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.

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News 7/8/14

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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

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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.

From the Consultant’s Corner 7/2/14

Practice Mergers and EHR/PM Platforms: 5 Considerations for a Single System

As physician practices merge, forming larger group practices and multispecialty organizations, they often run into a situation where the various practices use separate EHRs and practice management (PM) systems. This creates inefficiencies and inconsistencies that ultimately limit some of the merger’s intended benefits. To prevent this, merging physician offices should consider moving to single EHR and PM technology platforms.

In my experience, pursuing single platforms yields several patient and practice benefits. For example, it streamlines the patient experience, allowing an individual to complete one registration and receive one bill, rather than registering on different systems used by physicians in the same practice and receiving patient statements from each provider. Not only does efficient access prevent patient frustration and potential leakage, it can have a positive impact on the patient’s choice of practice.

Consolidated applications also generate cost benefits by eliminating the administrative and staffing expenses that come from supporting multiple systems. Moreover, single solutions allow organizations to standardize workflow based on best practices, reducing process variation and elevating clinical and financial work streams to foster greater efficiency and performance.

A unified platform also improves business intelligence and informatics capabilities because all data comes from one source. This allows the practice to dig deeper into the data to improve overall quality of care delivery and enhance population health. When practices retain disparate systems, it can be cost prohibitive to aggregate data, particularly for small to mid-size practices.

While the potential benefits are significant, it can be challenging for merging practices to choose the right EHR/PM system. I recommend keeping these five points in mind during the selection process.

1. Understand the true cost of a potential solution. In my experience, no two vendors have the same cost structure, so be sure when calculating total system costs to make note of one-time charges, such as installation fees, and recurring expenses, like annual software license renewal fees. Don’t forget to include the full scope of physician training in the cost analysis, as many estimates do not include the value of the physician’s time spent in training.
2. Assess a vendor’s ability to support the practice’s specialized clinical needs. Not every system will adequately support clinical operations, and practices should make sure to check for the necessary depth and breadth of content. Keep in mind that clinicians require robust functionality that can be tailored or modified to meet multiple clinical specialty requirements.
3. Consider the full impact on physicians and other providers. It is wise to determine if a system truly allows providers to perform their jobs better, such as by seeing more patients, completing charts efficiently or improving patient communication. Even though completing tasks faster is important, the quality of data and the ability to leverage it across the care continuum are even more so. I’ve seen first-hand how strong provider documentation can substantively improve quality of care, accelerate learning about best practices, and enhance clinical and financial outcomes.
4. Look at the systems currently used across the merging practices. Review integration capabilities and requirements across the care continuum, including those of current and future hospital partners and referring providers. I have seen situations where having the same platform provided a competitive advantage for future risk-sharing or care collaboration opportunities. At the same time, evaluate the scalability of the various practice solutions to meet the expanded complexities of the merged practice.
5. Assess the practice’s current and future state requirements to “future-proof” the technology investment. To make sure a new system does not become obsolete as the merged practice evolves, it is important to think about current as well as future needs. For example, look at physician productivity and billing performance, practice growth plans, changing reimbursement patterns, evolving reporting requirements, potential new specialties and future alignment opportunities with hospitals or other groups. Within this context, evaluate the vendor’s track record for flexibility and innovation, as well as costs associated with previous new developments and rollouts.

In the end, we all know that making the decision to pursue a single EHR and/or PM platform is not quick or easy. Using these five considerations as a guide, organizations should devote sufficient time to fully analyzing the options before deciding on a strategy that best meets the practice’s current and future needs and goals.

Brad Boyd is vice president of sales and marketing for Culbert Healthcare Solutions.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk, HIStalk Connect.

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News 7/1/14

Top News

White House officials expect President Obama to nominate former Proctor & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald to take over as the secretary of the VA. McDonald graduated from West Point and then spent five years in the Army before moving into the corporate world. He was ousted from Proctor & Gamble last year, after a 33-year career, following a string of disappointing quarters that drove stock prices down and eventually attracted activist investor pressure.

