News 1/13/16

Top News

Lyft looks to cash in on healthcare and catch up with Uber, partnering with National Medtrans Network to offer non-emergency medical transportation for elderly patients in New York City. The ride-sharing service has developed a new Web-based dashboard called Concierge to help NMN’s operators book the rides, which now account for 2,500 of the company’s 250,000 transportation requests. “Using transportation-as-a-service like this, the health plans and government agencies we partner with are significantly reducing fraud, saving costs, and improving the patient experience,” says NMN President Billy McKee. “We provide over 25,000 livery trips per week in NYC, and our goal is to push all of those through Lyft.”

Reader Comments

From HIStalkapalooza Newbie: “Could you give me a quick preview of what HIStalkapalooza is all about? That sounds like a silly question, but I’ve never personally attended HIMSS before (unfortunately), so any brief description of the event would be very helpful!” I like to refer to HIStalkapalooza – our annual shindig at HIMSS – as health IT’s party of the year – the one time a year industry friends and colleagues can get together and cut loose at no cost to themselves, courtesy of our gracious sponsors and the hard work of Lorre and Mr. H. Here’s a quick breakdown of the party, happening at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay:

• 6:30 Doors open only for HIStalkapalooza registered guests. Check in, check your coat, and walk the red carpet to participate in the shoe and fashion judging.
• 6:45 Live jazz music starts wafting from the stage.
• 7:00 Bars and dinner buffet stations open in multiple locations.
• 7:40 Stage activities start, include sashing, the HISsies, and special guests.
• 8:30 Party on the Moon starts rockin’.
• 11:00 event ends.

Last’s year event was one of my favorites. Party on the Moon brought the house down and everyone seemed to have a good time – especially Jonathan Bush, who turned on the charm to avoid a pie in the face from Judy Faulkner. There’s just one caveat: You have to register to be considered for a ticket.

People

WEDI President and CEO Devin Jopp resigns and is now the CEO at Future Focus Health, a health IT consulting agency. The WEDI Board of Directors has formed a search committee to identify a replacement. I came across this 2012 interview with Jopp, in which he shares his thoughts on “CEO Transitions.”

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Consumer engagement tech vendor MPulse Mobile secures $10 million in Series A funding led by HLM Ventures, with support from previous investors OCA Ventures, Merrick Ventures, and Jumpstart Ventures. The Encino, CA-based startup will use the cash infusion to ramp up analytics capabilities.

Compulink Business Systems acquires optometric EHR and PM systems vendor EyeCom for an undisclosed sum.

Regional Women’s Health Group (NJ) acquires Brunswick Hills OB/GYN, touting the 16-physician practice’s healthcare technology proficiency as one of its most attractive selling points: “Brunswick Hills OB/GYN has been a pioneer in the adoption of electronic medical records,” says Rob Baron, vice president of strategic planning and business development for RWHG. “Their technology-forward approach and commitment to providing top quality care represents the true essence of a successful Regional practice.” Both practices are EClinicalWorks customers. 

Research and Innovation

An Annals of Family Medicine study finds that patients are not as willing to share sensitive diagnostic information via mobile devices as they are medication and appointment reminders, lab results, vital signs, and symptoms. Age also played a factor in their willingness to share, with older patients less likely to exchange any type of data. Researchers noted that level of education, income, and trust in providers correlated with a patient’s willingness.

Other

As if the masses weren’t already glued to their smartphones: Uber offers smartphone app developers a chance to create “trip experiences” for its riders that will feed them tailored information and entertainment. (Can sponsored ads be too far behind?) I’ll throw an idea out there: Develop an app for in-labor mothers on the way to the hospital that offers breathing exercises and a contraction tracker.

Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK requires incoming freshmen to wear Fitbits, an upgrade from its previous policy that required students to keep a fitness journal and log “aerobics points.” The school will feed each student’s Fitbit data into its online learning management platform, after which it plans to look for correlations between steps taken and academic achievement.

@ValaAfshar recounts an old email from Elon Musk that outlines his disdain for industry acronyms – a stance I’m sure many in healthcare IT share. Musk explains, “Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue to new employees. No one can actually remember all these acronyms and people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. This is particularly tough on new employees. The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication.”

Sponsor Updates

• Atlanta Tech Village includes Clockwise.MD’s graduation in its list of 2015 achievements.

