to save different versions of the app’s compliance survey for easier sharing.

Webinars

November 12 (Thursday) 1 :00 ET. “Top Predictions for Population Health Management in 2016 and Beyond.” Sponsored by Medecision. Presenters: Tobias C. Samo, MD, FACP, FHIMSS, CMIO, Medecision; Laura Kanov, BS, RRT, MBA, SVP of care delivery organization solutions, Medecision. With all the noise and hype around population health management, the presenters will share their predictions for 2016 and their insight into meeting the mounting pressures of value-based reimbursement and the tools and technology needed to manage care delivery.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Updox adds integrated electronic faxing and document management services to the Direct messaging it already offers Practice Fusion customers.

People

Matt Halle (Welltok) joins WiserTogether as chief growth officer.

Martin Cody (Aprima) joins TSI Healthcare as vice president of sales.

Telemedicine

EZDoctor, best known for its Web-based physician background check and appointment-scheduling tools, offers telemedicine services to travel insurance company April’s globetrotting customers.

Trim Nutrition expands its wellness-centric TeleWellnessMD platform to include basic and comprehensive lab panels. It soon plans to offer options for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase and micronutrient testing, as well as new products and services including treatment protocols for fibromyalgia.

The local paper profiles the evolving business model of Ardina, a telemedicine membership and healthcare discount startup that got its start in the Rev1 Ventures incubator program in Columbus, OH. In addition to personal membership plans that provide around-the-clock telemedicine services, the company is also partnering with local health insurance brokers to break into the employer market as an add-on to traditional insurance plans. “We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how younger consumers in the … freelance economy are taking a lot of interest,” says Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Murnen. 

Research and Innovation

A months-long study finds that Medisafe medication management app users taking cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension medication had higher rates of adherence – 10.7 percent, 7.7 percent, and 5.4 percent, respectively – than did a control group of patients that did not use the app. The results are similar to an internal Medisafe study conducted last month with users suffering from high blood pressure.

Other

There’s a healthcare IT user experience lesson in here somewhere: Facebook gives its staff a taste of what its users in developing countries experience everyday via “2G Tuesdays.” The company will slow down its site for one hour every Tuesday to replicate the experience of accessing the platform via a 2G connection. “They’re going to see the places that we need to improve our product,” says Engineering Director Tom Alison, “but they’re also going to see the places where we have made a lot of progress.” Over half of Facebook’s 157 million users in Africa connect to the site via the slower speed.

The Atlantic offers a fascinating glimpse into the career of Martin Couney, MD and his pioneering work with incubators for preemies in the first half of the 20th century. Couney introduced the concept of placing premature infants in incubators to the medical profession via traveling exhibitions at Coney Island and the World’s Fair, among other international stops, charging onlookers nominal fees to offset costs of care for  parents.

Contacts

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

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News 10/28/15

Top News

A GAO audit finds that, yet again, Healthcare.gov approved applications of at least 10 fake applicants, granting them premium tax credits and cost-sharing reduction subsidies. It should be noted that eight of the fake applicants did fail to pass an initial identify checking step, but were still approved after calling for support. While the GAO’s “sting” shows that CMS still needs to shore up its applicant verification process, it also shows that some perspective on the operation may be in everyone’s best interest. “It’s important to consider whether it’s likely that uninsured Americans would replicate the next actions the GAO took,” explains Meaghan Smith senior adviser for healthcare at HHS, “namely knowingly and willfully providing false information in violation of federal law, which could subject the individual to up to a $250,000 fine.”

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Note to vendors already thinking about what to give away at HIMSS16: Ember develops a travel mug that cools and keeps coffee at a consistent temperature of the user’s choosing for nearly four hours. The mug features a two-hour battery life and comes equipped with a charging coaster. And yes, there is an accompanying app that lets you keep an eye on your beverage’s temperature. The mugs will start shipping next April for $129. While HIMSS giveaway winners will have to wait a few weeks for their prize, coffee/tech lovers will likely think it worth the wait.

Webinars

November 12 (Thursday) 1 :00 ET. “Top Predictions for Population Health Management in 2016 and Beyond.” Sponsored by Medecision. Presenters: Tobias C. Samo, MD, FACP, FHIMSS, CMIO, Medecision; Laura Kanov, BS, RRT, MBA, SVP of care delivery organization solutions, Medecision. With all the noise and hype around population health management, the presenters will share their predictions for 2016 and their insight into meeting the mounting pressures of value-based reimbursement and the tools and technology needed to manage care delivery.

