News 7/15/14

Top News

National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD reorganizes the Health IT Policy Committee, cutting six working groups and consolidating several others. The working groups now include Strategy and Innovation; Advanced Health Models and Meaningful Use; Implementation, Usability & Safety; Interoperability & HIE; Privacy and Security; and Consumer Perspective and Engagement. While some say the reshuffle and recent spate of staff members leaving for new endeavors signals the beginning of ONC’s end, I’ll play devil’s advocate and suggest these changes are the result of goals met and a job well done. HITECH Act funding has been meted out, EHR adoption seems to have finally reached a level of mass critical enough for analytics, and Meaningful Use attestations (despite physician grumblings) continue to increase, albeit slowly. I’m hoping Micky Tripathi, a  HIStalk Practice contributor and co-chair of the Interoperability and HIE group, will provide his two cents on on the committee’s progress.

Aledade, the new physician ACO venture led by former ONC head Farzad Mostashari, MD teams again with nonprofit Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care to apply for ACO status. To qualify, Aledade and AFMC are working to sign up between 30 and 50 Arkansas physicians who have at least 5,000 combined Medicare patients. Aledade Arkansas will be set up as a LLC with a 12-member board that includes nine physicians, a physical therapist, and two Aledade managers. Mostashari’s company previously worked with AFMC to help 1,600 Arkansas doctors implement EHRs.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Don’t miss the next HIStalk webinar, “Enterprise Data – an Untapped Asset for Succeeding as Healthcare Changes,” taking place Wednesday, July 30 at 1pm ET. Presenters Jonathan Velez, MD CMIO at Hartford Healthcare Corp., and Randy Thomas, Associate Partner at Encore, a Quintiles Company,  will cover:

• Why the transition from fee-for-service to fee-for-value requires integrated data
• Why it is critical to “begin with the end in mind” in creating your analytics solutions
• How a data strategy helps healthcare providers
• Why data governance is critical in healthcare
• The role enterprise data warehouses and HIEs play in health analytics and
• Where your organization fits in the health analytics maturity model

Thanks to the following sponsors, new and renewing, that recently supported HIStalk Practice, HIStalk, and HIStalk Connect. Click a logo for more information.

Watching: The Institute, one of the most bizarre documentaries I’ve ever seen. The film, which has a faint Twin Peaks vibe, chronicles the mysterious rise and short-lived popularity of a secret underground community of life gamers in San Francisco.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Patient Engagement Systems launches Care Manager Web Portal for the care of patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease. The new portal is targeted to healthcare organizations participating in ACOs or other value-based reimbursement programs.

Lumin Medical purchases patient-tracking solutions and sign-in kiosk developer PatientTrak, and announces it will move its headquarters from Illinois to Franklin, WI. It seems likely Lumin will also take on the PatientTrak brand, as a quick Google search turned up zero results for the acquiring company.

Greg Bottaro, PsyD launches WellCatholic, a website that aims to link Catholic patients with physicians of all medical disciplines who maintain Catholic values in their practices. It’s an interesting concept given today’s political climate. Bottaro notes that “[T]here’s definitely a huge demand for healthcare” that respects a patient’s beliefs, as well as those of their health provider.

Announcements and Implementations

MSC Cruises becomes the first cruise line to offer a multilingual pediatric telemedicine service thanks to a partnership with specialists at the Giannina Gaslini Paediatric Institute in Italy and technology from Carestream. The cruise line already offers adult teleradiology and teleconsultation services.

The Arizona Care Network becomes the first ACO to offers its members the Propeller Health (fka Asthmapolis) digital solution for chronic respiratory disease. The COPD solution is a combination of sensors, mobile apps, analytics, and personalized feedback that promotes maintenance therapy adherence. It also remotely monitors use of rescue medications to predict exacerbations and facilitate early intervention by care teams.

The local paper profiles the opening of the SwedishAmerican Medical Group Stateline Clinic (IL), which features an interesting design change related to HIT: Computer screens can now easily face the patient and doctor. While the article suggests it is a “simple solution that wouldn’t normally be looked at,” it is probably high on the list of changes many physicians would like to see with regard to tethered computer placement in the exam room. Our family pediatrician, who has been known to call EHRs “meaningfully useless,” does appreciate the analytics and population health management tools they afford, but bemoans the lack of eye contact they cause with his young patients.

