News 11/8/16

Top News

ONC submits its HITECH-mandated annual report to Congress, which as those following healthcare IT news already know, focuses on improving interoperability. It also contains several statistics related to the progress physicians and hospitals have made in their use of health IT. The most promising, as far as physician practices are concerned, is the 30-percent jump office-based physicians have seen in their view/download/transmit patient engagement efforts, and a slightly larger increase in their ability to share patient data with outside facilities.

Webinars

November 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How to Create Healthcare Apps That Get Used and Maybe Even Loved.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jeff Harper, founder and CEO, Duet Health. Patients, clinicians, and hospital employees are also consumers who manage many aspects of their non-medical lives on their mobile devices. Don’t crush their high technology expectations with poorly designed, seldom used apps that tarnish your carefully protected image. Your app represents your brand and carries high expectations on both sides. This webinar will describe how to build a mobile healthcare app that puts the user first, meets their needs (which are often different from their wants), creates “stickiness,” and delivers the expected benefits to everyone involved.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. View previous webinars on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Practice Fusion receives an undisclosed amount of financing from Orix Growth Capital, which CEO Tom Langan says the company will use to help fund interoperability initiatives. As of February 2016, the company had raised $150 million. It has been mum on previously announced plans for an IPO in 2017.

Announcements and Implementations

The Great Lakes Practice Transformation Network extends the deadline to apply for MACRA-related grant funding for practice transformation and quality reporting assistance. Backed by funding from the CMS Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, the grant is open to physicians who see Medicare and/or Medicaid patients and are not already participating in the Ohio Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative and several other value-based payment programs.

Bizmatics adds medication management technology and adherence insights from Surescripts to its PrognoCIS EHR.

Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services implements custom parser technology from OpenAirware that enables it to pull key data out of large CCD/CDA files so that only the data needed for a particular use case is shared.

Research and Innovation

Harvard researchers build a chain-smoking robot to better understand chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Programmed to smoke at customizable intensities and frequencies, the robot passes the smoke to a “lung on a chip,” which can accommodate living lung cells. This capability helps researchers compare and contrast the effects of chain-smoking with cells from a patient with pulmonary disease and with cells from a healthy patient.

Other

No tipping allowed: Austrian startup SmaXtec sees big potential in its connected, implantable sensors that help dairy farmers remotely monitor a cow’s health data in real time. Embedded in the first of a cow’s four stomachs, the sensors alert users via corresponding app and texts to any changes in the animal’s temperature, movement, pH levels, and milk production.

Quartz highlights the plethora of contracts Apple users digitally sign on a fairly regular basis, noting that those who own at least five Apple devices have signed at least 30 contracts containing over 100,000 words of legalese (most of which, I’m willing to bet, were never read). That word count is greater than either “The Hobbit” or the “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

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5 Questions with Pamela Fletcher, Administrative Director, Glendale MRI Institute

Pamela Fletcher is administrative director at the Glendale MRI Institute, a boutique imaging center in Glendale, CA with one part-time radiologist and 16 additional staff members. With the help of locums radiologists and teleradiology, the practice sees close to 35 patients each day. The practice has partnered with Healthpac Computer Systems in Savannah, GA for its radiology information system, and recently implemented ReferralMD referral management software.

What was the impetus for implementing referral management software?
We needed a marketing tool to keep referrers “sticky” to us and to o make it easier for referring docs to communicate with us. Plus, we also wanted to make ourselves know to providers who weren’t aware of us and thus weren’t referring to us.

How do you hope its utilization will benefit your organization and its patients?
See number one! Also, it was a huge and pleasant surprise to discover how much time it saved our scheduling staff to have the faxed referrals go directly into the new software.

What sort of healthcare technology adoption/implementation challenges are unique to outpatient MRI facilities?
The biggest challenge is to convince our referrers to embrace new ways of communicating with us.

Interoperability continues to be a challenge. Has Glendale MRI connected to local HIEs or joined other interoperability-friendly groups to make data sharing easier?
We have a software service that delivers reports to the desktop of our referring providers. They can configure their EMR to retrieve the reports and put them directly into the patient files.

