News 1/10/22

Top News

Rockbridge Growth Equity invests in digital patient education company CheckedUp. The company’s last funding round, a Series A, occurred in 2018.

CheckedUp, which seems to market its products mainly to vision care providers, reminds me of Outcome Health, a much more high-profile company that offered similar services before it went down in flames in 2017. Several executives have been accused of luring investors in with false information about its customer base. The trials of co-founders Rishi Shah and Shradha Agarwal, and former CFO Brad Purdy, have been pushed back to 2023. Some analysts have suggested that the recent Theranos ruling doesn’t bode well for the former Outcome Health execs.

Webinars

January 13 (Thursday) 1 ET. “Cultivating gender equity in STEM.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Laura Miller, CEO, TempDev; Amanda Heidemann, MD, CMIO, CMIO Services, LLC; Deidra Jackson, VP of IFP customer success, Bright Health; Sunita Tendulkar, VP of agile portfolio management, IMO. Despites strides that are being made, women make up only 27% of the STEM workforce. This panel discussion will cover mentorship, STEM education, pay gaps, and debunking stereotypes.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Meditology Services, an information management, cybersecurity, and compliance company based in Atlanta, has secured a strategic investment from Primus Capital. Meditology Managing Partner Cliff Baker, a former HITRUST Alliance executive, also serves as CEO of Corl Technologies, a vendor information risk management business.

RCM software and services vendor Encoda secures an undisclosed amount of funding from Hughes & Company.

Texas-based BayMark Health Services has acquired online addiction treatment vendor Kaden Health. The behavioral health provider will initially offer the telemedicine service to patients at its AppleGate Recovery Centers.

People

MediStreams hires Jeff Hlozek (About) as SVP of commercial operations and Christopher Watson (Acoustic) as CTO.

Healthcare messaging app developer Celo Health promotes Jack Clough to chief growth officer. He’ll oversee operations at the company’s first US-based office in Seattle.

Announcements and Implementations

Strategic Radiology implements StreamlineMD’s EHR and RCM software.

Imaging Healthcare Specialists (CA) selects Within Health’s automated patient retention software.

Other

Urgent care clinic CareCube (NY) comes under fire for billing patients and their insurance companies for the same COVID-19 test by using incorrect billing codes. The company has faced scrutiny before: Employees have filed lawsuits related to failure to pay overtime, and have complained about pressure to perform procedures for which they aren’t trained. Owner Niranjan Mittal, MD is still fighting lawsuits related to malpractice, refusal to pay wages, and firing a woman for being pregnant.

Fertility Centers of Illinois notify 80,000 patients of a February 2021 data breach that may have exposed PHI.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe has achieved the top ranking in the category of secure communications platforms: physician practices, according to Black Book Market Research’s latest cybersecurity survey.
• The Consulting Report includes Nordic CEO Jim Costanzo on its list of “Top 50 Consulting Firm CEOs of 2021.”

Blog Posts

• Support Nurses’ Ability to Easily Communicate with Providers and Patients (PerfectServe)
• Here’s How Personalization Increases Patient Engagement (Healthwise)
• Meeting Staffing Needs: Looking Beyond COVID-19 (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 1/5/22

Top News

Primary care company Vera Whole Health will acquire health data and benefits navigation technology company Castlight Health in a deal valued at $370 million. Vera, which markets its services to health plans and employers, operates 26 care centers in 10 states.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Francisco Partners has acquired Office Ally, a healthcare clearinghouse, RCM, and software company based in Vancouver, Washington. Office Ally founder and CEO Brian O’Neill will retire once the transaction closes. He will be succeeded by Chris Hart (Rubicon Founders), who has held executive positions within ESolutions and Experian.

Patient relationship management and practice marketing company Review Wave will move from Irvine, California to McKinney, Texas, where it plans on creating 73 additional jobs over the next three years.

Global digital health company Babylon acquires health kiosk vendor Higi. Babylon was the lead investor in Higi’s $30 million Series B funding round in 2020. Babylon Health CEO Ali Parsa said at the time that he planned to integrate his company’s software and services with Higi’s Smart Health Stations. Babylon Health is perhaps best known for its virtual care partnerships with England’s NHS.