Government and Politics

The local paper details the state of Connecticut’s proposed Guide Path program that would assist practices in becoming patient-centered medical homes. While physicians already participating in the Medicaid model have seen a 2-percent cut in per-person costs and a 32-percent increase in the number of participants, many struggle with adopting the model due to the high costs of EHR implementation. "We take pride in the high-quality care that our patients receive, but that doesn’t help pay for raises,” says David Howlett, MD, who operates a PCMH at East Granby Family Practice.

HHS seems to be on a bit of a spending spree lately. After announcing the availability last week of $100 million to support 150 new health centers, the department invests $100 million in technical support for Medicaid programs. The new Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program aims to develop resources to support state-based healthcare reform efforts that will improve service delivery and bring down costs.

The state of Vermont may be filling out its Medicaid IAP application right now, as it looks for a technology firm to overhaul its Medicaid management information system to the tune of $70 million. The RFP in circulation is part of a larger $400 million IT overhaul that will include the state’s health insurance exchange.

Research and Innovation

A comparative study of EHR use in seven independent primary care practices finds workarounds for a number of problems including user interface issues, barriers to electronic health information exchange with outside organizations, and struggles to incorporate new technologies into existing office space. Researchers spent one month in each practice to observe EHR use, interview clinicians and staff, and conduct patient pathways.

Arizona State University’s Center for Sustainable Health launches Project Honeybee to bring ASU’s network of partners and resources together to respond to healthcare issues. The project will first focus on harnessing the growth in wearable biosensors for clinical applications through a data-validation approach. “Within 10 years, every patient will be monitored by devices,” said Leland “Lee” Hartwell, the center’s chief scientist, at a forum introducing the project. “While there are lots of new discoveries, the translation into the clinic for utility is nearly zero. We need to create a process to make this technology reliable and useful, with new capabilities, to find out the best application that will have the greatest impact on medicine, and give patients control of their own health.”

Google and the Alcon eyewear division of Novartis announce they will create a smart contact lens that can measure a diabetic’s blood sugar level directly from tear fluid on the surface of the eye. The lens, which will contain a low-power microchip and nearly invisible electronic circuit, will send that data to the wearer via mobile device. Novartis also hopes to develop lens technology that will enable long-sighted people to autofocus on what they are looking at, preventing the need for glasses.

People

GE Healthcare promotes Eric Stahre to the head of its molecular imaging and computed tomography unit. Stahre takes over from Steve Gray, who has been named president and CEO of the detection and guidance solutions unit.

Mark Scruggs returns to Zotec Partners as a partner of corporate strategy.

Other

Microsoft accurately predicts the winner of the World Cup. Its prediction engine – put into play as a marketing stunt for the company’s Bing search engine – also accurately predicted every stage of the event’s knockout rounds. Some (i.e. people with too much time on their hands) have compared the prediction to the success of Paul the octopus in predicting Germany’s 2010 World Cup games.

Speaking of search results, Elle magazine profiles top Google white hat hacker Parisa Tabriz, who leads a team of engineers to discover weaknesses in Google Chrome. I love that Tabriz opted for the official title of Security Princess, rather than Information Security Engineer, which she tells the magazine is “just completely dry and boring and horrible.”

I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of this fashionable tape dispenser during a leisurely stroll through my favorite big box store. While I don’t have quite the shoe fetish that my fabulous predecessor did, I do appreciate a pair of fashionable yet practical pumps.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
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DOCtalk by Dr. Gregg 7/14/14

Just Another Pug

By sheer force of will, he pulled himself up from his corner stool. He gripped the ropes for an extra second to make sure his buckling knees would hold. What round was this? He wasn’t sure. The twelfth? Thirteenth? It felt like the four hundredth. He was a game pug, always ready for the fight, but this one seemed like it might be one fight too many. He remembered Ferdie “The Fight Doctor” Pacheco’s famous line: “They only made one mistake; they signed this fight.”

The bell rang. He drew a deep breath, brought his gloves to his face, and again entered the fray.

His eyes were so swollen he could no longer clearly see his opponent’s face. It could have been anybody peppering him with those barrages of body blows and hammering head shots. As he neared center ring – and his nemesis – he thought back to his glory days, when he easily vanquished every foe. He had stood so long and faced so many; his record was impressive with many wins and only a draw or two.