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

Announcements and Implementations

San Antonio-based Musculoskeletal Imaging Consultants selects cloud VNA technology from Dicom Systems to support its radiology and HIE services.

Surescripts selects Kno2’s interoperability solution to better connect health IT vendors. The integration will also enable Surescripts end users to securely send and receive messages using the company’s clinical Direct messaging.

EHR Integration Services adds Eagle Dream Health’s analytics platform to its Quality Information System, offering physician practices insight into the relationship between clinical outcomes and cost and claims data.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Hallmark Health Care Solutions and consulting firm ECG develop a cloud-based physician compensation development and management tool. The new Heisenberg II solution is the first in a series of jointly developed products from the two companies.

Healthcare transaction advisory firm VMG Health receives an undisclosed investment from private-equity firm Quad-C Management. VMG, which employs over 100 staff in its Dallas and Nashville offices, will maintain ownership of the business.

People

Scott McClintock (Have Marketing, Will Travel) joins Ingenious Med as chief marketing officer.

Government and Politics

Maine Health Data Organization launches CompareMaine.org, offering residents the ability to compare the average cost of over 200 medical procedures at over 170 facilities across the state. The site, which also offers quality data, was developed by the state agency with funds from CMS. For those keeping score, Maine received a “B” for its healthcare price transparency efforts, according to a July 2015 report from the Healthcare Incentives Improvement Institute and Catalyst for Payment Reform. No doubt the new website will propel Maine to join New Hampshire as the only other state to receive an “A.”

Telemedicine

The State of Illinois plays host this week to the Federation of State Medical Boards inaugural meeting of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission. The meeting agenda includes fairly ho-hum housekeeping items such as the election of officers and formation of working groups, budgetary discussions, and development of a timeline for future meetings. The commission’s ultimate goal is to develop a multistate licensing process that will better enable physicians in participating states (there are 11 so far) to practice across state lines – a boon for those looking to jump into telemedicine.

Other

Finally, a company with some common sense: REI refuses to kowtow to frenzied Black Friday shoppers, announcing it will close its stores, website, and distribution center on November 27. Employees will receive holiday pay, and hopefully enjoy some downtime with their families. “We think that Black Friday has gotten out of hand,” says president and CEO Jerry Stritzke, “and so we are choosing to invest in helping people get outside with loved ones this holiday season, over spending it in the aisles.” I’ll raise my turkey leg to that.

Hump Day humor courtesy of @PHEMISystems

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the 2015 NJPCA Annual Conference October 28-29 in Las Vegas.

Blog Posts

• Optimize Coding Through Partnerships (AdvancedMD)
• Billian Comes to Boston Event Recap: Update on the Road to Health Data Equity (Billian’s HealthDATA)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Contact us online.
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News 10/27/15

Top News

New York-based multispecialty group AdvantageCare Physicians achieves Stage 6 of the HIMSS Analytics EMR adoption model. The practice, which began rolling out Epic across its 36 sites last year, is one of only five organizations in the state to achieve that level of EHR progress.

Webinars

None in the next few days. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

I missed the VC figures that Mercom Capital Group issued a few weeks ago: Health IT venture capital funding in the third quarter rang in at $1.6 billion thanks to 148 deals – an increase of 32 percent over the preceding quarter. Top US-based deal makers included ZocDoc and Kareo. VC funding has thus far reached nearly $3.57 billion, just above the $3.53 billion raised during the same period last year.

Announcements and Implementations

Qualifacts Systems, a Nashville, TN-based company focused on healthcare IT for behavioral health centers and federal agencies, develops an Integration Hub to connect its CareLogic Enterprise EHR customers with other types of healthcare IT.

Hale Health updates its remote care platform to include EHR integration, as well as symptom lists and clinical protocols for cardiology, dermatology, pediatrics, primary care, and OB/GYN for English- and Spanish-speaking patients. 

The great ICD-10 non-event continues: DrChrono reports that 99 percent of its customer claims since October 1 have been processed using the ICD-10 code set. Physicians in 46 out of 50 states sent claims to 1,300 payers via the company’s EHR.

Geriatric internal medicine practice MMR Healthcare (FL) rolls out portable PHRs from InfoPeHR to its chronically ill patients.