Healthcare cost transparency has also become a hot topic. Have you noticed an uptick in patients asking for upfront pricing? How is Glendale MRI positioning itself to handle these inquiries?
Oh yes! This is a strategy we implemented several years ago when the big imaging chains and hospitals started taking over our HMO contracts. We are too small to compete, so we put together competitive cash pricing and started marketing it through social media, pay-per-click, and brand awareness campaigns. This has been very successful. We also offer interest-free financing, which has been very popular.

Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 11/7/16

Top News

Texas Association of Business CEO Bill Hammond, who will step down at the end of this year to try his hand at lobbying for several industries including healthcare, takes to the local paper to outline three things The Lone Star State needs to immediately do in order to expand use of telemedicine:

• Ensure practice standards for in-person care and telemedicine are consistent with the ultimate goal of increasing access to quality care and lowering costs.
• Adopting a technology-neutral definition of telemedicine so that patients and physicians can choose the type of technology used for telemedicine visits, “rather than the state dictating a one-size-fits-all approach.”
• Require a patient to be examined in-person or travel to a facility only when medically necessary based on a physician’s recommendation.

Hammond’s recommendations come just a few months after a TAB survey of consumers and businesses found an overwhelming majority favored the use of telemedicine to diagnose common medical conditions. Texas has been criticized by many (and famously taken to court by Teladoc) for its view that an initial patient-physician encounter should be face-to-face rather than over phone or video.

HIStalk Practice Musings

I’m thinking it will be a slow news week as everyone focuses their attention on tomorrow’s election and its ensuing aftermath, which means my decision to imitate the pose above while attending a friend’s beachside wedding this weekend is well-timed. The last presidential election found me traveling in the British Virgin Islands, where local eateries and bars held election-night TV-viewing parties. It gave me a unique perspective into the ramifications our elections have on the tourist-dependent economies of our Caribbean cousins.

Webinars

November 8 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “A CMIO’s Perspective on the Successful 25 Hospital Rollout of Electronic Physician Documentation.” Sponsored by Crossings Healthcare. Presenter: Ori Lotan, MD, CMIO, Universal Health Services. UHS rolled out Cerner Millennium’s electronic physician documentation to its 6,000 active medical staff members — 95 percent of them independent practitioners who also work in competitor facilities — across 25 acute care hospitals. UHS’s clinical informatics team used Cerner’s MPage development toolkit to improve the usability, efficiency, communications capability, and quality metric performance of Dynamic Documentation, embedding clinical decision support and also using Nuance’s cloud-based speech recognition product for the narrative bookends of physician notes. This CMIO-led webinar will describe how UHS achieved 70 percent voluntary physician adoption within one month of go-live, saved $3 million in annual transcription expense, and raised EHR satisfaction to 75 percent. It will include a short demonstration of the software that UHS developed to optimize the physician experience.

November 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How to Create Healthcare Apps That Get Used and Maybe Even Loved.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jeff Harper, founder and CEO, Duet Health. Patients, clinicians, and hospital employees are also consumers who manage many aspects of their non-medical lives on their mobile devices. Don’t crush their high technology expectations with poorly designed, seldom used apps that tarnish your carefully protected image. Your app represents your brand and carries high expectations on both sides. This webinar will describe how to build a mobile healthcare app that puts the user first, meets their needs (which are often different from their wants), creates “stickiness,” and delivers the expected benefits to everyone involved.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. View previous webinars on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Allscripts notes in its earnings call that the company sees big opportunity in selling RCM services to its ambulatory EHR customers.

Cerner’s latest earnings call provides further insight into Athenahealth’s sluggish sales. As Mr. H noted late last week, the company earned a noteworthy ambulatory win in displacing Athenahealth for ambulatory EHR and business services at what the company believes is Athenahealth’s largest customer, also replacing Athena at two other sites.

Announcements and Implementations

SRSsoft adds InteliChart’s patient engagement technology – including appointment reminders, patient intake and educational materials, and satisfaction surveys – with its specialty-specific line of EHRs for specialists.

People

Bryan Koch (DocuTap) joins Kareo as GM of managed billing.