As the right jab snapped his head back – and snapped his mind back to the present – he realized his heydays were probably past. The following left hook confirmed this as his brain repeatedly bounced back and forth within his skull.

WHAM! The Meaningful Use left staggered him. Endless check boxes and extra steps required to document what he’d always done so that somebody somewhere could tell him that he’d done it whirled through his brain.

POW! The insurance company uppercut caught him right under the chin. Declining reimbursements, endless denials, appeal after appeal, and red tape for red tape’s sake left him woozy.

His counterpunches were useless and no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to cover up enough.

UGH! The thunderous EHR blow to his midsection almost made him upchuck. He was no slouch, but figuring out which EHR would work for him at a cost that wouldn’t cripple his already slim operating margins was a gut-wrenching challenge. Even worse was the task of finding one with a workflow that actually flowed; most “flowed” about as well as punch drunk’s vocabulary; well-intended, but stuttering, rambling, and often without apparent purpose.

BLAM! The vaccine reimbursement roundhouse sent him into the ropes. He had always tried to keep his guard up – and those of his patients – by offering immunizations to every paying customer. He was staggered when he discovered that one of his karmic good gestures had backfired: He took military insurance to help veteran’s families the way he felt they should be helped, only to find that he was bleeding money every time he gave a vaccine to one of them. The military insurance, it seems, didn’t feel obligated to pay him for the full cost of the vaccines. In fact, they didn’t even come close. The financial blood gushed out.

THUD! The ACA kidney punch was a powerhouse. When one of the largest state university medical centers decided they wouldn’t accept any insurance obtained through the Healthcare.gov site, he lost a major nearby referral base for his many of his families. The ACA had helped many of the poor and underpaid of his community – and he was grateful to see them helped – but why the politics of big institutions had to then slam other good folks was beyond his pugilistic fathoming.

He tried to work his way inside, to tie up his opponent with a clinch to stop this incessant pounding. His heavyweight counterpart pushed him aside as if he were a mere featherweight.

CRACK! CRACK! Despite his best bob and weave, he was struck by a right cross from the declining appointments that the changes in insurance coverage had wrought. Despite more folks getting covered, many now had such high deductibles that they put off doctor visits more and more. They previously might have been regulars, doing all the recommended follow-ups and such, but their pocketbooks now demanded putting off doctor appointments in favor of paying rent or buying food.

CRASH! The liver shot of ever higher overheads and staffing costs sent him reeling.

BOOM! The rabbit punch to his clouded skull of constant hardware and software upgrades, repairs, or replacements caught him off guard. (He briefly flashed upon days gone by when documentation upgrades involved new pens or nicer paper and when hardware repairs involved Scotch Tape.)

He staggered forward as the ref penalized his opponent for the illegal hit to the back of his head. The penalty was shrugged off by a smirk as his adversary closed in with a glint in his eye, that look of coming in for the kill.

BAM! The corkscrew punch of fellow independent providers leaving the fight and joining the Big Gym of ACOs and mass group practices sent sharp spikes down his spine and stars up before his eyes.

Just as it looked like there was no more room to hide within the seemingly shrinking confines of his four-sided ring, the bell sounded!

He had survived one more round.

Bleeding and bruised, he shuffled to his corner. He wondered just how many more rounds he could go. He was a gamer, pound-for-pound one of the strongest ever. He had a good set of whiskers and was known as a brawler. But, he was definitely shopworn. Was he also a faded fighter, past his prime? Could he bring enough to the canvas to go even one more round? Were the opponents of today too much for him?

As the cutman applied the enswell to his eye and his corner man jabbered on about some tactic he couldn’t quite hear because of his now bilateral cauliflower ears, he considered his options. Maybe he could try to play possum. Maybe try Ali’s rope-a-dope. He even though he might have to resort to a Tyson-eque ear chomping. Hmmm…

He gnashed his teeth as he glowered at his rival. He wasn’t yet ready to throw in the towel.

From the embattled trenches…

“No mas.” – Roberto Duran

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, and sits on the board of directors of the Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP).