Blog Posts

• Using Standardized Care Plans to Drive Patient Engagement (Healthwise)
• Meaningful Use Hardship Exception Signed into Law (E-MDs)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

DOCtalk with Dr. Gregg 1/12/16

HIT by Any Other Name

Perhaps it was the passing of iconic rock legend David Bowie that got me thinking about my rock and roll years. Perhaps it was some Ziggy Stardust-type strangeness that inspired my weird side. Perhaps it was just one of those days. Regardless, it recently occurred to me that HIT might benefit from a little rock-n-roll-ness. Specifically when it comes to nomenclature, and even more specifically when it comes to product names.

My current EMR has a pretty good name; they used a synonym for the word “happiness.” I was told this name was chosen because they wanted clinicians to feel “elated” by its simple and intuitive interface and wonderful workflow design. As an end user for some time now, I’d have to admit that the name sorta fits. Maybe I’m not exactly “elated,” but its ease-of-use does make me happy.

I wonder if such product branding would actually help other providers feel better about the HIT products they use? What if you added a little rock-ness to the name game for EHRs? Would it enliven the whole spirit behind using HIT products, especially for those less likely to inspire such joie de vivre on their own merits?

Let’s try a little name game to see…

TOP 20 POTENTIAL EHR/EMR ROCKER NAMES

• From heavy metal: MEGABLOODSTAR EHR
• From classic rock: THE EHGLES EHR
• From blues rock: B.B. EHR
• From reggae: Bob EMRley
• From pop: Ziggy EHRDust (Had to be in there.)
• From glam rock: EMRli Vanilli

• From country rock: Down Home EHR
• From hip hop: Master E.H.R.
• From disco: KC & The EMR
• From 50’s rock: Elvis EHR
• From psychedelic rock: The EMR Experience
• From folk rock: Bob (Just “Bob”)
• From grunge rock: Alice in EHR
• From punk rock: The Ramones EMR (How can you mess with their name?)

• From techno rock: Daft EMR
• From surf rock: Surfin’ EHR
• From stoner rock: High-On EHR
• From southern rock: Lynyrd EMRnyrd
• From ska punk: EHRbone
• From rockabilly: Stray EHR

As we near the end of another long, here-we-go-again football season, one more came to mind. For all you fellow long-suffering (some call us just plain stupid) Cleveland Browns fans, here’s one more from a Cleveland-based band, the industrial rock-inspired: Nine Inch NEHR (NIИ).

I dunno … even with a little adapted user interface and some logo reworks to match, maybe others wouldn’t find sitting down to peck away at an EHR with a rock-inspired name to be all that inspiring, but for most folks who seem to suffer in front of their electronic health systems, I bet it couldn’t be any worse!

From the trenches…

“I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.” – David Bowie (RIP)

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 1/12/16

Top News

Rockville, MD-based DrFirst acquires e-prescribing app developer IPrescribe.net for an undisclosed sum. The company, which raised $42 million last year, is looking to expand in the areas of mobile care collaboration, e-prescribing, and medication management, according to President Cameron Deemer. “Our strong financial footing enables us to seize new opportunities that align with that mission,” he explains, “both domestically and abroad.”

Webinars

January 13 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Top 5 Benefits of Data as a Service: How Peace Health Is Breathing New Life Into Their Analytics Strategy.” Sponsored by Premier. Presenter: Erez Gordin, director of information management systems, Peace Health. Finding, acquiring, and linking data consumes 50 to 80 percent of an analyst’s time. Peace Health reduced the time analysts were spending on data wrangling, freeing them up to create new actionable insights.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

SSIMed Practice Management and EMRge Technologies – a division of Windsor, CT-based Meridian Medical Management – rebrands its medical record and billing product line to VertexDR. Vertex, in case you’re wondering, can mean “the top or apex” or “the angular point of a geometric figure.”

Aledade CEO Farzad Mostashari, MD makes the case for the independent physician practice in The Annals of Family Medicine, specifically calling out the need for four federal policies that will better support competition and patient choice:

• Put primary care rates on par with those of health systems so that physicians are less likely to jump ship for employment
• Avoid undue regulatory burdens on physicians and offer administrative relief for small practices
• Investigate complaints regarding limiting admitting privileges, restricting care by hospital employees, and vendors and health systems forcing independent physicians away from market choice.
• Allow flexibility for physician-led ACOs and prevent hospitals from “ACO squatting.”

People

The American Academy of Pediatrics promotes Alexander Fiks, MD (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) to director of its Pediatric Research in Office Settings network. Fiks will carry his research on improving outcomes through collaborative, practice-based research and healthcare technology into his new role.

Jonathan Cook (NCQA) joins Arcadia Healthcare Solutions as CTO.

