5 Questions with Chip Hart, Director of Pediatric Solutions, PCC

Chip Hart is director of pediatric solutions at Vermont-based Physician’s Computer Co. (PCC), which provides a range of healthcare IT services including EHR implementations, patient portals, pediatric dashboards and benchmarking, and HIE registries. The company focuses heavily on independent pediatric practices of all sizes. Hart has been with the company for nearly 25 years, and helped PCC develop its own EHR four years ago.

What are the biggest IT challenges facing pediatric practices today?
The speed of the market and not knowing who to align with. Should I sign with this ACO (um, no probably not), should I take the hospital’s EHR subsidy (maybe), will the cloud-based EHR I use today be with me in two years (maybe)? Let’s face it: Pediatricians are an afterthought in every major healthcare system and decision process (Meaningful Use is a joke; PCMH is awkward at best; and ACOs don’t get it), so pediatricians are trying to predict the future right now, and that’s difficult.

Clinical integration is going to be the game changer, just as it has always been. Ideally, we’ll have a market where any practice can choose an interface that suits them best and their data will be shared with those who need it.

How have you seen IT impact – positively and negatively – these kinds of practices?
On the positive side, I’ve seen more and more practices get pulled into the EHR world and found that it’s not so bad on the other side, if they have the right friends. I’ve seen some amazing clinical improvements as the result of simple IT change. Leveraging IT to improve preventive care and chronic disease management is a giant gain in my experience.

On the downside, we’ve seen clients get aligned with vendors with predatory data control – vendors who make conversions impossible or impractical. The big downside that all the vendors understand is that MU has killed EHR development for the last two years and will continue to do so for another two. Even if we end up ahead, quality-wise, we definitely gave up innovation.

Based on recent reorganization, funding reduction, and high-level employees moving on, do you think the ONC and its MU program will remain relevant in the next three to five years?
It will end up being a bastardized version of the bastardized thing that it already is. One party has threatened to pop that balloon the moment they get that chance. If they win the next election, are they going to follow through on the threat? I’m not sure either party has the discipline to stop the payouts (especially the Medicaid adjustments these last two years).

How do you think ONC’s 10-year vision for interoperability will play out, particularly as it relates to pediatric practices?
I was just telling someone that I couldn’t imagine having the conversations we have today pre-MU. Although the interoperability requirements of MU strain credulity at times, the fact is that the entire industry really is talking about sharing and exchanging data in a very new and different way right now. We, the vendors, all know it’s possible but it requires a will to make it happen. Data exchange is 10-percent competence, 10-percent technical, and 80-percent politics. I think we are in a better place as it relates to interoperability, and MU has had a positive impact.

Ultimately, the portability of a practice’s data will be the most important consideration over the next 10 years. Even if you have the right HIT partners, you may no longer have the right business partners and will need to move sideways. A significant portion of our new clients are born from practice divorces (and I guarantee that the practices who’ve sold out to the hospitals will be back soon enough … just like last time). Not losing that data is vital.

What will be the big focus for pediatric practices once MU has been met? Will they begin to focus their time on establishing interoperability to better participate in ACOs or patient-centered medical homes?
PCMH, no question. I actually wrote a blog about this two months ago. I’ve yet to see an ACO offer or model that makes any sense for pediatricians (heck, I don’t think they make much sense for almost any independent practice). The fact is that ACOs need pediatricians in their panels for accreditation or whatever, but pediatricians don’t need them. Meanwhile, we have dozens of Level 3 PCMH practices who have recognized huge financial improvements, a big multiple over the MU money. In some states, it’s worth $50K+ per doctor, which is huge for a pediatrician.

Contacts

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

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News 7/24/14

Top News

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules that the language of the ACA allows subsidies only for people who obtain coverage through exchanges run by the states, and not by the federal government. Just 14 states run their own health insurance exchanges, many of which have encountered media-worthy IT issues and vendor disputes. The judges suspended their ruling pending an appeal by the administration, which has stressed that the ruling will have no impact on consumers receiving monthly subsidies now. To add to the confusion, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia ruled unanimously to uphold the subsidies provision, saying the wording of the law was too ambiguous to restrict the availability of the funds. The subsidies were granted to nearly 90 percent of enrollees in the 36 states served by HealthCare.gov, and in many cases led them to paying less than $100 in premiums per month. It looks like we’re in for another ACA-related Supreme Court decision in the coming months.