News 7/10/14

Top News

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announces the availability of $100 million from the Affordable Care Act to support 150 new health center sites across the country in 2015. The funds will likely add to the 550-plus health centers that have sprung up in the last three years thanks to ACA funding. Today, over 1,200 health centers provide care to over 21 million patients across 9,200 delivery sites. Community-based organizations that deliver primary care have until August 20 to complete the first part of the application process.

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine finds that the Department of Homeland Security is struggling to implement an enterprise-wide electronic health management system capable of collecting and analyzing the health data of its 200,000 employees. The 380-page document notes that, “Although DHS is moving toward an enterprise approach to HIT, the committee did not find evidence that the department is fully aware of the informatics capability required to maximize the potential of an integrated health information management system.” The department is apparently in the process of acquiring  such a system, but funding has not yet been approved. No doubt its HIT needs have been put on hold while the DoD and VA get their respective problems sorted out.

Announcements and Implementations

Cigna announces it has achieved its 2014 goal of creating 100 Cigna Collaborative Care arrangements with large physician groups that reach 1 million customers. While the announcement doesn’t specifically note technology’s role in the success of the programs, I can only assume it played an important one given several of Cigna’s noted keys to success: sharing claims data; predictive modeling; communication and collaboration; and clinical integration.

NuPhysicia Inc. (TX) launches a telemedicine-based tobacco cessation program for Caterpillar sales and service company Mustang CAT, already a customer of NuPhysicia’s telemedicine on-site clinic service. Clinic medical staff will deliver live, face-to-face counseling via videophone to employees enrolled in the program.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Allscripts acquires Oasis Medical Solutions Ltd., a privately held, London-based provider of patient administration systems and health informatics solutions. Allscripts will combine the Oasis PAS technology with its Sunrise clinical platform to offer a single-source electronic patient record solution throughout the U.K.

Following a disappointing second quarter, Royal Philips announces it will implement a new management structure within its healthcare sector, with all healthcare business groups reporting directly to Philips CEO Frans van Houten. Philips Healthcare CEO Deborah DiSanzo has decided to leave the company.

IOD Inc. and athenahealth partner to offer IOD’s ICD-10 readiness program to athenahealth customers via its More Disruption Please program. The ICD-10 program includes terminology training for coding and billing staff, online education for physicians, documentation training for clinicians, and an interactive platform to share ongoing best practices.

Government and Politics

The ONC Health IT Policy Committee meeting presents data that show that, as of July 1, over 2,800 eligible professionals have attested for Meaningful Use for the 2014 reporting year, with 443 new participants, and 972 eligible professionals attesting for Stage 2. Eight EHR vendors are used by those who have attested for Stage 2, with 61 percent using athenahealth and 20 percent Epic. This reporting period marks the first time CMS has conducted them based on calendar quarters rather than 90-day timeframes.

Students have just one day left to apply for an unpaid ONC internship in Washington, D.C. The chosen one will assist with such projects as high quality research memos, the preparation of background memos for the National Coordinator in advance of meetings, assisting with the legislative affairs portfolio and the execution of large meetings, and performing some administrative duties, among other tasks.

Research and Innovation

A new study examines characteristics associated with enrollment in and utilization of portals by patients with diabetes. Barriers to enrollment included a lack of patient capacity, desire, and awareness of portal functions. Barriers to utilization included patient capacity, lack of provider and patient buy-in, and negative usage experience.  It seems to me that diabetic patient utilization faces many of the same challenges that non-diabetic patient utilization does, all of which likely stem from provider buy-in and patient education.

Survey results find that EHR adoption and implementation issues rank as the number-one IT problem of physicians for the second year in a row. A lack of interoperability between EHRs, and implementation and utilization costs follow closely behind, though costs are not of as much concern as they were last year.

People

HealthTrust appoints Kent Petty (Wellmont Health System) as CIO.

Other

Researchers at GE develop a prototype device that will one day determine the calories in a plate of food, and deliver that data to consumers via smartphone. The device, which uses microwaves to measure fat content, water content, and weight, right now only works on blended foods. The company is already thinking ahead to incorporating the technology into microwave ovens and other kitchen appliances. Those of us that have abandoned tedious calorie-counting apps after just a week or two may also find this sort of “baked in” technology better able to deter us from unhealthy choices. I’d like to think this is the sort of innovation Jack Donaghy would be proud of.