Obama’s choice comes just a few days after Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors presented his review of the VA to the president. As one might expect, the review highlights personnel issues, lack of accountability and responsiveness, and unrealistic scheduling standards, to name just a few of the agency’s systemic problems. Nabors also notes that the VA’s VistA system is “cumbersome and outdated,” but is state of the art when it comes to capturing patient documentation to form an integrated health record. He says the real problem with scheduling patients is a lack of clinicians, support personnel, and space, not deficiencies in IT systems. He does not, however, provide specific directives as to how the VA should address these problems. Perhaps the administration is waiting for new leadership to take the reigns before making suggestions.

Speaking of new leadership, it is likely that Bob McDonald will work with Carolyn Clancy, MD, recently appointed interim undersecretary for health at the VA. Prior to joining the VA almost a year ago, Clancy served as a longtime director of AHRQ. It will be interesting to see how the two, who come from decidedly different professional backgrounds, will work together in an attempt to rectify the problems pointed out by Nabors.

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Don’t forget to register for the next HIStalk webinar: The CIO’s Role in Consumer Health, taking place July 2 (Wednesday) at noon ET. Presenter David Chou, CIO, University Of Mississippi Medical Center, will cover where the industry is headed, how to leverage existing technology used by other verticals, and give the CIO’s perspective on shifting towards digital healthcare. I’m hoping he’ll also touch on the impact consumer/digital health is having on physician practices.

Webinar guru Lorre has made HIStalk webinars available on YouTube, which you’ll be pleased to learn requires no signup to start watching.

Watching: Sign Painters, a documentary that highlights the almost-lost art of hand-painted signs. I had the opportunity to attend a standing-room-only screening recently, followed by a Q&A with director Faythe Levine, and neither disappointed. The film is still making the festival circuit, with stops coming up in Australia, Canada, New York, and Tennessee.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Mobile healthcare provider WhiteGlove Health (TX) acquires GlenRidge Healthcare Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in provider, payer, and employer solutions. Company representatives hope the acquisition will help manage costs, and improve access to care and the quality of existing networks.

Allscripts reports 23 new Sunrise commitments at client facilities or at new client organizations internationally and in the United States since January 2013. These include commitments to Sunrise Ambulatory Care, Sunrise Emergency Care, and Sunrise Surgical Care. The news of the company’s platform expansion comes on the heels of its decision to partner with CSC and HP to bid on the $11 billion DoD EHR contract. Shoring up confidence in a prospective buyer can’t hurt, but I wonder if winning the bid (which Mr. H points out as highly unlikely) might actually do the business more harm than good. Companies brought in for contract government IT work haven’t had the best track record lately.

Cloud services provider SurDoc launches a medical data archival and retrieval service (SMAR) that enables providers to archive; back-up; and retrieve and send medical records, patient data, and billing information from multiple devices. SMAR also offers consumers the ability to upload and manage a secure personal health record.

CareCloud borrows $25.5 million from a growth capital lender as it eyes future expansion and product development. The infusion of cash is no doubt needed, as the company signed a record number of medical groups to its cloud-based platform in the first quarter of this year.

Imprivata raises $66 million in its recent IPO, slightly shy of the $75 million it anticipated. Fortune reports the company went public to secure access to capital markets and increase its liquidity in order to better take on competitors like Caradigm.

Announcements and Implementations

Allegiance ACO, part of the Allegiance Health Group (NJ and PA), implements Healthec’s ACO-in-a-Box solution to support its coordinated care efforts for more than 5,200 care beneficiaries within the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The “box” includes data analytics and reporting,  care coordination, and practice transformation tools; clinical nursing support to manage population health and chronic patients; and clinical intervention to high-risk patients.

The New England TeleHealth Consortium announces it has made 250 connections amongst network providers in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Healthcare facilities linked to NETC’s network can instantly share information by delivering telemedicine capabilities. NETC was formed in 2007 via a $24.6 million FCC Rural Health Care Pilot Program award – the largest ever – to bring telemedicine to the region.