Announcements and Implementations

Reconstructive Orthopedics (NJ) will implement the EClinicalWorks EHR platform, including scribe capabilities and IPad app,  at its nine locations. The 50-physician practice, the largest of its kind in the state, will also work with ECW on its PQRS initiative.

Bayou Clinic (AL) implements AssessURhealth’s mental and behavioral health assessment app. The clinic was founded by former US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD.

Iatric Systems bundles its automated patient-privacy monitoring technology with medical compliance and support services from Mindleaf Technologies, targeting stand-alone clinics and group practices.

Government and Politics

CMS develops a website for vendors looking to assist states in upgrading their Medicaid systems. The new resource includes links to state Medicaid procurement websites and open RFPs. In addition, CMS plans to develop a new certification process for Medicaid systems, publish a series of state guidance documents, and seek input from the vendor community on how the agency can better spend its dollars on technology that will better benefit state needs.

Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt sends healthcare media outlets into a tizzy with this tweet during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. The phrase “with something better” leaves a lot to the imagination, which is probably just what Slavitt intended. My one and only prediction for 2016 will be that, should CMS bring down the curtain on MU “as it has existed,” they’ll do so via press release on the Friday before a three-day weekend – or at HIMSS.

And speaking of Meaningful Use, CMS releases its latest round of payment numbers for EPs, nearly 209,000 of which will receive 2-percent cuts in their Medicare payments this year for failing to meet MU criteria in 2014.

Telemedicine

The ATA voices its support for the new, telemedicine-friendly Next Generation ACO Model, which enables provider groups to assume greater financial risk and reward. “Today is an important day for Medicare beneficiaries getting access to value-based telehealth care,” says ATA Chief Policy Officer Gary Capistrant. “We think all Medicare ACOs should be able to use telehealth to provide the Medicare range of coverage, and we hope that Congress and CMS will explore allowing more use of innovation to serve better Medicare beneficiaries.”

Acute-care management and staffing company CEP America launches the On Duty telemedicine service for independent physician associations, ACOs, hospitals, payers, and large employers.

Other

In news reminiscent of Mr. H’s recent medical records request saga, a Motherboard reporter is told by the National Security Agency that he will have to wait to three to four years for his Freedom of Information Act request to be fulfilled concerning his attempts to dig up proposed graphic designs from one of the agency’s educational coloring books (for kids, not adults). The NSA attempted to lift his spirits, urging him to “hope that your case may be assigned to a Case Officer within the next 12-18 months. Estimating an actual completion date for your case is also difficult, as it is entirely dependent on whether or not document [sic] are located, how many documents are found, and the complexity of any document located. The estimated completion date for those cases in the median range is 3-4 years. Please be advised that this estimate is subject to change.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

News 1/11/16

Top News

AMA invests $15 million to become a founding partner in Health2047 (a nod to AMA, which was founded in 1847), a for-profit company based in San Francisco that will develop new products and services to meet specific physician needs, most likely in the areas of chronic care, value-based care and payments, connected health, medical education, and networking technology. The startup will also assist other businesses, including pharmaceutical companies, in launching new products. AMA James Madara will serve as the company’s chairman, while Douglass Given (G5 Partners) will serve as CEO. The startup already has 15 staff working on potential partnerships with Silicon Valley tech companies; Given hopes that number will grow to 60 as the company matures.

Webinars

January 13 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Top 5 Benefits of Data as a Service: How Peace Health Is Breathing New Life Into Their Analytics Strategy.” Sponsored by Premier. Presenter: Erez Gordin, director of information management systems, Peace Health. Finding, acquiring, and linking data consumes 50 to 80 percent of an analyst’s time. Peace Health reduced the time analysts were spending on data wrangling, freeing them up to create new actionable insights.

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

Announcements and Implementations

Urgent care chain CityMD (NY) partners with New York City-based Zipdrug to offer drug delivery to its Murray Hill clinic customers. The company will likely expand the partnership to additional clinics next month. Zipdrug launched last summer and has raised $2.6 million. CityMD is its first “major” bricks-and-mortar partner.

Concentra expands its agreement with Allscripts to include roll out of TouchWorks to 2,000 providers plus remote hosting services from the new Allscripts facility in Kansas City, MO. The urgent care and occupational medicine company has used various Allscripts solutions like FollowMyHealth since 2011.