Sponsor Updates

• Hennepin County Medical Center (MN) details how it was able to save almost $11 million after working with Leidos Health on a revenue cycle optimization plan.
• Hayes Management Consulting explains the details of decision support extracts. 
• DrFirst announces in a new briefing that there are now over 28,000 pharmacies nationwide that accept electronic prescriptions for controlled substances.
• NextGen forms an agreement with HMC/CAH Consolidated Inc. by which NextGen solutions will be deployed at five of HMC’s critical access hospitals.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.

News 7/8/14

Top News

Siemens AG is reportedly considering the sale of its healthcare IT unit (potentially worth over $1.4 billion) to focus on its industrial and energy businesses. The company is already spinning off its hearing-aids unit in an effort to give its healthcare businesses “operational independence,” and considered selling its microbiology unit earlier this year. If the report is true, it will be an odd move given that healthcare was one of the company’s most profitable business in 2013. Other than the recent DoD EHR Update from Dim-Sum, I have not heard of anything concrete regarding a likely Siemens bid for the DoD EHR contract. Perhaps it is staying out of the fray for this very reason. A HIStalk Practice reader familiar with these types of M&A scenarios notes that this rumbling is “sort of like rumors of  McKesson selling off its IT division. They both keep losing customers, so who would want to jump on that mess? But, Siemens probably feels it’s best to sell now before it is worth less.”

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

I had the opportunity to tune in to “The CIO’s Role in Consumer Health,” the recent HIStalk webinar featuring David Chou, CIO at University of Mississippi Medical Center. Chou touched on a number of ways consumer health is forcing the hand of hospital executives, as they try to keep up with the demands of an increasingly tech-savvy patient population. Chou also gave his two cents on the way in which consumer health is impacting physician practices: “It is making physician practices act more as business entities, rather than just providers. How can you attract new clients? How can you use technology to create a better patient experience? It is changing dramatically from the traditional practice of medicine to more of a business that provides the best care possible.” Be among the first to know about future HIStalk webinars by signing up for HIStalk Practice updates.

Welcome to new HIStalk Practice and HIStalk Platinum Sponsor GE Healthcare. The company offers healthcare IT products in enterprise imaging (Centricity RIS, PACS, Clinical Archive, and Centricity 360 collaboration), care delivery management (Centricity EMR and PM, Perioperative Manager, Perioperative Anesthesia, Perinatal), population health management solutions, revenue cycle management, financial risk management, EDI and claims processing, contract modeling and management, activity-based costing, and utilization management. Thanks to GE Healthcare for supporting HIStalk Practice and HIStalk.

Announcements and Implementations

The Accountable Care Coalition of Greater New York and predictive analytics firm AllazoHealth are awarded a $91,914 grant from the 2014 Pilot Health Tech NYC program to launch a medication-adherence pilot program. ACCGNY’s historical claims data will be run through the AllazoEngine analytics tool to generate medication adherence predictions for each patient’s medications and prioritize patients for different interventions. The pilot will focus on Medicare-eligible beneficiaries with heart failure, diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension, and/or hyperlipidemia. (On a side note, ACCGNY uses population health management technology from Lightbeam Health Solutions. Company CEO (and sommelier) Pat Cline was featured in a recent interview with Mr. H.)

Group Health Cooperative (WA) and Providence Health Care (WA) name their jointly owned ACO CareUnity. Formed in 2012, the ACO includes providers from Group Health Physicians, Providence Medical Group, and Columbia Medical Associates. It is the largest in the region, serving 50,000 patients through access to 700 physicians and advanced practitioners.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Orion Health is considering going public with an IPO on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, with an unnamed source suggesting a value of around $440 million US. 

Milwaukee Health Services (WI) receives a $190,000 city loan to upgrade its GE Healthcare EHR to earn Meaningful Use incentives. The community health center spent $3.1 million on its previous Pearl EHR from Atlanta-based Business Computer Applications, Inc., which it sued in a dispute over being locked out of its system over unpaid invoices. BCA was acquired in February 2014 by government contractor Acentia.

