News 12/14/16

Top News

CareSync expands with its relocation to 51,000 square feet of office space in Tampa, FL. The company, which employs 150 at its new headquarters, plans to hire at least 200 more in the areas of clinical care coordination, product development, HR, IT, and administration by the end of 2017. The technology-fueled care coordination company has raised $22.5 million since launching in 2011.

Webinars

Here’s the recording of the recent webinar titled “Charting a Course to Digital Transformation – Start Your Journey with a Map and Compass.”

Email Lorre for details about webinar services.

Announcements and Implementations

Workplace healthcare provider Marathon Health implements Quippe documentation technology from Medicomp Systems as part of an upgrade to its homegrown EHR.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Re-Habit will license and resell Telehealthcare’s CarePanda secure messaging app to detox and residential treatment facilities.

People

Staffing firm Medicus Healthcare Solutions promotes O’Neil Pyke, MD to CMO.

Telemedicine

Motion PT implements EWellness Healthcare’s Phzio physical therapy telemedicine technology at its clinic in Brooklyn, NY.

Community Health Center of Cape Cod (MA), which seems to be an Epic shop, offers telepsychiatry visits at its three locations. It will roll out teleoptometry and teledermatology services sometime next year.

Academic Alliance in Dermatology (FL) selects DermatologistOnCall services from Iagnosis.

Research and Innovation

A new Surescripts survey reveals that patients spend about eight minutes explaining their medical history to their physician, and eight minutes filling out paperwork. Not surprisingly, 80 percent feel they should only have to fill out said paperwork the first time they visit a new physician. Most interesting to me is the fact that 52 percent expect their physicians to start offering virtual consults and 36 percent believe most visits will be remote within 10 years. I have trouble reconciling the fact that over half want virtual visits and yet statistics have shown low consumer utilization. Conceptualizing the business models and legislative landscape that would have to evolve to make most visits virtual is also a hard sell.

Other

Humana consolidates 1,116 quality metrics used across its programs into 208 – an 80-percent reduction made in an effort to better support physicians who are transitioning to value-based care programs. Physicians will no doubt welcome the less burdensome quality reporting, which has surely played a role in physician burnout.

While it’s never a good time to get laid off, being let go during the holidays must be one of the hardest. Those health IT professionals looking for a career about-face may be interested in the role of “emoji translator.” London-based Today Translations has created the role to explain cross-cultural misunderstandings in the use of the mini pictures, and compile a monthly trends report. Though the job is the first of its kind (candidates must demonstrate a “passion” for emojis), I wouldn’t be surprised if similar job openings were to pop up across the pond, especially given the fact that a UK linguist has dubbed emoji the country’s fastest growing language.

If you’re looking for a more seasonal gig, consider joining the ranks of Santas who are on LinkedIn. To stand out, however, you’ll need to list membership in the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas and credentials from one of the exclusive Santa schools here in the US. LinkedIn lists 100 Santa openings, so get that beard growing!

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks employees help out families through Project New Hope, Project Just Because, and the United Way.
• The Indo-UK Institute of Health names GE Healthcare a preferred technology partner in its IUIH Medicities program in India.

Blog Posts

• A Veteran and Cancer Survivor Sits Down with VP Biden to Stand Up to Cancer (GE Healthcare)

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5 Questions with Chris Romandetti, CEO, First Choice Healthcare Solutions

Chris Romandetti is CEO of First Choice Healthcare Solutions based in Melbourne, FL, which focuses on outpatient orthopedic and spinal care. It employs 128 people across its five facilities, including a dozen physicians and seven PAs, to care for between 425 and 450 patients daily. The organization successfully weathered the effects of Hurricane Matthew in early October.

How did Hurricane Matthew impact FCHS operations? How did your staff prepare, especially with regard to the potential downtime of IT systems?
Thankfully, all of our facilities’ main utilities, including power, air conditioning, and Internet connectivity, remained fully operational throughout and following the storm. Moreover, our buildings sustained no notable damage that would otherwise disrupt the company’s medical or business operations. Consequently, we were back to business as usual on Monday morning immediately following the storm.

Is your IT infrastructure onsite, in the cloud, or a mix of both?
We utilize a mix of both the cloud and redundant servers – our EHR system operates in the cloud, but our day to day business operations are maintained on the server. However, we are considering moving all of our data to the cloud – including any potential new accounting system solution that we may choose to implement in the future. The cloud offers us numerous benefits associated with enhanced care collaboration among our providers, cost considerations, scalability, data security, document control, and disaster recovery, among others.

Does the annual hurricane season prompt your IT team to review its downtime procedures?
Absolutely. Hurricane season is six months long, so we review our unplanned downtown procedures prior to the beginning of the season; and then we reevaluate shortly after the end of the season to determine what things we learned from an unplanned downtown and/or what contingency procedures or communications protocols may need to be refined or modified to further improve our plan.