NATE and digital identity management collaborative Kantara Initiative partner to develop a 2016 series of educational programs that will focus on the management of personal privacy preferences, electronic consent, and other topics related to emerging standards-driven innovations.

Telemedicine

The American Telemedicine Association joins the National Patient Safety Foundation and 25 other healthcare organizations in support of the NLC and the APRN Compact, an initiative by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing that aims to develop a multistate nursing license. As with the physician-friendly Interstate Licensure Compact from the Federation of State Medical Boards, the multistate license would enable nurses to provide telemedicine nursing services to patients across the country without having to obtain additional licenses.

People

Former CMS administrator and Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Donald Berwick, MD joins the National Research Corp. Board of Directors.

Government and Politics

The Indiana State Dept. of Health develops Preventing Injuries in Indiana, an injury prevention resource app available on iOS and Android. The app covers 10 common sources of injury, and includes a snapshot of each injury’s prevalence in Indiana and the greater US.

Other

Feelings aren’t just for hippies: The Utah Dept. of Health launches “Man Therapy,” a video campaign featuring fictional therapist Rich Mahogany, who walks men through some very humorous situations including breathing and yoga exercises. The department hopes the series will help steer men towards mental health resources at ManTherapy.org. (Dr. Mahogany bears a striking resemblance to man’s man Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation.)

The Consumer Electronics Association develops voluntary privacy and security guidelines for businesses that handle personal wellness data, particularly information generated by wearables. Framework directives include gaining consumer permission before selling or sharing data with third parties, allowing users to opt out of advertising, and offering concise policies on data usage.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Contact us online.
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News 10/26/15

Top News

The wave of physician “Just Say No to Meaningful Use” movements rolls on as AAFP launches a “Speak Out” tool on its website, enabling family physicians to write legislators and ask for a Stage 3 delay. Over 1,900 AAFP members have already taken advantage. The letter-writing campaign just a few weeks after the academy’s letter to National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD calling for ONC to delay implementing MU regulations until EHRs achieve true interoperability.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

I had the opportunity at last week’s Georgia HIMSS conference to hear Sharecare founder Jeff Arnold give a short demo of the company’s new Voice app. Currently in beta, it’s supposed to act as a sort of mood ring, alerting users to when they feel stressed and anxious based on vocal cues picked up via smartphone. The audience was extremely amused when Arnold laid the app’s technology on top of a video clip of President Obama dealing with a heckler. I might give it a try once it becomes available on iOS, though I wonder about the ultimate utility of such a technology. It seems like it might go the way of all those abandoned wearables and fitness apps.

Webinars

None in the next few days. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

Elite Medical Scribes launches an online scribe training program tailored to medical specialties.

Dialysis Clinic (TN) rolls out EHR, patient portal, and scribe technology from EClinicalWorks at nine of its 225 practices.

People

Michael Smith (ThermoFisher Scientific) joins AAFP as vice president and CIO.

Megan Renfrew joins Cognosante as a Solutions Lab director.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Medical Practice Management Resources adds services for integrative medical practices to its physician billing offerings.

Athenahealth shares jump 28 percent Friday after the company announces better-than-expected quarterly results. It’s now valued at $6.3 billion, with Jonathan Bush holding $51 million worth. Mr. H offers the juiciest snippets from the company’s earnings call.

Telemedicine

Accounts receivable management company Windham Professionals rolls out American Well’s telemedicine app to its 1,000 employees nationwide.

Government and Politics

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) introduces the Putting Patients and Providers Ahead of Compressed Regulatory Timelines Act of 2015 in an effort to repeal Meaningful Use penalties. “My bill would repeal these destructive penalties so that providers can get back to the business they are uniquely trained to do — utilizing their skills and knowledge to heal the sick and support the continued vitality of the healthy,” says King. “We need to save as many healthcare providers as possible. With the right president and the repeal of ObamaCare, we will need them.”

Friends of AHRQ – supported by a group of nearly 200 healthcare organizations including AMIA and ATA – urges the House and Senate to fully fund the research agency as it sorts out fiscal 2016 funding. The Senate wants to slash the agency’s budget by a third, while the House wants to do away with it altogether. “We recognize the reduction in AHRQ’s budget authority is largely a function of the historically low and grossly inadequate allocation provided for health research and other critical programs under the sequestered spending caps,” the group explains. “But without a dedicated funding stream for AHRQ’s important work, it’s misguided to assume that other agencies would absorb this portfolio given pressures they face in fulfilling their own specific mandates amidst budgetary constraints.”