Government and Politics

Politico provides highlights of and industry reaction to the recently released proposed physician fee schedule for 2015. The tide of billable telemedicine codes seem to ebb and flow (much like corresponding state licensure), with CMS proposing seven new ones but doing away with others. Most notable is the proposal that providers who bill for Medicare’s new complex care management services must use an EHR certified in 2014 or other HIE platform that includes a care plan accessible by all providers within the practice. Providers were no doubt delighted to receive the 687-page proposed rule at 4:15 p.m on July 3. I’m hoping consummate document reader Dr. Jayne will provide the HIStalk audience with her take on the proposed changes. Comments on the rule are due September 2.

Research and Innovation

Patients within the Inova healthcare system (VA) are nearing the end of an identity management pilot that will enable them to reconfigure their access to EHRs using a combination of verified credentials. Funded by the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, the Cross Sector Digital Identity Initiative aims to bring together data from online services such as Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook; information from state motor vehicle departments; and commercial databases; and validate user identity using voice matching. The next use case for the CSDII identity management pilot will involve outside providers who need access to patient records.

The local paper highlights the progress various healthcare institutions have made with secure messaging. On average, 40 percent of both physicians and hospitals report sending and receiving secure messaging, due of course in large part to Meaningful Use requirements for EHRs. Kaiser Permanente saw 8.2 million messages circulate in 2013, and reports an average annual increase of 20 percent. The only hindrance seems to be reimbursement for time spent in front of the computer (or mobile device). Perhaps an increase in patient satisfaction scores directly tied to secure messaging and corresponding recognition (financial or otherwise) from government agencies should be a focal point as more doctors move forward with the technology.

People

Urgent care EMR vendor DocuTAP hires Bryan Koch (Greenway Health) as EVP of revenue cycle management.

Other

The National Committee for Quality Assurance seeks input on standards for a new program to evaluate ambulatory care clinics that provide patient-centered care and work to reduce fragmentation by forming virtual neighborhoods with medical homes. The Patient-Centered Connected Care program will assess entities that provide care in nontraditional settings such as telemedicine providers, urgent care clinics, retail clinics, and worksite clinics. Many of the proposed standards line up with Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements. The public comment period ends August 6.

The Federation of State Medical Boards issues a telemedicine-focused model state policy that would make it easier for doctors to obtain licenses in multiple states. Expedited licensure would be available for certified specialists with no history of disciplinary problems. The patient’s location at the time of the encounter would determine which state’s medical regulations would apply. (FSMB subject matter Alexis Gilroy, JD mentioned this change when Mr. H interviewed her in May.)

Thanks to @ZDoggMD for tweeting about another book to put on my summer reading list. “The Secret Language of Doctors,” by Brian Goldman, MD promises to tell readers “what it means for someone to suffer from incarceritis, what doctors mean when they block and turf, what various codes mean, and why you never want to suffer a horrendoma.” I’m especially interested in learning about the “clandestine phrases doctors use to describe patients, situations, and even colleagues they detest.“

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.

News 7/3/14

Top News

The VA awards ASM Research, an Accenture Federal Services Company, a three-year, $162 million contract to support the VistA EHR and update its computerized patient record system. The company will deliver technical architecture, clinical analysis, software development, engineering management, and training to support the VistA upgrade and improve overall data sharing across the agency. Perhaps the ASM contract will generate goodwill for Accenture within the DoD as it contemplates vendors to overhaul its EHR. ASM was formed in the Pentagon basement in 1975 via the development of a system to support soldier training for the army (now known as the Army Training Requirements and Resources System), and has since developed a “lasting relationship” with the DoD.

Announcements and Implementations

As a HIStalk reader recently reported, Seaport Community Health Center (ME) is relocating to the nearby athenahealth campus, where it will serve company employees and the community at large. SCHC Medical Director David Loxterkamp, MD notes the new facility will “promote patient involvement and ownership of their medical record and treatment choices.” No doubt it will also serve as a testing ground for  athenahealth projects. (I’m a voracious reader, so may have to check out Loxterkamp’s most recent book, “What Matters in Medicine: Lessons from a Life in Primary Care.”

Reliance ACO (MI) implements the Synapse Care Management Application Suite from Synaptic Advisory Partners to better enable its population health management initiatives. The physician-led ACO switched to the Synapse tool after a competitive solution did not produce the data needed to effectively identify and manage high-risk patients. 

Western Medical Associates, the largest private family practice in the state of Wyoming, goes live on its eClinicalWorks patient portal.