People

Kyle Wailes (SmileDirectClub) joins Wellvana as CEO.

Verdi Oncology names Bill Herman (Wulou Labs) CEO.

Tom Catchings (NaviHealth) joins Matrix Medical Network as CIO.

Medisys promotes Mark Lewis to VP of sales.

Other

Fun (but useless) facts: A law firm determines that Homer Simpson’s medical bills over the course of 31 seasons would have totaled close to $143 million. Top diagnoses include brain damage, paralysis, radiation exposure, skull fracture, and loss of consciousness. Homer’s most frequent injuries were sustained through falls.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 1/3/22

Top News

Behavioral health EHR vendor Qualifacts + Credible acquires InSync Healthcare Solutions, a Florida–based company that offers EHR, practice management, and RCM technologies.

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus acquired Qualifacts for $300 million in 2019. It merged the company with PE-owned Credible Behavioral Health the following year.

HIStalk Practice Musings

Happy New Year! It’s nice to be back in the HIStalk saddle after the holiday break. (Though I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to return to work amidst our first snowfall of the year!) I hope that, like me, you were able to find ample time for rest, relaxation, and reflection on how wonderful life truly is, despite the craziness 2021 brought our way.

I was able to put in some ample couch time, catching up on When Calls the Heart, Friday Night Lights, and Gilmore Girls. My local library has been slow to process requested books over the last several weeks, so I’ve turned to an oldie but goodie, “The Lord of the Rings.”

While I watched plenty of Christmas movies (Hallmark and the classics), I stumbled across Fisherman’s Friends, a gem of a movie based on the true story of 10 singing fishermen from Cornwall. Being a fan of the Cornish Poldark book and television series, I was especially keen on seeing modern-day Cornwall in all its provincial glory. Come to find out there’s a companion book that I’ll add to my must-read list for 2022.

What content did you consume over the break? Share your guilty pleasures and recent finds with me here.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

On-demand house call company DispatchHealth acquires mobile medical imaging vendor Dynamic Mobile Imaging for an undisclosed sum. The deal complements DispatchHealth’s acquisition of Professional Portable X-ray last April.

Virtual women’s health clinic Kiira Health raises $4 million in seed funding. The startup focuses its services on academic institutions, employers, and health plans. Kiira CMO Candice Fraser, MD is also medical director of women’s health at Juno Medical, a New York City-based in-person and virtual family practice.

People

Satellite Healthcare, a dialysis center operator, names Bindu Purushothaman (Optum) CIO.

Deepak Suri (ArmadaHealth) joins Healthmap Solutions as CIO.

Announcements and Implementations

El Centro Family Health, an FQHC network based in New Mexico, has implemented NextGen Enterprise, which includes EHR, practice management, virtual visit, EDI, patient engagement, and behavioral health software.

Government and Politics

Wisconsin’s Enhanced Prescription Drug Monitoring Program will use a $1.6 million federal grant to improve its direct workflow integrations and access to provider EHRs, especially those working in rural and underserved areas.

Other

Staff at OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation’s outpatient health center establish a book nook to promote health literacy. ““By ensuring access to free books at CNOHC,” says interim dean Natasha Bray, DO “we not only promote literacy, which is linked to improved health outcomes, but we also have an opportunity to inspire future healthcare providers who will care for us.”

Texas ENT alerts 535,000 patients of an August data breach that may have compromised patient information.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 12/15/21

Top News

Physician performance analytics company Embold Health raises $20 million in a Series B investment round, bringing its total funding to $50 million.

Launched by former Walmart Care Clinics CMO Daniel Stein, MD in 2017, the company was tapped by the giant retailer in 2019 to create lists of physicians its employees can use when selecting healthcare services. Those who wind up seeing a provider not on the list pay more for their benefits.

Reader Comments

From Nasty Parts: “Re: Binge-watching during the holidays. Really like Lost in Space as well! This is the last season so I hope its a good one. Just started. Hallmark movies …. yes. It’s amazing how many princes of small European countries come to NYC to mix with the regular folk.”

