News 6/12/24

Top News

Virtual mental healthcare company Brightside Health acquires Lionrock Recovery, which offers virtual intensive outpatient addiction treatment services.

Brightside announced $32 million in Series C funding earlier this year.

Webinars

June 26 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Population Risk Management in Action: Automating Clinical Workflows to Improve Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst; Weston Blakeslee, PhD, VP of population health, DrFirst. What if you could measure and manage medication adherence in a way that would eliminate the burdens of medication history collection, patient identification, and prioritization? The presenters will describe how to use MedHx PRM’s new capabilities to harness the most complete medication history data on the market, benefit from near real-time medication data delivered within 24 hours, automatically build rosters of eligible patients, and identify gaps of care in seconds.

June 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Snackable Summer Series, Session 1: The Intelligent Health Record.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. This webinar will describe how HealthVision, HDAI’s Intelligent Health Management System, is transforming care across health systems and value-based care organizations. This 30-minute session will answer the question: what if you could see critical information from hundreds of EHR pages in a one-page patient chart and risk summary that serves the entire care team? We will tour the Spotlight, an easy-to-digest health profile and risk prediction tool. Session 2 will describe HDAI’s Intelligent Analytics solution, while Session 3 will tour HDAI’s Intelligent Workflow solution.

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

People

Erin Surprise (Provation) joins Qualifacts as chief customer success officer.

Announcements and Implementations

South Shore Family Practice (MI) implements Sunoh.ai’s medical scribe software.

Unlock Health develops a digital substance use health risk assessment for behavioral health providers.

OneFifteen, a nonprofit addiction treatment provider based in Ohio, selects Kipu Health’s EHR and RCM software.

Texas Oncology will implement DeepScribe’s ambient clinical documentation technology across its 280 locations.

Other

Palomar Health Medical Group (CA) enters its sixth week of downtime, with a dearth of updates from the group leaving patients scrambling to reschedule appointments and access medical records. A notice on the group’s website says it’s working with forensic specialists to get systems up and running within the coming weeks.

The local news profiles the difference Direct Relief’s Power for Health program is making in the operations of community health centers. The program offers centers grants that cover the cost and installation of rooftop solar and battery storage systems, and five years of maintenance support, providing vital back-up power when natural disasters strike or planned outages occur. Alliance Medical Center (CA) CEO Sue Labbe says the program has been essential to maintaining patient care during extreme weather: “We had been longing for solar, but we are a nonprofit with tight margins. It would come out of funds to pay for vulnerable patients,”

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story, “Streamlining Data Reporting for Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky.”

Blog Posts

• AdvancedMD & Salesforce: Integrating for patient intake, scheduling & reporting (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 6/10/24

Top News

Value-based cancer care company Thyme Care adds to its previously announced round of $60 million in Series B funding with investments from Echo Health Ventures and CVS Health Ventures.

Webinars

June 26 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Population Risk Management in Action: Automating Clinical Workflows to Improve Medication Adherence.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst; Weston Blakeslee, PhD, VP of population health, DrFirst. What if you could measure and manage medication adherence in a way that would eliminate the burdens of medication history collection, patient identification, and prioritization? The presenters will describe how to use MedHx PRM’s new capabilities to harness the most complete medication history data on the market, benefit from near real-time medication data delivered within 24 hours, automatically build rosters of eligible patients, and identify gaps of care in seconds.

June 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Snackable Summer Series, Session 1: The Intelligent Health Record.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. This webinar will describe how HealthVision, HDAI’s Intelligent Health Management System, is transforming care across health systems and value-based care organizations. This 30-minute session will answer the question: what if you could see critical information from hundreds of EHR pages in a one-page patient chart and risk summary that serves the entire care team? We will tour the Spotlight, an easy-to-digest health profile and risk prediction tool. Session 2 will describe HDAI’s Intelligent Analytics solution, while Session 3 will tour HDAI’s Intelligent Workflow solution.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Stitch Employment Services launches with $9 million in funding. The company, incubated at Redesign Health, specializes in helping independent practices with HR tasks.

People

Shane Shepherd (Advanced Pain Care) joins vision practice billing software vendor Anagram as head of RCM.