MGMA President and CEO Susan Turney, MD announces her resignation, effective at the end of August. Turney, who has been with the association since 2011, has accepted the position of CEO at the new Marshfield Clinic Health System (WI). MGMA is currently developing a search committee to look for Turney’s replacement. Turney is no doubt excited about returning to her roots at Marshfield; she served in various administrative and clinical roles at Marshfield Clinic for 22 years.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

A survey finds that 44 percent of physicians spend 1 to 2 hours a week reading news online, and I do hope that includes catching up on HIStalk Practice news. In an effort to keep readers engaged, I ask that you fill out this year’s Reader’s Survey. Not only will you have my gratitude, but you’ll contribute to the improvement of the site and potentially win an Amazon gift card. 

Announcements and Implementations

Memorial Hermann Physician Network (TX) embeds the DocBookMD secure messaging application into its accountable care network to better enable communication between its physicians. MHPN anticipates the new tool, which initially will be rolled out to 1,800 MHACO physicians, will help improve workflow and outcomes.

The non-profit Immune Deficiency Foundation partners with Get Real Health to provide a new portal to patients suffering from primary immunodeficiency diseases. IDF patients will use the InstaPHR to securely communicate with their physicians; and electronically track their symptoms, medications, infusions, and other health data. They can also use the portal to share their data with the U.S. Immunodeficiency Network registry for research purposes.

East Jordan Family Health Centers (MI) goes live on Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager.

Kansas Health Information Network and Informatics Corp. of America announce they have connected 81 regional healthcare organizations together to share critical health and behavioral health information. ICA CEO Gary Zegiestowsky believes this is a record number of connections for any HIE or HIO, and that it’s also “a perfect case study of how interoperability can and should work on a broad scale.”

In other KHIN news, the organization announces it is partnering with Netsmart to connect behavioral health and physical health communities using Netsmart’s CareConnect solution.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Medversant Technologies launches OneSource for Providers, a credentialing and enrollment management outsourcing solution for practices, hospitals, health plans, Medicare, and Medicaid. The application captures all of the credentialing information used by multiple organizations in a single data repository, cutting down on the time physicians spend submitting credentials to an average of 17 organizations annually.

WRS Health launches a suite of cloud-based EHR, practice management, and patient communication services for ophthalmology practices. The company launched a similar range of technology products for oncologists earlier this month.

Research and Innovation

A U.K.-based research study finds that up-to-date EHRs can be used to identify and sign up eligible patients for clinical trials, and monitor the effects of those trials once they have begun. It also found that the process can deliver better treatments for patients, and cut down on the cost and administrative burdens associated with running clinical trials. Barriers noted include “complexities in obtaining research governance approvals, recruitment and retainment of GPs and consent procedures for recruiting patients.” I love that the 178-page study has a “Plain English Summary” to balance out the “Scientific Summary.”

New research finds that the number of patients participating in an accountable care business model will jump from 40 million in 2015 to over 130 million in 2017, due in large part to an industry push towards performance-based metrics and payment. With that many people being touched by coordinated care efforts, I’m willing to bet that we’ll soon see a corresponding boom in vendors moving away from standalone EHR technologies to those that aid coordinated care. Interoperability just might happen if that many patients begin to truly understand what it can do for them and ONC continues to push for it.

Government and Politics

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell names Leslie Dach to the newly created position of senior counselor, which will likely see him working on the next sign-up period for Healthcare.gov. Dach comes to HHS from a stint as executive vice president of corporate affairs at Walmart, where he recruited Burwell to work for a short time at The Walmart Foundation. Dach has a strong background in corporate communications and image-making, which means he’ll likely help put out any media fires that arise come the next open enrollment period in mid-November. He also plans to continue consulting for Wal-Mart, a situation that could lend itself well to Walmart health clinics making a play for federal dollars of some kind.

People

AMN Healthcare Services promotes Jeanette Sanchez to CIO.

Nicholas Lorenzo, MD joins MeMD as CMO.

Mark VanderWerf (Nonin Medical) joins the American Telemedicine Association’s Board of Directors, and is elected chairman of its Industry Council.

Other

Allscripts receives an Intel Innovation Award for its Allscripts Wand, a touch-enabled mobile app for Windows 8.1 that gives physicians the ability to use legacy EHRs and new EHRs simultaneously on the same device. Resurgens Orthopaedics (GA) collaborated with Allscripts on a proof of concept, and incorporated the app into its clinical workflows via HP tablets. (I wonder if its physicians came up with the fake patient name above.) The medical group is now in the process of making the app an option for physicians and medical staff.

