News 8/25/15

Top News

CMS publishes the July 2015 Meaningful Use update: 306,000 EPs and 4,400 EHs have attested to MU Stage 1, while 56,000 EPs and 1,500 EHs have attested for Stage 2. $31.3 billion has been paid out to date.

Webinars

September 9 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Need to cleanse, unify and manage the provider data in your EMR master file and other IT systems?” Phynd’s Unified Provider Management platform allows healthcare organizations to maintain a single, verified, customized profile for each provider across legacy IT systems. This 30-minute presentation will explain how Phynd’s system can help synchronize internal provider information in real time; create provider interoperability among systems; and manage, update, and analyze provider information with workflow tools to improve revenue cycle and clinical communication.

Previous webinars are on the YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for webinar services including discounts for signing up by Labor Day.

Announcements and Implementations

Arete Urgent Care (TX) selects DocuTap’s EHR and PM software for implementation across its five walk-in clinics.

Jopari Solutions incorporates One Call Care Management’s EZ-Auth expedited authorization and scheduling service into its provider portal to streamline worker compensation processes.

The Washington Technology Industry Association paves presumably new ground by creating health plan packages for its small- and mid-sized tech company members. Created in partnership with Premera Blue Cross, the plans meet WTIA member requests for personal health coaching, telemedicine, wearable devices, and on-site care at the workplace – all features their current health plans don’t offer and that will likely attract top talent. The association is working to roll offer additional plan benefits, including out on-site exercise centers, neighborhood health clinics, and online physician reviews, through a phased approach with help from business and provider partners.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Management consulting firm Practice Works MD opens a new office (presumably its first) in Sarasota, FL. President Karen Vale founded the company last year after a 10-year stint with Partners in Practice, which she sold in 2009 to Origin Healthcare Solutions.

Government and Politics

CMS schedules three September webinars to help physicians understand how their measures may be publicly reported on the Physician Compare website.

Telemedicine

The Iowa Clinic selects the VirtuMedix platform from TeleCommunication Systems to provide telemedicine care via its new eClinic service. The clinic cares for 400,000 patients annually across 37 specialties including family medicine.

The Dallas Observer points out the dismal healthcare quality rankings of Texas, which beat out only Louisiana and Oklahoma in annual HHS rankings – an honor the paper deems “the rough equivalent of beating a couple of asthmatic 4-year-olds in a foot race.” The state scored particularly low in hospital admissions for uncontrolled diabetes without complications and avoidable admissions for hypertension, two categories of care that could likely benefit from the integration of telemedicine. While the state has loosened up its regulations where school-based telemedicine is concerned, the legal wrangling continues over licensure and reimbursement issues that would promote widespread adoption by Texas physicians. 

Research and Innovation

Researchers conclude that EHR-based trigger algorithms that identify patients at risk of diagnostic delays stand a good chance of preventing delays in diagnostic evaluation for cancer. A seven-month study with 72 PCPs at two sites found that time to evaluation was significantly lower in intervention patients than in control patients, leading researchers to conclude the algorithm may be beneficial in screening patients with other conditions.

Other

Following news of the Dow’s plunge, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sends an email to employees encouraging them to keep customer worries and company success top of mind. Imagine how this portion would read if you replaced “customer” with “patient.” I can’t help but think of the impact it would have on provider teams if they received a message like this every once in awhile from their executive leadership.

“Our customers are likely to experience an increased level of anxiety and concern. Please recognize this and – as you always have – remember that our success is not an entitlement, but something we need to earn, every day. Let’s be very sensitive to the pressures our customers may be feeling, and do everything we can to individually and collectively exceed their expectations.”

Contacts

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

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5 Questions With Mike Kasper, CEO, DuPage Medical Group

Mike Kasper is CEO of DuPage Medical Group, the largest independent physicians group in Chicago. DMG recently announced a partnership with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois that will enable its 425 physicians to access BCBSIL data on the cost and quality of services patients receive when they receive care outside of the group. In addition to slicing and dicing BCBSIL data, DMG is preparing to roll out ICD-10 and integrate the IT systems of Meridian Medical Associates, a multispecialty medical practice with seven locations in Illinois that it will formally acquire on October 1. The group is also busy working on offering telemedicine visits to its pediatric patients this fall. The Epic shop has been offering video visits to its adult patients through MyChart since February 2015.

