DOCtalk with Dr. Gregg 2/29/16

HIT Rocks… But What Do I Know?

Do you ever catch yourself wondering about things that you once thought to be immutable truths? Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s wisdom (uh huh … right), or maybe it’s just early dementia, but the older I get the more I wonder if what I “know” is really as “known” as I think.

This seems especially true in both healthcare and HIT. Once upon a time in healthcare, eggs used to be the demon seed, coffee and wine were foul, and dietary cholesterol was a huge hazard – now all these “truths” have been disrupted and/or supplanted. In HIT, there are some pretty similar corollaries.

For instance:

“App me, baby!” – Once a great battle cry, but, as a majority of hospitals have discovered, institutionally-driven or derived apps aren’t driving much of anybody.

Patient Engagement is key – Patient engagement is a truly lovely sentiment. You’d think everyone would want this. And, for certain populations it really works. But, dagnabbit, if there just still aren’t a ton of folks out there who just don’t really want to be engaged in their own healthcare; they just want someone to fix the durn thing, whatever it is.

Interoperability will connect us all – Anybody remember when everybody was talking “interoperability?” Whatever became of that? (I know, I know …  some folks are reportedly still pushing this forward. Just seems like a dusky, faded pipe dream at times.)

Big Data will solve it all – Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems the “big data” thrust has sort of fizzled. Is it because our little brains haven’t figured out what to do with all this information overload? Or are we just preemies who have only recently emerged from our sheltered womb of small data? Perhaps we just need to await more “neuromuscular development,” so to speak, as we learn how to navigate in this brave new world outside the old, comfortable accommodation of our dear, old mother, Mrs. Pen-and-Paper.

Disruptive Innovation will change healthcare – Since Meaningful Use came (and will soon be gone), it seems that the only folks talking about disruption are at Athenahealth. But, sometimes it seems that their “More Disruption, Please!” cry is more plaintive than battle.

Best Practices are your best choice for treatment – The concept of best practices is fully valid … that is, until you get down deep into the trenches when individual, genomic, geographic, cultural, ethnic, and numerous other assorted unique variations make any sort of generalized “best practice” more of a “wouldn’t be nice if this worked here” sort of thing. True of healthcare and HIT.

Gamification will drive real patient engagement – Boy, oh, boy, seems that everybody was singing the praises of gamification at one point, including for health IT. But, the construction and deployment of such tools, in any sort of engaging and “gamingfully fun” way is not for the faint of heart … nor for most non-entertainment types such as academically- or technically-oriented folks.

Mobile Health is a game-changer – Can’t say I was ever really sure what this one meant. Isn’t all health mobile, unless of course you’re bedridden?

Wearables are the future – Maybe they are the future, but see above. Maybe this is more representative of “mobile health.” At least most of the uses for wearables in healthcare thus far involve people who are mobile in some shape or fashion. The wearables market has been reportedly been slowing down, so I wonder if this is also a still-to-be-determined space.

I still think all this HIT stuff rocks, and will rock even more as we figure out what really works from the hype and fluffernutter… but what do I know?

From the trenches…

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” – Isaac Asimov

VERSUS

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician at Madison Pediatrics, is chief medical officer for Health Nuts Media, an HIT and marketing consultant, sits on the board of directors of the Ohio Health Information Partnership, and is the semi-proud author of “Monsters Don’t Fart!”

Contacts

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

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 2/28/16

Orion Health promotes Wayne Oxenham to president of its North America operations.

University of Kansas Hospital (KS) selects Cerner’s HealthIntent population health management system.

Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager achieves Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle Enterprise Healthcare Analytics.

ZeOmega and Vivify Health will integrate their respective population health management and remote patient monitoring technologies.

TriBridge embeds access to Evariant’s provider analytics into its Health360 CRM-based population health management software. It has also added chronic disease management and post-discharge clinical guidelines from Dartmouth-Hitchcock (NH) to the tool.

The Southbend Clinic (IN) implements Lightbeam Health’s population health management technology across its eight facilities. It’s been a good week for Lightbeam: The Irving, TX–based company also received an undisclosed investment from Hearst Health Ventures.

The DARTnet Institute taps Apervita to create and distribute evidence-based analytics for population health management to its PCP research partners.

Adventist HealthCare (MD) selects population health management technology from Wellcentive.

Hardin Memorial Health (KY) selects HealthLogix Population and Care applications from Transcend Insights.

UPMC makes an unspecified investment in Vivify Health and will implement its care management and patient engagement technology. UPMC’s investment completes a round that was started in November 2014, increasing the company’s total to $23.4 million.