Albany Area Primary Health Care (GA) goes live on Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager and The Guideline Advantage, a quality improvement program of the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association.

Consulting firm Fortech International establishes the Global Alliance for Telemedicine and eHealth, an international association of national organizations whose mission will be to promote and raise awareness of remote-patient monitoring.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A Forbes article profiles Bruce Irwin, MD CEO of American Family Care clinics and one of the first implementers of today’s hyper popular urgent care, doc-in-a-box business model. “It’s like we’re in a rock band and all of sudden we have a hit, we’re an overnight sensation; but in reality we’ve been playing in bars and honky-tonks for years,” Irwin says. AFC is the largest independent chain in the country, with 128 clinics, mostly in the Southeast.

A new report highlights the surge in M&A healthcare activity expected over the next 12 months. Hospitals, physicians, and healthcare IT companies are the subsectors most likely to see increased consolidation in 2014-2015. Increased demand for facility and equipment improvement, a need for better IT capabilities, and rising compliance costs are seen as major drivers for the projected provider consolidation trend.

Solix offers grant applicant consulting services to rural healthcare providers interested in taking advantage of telecommunications and broadband funding opportunities through the Rural Healthcare Program and its Healthcare Connect Fund. The federal RHP program has an annual cap of $400 million in funding available.

PatientKeeper adds a rules engine to its charge capture solution that allows billers and coders to manage code edits.

Government and Politics

The N.C. DHHS commemorates via infographic the one-year anniversary of NCTracks, its multi-payer Medicaid Management Information System implemented by CSC. The logic of government officials when it comes to healthcare IT implementations continues to baffle me. Although CSC has been fined $1.4 million for failing to deliver “certain levels of service,” N.C. DHHS CIO Joe Cooper says the company has “been a good partner” during the project. NCTracks has so far paid out more than $10.3 billion for 200 million claims, almost all of which are paid within a week.

Christian Heiss, MPH, CPH, senior program officer at the non-profit Center for Health Care Strategies, offers several lessons the VA and Medicaid can learn from one another. Heiss, an Iraq war veteran, notes that “VA leaders have an opportunity to learn from other healthcare systems that have faced rapid enrollment expansions with limited resources and staffing. They could start with Medicaid.”

Research and Innovation

Computer scientists at the University of Illinois work to develop technology that can mask parts of a patient’s health record they’d prefer to keep private. Through machine-learning analysis of other medical records, the technology would offer clinicians advice on how to amend the record to ensure the patient’s privacy directives are complied with. While there are some drawbacks to having an incomplete record, it may offer another option to patients wary of oversharing or hesitant to share any data at all.

An ICD-10 preparedness survey reveals that activities like coding patient encounters, adjudicating reimbursement claims, and negotiating contracts between health plans and providers are expected to be more difficult in the short term. The long-term impact of the ICD-10 transition is expected to improve care in areas such as accuracy of claims, quality of care, and patient safety, yet not all organizations have a clear plan to derive value from the expanded code set.

People

HHS names Jocelyn Samuels Director of the Office for Civil Rights. Samuels is currently acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.

Leidos appoints Roger Krone (Boeing) CEO.

Other

The Rural Physician Bus Tour brings representatives from GA-HITEC, HP-Medicaid, the Georgia Dept. of Community Health, Georgia Health Information Network, HomeTown Health, and other health information technology experts to seven communities in South Georgia. Tour participants met with local physicians to assess the progress of their practices in the Meaningful Use attestation process.

The Aspen Ideas Festival is winding down in Aspen, CO, and features a fairly robust health track. Speakers that jump out at me include Jeff Arnold of Sharecare, Jonathan Bush of athenahealth, Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings, Harvey Fineberg of the IOM, and Kathleen Sebelius. Live and archived video sessions are available. Being that I’m addicted to Google Alerts and Twitter, I may have to veer off the healthcare track and watch “News at the Speed of Data.”

Sponsor Updates

• ADP AdvancedMD introduces integrated fax with a short video clip.
• Leidos receives the Champions of Veteran Enterprise Award for support of veteran-owned small businesses for the fourth consecutive year.
• NextGen and Mirth announce NextGen Share, a Health Information Service Provider (HISP) that will connect NextGen and non-NextGen EHR users via Direct.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
Contact us online.