I don’t often associate healthcare IT with county fairs, but the idea seems to have taken hold in Montana. Sidney Health Center staff plans to sign up patients up for its new Epic MyChart patient portal August 3-9 at the Richland County Fair. Folks who sign up at the center’s booth will not only enjoy secure messaging and electronic prescription refill requests, but may also win $100 in “Chamber Bucks.”

The American Osteopathic Association passes a resolution urging patients not to use symptom-checker apps and websites as an alternative to an office visit, saying that such self-diagnosis tools don’t take their medical history into account and often miss drug interactions.

The American Telemedicine Association 2015 program selection committee seeks presentation abstracts focused on best practices, cost savings, critical findings, and innovative applications in telemedicine. Submissions are being accepted through September 17. Guidelines can be found here.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 7/22/14

Top News

Azalea Health agrees to merge with simplifyMD in an effort to become a leading provider of a fully integrated, cloud-based healthcare management and medical billing solution. The Georgia-based companies will operate as simplifyMD and Azalea Health during the transition, with the products and services of both marketed under the Azalea Health brand. Azalea founder and CEO Baha Zeidan will lead the new company.

A new study from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research analyzes the public’s opinion of the quality of healthcare providers. Key findings include:

• Most patients focus on a physician’s personality traits rather than effectiveness of care or outcomes.
• An overwhelming majority of patients believes that requiring doctors to report the effectiveness of their treatments and patient satisfaction with care would improve the quality of care provided.
• Less than a quarter of patients are receiving provider quality information, and most are not very confident they could find such information they can trust on their own, including direct comparisons of physicians.
• Patients would trust word-of-mouth and personal recommendations from doctors far more than provider quality data from the government or third parties.
• About half of those surveyed believe that higher quality care generally comes at a higher cost, while 37 percent say there is no real relationship between quality and cost.
• Patients without insurance face more challenges in finding information about provider quality and cost; at the same time, they are more likely than the insured to think public reporting of such information would improve the overall quality of care doctors provide.

It’s fairly telling that the top physician characteristic most valued by patients is the ability to listen and be attentive – two characteristics many physicians feel are being lost thanks to the intrusion of EHRs into the exam room.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

It’s that time again. The HIStalk Practice Reader’s Survey is now live. I am looking forward to learning about what readers like and don’t like, and what you’d like to see more and less of on the site. The survey is short, so shouldn’t take more than five minutes. One lucky respondent will receive an Amazon gift card for taking the time to help me make HIStalk Practice even better.

Reminders: Providers and consultants are welcome to share an “Idea of the Day” with the HIStalk Practice audience.

Watching: The Grand Budapest Hotel. Director Wes Anderson isn’t for everyone, but in my book he can do no wrong, especially when it comes to casting, soundtracks, and Lego tie-ins. Coincidentally, I saw The Lego Movie around the same time, which was just as good, though in an entirely different way.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Castlight Health and Teladoc partner to offer customers the ability to integrate Teladoc’s telemedicine offerings into Castlight’s technology. Employees that use Castlight’s platform to search for medical services will now be presented with telemedicine options as available.

Microsoft announces that it will cut 18,000 jobs in the next year – 14 percent of its workforce – as it moves forward with plans to consolidate its Smart Devices and Mobile Phones units. The map above shows the regions around the world that will see the most change in operations, including Finland, where hardest-hit Nokia, acquired by Microsoft earlier this year, is headquartered.

Online doctor search vendor BetterDoctor closes $10 million in Series A funding. Company founders Ari Tulla and Tapio Tolvanen are both Finnish and former high-ranking Nokia software developers. I assume some of their Finnish Nokia colleagues are part of the 1,000 jobs being downsized in that country.

Athenahealth announces Q2 results: revenue up 27 percent, adjusted EPS $0.32 vs. –$0.08, beating expectations for both. Mr. H summarized the company’s recent earnings call here, noting the current state of the company’s More Disruption Please program and the “big miss” that is Epocrates. 

Announcements and Implementations

Cornerstone Pediatrics implements Lathem’s PayClock Online time and attendance system. Practice Manager Angela Powell notes the cloud-based system’s easier accessibility has enabled her to cut payroll time in half.

