News 10/9/19

Top News

General Atlantic acquires onsite health center company Marathon Health from Goldman Sachs. Marathon Health has developed a proprietary health IT system that includes an EHR equipped with e-prescribing and Medicomp’s Medcin Engine, and member portal and app.

Webinars

October 15 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Universal Health Services Case Study: How to Improve Network Design and Management with Claims Data.” Sponsor: CareJourney. Presenters: Mallory Cary, regional director of ACO operations, UHS; Abbas Bader, director of product development, CareJourney. Universal Health Services (UHS), one of the nation’s largest hospital management companies, has more than 350 acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities, and ambulatory centers across the US, Puerto Rico, and the UK. UHS has collaborated closely with CareJourney over the last three years in building high-performing networks in new markets, managing patient populations as they flow through those networks, and targeting areas for performance improvement within the network. Join the expert presenters for deep insights into network design and optimization.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

BetterConsult opens its first US office in Houston. The Australia-based company has developed software that enables patients to fill out pre-consult paperwork that is then summarized for physician review.

CentralReach will add newly acquired Precise Xceleration’s evidence-based clinical programming to its EHR and practice management technology for autism specialists.

BrainCheck raises $8 million to further develop its cognitive assessment software for seniors.

Announcements and Implementations

Real-time patient data company Trio Health works with the American Rheumatology Network to develop a rheumatology registry that combines EHR data with prescription drug data.

Government and Politics

In an effort to highlight and advance the adoption of electronic prescribing of controlled substances, ONC releases new data showing that the size of a practice correlates to the number of providers who electronically prescribe. Employed physicians electronically prescribe at rates higher than their private practice counterparts, and those who participate in CMS-sponsored programs also have higher rates of EPCS. ONC stats also show that providers using ONC-certified EHRs are more likely to prescribe electronically.

Telemedicine

CVS Health’s MinuteClinic expands telemedicine offerings to locations in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and South Carolina. The Teladoc-powered service was first launched in August 2018 and is now available in 32 states.

CareDash adds online consult providers and state-by-state virtual licensing to its provider review website.

A Doctor on Demand survey of 1,000 consumers finds lack of time to be the biggest barrier to scheduling annual primary care visits. While 60% of respondents said they would use virtual care if their insurance covered it, the same percentage said such visits are more suitable for more urgent care. Sixty percent believe a relationship can be built with a PCP through video technology; 70% feel that phone calls and texts without video just won’t cut it.

Other

New American Heart Association studies show that owning a dog may lead to a longer life and better cardiovascular outcomes, especially for heart attack and stroke survivors who live by themselves.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD will exhibit at the AAO meeting October 12-15 in San Francisco.
• Culbert Healthcare Solutions will exhibit at MGMA October 13-16 in New Orleans.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 10/7/19

Top News

Practice management and billing vendor Abeo acquires AI-powered coding company Trusted i10 for an undisclosed sum.

HIStalk Practice Musings

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams celebrates its 40th anniversary This article in Nature does a great job of celebrating its origins and reminding us how relevant many of its plot lines still are. Cybersecurity professionals will appreciate the Ident-I-Eeze card that is designed to hold multiple passwords but is quickly stolen. I’ve read the series several times, and now find myself just one year shy of the answer to the ultimate question of life. Highly recommended reading.

Webinars

Nothing scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Rock Health joins Natalist’s $5 million seed round. Founded by CEO Halle Tecco, who launched Rock Health in 2010, the startup offers bundles of mail-order, clinically-validated products for women trying to conceive.

Announcements and Implementations

Fraser, a nonprofit special needs organization with 11 locations in Minnesota, selects Cerner Millenium. The facilities will go live in 2021.

Innovaccer announces GA of group practice reporting option software.

Advanced Urology (GA) implements Radix Health’s Dash patient engagement and appointment management software.

McKesson develops strategic planning services for oncology practices.

