News 4/28/16

Top News

Apple releases the first four apps made using CareKit, the company’s new open-source platform that lets developers create IPhone apps to help consumers manage their health and share their health data with physicians. The apps focus on diabetes management, pregnancy and infant development tracking, and a depression tracker – a positive sign for those health advocates that have long sought for tighter integration between mental health and primary care. While the company’s coinciding release of CareKit’s’ development framework certainly bolsters its foray into healthcare, it remains to be seen just how physician- and EHR-friendly CareKit-based apps will be.

Webinars

May 5 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Reducing CAUTI and Improving Early Sepsis Detection Through Clinical Process Measurement.” Sponsored by LogicStream. Presenters: Jen Biltoft, director of quality improvement, SCL Health; Marla Bare, EHR architect, SCL Health. This webinar will describe how SCL Health reduced catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 30 percent in just three months through clinical process measurement. The SCL Health presenters will also share their plans for applying a similar process to the early detection of sepsis.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Ability Network announces plans to expand operations at its headquarters in Tampa, FL with the addition of 75 jobs by 2017. The company, which offers clinical support systems, RCM services, and connections to payers, will look to fill roles in administration, IT, and sales with the help of $229,000 in government incentives.

Analytics company CloudMedx acquires Gyrus Labs for an undisclosed sum. CloudMedx will integrate the company’s technology into its NLP engine for faster analysis and risk stratification. Gyrus Labs co-founder Dongyang Zhang, MD will join CloudMedx as senior medical scientist.

Announcements and Implementations

Health Images, a chain of 12 imaging centers in Colorado, joins the CORHIO HIE. It is the first organization of its kind to join CORHIO, which has connected 54 hospitals and over 4,000 office-based physicians since it was founded in 2010.

DoctorConnect.net messaging service joins the Allscripts Developer Program, enabling Allscripts customers to access its appointment reminder service via their PM systems.

People

AHRQ names Andrew Bindman, MD (UC San Francisco) director.

Anita Pramoda (Owned Outcomes) joins the Health Catalyst Board of Directors, while Health Catalyst EVP and co-founder Steve Barlow steps down at the end of his five-year term.

Telemedicine

CirrusMD upgrades its telemedicine platform, enabling physicians to consult with up to eight patients at a time thanks to improved text-messaging capabilities. The company, which focuses on text-first, video-second virtual consultations, raised over $1 million in March, bringing its total funding to $2.5 million.

Research and Innovation

Fitbit partners with the Boston-based Dana Farber Cancer Institute to launch a six-year study of 3,200 patients that will analyze the ways in which breast cancer recurrence is affected by weight loss in overweight patients. The study monitor patient progress remotely via phone calls with dieticians, and will incorporate the Fitbit HR, which monitors heart rate, steps, and sleep; and the company’s Aria smart scale. Fitbit devices are already being used in over 100 clinical programs.

Contacts

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

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5 Questions with Gene Farber, COO, Reliance ACO

Gene Farber is COO of Reliance ACO in Farmington Hills, MI. Founded in 2014, the ACO employs 25 full- and part-time staff, and includes 61 practices and 292 physicians. Reliance implemented chronic care management services from CSC in March.

What type of ACO is Reliance? Why was this particular type chosen?
Reliance is physician owned, funded, and operated. The founders had been part of a hospital ACO in the Pioneer model. While it had been successful in saving money, the administrative costs of a large organization meant that the doctors did not see any of the savings. The founders of Reliance believed that a physician-run organization would be more efficient and could achieve the goals of the ACO.

How has technology impacted the ACO’s ability to coordinate care, and begin to move from fee-for-service to value-based care?
Technology is critical to the success of Reliance. We receive ADTs (admission, discharge, transfer alerts) to let us know when patients are in the hospital. We use a care management program from Synapse, which is on a Salesforce platform and allows our staff to access the information wherever they may be via our secure remote desktop computer. We use telephone alerts to securely send information directly to doctors in the ACO about their patients or the programs of the ACO. We link up with skilled nursing facilities to determine where our patients are after they leave the hospital. Technology is involved with every aspect of Reliance ACO.

Why did Reliance decide to implement chronic care management services? How do you foresee CCM impacting patient care and the ACO’s bottom line?
Many of the doctors in Reliance have inquired about CCM. A committee of medical directors reviewed various vendors and felt CSC was a good choice. The hope is that CCM will positively impact patient care. Based on the way the ACO receives shared savings, CCM will negatively impact the ACO’s bottom line in many cases. If the ACO has a large number of patients that receive this service, they have to save double the cost of CCM just to break even because they only receive 50 percent of the savings. I think this will be very difficult to do. Again, just because CMS says a program will save money does not mean it will happen in real life and that is my concern.

What sort of healthcare technology adoption/implementation challenges are unique to ACOs?
The ACO’s attempt to coordinate a large number of practices, most of which have different levels of technological integration as well as different systems. The challenge is to work with many different systems. Reliance also has doctors in at least six different hospital systems, so any integration has to be done separately with each system.

