News 2/28/22

Top News

Pediatric-focused health IT vendor Office Practicum announces it has acquired RemedyConnect, which offers telemedicine, an after-hours answering service, and website and marketing services for pediatric practices; and behavioral pediatric health EHR and RCM vendor NextStep Solutions.

RemedyConnect CEO Dan Feiten, MD will become medical director and product leader of clinical innovation at Office Practicum.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Athenahealth will expand into the Phoenix market with the hiring this year of 120 employees, primarily in client support center analyst roles. Employees will work mostly remotely, with occasional days in the office. Several investment firms wrapped up their acquisition of the company earlier this month for $17 billion. The company was in layoff mode for several years, with facility closures and layoffs in 2017 as Elliott Management closed in, and then again in 2019, as it merged with Virence Health after being acquired by Elliott affiliate Veritas Capital.

People

Health Gorilla promotes Karla Mills to COO.

Government and Politics

A grand jury in Colorado has indicted Helen Benson for filing false tax returns and allegedly stealing over $850,000 from Gunnison Valley Family Physicians, where she worked as an office manager for nearly 15 years. She used the funds to pay off personal credit cards and cash checks made out to herself. She also used the practice’s business credit card for personal expenses and altered its financial records to cover up her failure to repay a $20,000 personal loan made to her by GVFP.

Other

The Houston Health Department notifies 3,500 patients of a technical error within its COVID-19 test results portal that exposed 10,000 test results and related personal data.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe publishes a new report, “The Rise of Emoji in Healthcare Communication.”

Blog Posts

• How to Improve Medical Response Times for Nurses (PerfectServe)
• Handling Hospital ADT Notifications with Direct Messaging (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 2/23/22

Top News

Medication-based mental health telemedicine startup Minded raises $25 million in a Series A funding round that the company will use to expand beyond the seven states it currently serves. It also plans on doubling its workforce, investing in additional technology to reduce administrative burdens, and expanding into additional areas of mental healthcare.

Entrepreneur David Ronick co-founded the company in 2020 with Landmark Health Chief Behavioral Health Officer Chris Dennis, MD and Gaspard de Dreuzy, co-founder of telemedicine company Pager.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Denver-based Pinnacle Healthcare Consulting has acquired Indianapolis-based Solutions Healthcare Management. The newly combined company will offer practice management, RCM services, financial valuation, and compliance services; plus cloud technology.

Patient engagement and text-based patient-to-provider messaging vendor OhMD secures financing in a funding round led by FCA Venture Partners.

People

David Horrocks (CRISP) joins the New York EHealth Collaborative as CEO.

Other

DirectTrust reports that more than 254 million Direct Secure Messages were sent and received within its network during the fourth quarter of 2021, with the total annual number of messages climbing to 945 million – a 31% increase over the year before. Patient and consumer use of the messaging service increased 16% to 653,000 messages.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 2/21/22

Top News

Primary care company VillageMD acquires Healthy Interactions, a developer of patient education programs geared toward increasing medication adherence. VillageMD will offer the programs, available for several chronic conditions, in virtual, in-person, and hybrid formats at Village Medical and Village Medical at Walgreens locations by the end of 2022.

VillageMD and Walgreens have opened more than 80 co-located primary care practices in 12 markets, each offering in-person, at-home, or virtual services. They plan to open another 120 locations by the end of the year.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

National Medical Billing Services, a RCM company serving ASCs and surgical practices, acquires competitor National Billing Partners.

Women’s healthcare provider HerMD raises $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Jazz Venture Partners. The Cincinnati-based company will use the funding to expand beyond its two clinics and add virtual care services.

Announcements and Implementations

I2I incorporates HealthTalk A.I.’s patient engagement software with its population health technology for FQHCs and other providers in underserved markets.

Research and Innovation

An Inbox Health survey of 140 practices and medical billing companies reveals that half of surveyed providers have had patients leave because of perceived billing issues. Fewer than half of practices are satisfied with their current billing processes. Both practices and billing companies note that collecting patient balances is their top patient responsibility challenge.

