5 Questions with Micky Tripathi, President & CEO, MAEHC

Micky Tripathi is president and CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, a nonprofit consulting firm that helps ambulatory providers of all sizes successfully adopt healthcare IT. It also owns and operates the regional extension center of New Hampshire. Tripathi also serves as chair of the ONC HIT Policy Committee’s Interoperability Workgroup, and as co-chair of its JASON Report Task Force. Look for his regular “Pretzel Logic” posts on HIStalk Practice in the coming weeks.

Your experience in the realms of RECs, HIE, consulting, and on-the-ground implementations likely means you have spent ample time listening to the wants and needs of physicians. At this stage of healthcare IT maturity and the timeline for Meaningful Use, what are physicians most concerned about with regards to technology?
They just want it to live up to the hype, or even to just half of the hype. I think that the vast majority of clinicians see healthcare IT as inevitable, and that’s not just because of Meaningful Use. There are other, more powerful market forces that are pushing in the same direction, such as:

• Higher standards of care
• Risk-based purchasing
• The growing consumerism of patients, including demand for retail service levels and emerging cost-consciousness
• The need for greater efficiency in the face of competition and cost-pressure
• The generational change to tech-savvy providers and
• Pressure for cost and safety transparency.

The healthcare delivery sector has held out for a long time, but no sector of the economy can remain paper-based, and the vast majority of providers now recognize that. However, the bad news is that healthcare IT systems are still very immature from a usability perspective, especially with respect to interoperability. The biggest provider concern that I hear is that healthcare IT all too often still gets in the way of care provision, rather than enhancing it.

MU is increasingly being managed as a “check-the-box” exercise because it has requirements that are seen as more beneficial to the “healthcare system” (whoever that is) than to the day-to-day, point-of-care needs of patients and providers. The only way for systems to really get better is through more feedback from more users, and as with every other industry, that takes time. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the iPhone and iPad on day one – it took the insights gleaned from millions of customer-hours of experience to develop what in hindsight seem like simple and obvious breakthroughs.

Do you think federal groups like the HIT Policy Committee truly understand these perspectives enough to act on them?
I would say that the HIT Policy Committee is becoming increasingly aware of the complexities of the healthcare delivery market and the healthcare IT market. Stage 1 of MU was tremendously successful in terms of creating an imperative for change and catalyzing rapid adoption of EHR systems as tools to help facilitate such change. However, moving beyond basic EHR adoption is exponentially more complex because of the fragmentation of our healthcare system both on the supply side (i.e., providers) and the demand-side (i.e., payers, purchasers, patients).

As we get deeper into it, we see that it’s more complex than anticipated, not less. Just look at the Stage 2 requirements for Direct transport – a seemingly simple technology, yet it still doesn’t work for the vast majority of providers because it takes time and experience to iron out all of the wrinkles in workflows, business conventions, technology, and industry infrastructure.

Earlier this year, the HIT Policy Committee rejected many of the initial Stage 3 recommendations from its Meaningful Use Workgroup and asked them to scale back and simplify their approach. I see that as a good sign that the message is starting to bubble up to the top.

What was your reaction to the ONC’s 10 year interoperability vision statement? Do you think this plan reflects the goals of the physicians you work with?
I think the industry needs a concrete vision statement from the federal government. Not because the government can or should dictate how interoperability unfolds across the industry, but because the industry needs to understand what the government intends to do so that the market (providers and vendors) can take that into account as they make their investments in future technologies and infrastructure.

It’s great that ONC is putting out a vision, and I understand that ONC is going to flesh it out further over the next few months. I highly commend Dr. DeSalvo and her team for actively seeking market and stakeholder input. As a high-level view, the 10-year vision is certainly inspirational, but based on what we’ve learned about the complexity of the market, I fear that many will see it as somewhat unrealistic as well. For example, the three-year agenda is to be able to “send, receive, find, and use health information to improve healthcare quality.” Right now, we still aren’t even close to having the ability to easily send and receive, so “finding and using” in three years seems like an especially large challenge.

In a similar vein, having a “learning health system” in 10 years will also be very difficult to achieve. We shouldn’t be too critical at this stage though. Once we get more details on how ONC defines and anticipates achieving these objectives, we’ll be in a much better position to fully evaluate it. I’m sure we’ll see pockets of activity that achieve these goals. As William Gibson said, the future is here, it’s just not equally distributed. I assume that the 10-year vision is speaking to goals that are achieved across the market. As the market leverage of Meaningful Use draws down, the government’s source of influence in the healthcare IT market will be less about how much it pays and more about how it acts.