Darren Hay (Ideal Life) joins Care Angel as chief revenue angel/officer. Hay is also lending his expertise to the Florida Telehealth Advisory Council, which hopes to help pave the way for expansive telemedicine adoption across the state.

Mark Fabian (Life in the Moment) joins Zotec Partners as director of business development.

Other

AMA launches TruthinRx.org, an interactive website that gives patients the opportunity to share stories of how rising prescription prices are impacting their health and finances. The association will also use it as a tool with which to lobby Congress for more transparent (and hopefully fairer) drug pricing – an issue scheduled to be discussed at its interim meeting later this week.

Sidney Stein, MD calls the decision he and his Horizon Medical Group (NY) partners made earlier this year to merge into the 79-physician Weill Cornell Medicine network well worth it. The physicians gained a brand-new office, EHR, digital X-ray machine, and the less tangible brand appeal associated with Weill Cornell. “It would’ve been nice if I didn’t have to change things—we were very happy with our five-person group,” Stein explains, “but I think you have to read the handwriting on the wall and see what the future has in store.”

Cue “Apache:” Max Chiu, MD takes a break from EHR data entry at Presence Saint Francis Hospital in Chicago. “As I was walking past the break room around 3:30 am one morning,” Chiu says, “I realized how much open floor space there was and thought it’d be fun to film a short video of myself ‘breakin’ in the break room. Unfortunately, I don’t get to spend most of my breaks dancing. I usually spend breaks at work catching up on other unfinished work. There definitely is not a large population of breakdancing doctors, but I know there are some others out there!” It seems like his skills would be the perfect addition to ZDoggMD’s next act.

Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 11/6/16

Aetna promotes Patrice Wolfe to CEO of Medicity, where she will also be responsible for the company’s population health management technology products that include Healthagen Outcomes and HDMS.

Creo Wellness signs a group purchasing agreement with HealthTrust’s CoreTrust division to provide population health management-based employee wellness programs to member organizations.

Chris Kryder, MD (Valence Health) joins Lumiata’s Board of Directors.

Precision BI incorporates predictive population health analytics from VitreosHealth with its clinical and financial business intelligence offerings.

Predictive analytics software vendor Tresata formally jumps into healthcare with the launch of Tresata Health. The company will use the new business to further develop HAPPI – its Health Analytics Platform for Population Intelligence, and bring new products to market. Michael Dulin (UNC College of Health & Human Services) has joined the new effort as CMO.

CapitalBlueCross selects population health and care management technology from Casenet to deliver its case, disease, and utilization management programs to members in its 21-county Pennsylvania area of service.

Inspira Health Network (NJ) chooses Cerner Millennium, HealtheIntent, and remote hosting, replacing the former Siemens Soarian.

Speaking of Cerner … the company breaks down its Q3 revenue shortfall, which Mr. H summarized in a post last week. Regarding population health management, President Zane Burke noted though he was pleased with the company’s PHM progress, it represents “very little piece of bookings growth. The scope of many initial population health contracts are small because most clients are not at risk for large portions of their populations.”

Virtual Health appoints Tomer Benami (Apploi) vice president of finance and Dana Levin-Robinson (AccentHealth) vice president of marketing. The company has promoted Marcus Caraballo to senior manager of accounts.

CareCloud will integrate population health management tools from Lightbeam Health Solutions into its EHR/PM.

Sponsor Updates

• Intelligent Medical Objects will offer a free workshop titled “Terminology: The Secret to Leveraging your EHR for MIPS and MACRA” at AMIA 2016 on November 12, with non-AMIA attendees invited to participate as well.
• Intelligent Medical Objects will exhibit at the NextGen One UGM November 6-9 in Las Vegas.

Blog Posts

• What Will MIPS and MACRA Cost You? (Medicomp Systems)

Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 11/3/16

Top News

The local paper highlights the success Capstone Pediatrics (TN) has had with its care coordination efforts. The 10-facility practice earned a $397,000 bonus from UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Tennessee for reducing hospitalizations among its UnitedHealthcare Medicaid patients by 28 percent. As part of UnitedHealthcare’s Medicaid ACO, the practice received resources including technology to help it meet quality metrics. What that technology no doubt played an important role in Capstone’s results, it seems that the human touch was the biggest factor: “We take a holistic approach to care, and our experience shows that addressing one’s whole health – including medical, behavioral, social, and other needs – leads to better health outcomes,” explains CEO and CMO Gary Griffieth, MD. “We’ve helped our patients and their families navigate care complexities, which has led to fewer hospital admissions and a healthier population overall.”