What advice can you offer other providers who may be thinking it’s time to take a fresh look at their natural disaster preparedness?
It is vital to have a plan in place, because disruption of power, Internet failure, physical property damage, et al could cause you to rely on your downtime procedures to effectively administer patients. The time to review is not when a potential natural disaster is looming, but on a regular basis. This is particularly important when there are changes in staff. Everyone needs to know what to do in the case downtime procedures are activated.

On a side note, how is FCHS and its practices preparing for MACRA. Any other coordinated care initiatives underway?
We are currently evaluating our options for participating in MACRA. When it comes to other programs, we are currently performing outpatient total hip and total knee replacements, as well as minimally invasive spine surgical procedures at our ambulatory surgery center, Crane Creek Surgery Center. In addition, we are planning to submit bids for bundled payment programs on total hip and total knee replacements to CMS, several large insurance payers, and a number of large self-insured employers in our local market (Brevard County, Florida).

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News 12/13/16

Top News

Carequality and CommonWell embark on a data-sharing partnership that will offer CommonWell subscribers HIE capabilities via directed queries with Carequality Interoperability Framework participants. Carequality, in turn, will work with CommonWell to develop its own version of CommonWell’s record-locator service, which it will then make available to its participants. Participants of the two organizations now represent 60 percent of the ambulatory EHR market, and 90 percent of the acute market.

Webinars

December 14 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Three Practices to Minimize Drift Between Audits.” Sponsored by Armor. Presenter: Kurt Hagerman, CISO, Armor. Security and compliance readiness fall to the bottom of the priority lists of many organizations, where they are often treated as periodic events rather than ongoing processes. How can they improve their processes to ensure they remain secure and compliant between audits? This webinar will cover the healthcare threat landscape and provide three practices that healthcare organizations can implement to better defend their environments continuously.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

McKesson Specialty Health will expand when it moves into 13,900 square feet of office space in downtown Evansville, IN early next year. The regional billing office will employ nearly 100 people once fully staffed, and will serve practices affiliated with The US Oncology Network and Vantage Oncology.

Bloomberg releases its annual list of “Best Value” CEOs – those whose larger-than-life salaries seem well worth it given the profits they’ve helped drive at their respective companies. Those with ties to healthcare IT include Larry Page of Alphabet (his last paycheck rang in at $1), Tim Cook of Apple, Lowell McAdam of Verizon, Ginny Rometty of IBM, Randall Stephenson of AT&T, Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealthcare, and Inge Thulin of 3M.

People

PerfectServe promotes Mary Hatcher to vice president of product development.

Announcements and Implementations

Acentec adds HIPAA compliance and security services to its line of PM products.

Pediatric Associates (MO) implements the Bridge Patient Portal, which it will integrate with its Greenway EHR.

MedicalMine incorporates AAP’s BrightFutures templates into the new pediatrics-specific version of its Charm EHR, PM, and RCM system.

Government and Politics

Aura Labs settles with the FTC over marketing claims that its Instant Blood Pressure app was as accurate as a traditional blood-pressure cuff, and that owner, Ryan Archdeacon, gave the app a five-star review without disclosing his connection to the company. The app was sold between June 2014 and June 2015 for between $4 and $5, and generated over $600,000.

Research and Innovation

A study of 763 IT professionals – including 101 from the healthcare industry – finds that folks are “overconfident” in their ability to collect data needed to identify and remediate a cyberattack. Forty-five percent of respondents admitted that their scanning tools are not capable of fixing or remediating critical vulnerabilities within 30 days. Eighty-three percent believe they can detect changes to a network device within several hours, yet just 54 percent know how long the process actually takes.

Other

Quest Diagnostic notifies 34,000 patients that its MyQuest patient portal was hacked on November 26, exposing test results, names, dates of birth, and some phone numbers. The lab services vendor has not detected any misuse of the information.

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Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 12/12/16

Top News

Physician dissatisfaction with EHRs may seem like old hat, but the challenges of implementing and maintaining such systems still pose problems for small and rural practices, according to a new GAO report. These organizations face a harder time transitioning to new value-based care programs thanks to the prohibitive cost of data sharing, which can ring in at $20,000 depending on the vendor and number of physicians available to share the cost. A lack of qualified staff to use such systems for new value-based care and population health management programs also presents a challenge. As one physician interviewed for the report confirmed, “[P]ractices often do not know how to use their EHR system to make a list of all patients with a certain disease, which could help the practice develop population health management strategies for that particular disease, among other activities.”

Webinars

December 14 (Wednesday) noon ET. “Three Practices to Minimize Drift Between Audits.” Sponsored by Armor. Presenter: Kurt Hagerman, CISO, Armor. Security and compliance readiness fall to the bottom of the priority lists of many organizations, where they are often treated as periodic events rather than ongoing processes. How can they improve their processes to ensure they remain secure and compliant between audits? This webinar will cover the healthcare threat landscape and provide three practices that healthcare organizations can implement to better defend their environments continuously.

Here’s the recording of last week’s webinar titled “Get Ready for Blockchain’s Disruption.”