I think that the upcoming ONC plan will be helpful to the market if it clearly articulates what role ONC sees the government playing in shaping interoperability in the future, and how that translates into specific actions that the government is going to take.

Was it surprising to learn that only between 1 and 2 percent of EPs have attested for MU in 2014, with fewer than that attesting for Stage 2? What do you think will help accelerate this process?
We work pretty deep in the trenches and have seen first-hand the difficulties that providers and vendors have faced with Stage 2 of MU. However, it is surprising to see how profoundly those difficulties are being felt across the entire industry. Some of that I’m sure was the result of people phasing their ICD-10 and MU efforts. Now that ICD-10 is delayed, I think we’ll see the numbers pick up since there are still significant dollars on the table at this point of MU. That said, I think the message couldn’t be more clear that Stage 2 requirements have tried to push too much change in too short a time, and CMS, ONC, and the HIT Policy and Standards Committees need to take that to heart as they lay out the future of the MU program.

What advice do you have for physicians playing catch up with Meaningful Use?
For most providers, I don’t see how you can practice medicine in the future without an EHR, for all of the reasons noted above. If you want to get Medicare to cover some of the cost, you’re about to miss the payment bus and you’re going to get run over by the penalty bus if you don’t act fast. You’ve missed the opportunity to get the full incentive ($44K), but you can still get $24K if you act now. After this year, there will be no incentives available and you may start getting penalized 1-3 percent of your Medicare billings. Medicaid incentives are larger, last a lot longer and have no downstream penalties, but it’s harder to qualify for them.

I think you’ve got to do the math, though, even if you’re already in the program, and decide whether it’s worth it to keep going. When you do the math, make sure you take into account the penalties that could begin starting in 2015 (and don’t forget to take into account the time value of money – if you don’t know what that is, have someone else do the math for you!).

The reality is that the incremental payments for Stage 3 will be relatively small, but the hard and soft costs of achieving Stage 3 once it’s defined could be quite large, given what we’ve seen from the Stage 2 experience. You don’t want to make hasty decisions that end up costing you more than you gain from the MU program. I know of large and small providers who have done the math and decided to drop out of the program and take their lumps down the road. Remember, it’s not a mandate, it’s an incentive – you don’t have to do it.

Contacts

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

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News 7/31/14

Top News

Lawmakers, political organizations, and associations with healthcare connections celebrate the 49th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed both into law in 1965, presenting the first two Medicare cards to former President Harry Truman, who had advocated for the program during his presidency, and former first lady Bess Truman. Johnson quoted Truman during that signing, reminding his audience that “Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.” Truman’s words still ring true to some extent, and the two programs have changed significantly in size and scope. Medicare’s future looks a bit brighter than Medicaid’s at the moment thanks to a recent decision to extend it until 2030. Medicaid, on the other hand, remains a contentious issue, particularly in the 22 states that have thus far refused to expand it.

Announcements and Implementations

The Children’s Health Alliance implements the Wellcentive Advance population health management platform to give its 100-plus pediatricians a fuller picture of patient health. The platform will integrate data from EHRs, insurance claims, schools, and social agencies.

Catholic Health Initiatives St. Francis Health’s Orthopedic and Milnor clinics (MN) implement Allscripts Enterprise Ambulatory EHR as part of the organization’s multi-year OneCare program.

Capital Women’s Care (MD) signs a 10-year agreement with NextGen for continued use of its revenue cycle management services. CWC is one of the largest private OB/GYN practices in the mid-Atlantic region with 45 locations and 178 clinicians.

The Canandaigua VA (NY) plans to offer veterans greater access to care, and likely shorter wait times, via its RV Rural Mobile TeleHealth Care Unit. Launching in September, the unit will visit several towns on a weekly basis.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stocks

Sage Technologies partners with Medseek to offer care management solution Navigate. The cloud-based population health and behavioral change platform enables providers to identify low-risk, rising-risk, and high-risk patients via the integration and assessment of patient data from multiple financial and clinical systems.

Mobile health question-and-answer service HealthTap launches HealthTap Prime, a $99-a-month subscription service that will give users access to medical consultations with licensed physicians through the company’s mobile app and website. HealthTap Prime plans to differentiate itself from competitors like American Well and Doctor on Demand by providing ongoing support through customized checklists, personalized health news, and reminders and notifications. 

The New Jersey Medicaid Accountable Care demonstration project attracts an unexpected eight applicants. Slated to start in late 2014, the project will include all Medicaid patients within a geographic area, all of the hospitals that serve people who live within the ACO’s ZIP codes, 75 percent of the primary-care providers, and at least four mental-health providers.