Email me with your binge-watching recommendations, please. I’ll be taking a holiday break through the first of the year, and am planning to devote plenty of time to being a couch potato.

Webinars

None scheduled through the end of the year. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

People

NextGen Healthcare promotes CMIO Bob Murry, MD to CMO.

Army veteran Jennifer Peña, MD (Nurx) joins K Health as its first CMO.

Clinical Connect Health Information Exchange in Pittsburgh promotes Phyllis Szymanski to president.

Announcements and Implementations

Konza announces GA of Translate, ambulatory electronic lab-reporting software intended to help physician practices send compliant COVID-19 lab reports to public health registries.

Wheel adds GoodRx’s prescription savings software to its white-label virtual care offering.

Midwest Cardiovascular Institute (IL) implements EHR, analytics, chronic care management, and reporting software from Objective Medical Systems.

CareCloud develops CareCloud Connector, an interface and data management engine.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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Contact us online.
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News 12/13/21

Top News

House call company Pivotal Heath raises $1.3 million in an investment round it hopes will eventually include another $10 million. Launched last year, the startup offers in-home urgent care in Madison, Wisconsin. It will soon launch an appointment-booking app, and expand into Milwaukee.

Pivotal Health CEO Sal Braico helped to launch the company after four years as COO of SymphonyCare.

HIStalk Practice Musings

With the holidays upon us, I’ve carved out a bit of extra time to find and binge-watch movies and shows. My couch-potato time will likely increase as Christmas creeps closer and I finally cross everything off my shopping list. Given my newfound love of Friday Night Lights (which is based on a movie based on a book, by the way) and the newest season of Lost in Space, I was pleased to come across this article highlighting the benefits of binge-watching. Apparently, I’ll be doing myself a favor when I watch several Hallmark Christmas movies in a row! It does mention that healthy snacks should be on hand, so I’ll have to get creative when it comes to indulging in homemade Christmas treats, like these classic sugar cookies.

What will you be binge-watching during the holidays? Have any favorite recipes you’d care to share? Email me.

Webinars

December 14 (Tuesday) 1 ET.  “Using Cloud to Boost AI and Enterprise Imaging.” Sponsor: CloudWave. Presenters: Larry Sitka, MS, VP/CSIO of enterprise applications, Canon Medical Informatics; Jacob Wheeler, MBA, senior product manager, CloudWave. Enterprise imaging has remained a holdout of data center complexity despite the benefits the cloud offers. The presenters will discuss innovative ways to reduce complexity and lead with disruptive technology using AI, enterprise imaging, and the cloud.

December 15 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “Improve Efficiency, Reduce Burnout: Leveraging Smart Clinical Communications.” Sponsor: Spok. Presenters: Matt Mesnik, MD, chief medical officer, Spok; Kiley Black, MSN, APRN, director of clinical innovation, Spok. The presenters will identify the technologies that most often contribute to clinician burnout, then explain how improving common clinical workflows can help care teams collaborate better and focus on what they do best—taking care of patients. They will describe how a clinical communication and collaboration platform can automate clinical consults and code calls to alleviate burnout.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Behavioral health IT vendor CentralReach acquires ABA Tools, a company that offers digital learning materials for applied behavioral analysis therapy. ABA Tools co-founder Patrick Roper will join CentralReach as senior instructional designer.

Patient intake technology company Phreesia acquires Insignia Health, developer of the Patient Activation Measure program.

Digital care management company ChronWell raises $6 million, bringing its total funding to just over $13 million. The Florida-based company focuses its programs on chronic GI conditions and, most recently, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Announcements and Implementations

FQHCs including Green River Medical Center in Utah and Northeast Valley Health in Los Angeles have implemented Rimidi’s remote patient monitoring capabilities.

Sponsor Updates

• The Digital Workplace Group honors Nordic Consulting Senior Director Dawn Hancock with its Digital Workplace Leader of the Year Award.

Blog Posts

• Toward the Liberation of Medical Data (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.