Non-profit behavioral health and special education agency Spurwink (ME) receives a $70,000 health information technology grant as part of the Healthinfonet Behavioral Health Information Technology Reimbursement initiative funded by the State of Maine. Spurwink will use the money to improve its medical records systems and incorporate data into the state’s HealthInfoNet HIE.

In other behavioral health IT news, Center Point Counseling (WI) selects the CX360 EHR from Core Solutions to assist it in meeting Stage 2 Meaningful Use objectives. CPC EHR Project Manager Megan Tully noted the EHR’s user interface was an “important factor for driving clinician adoption of the system.”

Government and Politics

The State of Montana just can’t catch a break. After the state DHHS comes clean about a HIPAA breach affecting 1.3 million people, officials now report that Xerox is in breach of contract in developing a new computer program to run complicated Montana Medicaid payments. The state says it has lost nearly $13 million as a result of the delays, and will consider ending the contract, signed in 2012, if the problems aren’t fixed by mid-July.

HHS announces it will allow nearly every consumer who signed up for health insurance coverage on the federal exchange to be automatically re-enrolled if they don’t return to the site to switch plans. People who don’t take proactive steps to come back to the site and report changes in their income will also have their tax credits renewed.

In other Healthcare.gov news, HHS yet again extends its contract with Verizon’s Terremark subsidiary as host for the website and related data services hub, despite the fact that it expects to transition to Hewlett-Packard for those same services by the end of August. It is somewhat nauseating to know that the federal government has such low expectations of success that it is willing to spend up to $45 million on a “just-in-case” back-up plan.

In another questionable spending move, the state of Michigan awards computer contracts worth nearly $90 million to CGI Technologies and Solutions – the same Canadian company behind the initial, dismal rollout of Healthcare.gov. I did a double take when I read that state officials, despite knowing of CGI’s track record with federal health IT implementations, believe it to be “a leader in the field, … recognized for excellence in … implementation, particularly in a government setting.” US-based Accenture actually offered the lowest bid, but Michigan decision-makers decided CGI’s higher price would be a better value.

Research and Innovation

New research demonstrates that analysis of patient records using data analytics can predict future risk of metabolic syndrome, a condition that affects more than a third of the U.S. population and can lead to chronic heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Data was analyzed from nearly 37,000 patients, and included medical claims records, demographics, pharmacy claims, lab tests, and biometric screening results over a two-year period. It’s worth noting the research was sponsored by Aetna and data analytics developer GNS Healthcare.

People

The National Association of Professional Women names Millville Medical Center (NJ) Practice Manager Sherry Sherman, RN as a 2014 Professional Woman of the Year.

Updox names Michael Harris (Ecommerce) to lead the company’s innovation and technology teams.

ONC’s Director of the Office of Consumer eHealth Lygeia Ricciardi announces on Twitter that she has resigned effective July 25.

Other

Family practice physician James Legan, MD shares his Updox patient portal experience with U.S. News and World Report, offering tips for successful portal adoption:

• Help patients create a portal account at their visits and print out instructions on how to use the portal.
• Send patients their visit summary right away so they have it in their account before they leave the office and can message you back from it.
• Advise staff to create portals for themselves so they know what patients are experiencing.

“Don’t let your nurse wimp out [on signing up for the portal],” Legan adds. “Push her, and within one to two months of upfront, labor-intensive training, the improved efficiency will become so apparent that she will become the portal creator queen.”

Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush shares tips on how to ask for (and handle coming back from) a sabbatical: “Paying someone to take 10 weeks off to realize that they [want to] quit is worth it, especially if they’re an A-minus, B-plus player who isn’t going to get fired for performance. You get a B-plus out so you can put an A-plus in.”

Sponsor Updates

• ESD shares how to implement automated testing.
• Billian’s HealthDATA adds physician referral data to its flagship Portal database product.
• FirstHealth of the Carolinas launches its patient portal from RelayHealth.

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.