Other

Charlotte Radiology (NC) notifies patients of a December data breach in which hackers stole copies of system documents containing PHI.

Sponsor Updates

• Medicomp Systems releases a new episode of its Tell Me Where It Hurts Podcast featuring CEO Dave Lareau.
• Nordic releases a new podcast, “How interoperability and cloud transformations can support healthcare organizations.”

Blog Posts

• 3 Ways That Patient Education Improves Safety and Quality of Care (Healthwise)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 2/16/22

Top News

HHS awards $55 million to 29 HRSA-funded community health centers to aid them in expanding their virtual care capabilities. Virtual visits at health centers have increased from 478,333 in 2019 to 28,550,608 in 2020 – a 6,000% increase. The number of health centers offering virtual care has also skyrocketed, jumping from 592 in 2019 to 1,362 in 2022.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Virtual care company Ro raises $150 million in a funding round led by ShawSpring Partners. The company has also launched a digital clinic for skincare. It plans to unify all of its services (telemedicine, diagnostics, labs, in-home care, and pharmacy services) and offerings – under new branding that will be launched sometime this year.

Announcements and Implementations

EHR and practice management vendor SimplePractice enables end users to connect to the NC HealthConnex HIE using bidirectional health data exchange capabilities from Smartlink Health Solutions.

ThoroughCare adds population health analytics to its care management technology for private practices, hospital groups, and ACOs.

EHR vendor Akute Care leverages Health Gorilla’s health information network to expand its lab and diagnostic ordering capabilities. 

Other

The NYC Test & Trace Corps begins offering free COVID-19 home testing kits at 14 libraries and cultural sites, including the Bronx Museum of Arts and the American Museum of Natural History. The Corps is managed by the NYC Health + Hospitals health system.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• All the Ingredients for Population Health Management (EClinicalWorks)
• We Need to Talk: Why Vital Conversations Are So Important in Healthcare (Healthwise)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 2/14/22

Top News

Las Vegas-based Brisk Health launches app-based telemedicine and urgent care house call services. The startup began offering similar services for pets last December.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Announcements and Implementations

Andrew Weil, MD Integrative Health incorporates Oxygen Healthcare’s EHR and patient portal with its telemedicine platform.

The Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities will leverage technology and services from StationMD during an 18-month acute care telemedicine pilot project.

Research and Innovation

Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have launched the MILBox Project, which aims to create a person’s digital twin using health and environmental data collected at home from wearables and in-home sensors. AI could then be used to evaluate and deliver more precise treatments and medications than would normally be available with anonymized patient data culled from a larger population. The first phase of the project will study the link between poor sleep and health disorders.

Other

Cue Health airs its first Super Bowl commercial, touting its smart home testing lab voiced by actress Gal Gadot. The company offers an integrated care platform that includes virtual care, COVID-19 testing, and diagnostics. (Gadot is no stranger to home-based digital healthcare, having invested, along with her husband, in virtual care app K Health last November.) Fun fact: NBC sold 2022 Super Bowl ads for as much as $6.5 million per 30-second commercial. San Diego-based Cue has raised nearly $1 billion over the last seven years.

I love this: Physicians in four Canadian provinces are now able to prescribe national park passes to patients through a partnership with Parks Canada and the PaRx Initiative, which was inspired by a similar program for physicians in the US. The program recommends that patients spend two hours in nature each week, for at least 20 minutes at a time. “There’s almost no medical condition that nature doesn’t make better,” according to family physician and PaRx Director Melissa Lem.

#HealthPolicyValentines are trending on Twitter.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Handling Hospital Notifications with Direct Messaging.”
• Nordic releases a new podcast, “How interoperability and cloud transformations can support healthcare organizations.”

Blog Posts

• Where Will “Homeless Data” Live? (Nordic)
• Healthcare Trends in 2022: Top 6 Needs to Consider for Medical Groups (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.