AristaMD names Keith Pinter (Rise Health) CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

EClinicalWorks announces that Rocky Mountain Women’s Clinic (ID) and Stone Mountain Health Services (VA) have implemented its Sunoh.ai virtual medical scribe technology.

Pediatric Associates will implement Innovaccer’s Healthcare AI Platform across its facilities in seven states.

I Am Boundless, an Ohio-based provider of care services for patients with behavioral health and/or intellectual and development disabilities, selects NextGen’s enterprise EHR and practice management systems.

Government and Politics

CityMD, a VillageMD-owned chain of 117 urgent care practices in New York and New Jersey, will pay federal authorities $12 million to settle allegations that the company submitted false and/or inaccurate payment claims for a HRSA-funded COVID testing program for uninsured patients. CityMD apparently did not perform its due diligence in confirming whether or not patients were in fact insured at the time of testing.

Other

The local paper profiles the continued efforts of the son of the late Robert Kieber, MD to reunite baby pictures from his father’s practice in St. Joseph, MO with their owners or family members. The photos date from the 1940s to the 1960s.

InformationWeek documents the journey Headspace has taken to ensure its virtual mental healthcare services are secure, honing in on how it bundled its compliance, privacy, and security programs into a unified privacy operations center. While the details of its development are certainly interesting, perhaps the most telling fact is that training Headspace clinicians to use a password manager was the hardest part of the entire process.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast titled “Interview with Kit Delgado, MD.”

Blog Posts

• From burnout to balance: The untapped power of medical assistants in healthcare (Nordic)
• 4 Best Smartphones for Nurse Communication (PerfectServe)
• Need to improve revenue capture? Start with charge capture + DRG accuracy (Waystar)
• Feeling burned out? There’s a tech prescription for that! (EClinicalWorks)
• MIPS Improvement Activities: What qualifies as a high-weight activity? (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

News 6/5/24

Top News

Smart stethoscope developer Eko Health raises $41 million in Series D funding, bringing its total raised to $165 million. The company has received FDA clearance for algorithms related to the detection of heart failure and heart murmurs. It will use this latest investment to further develop algorithms for the identification of pulmonary conditions like asthma and pneumonia.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

June 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Snackable Summer Series, Session 1: The Intelligent Health Record.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. This webinar will describe how HealthVision, HDAI’s Intelligent Health Management System, is transforming care across health systems and value-based care organizations. This 30-minute session will answer the question: what if you could see critical information from hundreds of EHR pages in a one-page patient chart and risk summary that serves the entire care team? We will tour the Spotlight, an easy-to-digest health profile and risk prediction tool. Session 2 will describe HDAI’s Intelligent Analytics solution, while Session 3 will tour HDAI’s Intelligent Workflow solution.

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

People

David Afshar (US Heart and Vascular) joins American Oncology Network as CFO and COO.

Christopher Catallo (HealthNxt) joins healthcare supplements management platform Fullscript as chief commercial officer.

PracticeTek promotes Steve Auerbach to CEO and names Gavin Poole (HighFive Healthcare) CFO. PracticeTek recently acquired dental practice management company Ora.

Announcements and Implementations

Seaview Orthopaedic & Medical Associates will implement RCM data analytics from Adonis across its nine locations in New Jersey.

TriValley Primary Care (PA) leverages HealthHelper’s tech-enabled direct scheduling services.

Research and Innovation

Researchers at Montefiore Health System (NY) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine develop a five-minute assessment of dementia and mild cognitive impairment for use in primary care settings that can be paired with recommendations and integrated into a provider’s EHR. Using the assessment, dubbed “the 5-cog paradigm,” researchers have seen a marked improvement in diagnosis and treatment compared to control group results.

Other

HealthNet, a free clinic based in Wisconsin’s Rock County, will close its behavioral health clinic due to staffing issues and financial struggles that have plagued it since COVID. It will transition patients to virtual consults provided through the Wisconsin Association of Free and Charitable Clinics Tele-behavioral Health Network. HealthNet plans on converting the clinic’s space to tele-consult rooms.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

News 5/22/24

Top News

Digital addiction treatment provider Boulder Care raises $35 million in Series C funding.