Geisinger spinoff xG Health Solutions will use Cerner’s HealtheIntent population health management platform, while Cerner will use xG’s clinical content in its HealtheCare and HealtheAnalytics solutions.

Peer60 releases a new report called “The Big Mega HIT Purchasing Report.” The top purchasing plans for 2016 involve population health management and patient engagement.

The State of Oklahoma chooses Orion Health’s Healthier Populations Solutions Suite for Health-e Oklahoma.

Transcend Insights develops a solution suite for population health management built on its HealthLogix technology.

East Texas Regional Accountable Care Collaborative enlists the services of Innovista Health Solutions to help it manage the population health programs and services of its 60 physicians.

The University of California, San Francisco and Cipher Health develop a care-management platform for patients with chronic conditions.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Are You Ready to Explore a New Dimension at HIMSS16? (Medicity)
• Tips for your Epic phases of care implementation (Nordic)

Contacts

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

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News 2/25/16

Top News

Washington, DC rolls out the red carpet for President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, hosting a PMI Summit to celebrate the initiative’s one-year anniversary and outline next steps. The physician practice tie-in comes via the initiative’s aim to include community health centers in its recruitment efforts to ensure that the underserved are represented in the initial cohort of 79,000 patients. In addition, NIH – the initiative’s lead agency – will work with ONC to develop a new model of research offering participants a way to access their EHRs, control and manage their data, and submit their data to a cohort. Allscripts, Athenahealth, Cerner, Drchrono, Epic, and McKesson have signed on to participate.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Check out the HIStalk Guide to HIMSS16 as you’re making your final exhibit-hall decisions. I’m especially excited about the many, many chances attendees will have to win Apple Watches. It seems to be the giveaway of choice this year.

The #HIMSSanity has already begun, with briefing requests and a flood of pre-show press releases hitting my inbox with nary an end in sight. I’ll post daily show updates at HIStalk.com, and get back to daily HIStalk Practice updates on March 7. In the meantime, look for HP guest posts and executive interviews to keep you going.

Webinars

None scheduled in the next few weeks. We’re running a HIMSS special on webinars – 25 percent off produced and two-for-one on promoted. Contact Lorre or see her at our booth (#5069) next week.

You can view yesterday’s webinar on image-sharing strategy, hosted by LifeImage, on the HIStalk Webinars YouTube channel.

Announcements and Implementations

CareCloud announces enhancements to its PM technology for larger medical groups, including enterprise scheduling, integrated credit card processing, and expanded analytics.

ClearData develops the Active Compliance and Security Monitoring Dashboard, giving providers and their business associates insight into compliance issues across their organizations.

Coordinated Care Oklahoma, GE Healthcare, Kno2, Netsmart, and OneRecord adopt The Sequoia Project’s Carequality Interoperability Framework. The framework consists of a set of policy requirements, technical specifications, and governance processes to help stakeholders more easily exchange health data.

Aprima Medical Software adds chronic care management documentation, billing, and reimbursement tools to its EHR software.

Paxeramed updates its CarePassport patient engagement app, offering patients the ability to complete and submit registration forms, view facility locations via Google Maps, request an Uber ride from within the app, and check-in upon arrival.

West Henrietta, NY-based EHealth Technologies joins CommonWell.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare services and technology firm Citra Health Solutions reports record-breaking 2015 revenue and sales numbers, with an excess of $72 million. The Jacksonville, FL-based company anticipates an additional 400-percent growth in 2016.

People

Lisa McCann and Suzanne O’Brien will lead Toft Group’s new executive recruiting practice for digital health and healthcare IT.

Telemedicine

American Well launches a white-label software development kit, enabling healthcare stakeholders to embed telemedicine software into their own apps via their own brand. WebMD has hinted that it’s looking to get into telemedicine, and AW’s kit seems like a viable way to take advantage of an already captive audience. 

Dictum Health receives FDA clearance for its !DM100 medical tablet, paving the way for integration into the company’s telemedicine system.

Mississippi Medical Association President Dan Edney, MD balks at the House’s passage of a bill that allows audio-only telemedicine. Edney says the bill, which seems to have passed with lobbying support from Teladoc, is bad news for three reasons: It promotes insufficient care; sends local money out-of-state; and offers the underserved no better access to care.