EHNAC announces the Accountable Care Organization Accreditation Program for ACOs and related IT service organizations. ACOAP assesses network infrastructure and exchange connectivity in the areas of confidentiality and privacy, and technology processes and security; and focuses on technical performance, business processes and resource management. The announcement comes on the heels of EHNAC’s partnership with WEDI to establish a Practice Management System Accreditation Program.

Harbin Clinic (GA) and Cigna launch a collaborative care initiative that will benefit 5,300 Cigna customers. The program aims to improve outcomes and lower costs by using patient-specific data from Cigna to help identify patients being discharged from the hospital who might be at risk for readmission, as well as patients who may be overdue for health screenings or who may have skipped a prescription refill. Harbin Clinic is making quite a name for itself when it comes to rural healthcare facilities participating in new care models and technologies. Last year it participated in the MyJourney Compass pilot project, which provided cancer patients with Nexus 7 tablets to help them securely communicate with providers, access health information and obtain credible information online.

The Population Health Alliance announces four new member organizations: behavioral change company Coach Alba; power and related-technologies provider Cummins Inc.; Kognito, a behavior change company that specializes in immersive experiences; and health optimization firm Welltok.

Government and Politics

ONC head Karen DeSalvo, MD says in a recent interview that by 2015 the office will have an interoperability road map "that is specific enough that people will know what they’re supposed to do when." That will no doubt come as welcome news to physicians and vendors who read the agency’s recent 10-year vision for interoperability report but were left with questions around timing. I wonder if DeSalvo feels the need to speed up interoperability efforts before ONC’s funding dwindles further, and the private sector siphons off more ONC leadership.

DeSalvo also responds to House Energy and Commerce Committee members who questioned ONC’s regulatory authority earlier this summer, particularly as it pertains to the creation and oversight of the Health IT Safety Center. She notes that the Proposed Strategy and Recommendations for a Risk-Based Framework report did not propose that the Health IT Safety Center would have the authority to regulate health IT, and that a possible plan to levy user fees on companies appears to be outside of the ONC’s statutory authority. The government dialogue comes at a time when EHRs and their relationship to adverse patient safety events are being scrutinized, and rightly so. This article highlights the fact that electronic data hazards have been ranked as the number-one patient safety concern for 2014.

CMS kicks off its search for a new Healthcare.gov technology vendor, noting in its 84-page solicitation that it is looking for a business “capable of working under aggressive time constraints." Duties will include providing design, development, testing, implementation, documentation, services, analysis, maintenance, and support for the federal exchange. A quick scan of the RFP didn’t turn up mention of proposal due dates, so I can only assume time is of the essence. The next proposed open enrollment period starts November 15.

Research and Innovation

Johns Hopkins medical student Shiv Gaglani prepares to launch Quantified Care, an online marketplace for physicians and consumers. He is looking to raise $20,000 via Indiegogo to launch the website, which will include mobile health devices for sale and practical advice about how clinicians might use them. It’s an interesting and timely concept, given the volume of innovative digital health devices coming to market, and the questions physicians have around their ability to actually improve workflows and outcomes.

People

Ray Payette (Blueprint Software Systems) joins Nightingale Informatix Corp. as CTO.

Marty Beard (LiveOps) is named COO of Blackberry.

Other

The local paper highlights Cleveland Clinic Sports Health (IL), which offers a biweekly Dance Medicine Clinic to active dancers. Every staff member is a former or current performer, giving them a unique edge when it comes to communicating with their patients about dance-related symptoms and injuries. It would be interesting to see if they’ve been able to create dance-friendly templates within the clinic’s Epic EHR.

I had the pleasure recently of hearing John Marshall discuss the role passion and leadership played in his ascent from humble door-to-door Wi-Fi hotspot salesman to general manager and senior vice president of AirWatch by VMWare. I was struck not only by his PowerPoint love for Talladega Nights, but by the emphasis he put on flexibility when it came time to pivot the business into the mobile device management company that it is today. The abrupt change in direction was due in large part to Marshall’s chance tradeshow encounter with an Apple rep wielding a first-generation iPhone.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe’s VP/Chief Clinical Officer Leigh Ann Myers, RN writes a blog post, “Changing the Culture for SBAR Communications.”
• Kareo opens an operations center in Las Vegas, NV.
• NextGen Healthcare provides revenue cycle management services to Putnam County Memorial Hospital (MO).
• Kareo and Falcon EHR partner to provide cloud solutions to nephrology practices.