Government and Politics

HHS will award $017 million to 1,273 high-performing health centers across the country to help them continue to improve their care quality, efficiency, and value.

Telemedicine

Sajad Zalzala, MD opens an online clinic specializing in anti-aging. A CNBC article highlights the fact (as does the clinic’s website) that it will push several prescription drugs that weren’t developed for anti-aging purposes. Zatzala insists he’ll be conservative in his prescriptions, which will be preceded by lifestyle and dietary change recommendations. Zatzala’s previous experience includes time at Hims and Jack Health, both of which offer online prescriptions for men’s health and wellness.

Other

Startup dental practice Tend opens its first location in New York City (in the same neighborhood as Kindbody, in fact), creating buzz for its consumer-friendly aesthetic and amenities, and tech-savvy services that include air-powered dental tools, online booking, and a patient portal. The company has raised $36 million and boasts executives from One Medical and Smile Direct Club.

Sponsor Updates

• Healthwise will exhibit at Cerner Health Conference 2019 October 7-9 in Kansas City, MO.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the Georgia Primary Care Association conference October 9-11 in Alpharetta.
• AdvancedMD publishes a new e-guide, “4 Ways to Tell if Your EHR is an Adult or Teen.”

Blog Posts

• Nordic rated among best US companies for work-life balance (Nordic)
• 3 Questions to Ask When Switching EHRs (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 10/2/19

Top News

VSP Global acquires the popular optical retailer Visionworks.

VSP’s many eye care-related businesses include EHR and practice management software vendor Eyefinity.

HIStalk Practice Musings

One more reason to pick up a book: An AMA study finds that the more non-medical books residents read, the more their symptoms of burnout decrease. The study’s authors write that, “Leisure reading has an established role in the context of medical student education, where it is thought to reduce stress while fostering empathy and creativity.”

Hard-working residents may enjoy “The Body: A Guide for Occupants,” the latest from one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson. As those familiar with Bryson’s style already know, he tends to pack an amazing amount of facts, humor, and personal stories into his works. And “The Body” is no different, according to this review by The Guardian.

Young entrepreneurs in your life may appreciate a copy of “Girl CEO” by Ronnie Cohen and Katherine Ellison. Epic’s Judy Faulkner is a featured business leader, alongside 39 other women like Taylor Swift and Venus Williams.

Webinars

Nothing scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Professional Billing will expand operations when it relocates its Montgomery, AL headquarters to larger office space nearby later this year. The family-run medical billing and practice management business employs 350 people across eight offices in five states.

Announcements and Implementations

Practice management company Unified Women’s Healthcare will offer Qure4u’s patient engagement app to its network of 1,600 Ob-Gyns.

EHR, RCM, and practice management company AllMeds partners with HealthWatch to add chronic care management services to its EHR, RCM, and practice management solutions.

ISalus Healthcare announces GA of ENTChoice, software for ENT practices that combines EHR, practice management,  billing, and telemedicine capabilities.

Simple Interact and Health 1 Technologies develop technology that automatically pushes patient intake forms from Simple Interact’s front office automation software to Centricity EHRs.

Telemedicine

Telemedicine kiosk vendor OnMed will use Athenahealth software to transmit patient data to its secure servers.

HCAP Partners invests $6 million in BetterNight, a virtual care platform developed by San Diego-based Sleep Data that includes video visits, remote patient monitoring, and digital therapeutics for people suffering from sleep apnea and/or insomnia.

Other

Elite Dental Associates in Dallas will pay the HHS Office of Civil Rights $10,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations that occurred when the practice responded to a Yelp review by disclosing the patient’s last name and condition. A further review found that the practice had done it multiple times with other patients.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 9/30/19

Top News

Matter, a health IT startup accelerator based in Chicago, announces plans to develop an innovation center in New York City through a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corp. Matter has helped launch 200 startups since opening its doors five years ago. Given its Chicago roots, it has developed a strong relationship with the neighboring AMA, resulting in an AMA Interaction Studio and physician feedback on developing products.