Webinars

June 6 (Thursday) noon ET. “From Data to Decisions: The Vital Combination of AI and Human Expertise in Patient Care.” Sponsor: DrFirst. Presenters: David Wetherhold, MD, CMIO of ambulatory systems, Scripps Health; Dana Darger, RPh, director of pharmacy, Monument Health Rapid City Hospital; Colin Banas, MD, MHA, chief medical officer, DrFirst. In this Epic Med Management Fireside Chat, two health system leaders will share real-world examples of how AI is working in concert with their clinicians to streamline medication management by populating medication histories into Epic. generating initial drafts of patient conversations, and summarizing complex information. The presenters will also cover the latest developments on the critical and expanding role of pharmacists in patient care.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Videra Health, developer of AI-powered, video-based mental health assessments, raises $5.6 million in seed funding.

Specialty medication prior authorization software vendor SamaCare announces $17 million in Series B funding, bringing its total raised to $33 million. It will use the investment to develop its Script-to-Therapy Operating System, which will underpin its current technology and enhance physician workflows.

Announcements and Implementations

Infinity Dermatology (NY) launches chat-based virtual visits using technology from Well Revolution.

Centene subsidiary Sunshine Health will work with Cityblock to provide tech-enabled primary care and care coordination services to Medicaid patients in Central Florida.

Florida’s Pinellas County implements mental and behavioral healthcare referral services from Unite Us to power its new Care About Me access line.

Government and Politics

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency adds a NextGen Healthcare Mirth Connect “deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability” to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, meaning that the vulnerability is still being exploited seven months after first being discovered and several months after a patch was made available.

Other

Penn Primary Care Regional Medical Director Jeffrey Millstein, MD pens a thoughtful opinion piece on incorporating AI into primary care, tempering cautious optimism with a hesitancy to give up the relationship-building that comes with diagnosing those “simple” ailments: “As I often say during teaching sessions, signs and symptoms can become repetitive and routine, but patient stories are always unique and interesting. I’m not sure I want to share this aspect of care with AI, even if it becomes possible.”

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic publishes a new episode of its “In Network” podcast titled “Designing for Health: Interview with Diana Anderson, MD.”

Blog Posts

• A Revolutionary Approach to Enhance Clinical Workflows (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

News 5/20/24

Top News

Hamilton Health Box, which offers hybrid primary care delivery services to rural communities, raises $10 million in a Series A funding round.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Canadian private equity firm CPS Capital will take Vancouver-based, tech-enabled workplace healthcare provider CloudMD private in a deal valued at $36 million. The company has faced liquidity issues over the last four years due to several acquisitions, including its 2022 purchase of MindBeacon for $116 million.

Fay, a virtual clinic offering access to registered dietitians and weight loss programs and prescriptions, announces $25 million in funding. The startup offers franchising, giving RDs the ability to open their own “business-in-a-box” and to connect more easily with insured patients.

Centivo, which offers primary care-focused health plans to employers, acquires virtual-first, direct-to-employer care provider Eden Health.

Announcements and Implementations

House call provider Mobile Medical (FL) selects digital care plan review, signature, and reporting software from Forcura.

The Vitamin Shoppe launches Whole Health Rx, an online prescription weight loss service powered by virtual care company WellSync.

Research and Innovation

A pair of studies conducted by University of Michigan physicians finds that a lack of detailed record-keeping – specifically, information about why an antibiotic is prescribed – could drive up unnecessary and potentially harmful prescriptions. The researchers found that these details were most often missing in encounters with adults during office visits and adult Medicaid patients seen in emergency departments.

Tying in with Mr. HIStalk’s latest poll, new research shows that patients prefer virtual visit backgrounds that feature a traditional physician office with diplomas, followed by solid backgrounds. Bedroom and kitchen settings were the least preferred.

Other

The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, makes a $1.5 million offer for Oscar Mayer. Kraft Heinz, parent company of the household name in hot dogs, recently announced it would consider selling Oscar Mayer for between $3 billion and $5 billion. Should PCRM’s offer be accepted, it would transition Oscar Mayer to a plant-based company in the hopes of improving the health of US consumers. It’s a noble goal (and probably more of a PR move than anything), but a bit naive, given that PCRM President Neal Barnard, MD believes that “Americans’ interest in consuming animal products is waning ….”

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Building more effective health systems through social determinants and patient-centered approaches (Nordic)
• The Nurses of Note 2024: The Infusion Nurse and ‘Ambassador of Enjoyment’ (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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