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 7/17/14

Top News

Beckman Coulter Diagnostics announces its intent to purchase the clinical microbiology business of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. The move lends credence to recent speculation that Siemens is set on divesting parts of its business – including healthcare IT – so that it can focus on its industrial and energy segments. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

Mercom Capital Group reports that the healthcare IT sector saw its first billion-dollar quarter, with 161 deals raising $1.8 billion in venture capital during the second quarter of 2014. Ten of those deals were for over $50 million each. Over $2.5 billion has been raised so far this year, with mobile health companies leading the funding pack. Practice-centric companies took in 61 percent of all VC investments in Q2 2014, with $1.1B in 61 deals. The quarter also saw a record number of M&A transactions, with HIM companies seeing the most activity, followed by revenue cycle management, mobile health, and personal health. I wonder how these figures will play out in the near term, as the EHR market slows down and consumer-centric health devices continue to take off.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Mr. H is offering the HIStalk BOSS (Beacon of Selfless Service) Award to recognize, as he puts it, “those trench warriors (provider or vendor) who toil without bonuses, reserved parking spaces, or the ever-present validation of company-paid butt kissers.” He’s specifically looking to heap praise on a non-management employee who went above and beyond during a specific event to save the day. Anyone who observed the individual’s laudable effort firsthand can nominate someone – a supervisor, peer, or customer. I’m sure I can convince him to throw in a “BOSS Award Winner” beauty queen sash that the honoree can wear to HIStalkapalooza 15. Submit your candidate here.

We like to keep in touch with HIStalk Practice’s sponsors and we just sent an e-mail to all the contacts on our list. Let Lorre know if we missed you.

I’m still on my quest to try new things with HIStalk Practice, and so I’m introducing the “Idea of the Day” to give physicians and consultants an opportunity to share tips and tricks of the trade with our audience. Do you have a healthcare IT-related piece of advice or tip you’d like to share? Be sure to highlight how it has made life easier at your practice, or your client’s practice. Submit your ideas via the “Idea of the Day” link above. You can choose to remain anonymous if you’d like.

Acquisitions, Business, Funding, and Stock

IBM and Apple announce a partnership to develop business applications for iPhones and iPads. IBM will also sell Apple products and provide on-site services to business clients, while Apple gains business credibility and a tie-in to IBM’s big data capabilities that will make its devices decision-making tools. The deal also gives Apple’s iOS more enterprise credibility against the more widely used Android operating system. The companies say more than 100 business apps will be available by fall.

The US Bankruptcy Court approves MModal’s reorganization plan, allowing the company to emerge from bankruptcy in August as it had originally announced.

EHNAC and WEDI launch an accreditation program for practice-management systems, announcing GE Healthcare, Medinformatix, and NextGen as pilot participants.

ECG Management Consultants announces a new service line designed to help physician groups and ambulatory care networks improve performance and transition to a value-based environment. Services include performance assessments, improvement planning, and implementation and optimization services.

Elsevier Clinical Solutions announces its Clinical Documentation Improvement Reference App, which provides clinical term look-up and medical necessity information with an emphasis on ICD-10.

Clinicate launches its clinical file-sharing solution for providers and patients. It also contains some unrelated tools such as drug lookup. It’s free for patients and a single provider can use the system for free for up to 100MB of storage.

Healthcare Data Solutions announces availability of the HealthcareData360 EHR market intelligence database, which allows looking up EHR decision-makers within and across connected provider organizations.

Announcements and Implementations

Optimus Healthcare Partners (NJ) announces it will partner with UnitedHealthcare to care for 17,000 patients enrolled in the payer’s employer-sponsored and Medicare health plans. OHP, an ACO with over 550 physicians, already serves patients within the Aetna and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey networks. The agreement with UnitedHealthcare means nearly all of OHP’s patients are now part of the ACO.

CVS Caremark enters into clinical affiliations with ProHealth Physicians (CT), Texas Health Resources, Palmetto Health (SC), and The Baton Rouge Clinic (LA). Patients will receive access to chronic-disease monitoring, wellness, medication counseling, and clinical support programs at CVS/pharmacy stores and MinuteClinic facilities. The company will also provide prescription and visit information through integration of their EHR. CVS is in the process of switching its 800 MinuteClinics from a home-grown EHR to EpicCare. Two of the four organizations above seem to be Epic shops, so I’d love to learn how CVS plans to share data with those that aren’t.