Matter plans to open its NYC center in 2021.

HIStalk Practice Musings

I came across this list of the six books shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. I’m not a huge non-fiction fan, but may take a peek at “Clearing the Air” by Tim Smedley solely based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top-of-cover enticement.

Aside from “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, I can’t recall reading a riveting, science-based book that I then recommended to everyone I knew. Please turn me on to new titles via a quick email.

Webinars

October 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Canada-based Well Health Technologies consolidates its Open Source Clinical Application Resource (OSCAR) EHR assets into a new division called Well EMR Group. Built on the acquisitions of KAI Innovations, NerdEMR, OSCARprn, and OSCARwest, the new group has released OSCAR McMaster Professional Edition EHR software.

Government and Politics

National Coordinator Don Rucker, MD and Deputy National Coordinator Steve Posnack reflect on ONC’s progress over the last year, and share their patient-access and interoperability to-do list for 2020. Highlights include releasing a final strategy and recommendations for reducing health IT-related burden on clinicians, and working with HHS OCR to ensure patients have ways to access and share their PHI.

And speaking of ONC, the office is hiring a Washington, DC-based economist to conduct research on the adoption, use, and impact of health IT and related HHS policies and programs. The role will also entail the development, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs and policies.

Telemedicine

Sam’s Club will use 98point6’s software and services to provide telemedicine to members who sign up for its new health-related discount bundles. Developed through a partnership with Humana, the bundles will include free prescriptions for popular generics, unlimited $1 virtual visits, dental discounts, free lab tests, and prepaid health debit cards.

Insurance software startup Jauntin’ launches a membership-based telemedicine service that offers unlimited visits for $15 per month and 33 free medications. The company has created buzz in insurance circles by creating software that allows traditional payers to automate the process of offering extremely short-term policies that cater to freelancers.

At-home testing company BodyHealth IQ adds online wellness consults to its list of services, giving consumers the ability to talk with a physician about their results.

Other

Dr. Jayne’s latest Curbside Consult catches us up on the latest in voice-recognition technology for the exam room. Google Glass is apparently far from dead, as her conversation with Glass-powered scribing company Augmedix founding chairman Ian Shakil reveals. Given Amazon’s forays into healthcare, I wonder if it will soon enter this territory, given last week’s news that the company is introducing Echo Frames. Priced at $180, the specs give users access to Alexa, which providers and vendors have already been toying with as part of an invite-only developer program.

Sponsor Updates

• ITether adds access to Healthwise’s evidence-based curriculum to its outpatient care coordination and patient engagement software.
• AdvancedMD will host its global user conference, Evo19, October 2-5 in Orlando.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the APHCA Annual Conference October 1-3 in Gulf Shores, AL.
• Healthwise will exhibit at AdvancedMD’s Evo19 conference October 2-5 in Orlando.

Blog Posts

• How Nordic’s mentor program has helped consultants develop new skills (Nordic)
• 3 Lessons for Successfully Engaging Patients (EClinicalWorks)
• Everything is in the chart. Now, where exactly is the information I need? (Intelligent Medical Objects)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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Contact us online.
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News 9/25/19

Top News

In Canada, primary care and software company Well Health Technologies acquires consulting firm OSCARwest EMR Services. It is Well Health’s fourth acquisition of OSCAR-related companies, giving it a strong foothold in the open-source EHR market.

Well owns and operates 19 primary care clinics, and provides EHR software and services to 856 clinics across Canada.

HIStalk Practice Musings

Mr. H beat me to the punch in mentioning the upcoming biopic about medical huckster John Brinkley, who made a name for himself in the 1920s by claiming to cure male virility problems with grafts of goat gonads. If you can’t wait for the movie with Robert Downey, Jr., check out “Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam.” Fans of quackery may also want to read “The Road to Wellville” by TC Boyle. It’s been years since I’ve read it, but I do remember enjoying the bizarre tale of cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg’s infamous Battle Creek Spa (not to mention the 1994 movie of the same name).