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The local paper details the ups and downs encountered by the three year-old Physician Retraining & Re-entry Program created by family medicine professors at UC San Diego. The program, a 100-hour online course that helps retired specialists with current medical licenses refresh and enhance their primary care skills, has enrolled 225 physicians and found jobs for only about 25 – underwhelming numbers given the impact its founders hoped to have on the predicted physician shortage. Those that have completed the program, however, seem to enjoy getting back into the swing of things. “It felt good to put that white coat on and feel like a doctor again,” says 72 year-old Michael LaRocque, MD who works part time at the Vista Community Clinic. “At this stage in my life, I’m just happy to be in an office without having to run a whole practice. It’s pretty invigorating to have a whole new set of things you’re dealing with. It keeps your mind busy.”

Announcements and Implementations

The Charleston, SC-based Accountable Care Coalition of the Tri-Counties will work with a network of independent pharmacies as part of a pilot project to demonstrate that a care model including pharmacies results in better outcomes and improves preventive care. Physicians and pharmacists will share patient data and evaluations on multi-prescription drug risk and predictive outcomes. “The medical community struggles with managing medication from a cost and patient safety perspective,” says ACC spokesperson Michael Barrett. “We believe these challenges can be addressed through closer collaboration between physicians and pharmacists given the invaluable role pharmacists play in supporting patients’ health.”

Modernizing Medicine introduces two tiers of MIPS-focused consulting services to assist physicians with participation in the value-based care program that begins January 1.

The American Heart Association, AMA, HIMSS, and DHX Group (a consortium of digital health innovators and centers of excellence) form Xcertia, a nonprofit that will develop and disseminate best practices for mobile health apps. It will not establish a certification process for health apps, though DHX does seem to have ties to that space. Its parent company, SocialWellth, acquired failed certification company Happtique in 2014, and has reviewed and certified health apps for payer-based app stores.

Drchrono develops an Ipad-based patient check-in kiosk that can offer relevant educational materials.

South Carolina-based urgent care company Doctors Care leverages ReferWell’s patient referral system across its 53 clinics. The technology sends patients electronic confirmation and reminders of follow-up appointments with specialists.

People

Social media-mined patient insight and prescription drug review company Treato appoints Allen Kamer (OurCrowd Qure) to its Board of Directors.

The Medical Society of Delaware elects Prayus Tailor, MD (Nephrology Associates) president.

Telemedicine

Affiliated Dermatology (AZ) offers teledermatology visits via Iagnosis. The Phoenix-area provider has made 15 of its specialists available for the DermatologistOnCall virtual consults, and will incorporate the technology into its accredited program for dermatology residents.

Research and Innovation

A Walgreens study of 450,000 Balance Rewards members finds that those that entered activities automatically using the incentive program’s support devices or apps remained engaged four times longer than those who entered data manually, averaging 20 weeks of participation. The challenge for Walgreens lies in the fact that a whopping 77 percent of participants entered their data manually.

Other

Commentary trickles out from the Montana Medical Association’s meeting last week, which gathered stakeholders to discuss developing a statewide HIE. MMA will move forward with its explorations thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Montana Healthcare Foundation. Physicians and payers alike are excited by the prospect of digitally sharing information across care settings. "I think even today in 2016, healthcare is the last bastion of the fax machine,” David Kendrick, MD remarks. “It’s going to be the last place somebody pries a dead fax machine out to throw away. And we’ve got to figure out how to improve on that.”

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 12/11/16

The Los Angeles County Dept. of Health Services selects the Ez-Cap managed care tool from Allscripts to streamline its health benefit administration, claims, and other healthcare transactions.

Bechara Choucair, MD (Trinity Health) joins Kaiser Permanente as its first community health officer and SVP of health and benefit for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.

Vitreos Health adds CitiusTech’s CQ-IQ clinical rules engine, which includes clinical quality measures computation capabilities. to its predictive and prescriptive analytics product.

Ajdin Camaga (Entrada) joins I2I Population Health as vice president of sales.

Data analytics technology company Advanced Plan for Health adds new predictive modeling capabilities for coronary, neurological, and orthopedic events; and chronic kidney disease to its Poindexter risk engine for population health management. Geared to health benefits plans for self-insured employers, the engine can also predict length of hospital stay and general likelihood of an ER visit for any member of a patient population. 

The Washington, DC-based Population Health Alliance appoints Raymond Fabius, MD (Health Next) Michelle Hart-Guyot (Innovative Healthcare Delivery, Christopher Long (AxisPoint Health), David Nash (Jefferson School of Population Health), and Sunny Ramchandani, MD (Aetna) to its 2017 Board of Directors.

New York City-based payer Healthfirst selects CaseNet’s TruCare population health management technology to better support its transitions of care and readmissions programs.

The Aetna Foundation will work with the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and its National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs to launch the Neighborhood Health Compass initiative. The NHC project will identify and select communities that may benefit from using clinical and non-clinical data to identify the heaviest users of healthcare, and then providing those communities with technical assistance and support to better coordinate care for those super users.

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