Behavioral health software developer Qualifacts Systems secures a majority investment from private equity firm Great Hill Partners. Qualifacts will use the capital to accelerate product development, expand sales and marketing efforts, and identify strategic partnership and acquisition opportunities.

Caspio Inc. releases Caspio HIPAA Enterprise, a HIPAA-compliant edition of its rapid application development platform. The new edition features data encryption in transit and at rest, audit logs and an audit trail, HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, and a business associate agreement.

3-D medical animation and illustration company Nucleus Medical Media joins Greenway Health’s online Marketplace of value-added partners.

Research and Innovation

23andMe, which now bills itself as “the largest DNA ancestry service in the world,” secures a $1.4 million two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health. The company will use the grant to develop Web-based surveys to explore new genetic associations, enhance its survey tools to collect a broader data-set, utilize whole-genome sequencing data, and provide external researchers with de-identified data from its existing genetic database. The announcement follows news earlier this week that 23andMe has published findings from a study on new genetic risks for Parkinson’s disease led by researchers at the National Institute on Aging.

UCLA researchers select TrueVault’s SaaS platform to store and secure protected health information for a behavioral software platform being developed by the UCLA Gambling Studies Program. The platform will use mobile and Web technologies to promote and improve mental healthcare for patients using a data-driven approach, and will initially focus on treating gambling addictions.

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers develop the FutureDocs Forecasting Tool to evaluate the supply of physicians in various specialties down to a local level. The tool, which allows changes in key variables such as Medicaid expansion, changes in physician retirement rates, or the shifts in the locations of residencies and fellowships, has thus far shown that the anticipated lack of physicians is more about how doctors are distributed and what specialties they choose rather than a straightforward shortage.

Government and Politics

Former Procter & Gamble CEO Robert McDonald is unanimously confirmed as VA secretary.

The Government Accountability Office issues a report pointing out what went wrong with the Healthcare.gov roll out. CMS takes the blame for:

• Not clearly defining goals and expectations for the contractors hired to build the site.
• Using potentially risky cost-reimbursement contracts.
• Allowing contractors to use an agile approach to developing the data hub and website.
• Compensating contractors in a high-risk manner.

It will be interesting to see how Andy Slavitt, new principal deputy administrator at CMS, and the as-yet-unnamed marketplace CEO and marketplace CTO address these mishandlings as they prepare for the next go round.

Other

Hangover Heaven “celebrates” the treatment of 20,000 hangovers since its founding in 2012. The Las Vegas-based medical practice, which also offers room-service calls and a mobile clinic, anticipates opening its second location in the next few months.

The Global Partnership for Telehealth and the Jackson Healthcare Foundation travel to Honduras to implement telemedicine at three Predisan Good Samaritan Clinics. The pilot project was initiated to determine the effectiveness of the system in a remote, global setting, and the potential of its clinical applications. Twenty consultations have successfully been conducted to date.

The next time you find yourself frustrated by long security lines at the airport, consider submitting an idea to move things along to the Next Generation Queue Design and Model Ideation Challenge. The contest will award a total of $15,000 to be divvied up between two or three winners. The deadline for submissions is Aug. 15, 2014. If the contest website’s phrase “Active Solvers” is any indication, then close to 4,000 ideas have already been received.

People

Steve Tarnoff, MD is promoted to president and chief medical executive at Group Health Physicians (WA).

Ryan Dorr is promoted to CIO of PhyMed Healthcare Group.

Naomi Fried, PhD (Boston Children’s Hospital) and Alexis Gilroy, JD (Jones Day) join the American Telemedicine Association Board of Directors.

Susan Salka (AMN Healthcare Inc.) is named Director of the Year for Corporate Citizenship by the Corporate Director’s Forum.

Contacts

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

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News 7/29/14

Top News

After six weeks of “testy” talks, the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees agree to authorize $17 billion to fix the troubled VA healthcare system. The bill includes $10 billion in emergency spending to help eligible veterans obtain outside care; $5 billion to hire doctors, nurses, and other medical staff; and about $1.5 billion to lease 27 new clinics across the country. “Funding for veterans’ needs must be considered a ‘cost of war’ and appropriated as emergency spending,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, while announcing the agreement. “Planes and tanks and guns are a cost of war. So is taking care of the men and women who fight our battles.”

Announcements and Implementations

The Florida HIE and Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN) join the eHealth Exchange, a group of federal agencies and non-federal organizations on a mission to improve patient care, streamline disability benefit claims processing, and improve public health reporting through the exchange of health information.