Thanks to John for sending over several reading recommendations related to management and personal and professional development:

• “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott. “This is a lot about how to manage well, have difficult conversations, and get the best out of your staff. I’ve used a number of the techniques in the book with success.”
• “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. “It’s about how to handle feedback (obviously). Some great tips. You can find Sheila (and Doug) giving a talk on this on the Internet and that will probably be a little more palatable. Concepts are good but the writing is a little dry.
• “The Motivation Myth” by Jeff Haden. “I picked this up as a cheap Kindle after reading a bit on LinkedIn. I’m a bit addicted to continual self improvement. Haden does a nice job at dispelling myths and pointing out what works. One simple concept he points out is that motivation comes from simple, small increments of success. You get a little taste of success and that motivates you to keep going. (That is – it’s not driven from what you are passionate about.) He covers so many disparate things, it’s almost a bit funny (how to become rich, how to lose 10 lbs in 30 days, etc.), but the main concepts are solid.”

His recommended self-discovery titles include “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” by Richard Rohr, and “The Road Back to You” by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile.

I love it when readers turn me on to new authors, concepts, and guilty pleasures. Please email me with your favorites and/or latest discoveries.

Webinars

September 26 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Patient Education Data: A Key Ingredient for Improving Quality and Patient Experience.” Sponsor: Healthwise. Presenters: Victoria L. Maisonneuve, MSN, RN, director of the Nursing Center for Excellence and Magnet program, Parkview Health; Marta Sylvia, MPH, senior manager of quality improvement and outcomes research, Healthwise. Healthcare data is everywhere! It’s scattered across various systems and in countless formats, making it difficult to collect and glean actionable information. Knowing where to start depends on what your organization wants to accomplish. By focusing on your patient education data, you can drive quality improvement across your organization. Vicki Maisonneuve will share how her team analyzes data around the use of patient education. By combining different data sets, she can easily identify trends, gaps, and opportunities to improve quality and patient experience across Parkview Health

October 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The retail primary care business model sees yet another twist as Partners in Primary Care opens its fourth office in a Walgreens pharmacy. A subsidiary of Humana, the medical group is piloting the concept to offer seniors a one-stop shop for healthcare. It currently operates one Walgreens-based practice in Kansas and three in Missouri. 

Online behavioral health screening software vendor Nview Health raises over $4 million in seed funding from BIP Capital.

Announcements and Implementations

Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists implements patient engagement and care collaboration software from Updox across its 22 locations.

ReferralMD integrates ConferMed’s e-consult software with its referral management technology to offer providers and patients quicker access to specialists.

Solis Mammography goes live on ERad’s radiology information system at 65 facilities across six states.

People

The American Academy of Family Physicians names Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Associate Dean Gary LeRoy, MD president. The AAFP published a great interview with LeRoy highlighting his time in the industry, views on health IT, goals for his term, and what keeps him up at night: “Physicians are drowning in digital data, and it’s causing burnout because we can’t escape from the constant barrage of information. A redesign of EHRs will provide some level of relief.”

Telemedicine

Online birth control and skin care company Alpha Medical expands its services to include membership-based virtual care. The Silicon Valley-based startup has also broadened its reach to include Georgia, Virginia, and Washington.

The Tignish community of Prince Edward Island in Canada will soon become one of the first areas in the world to offer primary care via telemedicine from a doctor in another country. Semi-retiring physician Declan Fox has agreed to see patients one or two days a week from his home in Ireland after his last official day at the Tignish Health Centre. A nurse practitioner will remain on site to facilitate video visits with Fox until a permanent replacement can be found.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Patient Charts Reimagined (AdvancedMD)
• Patient Access: Technology, it’s More Than Just a Telephony System – How Does Your Organization Score? (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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