Research and Innovation

A study sponsored by the Washington State Dept. of Commerce and innovation collaborative Cambia Grove breaks down the positive impact healthcare innovation subsectors have on employment and compensation. Healthcare IT businesses rank well below research and development firms, accounting for nearly 1,400 jobs. The entire segment accounts for 22,500 jobs and $2 billion in direct compensation.

Other

AMA’s VP of professional satisfaction says EHRs are the biggest driver of physician dissatisfaction. She cites studies that show doctors waste 80 percent of their time performing activities that don’t benefit patients, suggesting that they hire scribes.

It’s official: Microsoft is home to the quietest place on Earth. Guinness World Records has recognized a building within the company’s audio laboratory as the quietest place on the planet thanks to its sound-dampening foundation of springs. Microsoft engineers are currently using the chamber, one of three on the company’s Redmond, WA campus, to improve the Cortana digital assistant app’s ability to handle audio inputs and outputs.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, MD announce plans to launch a private K-12 school next August in Palo Alto, CA. The school will offer free tuition to low-income students, and will provide every student with free healthcare, including access to an on-site clinic, through graduation. Zuckerberg has let it be known that the school may even accept some students before birth, and offer their mothers free prenatal support. Chan, a former pediatrician and elementary school teacher, has spearheaded the effort.

Sponsor Updates

• Versus Technology helps cancer clinics nationwide enhance the patient experience with real-time workflow technology.

Blog Posts

• Are you ready for bundled payments? Increased quality and safety reporting measures? (Nordic)

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 10/25/15

Xavier University and Cincinnati-based startup Strap launch the Project X Health campaign to help the university gain a better understanding of the health of its 7,500 students, faculty, and staff. The program will use Strap software to connect and track participants through their smartphones, apps, and wearables; after which it will use analytics from that data to provide population health insights and trends. “We believe that engaging at this level with our population will enlighten our understanding of our population and help drive outcomes that we can’t possibly understand today,” says Shawn Nason, chief innovation officer at the university. “Xavier University is driven by the education of the whole person for each member of the university, and we see a healthy lifestyle as an integral part of what we can offer a student in four years.” The project is the first initiative in a larger partnership between Xavier’s Center for Innovation and Strap that will engage the community in digital population health programs.

Baptist Health Care (FL) chooses Allscripts products Sunrise, Sunrise Revenue Cycle Management, EPSi, FollowMyHealth, and dbMotion for population health management.

Northern Kentucky University breaks ground on its new $97 million Health Innovation Center, which will bring together leaders from NKU’s six colleges to create teams that will address issues like addiction and chronic disease by combining the studies of analytics, preventative care, psychology, and holistic approaches. “The future of population healthcare will increasingly depend upon gathering and analyzing data to determine which practices and policies are improving collective health outcomes,” says Dale Smith, dean of NKU’s College of Health Professions. “Our innovative approach will be a model for other educational institutions and communities to emulate.”

An EHealth Initiative study finds that only 17 percent of the 65 providers surveyed have integrated population health analytics into their EHRS. Analytics tools were most often used for quality measurement and reporting, followed by physician benchmarking, identification of gaps in care and preventive services, and identification of outliers in cost and utilization. Respondents cited a lack of interoperability as the biggest barrier to successfully implementing population health initiatives.

HealtheConnections and the Cayuga Community Health Network launch HealtheCNY.org, a new website that allows users to view detailed population data for Central New York Communities, as well as best practices and resources for health-improvement programs.

The local paper covers the evolution of Bill Frist, MD’s NashvilleHealth, a soon-to-be nonprofit that is looking to transform the health of the Tennessee-based town’s 800,000 residents. The organization, which will first focus on hypertension, smoking cessation, and child health, is working with Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine on the data and research behind the projects. Frist has tapped Caroline Young (Nashville Health Care Council) to serve as executive director. “Most CEOs in Nashville have no idea what the adult obesity rate is. We are worse than Charlotte, Austin,” explains Frist. “People think we’re beating all these other places. I just think it’s so dramatic that we can shock people, and by shocking people they will step up and pay attention.”

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.