Other

New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul sues ESPN reporter Adam Schefter for violating his privacy after Schefter tweeted pictures of his medical records last summer. The player’s fireworks-induced finger amputation was apparently of high journalistic interest: “NFL reporters report on all kinds of medical information on a daily basis,” Schefter explained. “That’s part of the job. The only difference here was that there was a photo. It came to me unexpectedly, and it was used as part of the reporting, same as OTL, 20/20, Dateline NBC or 48 Hours would do.” As Mr. H explained when the Twitter maelstrom initially broke, cries of a HIPAA foul don’t play well with news outlets given that HIPAA doesn’t apply to news organizations.

I’ve scooped Weird News Andy on this one: Doctors report that a woman who underwent elective cosmetic surgery in Brazil suffered from a rare bout of post-procedure kleptomania. The patient, whose tendencies were attributed to temporary brain damage resulting from a lack of oxygen, reportedly “felt intensely strong urges to steal and a wash of calm after doing so. When she was caught shop-lifting, her doctors had to step in to explain her temporary psychiatric condition to police before she was released.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 2/24/16

Top News

Kaiser Permanente Northwest opens its first standalone clinic for members and nonmembers in Portland. It has opened similar facilities in California and within select Target stores. The new clinic will be staffed by PAs and NPs, with PCPs accessible via phone or video. KPN opened a 400-employee virtual care center in January to house its physician-led virtual care team.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Check out HIStalk’s guide to HIMSS16. With 100-plus vendors, you’re bound to find an interesting product demo, networking event, or cool giveaway to pursue in Las Vegas.

Webinars

February 25 (Thursday) 1:00 ET. “Clinical Analytics for Population Health: Straddling Two Worlds.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Brian Murphy, lead analyst, Chilmark Research; Jody Ranck, senior analyst, Chilmark Research. The Chilmark Research clinical analytics team will be sharing some of their key findings from the recently released “2016 Clinical Analytics for Population Health Market Trends” report. This will be followed by a Q&A session to make sure everyone goes to HIMSS16 well informed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

E-prescribing network CenterX raises over $3.3 million from two undisclosed investors. The Madison, WI-based startup will use the funding to ramp up sales and recruiting efforts in 2016. The company has run on pure revenue since its initial $60,000 friends and family round in 2009.

People

OpenNotes names John Santa, MD (Consumer Reports) director of dissemination, and Homer Chin, MD (Oregon Health and Science University) and Amy Fellows (We Can Do Better) co-directors.

Telemedicine

The Georgia Dept. of Public Health will launch video consults for HIV patients at public health clinics in April. The program will follow in the footsteps of a similar one that has operated in Southeast Georgia for a number of years. The state aims to enroll all of its 159 health departments in the HIV video conferencing program within a year.

Net Medical Express adds WiFi enhancements to its video-conferencing system.

Government and Politics

ONC’s new Tech Lab launches the Interoperability Proving Ground, an easily searchable database of interoperability projects culled from ONC projects and user submissions. ONC Director Steve Posnack makes a good case for adding projects to the site: “The IPG is your chance to showcase your interoperability work nationwide, connect with peers tackling interoperability issues, and make visible progress toward a future where we are all part of a learning health system.”

CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt reflects on the transition to ICD-10 and shares lessons learned about implementation success. “With preparation, planning, a focus on the customer, collaboration, clear accountability, and metrics,” he explains, “the dire Y2K fears didn’t come to pass. Instead, ICD-10 became like what actually occurred on Y2K, an implementation and transition most people never heard about.”

Governor Nathan Deal and the Georgia Dept. of Community Health designate the Georgia Health Information Network as the state-designated entity for the state of Georgia HIE. “With our new status,” says GaHIN Executive Director Denise Hines, “we will be able to more aggressively pursue grants that allow GaHIN to deliver a broader range of services to healthcare providers throughout the state of Georgia.”

Other

CommonWell creates an interactive map displaying provider sites using its services across the country. Over 4,000 providers are live on its services. Delaware, North Carolina, Northern Arizona, and Seattle lead the way as regions of early adoption.

Work/life balance takes on new meaning in New Zealand: Alan Kenny, a physician in rural Tokoroa, gains international media attention after posting a too-good-to-be-true want ad for a junior doctor. The position, which has been open for two years, comes with an annual salary of $370,00, three months of vacation, and no after-hours or weekend work. It also comes with a grueling 6,000 patient caseload shared amongst a small staff that has overwhelmed Kenny to the point he’s had to cancel holidays. "My practice has exploded in the last year and the more patients you list, the more money you get,” he explains. "But it just gets too much at the end of the day. Just because I earn lots of money doesn’t mean I want to work my butt off."