What will the BCBSIL agreement mean to DMG physicians? What impact will the data arrangement have on patient care?
The agreement with BCBSIL is unique in that for the first time, a payer and provider will collaborate and share data to ensure our physicians are armed with information on what sites of service offer the best quality, outcomes, and safety for patients. BCBSIL has a claims view of services, which really helps define performance at a high level, while the EHR view of the patient provides a more complete clinical view patient by patient. Melding these two perspectives together will provide a complete view for our doctors to make the best decisions for patients at the point of service.  This value-based approach will also help guide patients to safe, convenient, accessible sites for services.

How will access to this data impact DMG’s bottom line? Do you expect to see an uptick in incentive payments?
The collaboration will help DMG doctors provide the right service at the right time in the right place. This will improve quality and decrease cost of care; as improvement is demonstrated there is an opportunity for DMG to be recognized financially.

How does DMG receive the data, and how often is it received/updated?
There will be some raw exchange of data, but the goal is to have each organization use their unique data set to come up with actionable items based on the analysis each of us perform.

I know you’re only a few weeks in, but have you already seen any type of claims data that has surprised you?
We have started to share information, and the most interesting/important insight is that lower unit-cost pricing at the facility level does not equal a lower overall cost of care. Once you start to factor in avoidable complications, like 30-day readmissions for the same diagnosis, or infection rates, unit-cost pricing becomes less important. Those facilities that provide the highest quality and safety become the most cost effective, even if they are not the lowest unit-cost option.

How will DMG incorporate technology to interpret and act upon the data?
DMG will use analytics and other dashboard-type tools to help us visualize the data and put it to use in a meaningful way to positively improve the patient experience.

What goals do you have for this new arrangement? Any advice to share with other independent physician groups who may be looking at the same type of partnership in their markets?
BCBSIL is making a bold statement with this agreement. They are recognizing the value of the independent physician in the system. Independent doctors are free to pursue the highest quality/lowest cost options in the market without having the conflict that hospital-employed physicians face. Employed physicians are bound to the facility they are employed by; independent doctors are not.

Advice for others – DMG has been on a multi-year journey and we have stayed true to our doctor-directed roots. If independent physicians come together and commit to providing high quality, high value healthcare services, they will create an opportunity to work more closely with payers.

Contacts

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

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News 8/24/15

Top News

After a flurry of mostly negative press last week over the company’s downplayed CEO switch, Practice Fusion announces partnerships with Theranos and outpatient imaging services company RadNet via a Forbes editorial penned by Lenox Hill Hospital (NY) physician Robert Glatter, MD. (Glatter’s over-the-top flattery immediately made me question his ties to the company. After some diligent Googling, I could find no record of a previous or current connection.) The article is scant on details of how the partnerships will work moving forward, thought it does offer interim CEO Tom Langan an opportunity to flex his newly acquired executive muscles. He assures readers in a slightly more detailed press release that, “With nearly 1 million lab and imaging transmissions a month facilitated on the Practice Fusion platform, we are excited about the value that the Theranos and RadNet partnership can help provide as we continue to be the nation’s largest and fastest-growing healthcare platform.”

Webinars

August 25 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens: An Update (Including the DoD Project).” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Vince Ciotti, principal, HIS Professionals; Frank Poggio, president and CEO, The Kelzon Group. Vince and Frank delivered HIStalk’s most popular webinar, "Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens, Are You Ready?" which has been viewed nearly 6,000 times. Vince and Frank return with their brutally honest (and often humorous) opinions about what has happened with Cerner since then, including its participation in the successful DoD bid and what that might mean for Cerner’s customers and competitors, based on their having seen it all in their decades of experience.

September 9 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Need to cleanse, unify and manage the provider data in your EMR master file and other IT systems?” Phynd’s Unified Provider Management platform allows healthcare organizations to maintain a single, verified, customized profile for each provider across legacy IT systems. This 30-minute presentation will explain how Phynd’s system can help synchronize internal provider information in real time; create provider interoperability among systems; and manage, update, and analyze provider information with workflow tools to improve revenue cycle and clinical communication.

Previous webinars are on the YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for webinar services including discounts for signing up by Labor Day.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

New York City-based Jaan Health secures up to $1 million from Malin Corp., a  global life sciences business based in Ireland. Jaan Health will no doubt use the funding to ramp up development of its Web-based Phamily community care coordination platform. CEO Nabeel Kaukab comes from Barclays Investment Bank, continuing the dicey tradition of industry outsiders looking to cash in on what seems like the easy in of digital health.