Is Reliance considering implementing additional new healthcare technologies in the near future? If so, why?
We are in the process of implementing our phone app to each doctor. We will be developing a portal for doctors to interface directly into our system, and are planning to develop a patient portal for ACO patients.

Contacts

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

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News 4/27/16

Top News

HHS takes its first steps in implementing certain parts of MACRA by releasing a proposed rule that would streamline Medicare payments to physician offices, essentially replacing Meaningful Use. Physicians can participate in the Quality Payment Program via two options – the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) or Advanced Alternative Payment Models, which includes the new Comprehensive Primary Care Plus and Next Generation ACO models. CMS expects most Medicare physicians to initially participate via MIPS, which offers more reporting flexibility than MU and bases first-year payments on the scoring of quality, interoperability (touted as “Advancing Care Information”), clinical practice improvement, and cost. HHS will accept comments on the rule through June 26. If finalized, the program will begin in 2017.

Webinars

May 5 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Reducing CAUTI and Improving Early Sepsis Detection Through Clinical Process Measurement.” Sponsored by LogicStream. Presenters: Jen Biltoft, director of quality improvement, SCL Health; Marla Bare, EHR architect, SCL Health. This webinar will describe how SCL Health reduced catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 30 percent in just three months through clinical process measurement. The SCL Health presenters will also share their plans for applying a similar process to the early detection of sepsis.

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

People

Ardy Arianpour (Pathway Genomics) joins Base Health as chief business officer.

Government and Politics

Vice President Joe Biden joins the speaker lineup of Health Datapalooza, happening May 8-11 in Washington, DC. He’ll speak for a brief 30 minutes, presumably on his Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Keynoters include HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Israel Ministry of Health Director General Moshe Bar Siman Tov, and CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, who has an even shorter 20-minute timeslot.

Legislators from both sides of the aisle introduce the HHS Data Protection Act, which, among other things, calls for the appointment of a CISO on October 1. )I’m surprised they didn’t use the more headline-grabbing job title of “Cybersecurity Czar.”) The bill comes in response to a House Energy and Commerce Committee report that found that hackers had breached at least five HHS divisions over the last three years, among deficiencies.

Telemedicine

UniVision partners with Careington International to launch UniConsulta in 12 states. The Spanish-language health and wellness telemedicine service offers a bevy of member benefits for $50 a month, including up to five consults per month and unlimited access to UniConsulta clinicians via email.

Other

Four Kauri Family Medical Centre in Australia takes temporary shelter in a local motel after a fire forced it to relocate last summer. The practice currently occupies six rooms on the bottom floor of the motel – the largest for the waiting room, one room for the nurses, one break room, and three consult rooms. Practice staff, who expect to move into their new location this fall, say the biggest plus has been the convenient parking.

The Houston Chronicle echoes a familiar refrain: PCPs are overwhelmed by long hours, not enough staff, lower reimbursements, and deteriorating physician-patient relationships thanks to escalating technology burdens. “The key word right now is efficiency,” says independent physician Elizabeth Torres. “But do you want someone who is going to listen to you and take care of you, or do you want someone who will be efficient? I may not be doing financially the best that I can do, but I am able to pay my bills, I’m happy with how I take care of the patients, and that to me is the important part.”

Sponsor Updates

• Aprima will exhibit at the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting May 5-7 in Washington, DC.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting May 5-7 in Washington, DC.
• Healthwise will exhibit at the ZeOmega Client Conference May 2-4 in Plano, TX.

Blog Posts

• Raise Your Patient Satisfaction Scores, 2 Planning Tips (Part 1 of 2) (AdvancedMD)
• Securing Your Practice (E-MDs)

Contacts

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

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News 4/26/16

Top News

Veritas Capital acquires Verisk Health from Verisk Analytics for $820 million, confirming rumors that have been circulating since last fall that the company was looking to sell. After closing, most likely at the end of June, Verisk Health will be renamed and operate as an independent company at its Waltham, MA headquarters.

Webinars

May 5 (Thursday) 1:00 ET. “Reducing CAUTI and Improving Early Sepsis Detection Through Clinical Process Measurement.” Sponsored by LogicStream. Presenters: Jen Biltoft, director of quality improvement, SCL Health; Marla Bare, EHR architect, SCL Health. This webinar will describe how SCL Health reduced catheter-associated urinary tract infections by 30 percent in just three months through clinical process measurement. The SCL Health presenters will also share their plans for applying a similar process to the early detection of sepsis.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Just in time for summer camp season, CampDoc.com releases a public API so that camps can sync camper and staff data with the company’s EHR and registration system.

Healthix, a HIE serving 500 healthcare organizations in New York, selects predictive analytics and performance analysis services from HBI Solutions. Healthix piloted HBI’s Spotlight Data Solution earlier this year with New York City-based behavioral health organization ICL.

Practice Fusion signs the HHS Interoperability Pledge, joining 22 vendors, 17 health systems, and 23 industry organizations since the pledge was introduced in February.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Nokia announces plans to acquire Withings, a France-based developer of popular connected health devices, for just over $191 million dollars. The transaction, expected to close in the third quarter of this year, seems to be part of Nokia’s push back into the consumer devices market. It sold its devices business to Microsoft in early 2014.