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Fight Prescription Drug Abuse with AdvancedEPCS (AdvancedMD)
• #HIMSS16 Hacks (Billian’s HealthDATA)
• Automation of the Revenue Cycle (Culbert Healthcare Solutions)
• Driving Revenue through Patient Collections (E-MDs)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 2/23/16

Top News

CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt calls for a simplification of MACRA during his remarks at AMA’s National Advocacy Conference, highlighting four principles that will guide the work of CMS in coming months:

• Rewarding providers for outcomes rather than utilization alone.
• Giving physicians the ability to customize goals, which will in turn cause vendors to become more user-centered.
• Leveling the technology playing field to promote innovation by unlocking electronic health information through open APIs.
• Prioritizing interoperability by implementing interoperability standards and focusing on real-world uses of technology.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Don’t forget to check out HIStalk’s guide to HIMSS16. With 100-plus vendors, you’re bound to find an interesting product demo, networking event, or cool giveaway to pursue in Las Vegas.

Webinars

February 24 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Is Big Data a Big Deal … or Not?” Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenter: Dale Sanders, EVP of product development, Health Catalyst. Hadoop is the most powerful and popular technology platform for data analysis in the world, but healthcare adoption has been slow. This webinar will cover why healthcare leaders should care about Hadoop, why big data is a bigger deal outside of healthcare, whether we’re missing the IT boat yet again, and how the cloud reduces adoption barriers by commoditizing the skilled labor impact.

February 25 (Thursday) 1:00 ET. “Clinical Analytics for Population Health: Straddling Two Worlds.” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Brian Murphy, lead analyst, Chilmark Research; Jody Ranck, senior analyst, Chilmark Research. The Chilmark Research clinical analytics team will be sharing some of their key findings from the recently released “2016 Clinical Analytics for Population Health Market Trends” report. This will be followed by a Q&A session to make sure everyone goes to HIMSS16 well informed.

“CDs are hard to kill.” Today’s LifeImage webinar on medical image sharing strategies featured some great insight for physician practices, who just can’t seem to let go of portable media. You can check out the Twitter recap here.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

ITelagen adds NextGen Electronic Data Interchange to its IT and EHR support and hosting services.

Physician practice technology firm MBS/Net merges with Medsphere Systems, which will add MBS/Net’s offerings to its product line for acute and inpatient behavioral health settings. MBS/Net will keep its name and operate as a division of Medsphere.

Announcements and Implementations

Aprima Medical Software adds a Spanish-language option to its patient portal and mobile app for physicians.

Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients (CRISP) implements eHealth Connect Image Exchange from EHealth Technologies across the state of Maryland. The CRISP HIE also serves organizations in Washington, DC.

The EHR Association publishes the second version of its EHR Developer Code of Conduct. First created in 2013, the new code includes sections on the role of user-centered design, and usability best practices; as well as updated sections on patient engagement, privacy and security, and interoperability and data sharing.

ReelDx makes its Medvid.io video management platform commercially available.  The technology, which debuted in beta last year at HIMSS, enables developers to offer HIPAA-compliant video creation, storage, and sharing.

OptimizeRx integrates TrialCard’s prescription coupon and co-pay offerings into its EHR technology.

Telemedicine

Grace’s Way Recovery (FL) joins The MAP Recovery Network, an alliance of addiction treatment providers that collects outcomes data on their discharged patients and reports the rates of treatment success. Membership will enable Grace’s Way to take advantage of several post-treatment resources, including telemedicine.

Government and Politics

OIG releases an 84-page case study of CMS management of Healthcare.gov, the result of a two-year inquiry into the much-maligned federal insurance exchange. The report, which includes interviews with 86 employees of HHS, plus thousands of emails, memos, and internal documents, concludes that mismanagement by federal health officials rather than the poor work of IT contractors was the cause of its disastrous roll out and subsequent rocky road.

ONC Director Steve Posnack introduces the ONC Tech Lab, which will work with ONC’s Health IT Certification Program to provide stakeholders with “common connection points to ONC’s standards and technology efforts.” The lab will focus on standards coordination, testing and utilities, pilots of standards, and innovation. It will also serve as the conduit for any remaining ONC-supported Standards & Interoperability Framework initiatives.

Other

This is ridiculous: Oral-B debuts what could be the most complicated toothbrush on the planet. The “Genius” uses motion sensor technology, your smartphone, and an accompanying app to determine if you’re brushing all of your teeth properly. It even comes with a lighting system to help you get into the tooth-brushing mood.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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