CVS Caremark also announces, in partnership with IBM, a $1.5 million commitment to the “Technology Solutions for Smarter Health” grant program. Qualifying community health centers will use the funds for the support of technology to increase patient engagement, and improve patient care and outcomes.

Government and Politics

I listened in on the recent eHealth Initiative webinar on ONC’s 10-year vision for interoperability, which focused on the five building blocks laid out in the similarly titled ONC paper released a few weeks ago. Erica Galvez, ONC’s interoperability portfolio manager, did a good job of outlining the five fundamental concepts, but I wish she’d gotten stronger pushback from commentators Mark Segal, VP of government affairs at GE Healthcare IT, and Doug Dietzman, executive director of Great Lakes Health Connect. (Both men are affiliated with eHI.) All three speakers placed great emphasis on the fact that true interoperability will occur only if industry is allowed to take the lead in terms of product innovation. Segal and Dietzman were particularly focused on the need for future certifications and standards to not become too burdensome, inadvertently hindering product development and interoperability goals. Are current standards and certifications impeding the creative/innovative use of healthcare IT at your practice, or the development of your proposed product? Share your thoughts via the comments section below. You can download slides from the presentation here.

A report from the OIG highlights flaws in the Medicaid Interstate Match program, which is intended to reduce Medicaid payments by identifying beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicaid programs of one or more states. The report found that for the three-month period under examination, not one improper Medicaid payment was recovered through the use of the program. This inability to recover improper payments was not attributed to attempts at fraud, but less scandalous issues such as eligibility errors and incomplete data. While the government does a good job of saber rattling about the amount of fraudulent healthcare payments, this report may force some perspective on the matter from CMS, which is responsible for acting on its recommendations.

NIST and OCR will co-host “Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security” on Sept. 23-24, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Onsite attendance runs $345, while Webcast attendees will pay $200.

Research and Innovation

The Stepped Care to Optimize Pain care Effectiveness (SCOPE) study finds that chronic-pain patients enrolled in a year-long telemedicine program using non-opiod medications were twice as likely to see improvement as those who received typical care for chronic pain. SCOPE automated symptom monitoring was delivered to 250 patients at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center (IN) via the Internet or interactive, voice-recorded phone calls.

Researchers query the EHRs of 23 primary care practices to identify patients likely to have undiagnosed hypertension based on their historical pattern of in-office blood pressure readings, inviting those patients to follow up with a more comprehensive series of readings. The practices alerted patients and then turned their work into a quality improvement project, continuing to remind patients and physicians of the need for follow-up until an ICD-9 code was entered indicating that hypertension had been confirmed or ruled out.

People

Jonathan Samples leaves Greenway Health to co-found Across Healthcare with former Greenway colleague Jason Colquitt, who is also head of IT Real-World & Late Phase Research at Quintiles. AH, which seems to have been in the works since 2012, focuses on custom software development; and digital health strategy, consulting, and products.

Perry Lewis (McKesson) is named VP of industry relations of CoverMyMeds.

Ralph Whitworth resigns as chairman of Hewlett-Packard’s board in order to focus on his health.

Babak Parviz leaves the Google X research team (responsible for such projects as Google Glass and smart contact lenses) for Amazon. Industry insiders speculate he’ll use his background in optic technology to help with Amazon’s recent focus on 3-D visuals and augmented reality.

Jessie Gruman, president and founder of the Center for Advancing Health, passes away after a fifth battle with cancer.

Other

This article posits that passwords will soon be things of the past as email addresses, social logins, and physical authentication take over. Apple has already introduced biometric identification to the iPhone, and Google has presented an Android phone that can unlock itself if it detects the presence of a paired Android bluetooth device belonging to the same owner, such as a smartwatch. I’m not sure that’s the best answer. While passwords are often forgotten, they can just as easily be recreated. It might be a bit more difficult to replace that lost smartwatch.

Dwayne Edwards, director of the West Virginia Regional Health Information Technology Center, writes that healthcare practices, not EHR vendors, are responsible for HIPAA compliance; Meaningful Use requirements; and protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of health data in the EHR. He offers the following tips:

• Conduct a security risk analysis that compares your current security measures to what is legally and pragmatically required to safeguard patient health information.
• Develop an action plan for addressing threats and vulnerabilities.
• Manage and mitigate risks by beginning to implement a thorough P&S action plan.
• Conduct workforce education and training.
• Communicate with patients.
• Know what to do in case of a breach of unsecured patient health information.

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 7/15/14

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.

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