People

Stephany Verstraete (Truveris) joins Teladoc as chief marketing officer.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

GE Healthcare will relocate its headquarters from England to Chicago. The senior executive leadership team will move into office spaced already leased by its parent company within the next several months. CEO John Flannery attributes the move to GE Healthcare’s need to be closer to its US customers. The relocation news comes just a few weeks after the company announced that Lee Cooper will join GE Healthcare in January as president and CEO of its United States and Canada regions.

Apple acquires San Diego-based Emotient for an undisclosed sum. The San startup specializes in the development of artificial technology that analyzes facial expressions to identify people’s emotions. Primarily used by advertisers to gauge customer reactions, the company’s technology has been tested by physicians to interpret the pain levels of unresponsive patients. Apple has given no clue as to what they plan to do with Emotient’s assets, though keeping up with similar moves by Facebook and Google is probably reason enough. The company acquired another AI startup, VocalIQ, in October and filed for a related patent in 2014. 

Telemedicine

Preliminary 2015 revenue figures for Teladoc come in at $77 million – a 77-percent increase over last year’s total. Visits up by 53 percent, coming in at just under 900,000 consults. CEO Jason Gorevic predicts the company, which launched an IPO last June, will see a 50-percent increase this year in both categories. For those keeping track, Teladoc was smack dab in the middle (#10) of Mr. H’s year-end look at publicly traded health IT stock performance.

Meanwhile, American Well touts its App Annie ranking as the most downloaded telemedicine app for the second year in a row. Both news items bolster my belief that the increasingly competitive telemedicine market had a big part to play in HealthSpot’s demise.

The National Center for Policy Analysis rakes Texas over the coals in its latest report on state telemedicine policies. (As you may recall, Teladoc and the Texas Medical Board are still waging a litigious war over the company’s ability to operate in the state.) It points out that, “The protectionist policies of the Texas Medical Board threaten to undermine the effort Texas has made to increase access to medical care through telemedicine. With the population of Texas projected to double by 2050, attempting to limit telemedicine patients and providers is a dangerous bet against the future of health care in Texas.”

Mental and behavioral health telemedicine vendor Thera-Link launches an IPad app. The Dallas-based startup is planning an Android app release in the near future.

Government and Politics

CMS announces 121 new participants in its Medicare ACO program. Twenty one have joined the new Next Generation ACO Model, which offers participants the chance to take on higher levels of financial risk, while offering them prospectively set benchmarks from which to budget.

Research and Innovation

April Fool’s comes early: A new report from the Study of Maternal and Child Kissing (SMACK) Working Group finds that kisses from mom do not, in fact, alleviate the pain associated with the everyday “boo boo.” Researchers recommend a “moratorium on the practice” given that participant scores on the Toddler Discomfort Index “did not differ significantly between the maternal and sham kiss groups.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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

Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 1/10/16

Medecision releases the Aerial Insights platform, offering aggregation of real-time data feeds across health facility clinicians, locations, medical groups, and conditions; plus analytics and automation. Data feeds are sourced from admission, discharge, and transfers; EHRs; remote-monitoring devices; and digital health technologies including wearables.

Altruista Health secures an undisclosed amount of financing from investment firm Capricorn Healthcare & Special Opportunities. Washington, DC-based Altruista offers population health management solutions for care management organizations, providers, and payers. Capricorn’s healthcare IT investment portfolio also includes Epic.

Northwell Health (the former North Shore-LIJ) (NY) and consulting firm Newport Health form Health Connect Technologies, which will commercialize population health management products. The joint venture was announced in August 2015, while a pilot of HCT’s tech at Northwell Health’s Lenox Hill Hospital seems to have begun sometime in 2014. “We have seen tremendous results since piloting Health Connect,” says Gus Costalas, ED at Lenox Hill, and CFO of Northwell Health’s Western Region. “In just over 18 months, we have successfully closed the loop for thousands of patients, dramatically increasing patient satisfaction.”

The CMS Innovation Center launches a five-year pilot program to determine whether helping people with social issues related to food, housing, and transportation can improve health outcomes and reduce expenses. The Accountable Health Communities Model will provide $157 million in ACA funds to “bridge organizations” that will work to identify the social needs of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in local communities, and help connect them to best-fit programs. Initial evaluation will focus on reduction in costs, ER visits, and readmissions.

KLAS Research’s latest population health management report gives Enli Health Intelligence (fka Kryptiq) high marks for the Beaverton, OR-based company’s CareManager care coordination platform. 

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe CEO Terry Edwards is featured in a Global Big Data Conference article on health IT trends in 2016.

Blog Posts

• The Most Popular Nordic Blog Posts of 2015 (Nordic)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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