The Whittier Independent Practice Association (MA) begins to roll out the patient-accessible Wellport HIE from Alere Accountable Care Solutions. Pilot sites Colden & Seymour ENT and Allergy, and Children’s Healthcare Massachusetts go live this week, with additional sites scheduled over the next two to three weeks. (Read Mr. H’s interview with Alere Accountable Care Solutions CEO Sumit Nagpal here.)

The American Academy of Family Physicians renames its Center for Health IT the Alliance for eHealth Innovation. The new name reflects AAFP’s increased focus on EHR interoperability and usability, as well as the partnerships it hopes to cultivate as it seeks out best practices.

Acquisition, Funding, Business, and Stock

Enlightiks develops dashboards using its Tableau predictive analytics software to help physicians and ACO administrators track quality measures and visualize information such as patient history and patterns of care.

Healthgrades joins athenahealth’s More Disruption Please program, giving athenahealth’s practice customers the ability to post appointment availability online for patient self-scheduling.

In other athenahealth news, the company expands its strategic agreement with Henry Schein Inc. The athenaNet platform and Henry Schein’s Dentrix Enterprise dental EHR will integrate to facilitate Uniform Data System reporting, a requirement for community health centers. Family First Health (PA) and Three Lower Counties Community Services (MD) will participate in a pilot program to create standard documentation and efficient processes, with the goal of rolling out the integrated offering in 2015.

Allscripts connects its EHR solutions to the state of Arkansas HIE, known as the State Health Alliance for Record Exchange (SHARE).

Government and Politics

A draft report from the Senate Appropriations Committee, responding to a FY2015 budget request from HHS, proposes to give ONC $61 million of the $75 million it requested. It adds that ONC should publicly report and then decertify EHRs that “proactively block the sharing of information.” It also wants the Health IT Policy Committee to create a report describing the challenges to interoperability and whether certification helps or hinders it. I wonder how the $14 million shortfall will affect the agency. I doubt a slashed budget will endear ONC to the idea of implementing a public EHR reporting and vendor decertification plan.

As digital disclosure of drug maker payments to physicians looms, over 20 medical societies and organizations send a letter to CMS asking it to explain what context will be provided to help the public understand the justification for payments. In response, CMS announced it will make available “the nature of payment for each payment or transfer of value made to a physician or teaching hospital, and will also include context on the website.” Dr. Jayne has shared her experience preparing for the Sunshine Act release of information, and will likely soon have an opinion as to what context is actually necessary and appropriate.

Research and Innovation

A survey of 2,750 British practice managers finds that over half are not confident their practices will still be in business in five years. Ninety-six percent say their practice faces an “ever-increasing and unsustainable workload,” and 73 percent report one physician or more suffers “burnout” due to unmanageable pressure. “People are fed up,” said one physician, “coming to work at 7 a.m., leaving at 8 p.m., logging on from home to finish paperwork and then picking up the Daily Mail to read that they are idle, lazy, and overpaid.”

GetMedCallAssist launches the Truckers MedCallAssist telemedicine program to connect truckers with physicians 24 hours a day via phone or mobile app. The program is based on a monthly family or individual membership rate with no co-pays or deductibles.

People

Amy Cooper takes on the additional role of  executive director of commercial shared-savings programs at independent physician network Healthfirst Inc. (VT). Cooper also manages the organization’s Medicare shared-savings program.

Brad Towle (Aetna) joins Propeller Health as senior vice president of business and client development.

Virtual Physicians Network CEO George England assumes the same role at DMH International after finalization of the merger between VPN and DMHI.

Other

A study finds that fist bumps transfer substantially fewer germs than hand shakes and high fives. “It is unlikely that a no-contact greeting could supplant the handshake,” noted one of the study’s authors, “however, for the sake of improving public health we encourage further adoption of the fist bump as a simple, free, and more hygienic alternative ….”

This article lists 17 companies with perks that will “make you jealous.” Epic gets a nod for giving its five-year employees a month-long vacation, while Microsoft earns a mention for offering generous paid maternity and paternity leave. Should my passion for healthcare IT ever desert me, I may consider joining the ranks of Southwest Airlines, which offers free flights to its employees and their families and friends.

A working paper using CDC data finds that the five happiest cities in the United States are all in Louisiana. I asked HIStalk’s helpful Data Nerd if there is a connection between the state’s healthcare and level of happiness level. DN tells me that as far as hospital patient satisfaction surveys go, Louisiana was barely second to first-place South Dakota in terms of percentages of patients who responded that the hospital “always” acted in the correct manner (doctors/nurses communicating well, rooms kept clean/quiet, etc.) It would be interesting to further correlate these state levels of happiness with care access, affordability, and outcomes.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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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.

Get HIStalk Practice  updates.
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