News 3/11/24

Top News

Chamber Cardio, a value-based care optimization company focusing on cardiology practices, raises $8 million in seed funding.

Webinars

March 27 (Wednesday) 3 ET. “Houston Methodist: Deploying clinical AI at scale for improved outcomes.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Khurram Nasir, MD, MPH, chief of cardiovascular disease prevention and wellness, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center; Brenda Campbell, RN, senior consultant, HM Health System Innovations; Nassib Chamoun, MS, founder and CEO, HDAI. The presenters  will share how an interdisciplinary team collaborated to successfully use predictive models and a novel AI-driven approach to address post-discharge mortality. They will also describe how they expanded use of the platform to reduce clinician time spent digging through the EHR with a one-page risk profile, including codes extracted from notes using generative AI, and targeting their highest risk patients for extra attention. They will speak to how they overcame barriers to bringing AI at scale to support clinicians across the care continuum.

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

People

Walmart Health names Ken Silverstein, MD VP of clinical operations. Silverstein, a former ChristianaCare physician executive, had been consulting on operations for the chain of clinics.

Announcements and Implementations

Premier Radiology Services implements RamSoft’s OmegaAI and PowerServer PACS software across its teleradiology operation.

Research and Innovation

A survey of 400 Medicare patients, all of whom have had telehealth visits, finds that 69% would be comfortable conducting their annual wellness visits virtually from home. A slightly higher percentage say they’d even be comfortable conducting virtual wellness visits with providers who aren’t their regular primary care doctor, provided their medical records could easily be shared with their care team.

A survey of 1,400 adults gleans several interesting findings related to healthcare AI:

• Nearly 70% are not comfortable with AI-powered healthcare diagnoses.
• More than half are comfortable with using AI for online scheduling and estimating medical costs.
• Just 2% of those surveyed have used generative AI tools to search for healthcare information.
• While 70% of respondents turn to their physicians for healthcare information, younger patients rely predominantly on Dr. Google.
• Though 47% believe AI will majorly impact healthcare over the next five years, just 29% think it will have the same level of impact on their own patient experiences.

Other

The latest HIStalk poll, “Have you scheduled an in-person medical visit purely online in the past year?,” is incredibly timely, given that I did that exact thing on behalf of a family member just last week. Scheduling a same-day appointment using the Walmart Health website was easy. I was even able to easily figure out what the cost would be for the type of appointment scheduled – a bonus when you’re not using insurance. The visit wound up being just $25 more than an insured neighbor paid to visit the WellStar-owned urgent care just around the corner.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic Consulting and SupraNet Communications extend their partnership to offer unlimited free WiFi services at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, WI.
• Bella Medical (TX) adds Sunoh.ai medical scribe software to its EClinicalWorks implementation.

Blog Posts

• Prisma AI: Pioneering Value-based Care Through Advanced Interoperability (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 3/6/24

Top News

Tava Health raises $20 million in a Series B funding round led by Catalyst Investors, bringing its total raised to over $30 million. The company connects employers to online mental healthcare, and specializes in EHR and practice management software for therapists.

Webinars

March 7 (Thursday) 1 ET. “Live Q&A: Waystar leaders answer provider questions on implementation, solutions + more” (this session will focus on ambulatory and other providers – a session specific to hospitals and health systems will be offered at 3 ET). Sponsor: Waystar. Presenters: Chris Schremser, CTO, Waystar; Laura Canzano, EVP provider and partner client experience, Waystar. Waystar leaders will explore how our secure, mission-critical software yields powerful results, like a 33% increase in staff productivity, while integrating with 530+ EHR/PM systems. We’ll talk through our smooth implementation process, which has earned us a 94% client satisfaction rate and a 74+ client NPS. And we’ll offer details about our hands-on support, which clients can reach in less than 11 seconds and which satisfies 96% of users. We’ll also explore how Waystar can accelerate implementation to alleviate disruption to your revenue cycle, all while helping you increase revenue and decrease manual efforts. For a limited time, Waystar is offering accelerated implementation for those experiencing disruptions due to data security.

March 27 (Wednesday) 3 ET. “Houston Methodist: Deploying clinical AI at scale for improved outcomes.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Khurram Nasir, MD, MPH, chief of cardiovascular disease prevention and wellness, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center; Brenda Campbell, RN, senior consultant, HM Health System Innovations; Nassib Chamoun, MS, founder and CEO, HDAI. The presenters  will share how an interdisciplinary team collaborated to successfully use predictive models and a novel AI-driven approach to address post-discharge mortality. They will also describe how they expanded use of the platform to reduce clinician time spent digging through the EHR with a one-page risk profile, including codes extracted from notes using generative AI, and targeting their highest risk patients for extra attention. They will speak to how they overcame barriers to bringing AI at scale to support clinicians across the care continuum.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

WindRose Health Investors acquires CardioOne, a physician optimization company launched last year that specializes in independent cardiology practices. The private equity firm will provide up to $100 million in new capital to expand and enhance its services.

Limbic AI raises $14 million in a Series A funding round. The startup offers AI-powered mental health triage and support tools, including patient self-referral capabilities and therapy companion technology. Limbic’s software was originally developed for the NHS.

Healthcare-focused government and human services software vendor Healthy Together acquires the assets of Kinsa, which had offered smart thermometers equipped to feed a tracking and resource prediction system for contagious illnesses before it closed its doors last November.

Healthcare consumer engagement company Carenet Health acquires the majority of population health management business Health Dialog from Rite Aid, which filed for Chapter 11 last October. Rite Aid will retain Health Dialog’s medication adherence management and medication therapy management solutions as a part of its clinical offerings.