SkinVision, an Amsterdam-based startup that has developed a skin cancer detection app, secures $3.4 million in funding from European pharmaceutical company Leo Pharma. The company has hinted it’s looking to expand into the U.S. healthcare market as a result of the new financing, but it may find regulatory hurdles too burdensome to deal with.  The FTC has been quick to crack down on similar apps in the U.S., including MelApp and Mole Detective, for unsubstantiated marketing claims.

Announcements and Implementations

Genesis Chiropractic Software releases the Genesis GEMs Plus adaptable tool to help chiropractic practices before, during, and after the ICD-10 transition.

Zoom+ takes urgent care one step further with the opening of its Zoom+Super facility in Portland. Billed as an alternative to traditional ERs, the center offers “ER doctors on demand,” with complete treatment costs including labs, X-rays, scans, and medications coming in at a nice round $299.

Telemedicine

HealthSpot incorporates Samsung’s LabGeo PT10 clinical chemistry analyzer to offer lab services at its telemedicine kiosks. Pending FDA approval, HealthSpot patients will be able to obtain blood tests for cholesterol, diabetes , and liver tests in under 7 minutes, with results automatically submitted to their EHR and PHR.

The Colorado Medical Board adopts telemedicine-friendly legislation that allows physicians to treat first-time patients online “so long as the relationship is established in conformance with generally accepted standards of practice.”

Texas passes legislation that will reimburse physicians for school-based telemedicine, provided students covered by Medicaid. The law, which goes into effect September 1, follows in the footsteps of similar programs in New Mexico and Georgia.

Government and Politics

The Federation of State Medical Boards relaunches Docinfo, an online search tool that presents consumers with licensure and disciplinary information on nearly 1 million physicians across the country.

Other

Physicians in Coachella Valley, CA find success with Eisenhower Primary Care 365, a direct primary care program that offers, among other benefits, constant email access via RelayHealth to participating physicians at less than half the price of concierge practices. Founded in 2009 as a way to lure local physicians away from proliferating and increasingly competitive concierge practices, the program now has 14 physicians caring for 6,500 patients at four locations in the valley.

Banksy, the reclusive yet prolific urban artist who has made a name for himself (or themselves) via various forms of social-awareness-raising street art, opens Dismaland in Weston-super-mare, an English coastal town that has definitely seen better days. Billed as “the U.K.’s most disappointing new visitor attraction,” the pop-up art exhibition covers 2.5 acres and brings new meaning to the term “theme park.” (You have to wonder what the first aid station looks like.)

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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Population Health Management Weekly Wrap Up 8/21/15

Top News

Mercy Health, Ohio’s fourth largest employer, expands its partnership with Premier to advance population health management initiatives at its 23 hospitals across Ohio and Kentucky. The Catholic health system will utilize the Charlotte, N.C.-based vendor’s integrated pharmacy and care management program, which aggregates clinical data to help improve care for complex and often chronically ill patient populations. The announcement comes just a week after Premier announced its acquisition of financial analytics vendor Healthcare Insight for $65 million in cash.

Webinars

August 25 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens: An Update (Including the DoD Project).” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Vince Ciotti, principal, HIS Professionals; Frank Poggio, president and CEO, The Kelzon Group. Vince and Frank delivered HIStalk’s most popular webinar, "Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens, Are You Ready?" which has been viewed nearly 6,000 times. Vince and Frank return with their brutally honest (and often humorous) opinions about what has happened with Cerner since then, including its participation in the successful DoD bid and what that might mean for Cerner’s customers and competitors, based on their having seen it all in their decades of experience.

September 9 (Wednesday) 2:00 ET. “Need to cleanse, unify and manage the provider data in your EMR master file and other IT systems?” Phynd’s Unified Provider Management platform allows healthcare organizations to maintain a single, verified, customized profile for each provider across legacy IT systems. This 30-minute presentation will explain how Phynd’s system can help synchronize internal provider information in real time; create provider interoperability among systems; and manage, update, and analyze provider information with workflow tools to improve revenue cycle and clinical communication.

Previous webinars are on the YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for webinar services including discounts for signing up by Labor Day.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Denver-based predictive analytics vendor NextHealth Technologies raises $1 million in funding from investors that include Nuance Healthcare President Trace Devanny.

Announcements and Implementations

Beaufort Memorial Hospital (SC) adds the Navigate population health management tool to its list of Influence Health solutions, which already includes a CRM and enterprise patient portal. Fun fact: BMH is one of the few hospitals in the country with its own emergency dock.