E-MDs completes its bi-annual NCQA Credentials Verification Organization review and has received the NCQA CVO certification through May, 2018.

People

Faye Stetch (Falcon Physician) joins the HIMSS EHR Association as vice-chair of its Clinician Experience Workgroup.

Telemedicine

Health benefits consulting firm Mercer signs a three-year renewal with Teladoc for telemedicine services for its employees and clients.

The American Telemedicine Association pens its support for the Rural Health Care Connectivity Act, which would permit skilled nursing facilities to apply for funding from the Universal Service Fund’s Rural Health Care Program and enable them to receive funding for broadband and telecommunications services. The ATA asks in its letter to the House that the bill also include sites where telemedicine services are provided under Medicaid or Medicare, school-based clinics, and EMS providers.

Research and Innovation

The AMA partners with student-run biotechnology incubator IDEA Labs to support healthcare technology development of students at Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, and Washington University. “We look forward to collaborating with the AMA to spread the IDEA Labs model to more institutions and clinicians,” says IDEA Labs Incubator Network President Stephen Linderman, MD. “By bringing together top universities across the country, connecting budding companies with the talent, mentors, and investors needed to thrive, this new collaboration will accelerate medical technology development and entrepreneurial education.”

Government and Politics

CMS issues an updated rule on Medicaid – the first time it has done so in a decade. CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt summarizes the 1,425-page rule in a blog post, emphasizing the adoption of “21st Century tools” a new Medicaid and CHIP quality rating system, electronic notices, and online provider directories.

Other

The University of Florida hosts the first thought-controlled drone race. Sixteen pilots used a brain-computer interface – a device that measures electrical signals from their brains – to direct the drones with thoughts of moving forward.

Contacts

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

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Readers Write: Promoting Positive Outcomes with Communication and Technology

Promoting Positive Outcomes with Communication and Technology
By Jonathan Karl

Patient engagement is emerging as a top priority in the healthcare community as growing evidence shows a strong link between more involved patients and improved outcomes. Meaningful Use requirements and the US healthcare system’s shift to a pay-for-performance model are two other driving forces behind this important development.

With these priorities and pressures in mind, it’s important to look at where providers are making progress in encouraging greater patient engagement and what still lies ahead. To better understand how this movement is influencing patient and provider priorities, motivations and behavior, CDW Healthcare surveyed 200 physicians and physician assistants and 200 patients for its Patient Engagement Perspectives report, uncovering pain points, areas for improvement and new insights into how communication and technology are shaping the patient engagement equation.

Patient Engagement Priorities
Our survey found that 60 percent of providers say improving patient engagement is a top priority at their organization, citing top motivating factors including it being an important part of improving overall care (70 percent), technology advancements (64 percent) and Meaningful Use requirements (46 percent). However, although providers are prioritizing this, patients aren’t exactly seeing these actions – only 35 percent of patients say they have noticed their providers becoming more engaged with them.

Communication’s Critical Role
Changing a behavior is easier said than done, but it’s becoming very clear that patients value communication with their providers. Fifty percent of patients ranked greater communication with their healthcare provider as being just as influential as a life event in terms of encouraging more active involvement with their care. These findings are encouraging, as providers can start looking toward improving two-way communication with their patients to enhance their engagement strategies.

Leverage IT to Improve Interactions
What can providers do to improve two-way communication with patients? Our research shows that both groups realize the value of technology as a path forward: Seventy-four percent percent of patients believe having greater online access to their personal healthcare information would help them take a more active role in their healthcare. This is a sentiment providers share, as 60 percent say that providing patients with greater online access to their personal information would improve quality of care.

Break Down Barriers With Online Access
Patients and providers are also on the same page when it comes to the most valuable methods for encouraging patient engagement: Web-based access to general healthcare information and online patient portals. Providers, however, see significantly greater value in mobile applications than patients, and patients see significantly greater value in online chat capabilities than providers. These technologies will be important moving forward, as they help to promote two-way feedback and encourage active participation outside the walls of the clinic or hospital.

Providers Prepare for Action
Sixty-seven percent of providers are working on a way to make personal healthcare records easier to access. Additionally, 28 percent of providers say they either provide or plan to provide patients the ability to merge information stored on their mobile devices or wearable technologies with the provider’s online patient portal.

The Future of Patient Engagement
Patients and providers both welcome increased engagement, which is easier than ever before in today’s increasingly digital world. However, encouraging engagement requires creating the perfect balance of incentives and tools, which continues to remain a challenge for providers – although not one that is impossible to overcome.

To promote a more effective patient engagement strategy, providers should turn to technology to improve communication between the caregiver and patient, and deliver relevant and timely information, in turn enabling informed decisions and better patient outcomes. In addition, leveraging technology to simplify access to health information and ensure the security of protected health information is an important step. Working with a trusted IT partner can help healthcare providers to power patient care through technology and alleviate strain on the IT department, helping to return the focus to what’s most important – providing the highest quality patient care.

Jonathan Karl is a director at CDW Healthcare in Vernon Hills, IL.

Contacts

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

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