Webinars

November 8 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “A CMIO’s Perspective on the Successful 25 Hospital Rollout of Electronic Physician Documentation.” Sponsored by Crossings Healthcare. Presenter: Ori Lotan, MD, CMIO, Universal Health Services. UHS rolled out Cerner Millennium’s electronic physician documentation to its 6,000 active medical staff members — 95 percent of them independent practitioners who also work in competitor facilities — across 25 acute care hospitals. UHS’s clinical informatics team used Cerner’s MPage development toolkit to improve the usability, efficiency, communications capability, and quality metric performance of Dynamic Documentation, embedding clinical decision support and also using Nuance’s cloud-based speech recognition product for the narrative bookends of physician notes. This CMIO-led webinar will describe how UHS achieved 70 percent voluntary physician adoption within one month of go-live, saved $3 million in annual transcription expense, and raised EHR satisfaction to 75 percent. It will include a short demonstration of the software that UHS developed to optimize the physician experience.

November 9 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How to Create Healthcare Apps That Get Used and Maybe Even Loved.” Sponsored by MedData. Presenter: Jeff Harper, founder and CEO, Duet Health. Patients, clinicians, and hospital employees are also consumers who manage many aspects of their non-medical lives on their mobile devices. Don’t crush their high technology expectations with poorly designed, seldom used apps that tarnish your carefully protected image. Your app represents your brand and carries high expectations on both sides. This webinar will describe how to build a mobile healthcare app that puts the user first, meets their needs (which are often different from their wants), creates “stickiness,” and delivers the expected benefits to everyone involved.

Contact Lorre for webinar services. View previous webinars on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Physician practice marketing and automation software startup Doctible raises $2 million in seed financing led by Bootstrap Incubation. The San Diego-based company has also added new features to its product, including referral management and integrated scheduling.

Announcements and Implementations

Hixny, which seems to have pivoted from its HIE branding to population health management, develops an app giving physicians the ability to remotely monitor high-risk patients in real time via HIE-based alerts.

B.well launches a health management service for consumers that includes PHR capabilities, access to virtual consults, appointment scheduling, and preventive care reminders. The Baltimore-based company seems to have opened for business earlier this year with a similar product for payers and employers.

OptimizeRx adds brand messaging and support capabilities, including EHR strategy and planning services, to its line of e-prescribing coupon tools.

Scrypt develops HIPAA-compliant faxing, and secure storage apps for iOS devices. The Austin-based company, which also develops tools for the financial services industry, acquired HIPAA-secure messaging vendor DocbookMD in March.

ResMed adds cloud connectivity and the ability to filter patients into groups based on adherence status and/or type of therapy to its AirView remote-monitoring technology for sleep apnea and respiratory care patients.

Telemedicine

PlushCare closes an $8 million round of Series A financing led by GGV Capital. Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital, will join the direct-to-consumer telemedicine startup’s board. The company will use the investment to grow beyond the 15 states it currently operates in.

Indianapolis-based ISalus Healthcare adds telemedicine functionality to its OfficeEMR.

Government and Politics

Amerigroup New Jersey joins the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program, bringing the total number of payers to 66 based on the most recent list from CMS, which has agreed to re-open payer and provider applications for the CPC+ program early next year.

Other

Just in time for your next layover: Rotten WiFi puts together a list of 20 airports with the best WiFi, factoring in user satisfaction and upload and download speeds. Tiny Chattanooga, TN (a favorite getaway of mine) outranks far more cosmopolitan destinations when it comes to satisfaction rankings. Estonia, which ranked number two for download speeds, has made a name for itself in its use of healthcare IT, rolling out a national EHR in 2009 to the tune of just $10 per person. Nearly half of the country’s residents had signed up to use the service within two years of its launch. It is now working on incorporating blockchain technology into that system to better secure the 1 million records stored there.

Contacts

Jenn,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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