Signature Healthcare (MA) partners with Aegis Health Group to implement the OneCommunity population health website. The new site, geared towards local businesses, will offer employees the ability to record and track health data, and access health reports and customized content, including relevant hospital services.

The Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation selects Virtual Health’s population health management platform to help reduce the risk of readmissions. Once integrated with the institute’s EHR, the new platform will automatically deliver patient discharge orders, medication lists, and educational materials.

Salt Lake City-based Equation adds Market Analyzer to its DataRiver BI platform, offering hospital executives the ability to benchmark competitor services and identify areas for growth.

Government and Politics

Director of National Drug Control Policy Michael Botticelli announces $13.4 million in funding for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) programs, which coordinate drug enforcement operations, support prevention efforts, and improve public health and safety. The healthcare tie-in can be found in the $2.5 million that will go towards sharing data to combat the epidemic in five HIDTAs spanning 15 states. Epidemiologists, police officers, and health policy analysts will partner to provide each other timely access to potentially life-saving information. Law enforcement will gain better knowledge of heroin overdoses and ED visits, while public health officials will gain insight into community trends related to heroin tracking.

People

William Tierney, MD (Regenstrief Institute) is named inaugural chair of population health for Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Meg Aranow (The Advisory Board) joins SRG Technology as senior vice president of technology.

Verisk Analytics promotes Nick Daffan to CIO.

Research and Innovation

The California Health and Human Services Agency and the California Dept. of Public Health seek submissions through September 30 for the Let’s Get Healthy California Innovation Challenge. Open-data developers are encouraged to submit ideas in one of six categories including Healthy Beginnings, Living Well, End of Life, Redesigning the Health System, Creating Healthy Communities, and Lowering Cost of Care. Finalists will be featured on the Let’s Get Healthy California online portal and at the corresponding conference early next year.

San Diego County and Virginia Commonwealth University launch the “Big Data and a Culture of Health” project to better understand the impact transportation and housing projects have on public health. Researchers hope to find correlations between demographics and de-identified EHR data that will help them better address health issues such as Alzheimer’s, asthma, and obesity. “Those kinds of capacities exist, and are part of the future,” explains lead researcher Steven Woolf, adding that advertisers are already using them to understand consumer shopping habits, so why shouldn’t physicians use them to help improve health outcomes?

Other

As Hurricane Katrina’s tenth anniversary looms, Ochsner Health System President and CEO Warner Thomas reflects on the progressive healthcare ecosystem that has evolved out of the natural disaster’s aftermath:

“We are constantly evolving to meet the needs of a new world in healthcare, and continue to capitalize on opportunities to be innovative and creative about how we educate and care for our patients, especially those suffering from chronic diseases. A broad spectrum of partners from the community have worked together to improve population health by opening over 70 neighborhood health clinics to address the ongoing need for primary care and disease prevention so that residents now have more access to care. These are just a few examples of the exponential progress New Orleans has made within the healthcare industry.”

Ochsner was one of only three hospitals that remained opened during and after Katrina. Mr. H interviewed then Senior Vice President/CIO Chris Belmont back in 2013 about the hospital’s Katrina experience from an IT perspective. My favorite quote: “When I talk about EMR adoption, I tell them all you have to do is throw a Category 5 hurricane in your city. It’s amazing how EMR adoption ramps up.”

Sponsor Updates

• ESD is included on the Inc. 500. Nordic also made the list.
• Nordic will exhibit at NeXXpo August 25 in Madison, WI.
• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the Collaborative Care Summit 2015 August 20-21 in San Diego.
• Greenway Health offers “Patient Engagement: Is Fear of Commitment Keeping Your Patients From Getting Engaged?”
• Healthwise offers “Exploring the relationship between plain language and ethics.”

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 8/20/15

Top News

Grand Rounds lands $55 million in Series C funding from existing investors Greylock, Venrock, Harrison Metal, and David Ebersman, plus an unnamed global mutual fund. The San Francisco-based company will use the cash infusion to scale up staffing and development of its Web-based patient/physician matching tool, offered primarily to consumers through their employers. The new round of financing brings the company’s total to $106 million.

Webinars

August 25 (Tuesday) 1:00 ET. “Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens: An Update (Including the DoD Project).” Sponsored by HIStalk. Presenters: Vince Ciotti, principal, HIS Professionals; Frank Poggio, president and CEO, The Kelzon Group. Vince and Frank delivered HIStalk’s most popular webinar, "Cerner’s Takeover of Siemens, Are You Ready?" which has been viewed nearly 6,000 times. Vince and Frank return with their brutally honest (and often humorous) opinions about what has happened with Cerner since then, including its participation in the successful DoD bid and what that might mean for Cerner’s customers and competitors, based on their having seen it all in their decades of experience.

Previous webinars are on the YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for webinar services including discounts for signing up by Labor Day.

#HIStalking Tweet Chat: Compliance from the Patient’s Point of View

Amy Gleason (@ThePatientsSide), CareSync COO and White House Champion of Change for Precision Medicine, led us through an engaging #HIStalking discussion on using healthcare technology to drive patient compliance. Check out the recap here.

Announcements and Implementations

New York City-based Physicians Family Health Service implements IPatientCare’s EHR and PM systems at its Manhattan location.

Panasonic incorporates Acuant’s MediScan patient credentialing software into its KV-S1015c and KV-S1057c scanners.

Luminello incorporates e-prescribing technology from DoseSpot into its EHR for psychiatrists.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

ICDLogic partners with PM consulting and training firm Karen Zupko & Associates to bring its Cypher ICD-10 software solution to market. The company has also inked a deal with MGMA to offer the new tool in the association’s online store.

United Cannabis Corp. opens its first California-based Advanced Cannabinoid Therapy (A.C.T.) Now Clinic at the medical marijuana-friendly (and previously raided) Harborside Health Center in Oakland, equipped with a home-grown cloud-based EHR and patient portal.

Research and Innovation

A study of 22 patients with multiple chronic conditions finds they aren’t as jazzed about tracking their health data as recent patient data advocacy movements would have us believe. Digging deeper, researchers found that patients felt they were keeping up with data for their physicians, rather than themselves, and were surprised to learn that physicians rarely reviewed the data because they assumed it was unreliable. Researchers concluded that “Novel [consumer HIT] technologies are likely to be successful only if they clearly reduce patient inconvenience and burden, helping them to accomplish their ‘illness work’ more efficiently and effectively.”

People

Tom Torre joins medical bill-negotiating startup CoPatient as CEO. Torre comes from CoPatient’s partner and healthcare payments technology company Alegeus Technologies. Boston-based CoPatient was founded by ex-Athenahealthers Palm and Katie Vahle, who plan to move the four year-old company to new, roomier headquarters this fall.

Telemedicine

Boca Raton, FL-based Modernizing Medicine adds telemedicine capability to its EMA Dermatology EHR. The company plans to add telemedicine tech to its other specialty EHRs, but hasn’t yet determined timing.

Government and Politics

Washington, D.C.’s Health Link insurance exchange launches the Universal Doctor Directory 1.0 to help consumers more easily determine which physicians accept the exchange’s health plans. The move is part of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority’s broader efforts to make the site more user friendly, and to clean up incorrect physician contact information.

The State of New Mexico’s Human Services Dept. moves forward with development of an All Payers Claims Database, announcing plans to hire a  consultant next month to assist with planning. State legislators passed a law earlier this year requiring the state’s Health Dept. to make hospital-specific cost and quality-of-care data freely accessible by 2017.

Other

Practicing psychiatrists Steven Buser, MD and Leonard Cruz, MD publish “DSM-5 Insanely Simplified: Unlocking the Spectrums within DSM-5 and ICD-10” to assist therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists with the transition to the new classifications. Cruz amusingly notes in his author bio that his tastes have progressed over the years to from Archie Comics and Mad Magazine to Freud for Beginners. “Naturally,” he adds, “the opportunity to co-author a serious book on DSM-5 and ICD-10 utilizing cartoons was irresistible.”

Speaking of psychiatry … climbing the corporate ladder may not be all it’s cracked up to be: Researchers at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health find that people towards the middle of social hierarchies suffer higher rates of anxiety and depression based on their social class and position of power in the labor market. The new findings jive with prior research, which has shown that workers with greater job demands and few opportunities for decision-making exhibit higher rates of depressive symptoms.

The local paper profiles the ultimately positive experience ProHealth Physicians (CT) has had with its Allscripts FollowMyHealth patient portal since implementation four years ago. “I think initially there was a concern on the part of physicians that it might mean patients were pestering them all the time,” says Bethany Kieley, vice president of practice operations. “But that really doesn’t happen. We found that patients are very respectful of the technology.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.
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