People

CareAbout Health names Rich Almada (Optum) chief strategy officer and promotes Munish Khaneja, MD to chief physician officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Answer Health Physician Organization (MI) selects population health technology from Health Focus Software Solutions.

Zynx Health announces GA of its Zynx for Primary Care clinical decision support tool.

Research and Innovation

Researchers determine that a lack of EHR interoperability and subsequent physician reliance on fax machines or patients to carry their own records from clinic to clinic are the biggest barriers to closing referral loops. A lack of consistent information-sharing policies across healthcare facilities also contributes to breakdowns in referral processes.

Other

David Goldberg, MD publishes “Jokes You’ll Love to Tell: The Art of the Extended Punchline” after years of sharing jokes with patients and co-workers at his family practice and in the halls of British Columbia’s Kelowna General Hospital, where he assists with orthopedic surgeries. Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the KGH Foundation.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 3/4/24

Top News

MGMA asks HHS for its assistance in helping physician practices overcome the disruption Change Healthcare’s outage has caused. The trade association says its members have been experiencing:

• Disruptions to billing and cash flow.
• Little to no electronic remittance advice from payers.
• Rejected or non-transmissible prior authorization submissions.
• An inability to perform patient eligibility checks.
• An inability to transmit electronic prescriptions.
• Disruptions to health IT.

The American Medical Association and American Hospital Association have penned similar letters requesting that HHS step in and help providers stay financially afloat.

Change Healthcare announced on Friday that it brought an alternate e-prescribing solution online.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Valorant Health rebrands to Rainfall Health, The digital health company partners with local providers and government and community agencies to connect patients living in rural areas with virtual and in-person care.

Kaid Health launches a US-based Coding Services Group to help providers supplement their coding capabilities.

Virtual gastrointestinal clinic and “wraparound care” provider Salvo Health raises $5 million, bringing its total raised to $15.5 million.

Small to mid-sized practices are beginning to feel the effects of the Change Healthcare outage, with many revenue cycles stymied by an inability to receive reimbursements from payers. Some practices are having to decide whether or not to take out loans to make ends meet or even close up shop for good. Private practice allergist and immunologist Kiranjit Khalsa, MD is considering cutting back hours for staff and possibly closing for a few days to stretch what supplies she already has and cut back on billable employee hours.

Walgreens will close its six VillageMD clinics in Illinois, all of which are in the company’s hometown of Chicago. The news comes on the heels of the retail pharmacy’s decision to pull 50-plus clinics out of Florida. VillageMD operations will continue in 13 states.

Announcements and Implementations

Cancer Care Specialists of Illinois selects Canopy’s Intelligent Care Platform to streamline its manual triage, care management, and remote patient monitoring processes.

Orchid Wellness in Texas implements EHR, online appointment scheduling, and text-to-pay software from EClinicalWorks.

Other

Pandora Family Physicians (OH) warns patients of scammers who have been using a fake Pandora phone number to contact patients in an attempt to get them to divulge their insurance information and Social Security numbers.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe opens nominations for its 2024 Nurses of Note awards program.
• Odessa General Surgery Robotics (TX) adds Sunoh.ai medical AI scribe capabilities to its EClinicalWorks EHR.

Blog Posts

• 5 strategies to reduce future cybersecurity threats in the healthcare revenue (Waystar)
• With an AI-Powered EHR, Sunoh.ai, and Healow Patient Engagement, ECW is a One-Stop Solution for Small and Independent Practices (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 2/28/24

Top News

Redi Health raises $14 million in a Series B funding round. The company offers an app that helps patients manage medications, track symptoms, and engage with condition-specific resources that include financial assistance and support programs.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cognitive Healthcare International RPM rebrands to VitalCare Sync. The company offers remote patient monitoring and chronic care management programs and services to physician practices and federally qualified health centers.

Announcements and Implementations

The Shelby County Health Department will leverage Syra Health’s data analytics within its epidemiology department.

Privia Health will offer Navina’s AI solutions to its network of primary care practices.

Eagle Physicians & Associates (NC) selects MCare managed services from Medicus IT.

Greenway Health integrates Luma Health’s Patient Success Platform with its EHR for enhanced patient engagement capabilities.

Other

DTC Family Health alerts website visitors that it has been the victim of identity theft. The Colorado practice became aware of the matter when its phone lines became inundated with calls from non-patients asking to know why charges from DTC were appearing on their credit card statements.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 2/26/24

Top News

Walgreens decides to close all of its VillageMD clinics in Florida, one of its largest markets. Walgreens announced in October that it would close 60 VillageMD clinics in non-strategic locations. Half of those closures had taken place as of January. Analysts speculate that the Florida clinics, all of which were co-located with Walgreens pharmacies, were too small to attract enough patients and recruit enough doctors to remain viable.

Webinars

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

Announcements and Implementations

Cucamonga Valley Medical Group (CA) implements XpertDox’s AI medical coding software.

Lee Freedman, MD will implement CloudDX’s Connected Health remote patient monitoring software as part of a new RPM program at his MDVIP practice in Illinois.

ImagineSoftware will incorporate Maverick Medical AI’s autonomous medical coding software into its RCM technology.

Steer Health develops SteerNotes, AI-powered automated patient documentation software.

Tlingit & Haida’s Community & Behavioral Services Division will implement Cantata Health’s Arize behavioral health EHR at its Healing Center in Alaska.

Government and Politics

Greenridge Behavioral Health (MD) will pay $40,000 and implement a corrective action plan to settle HIPAA-related charges stemming from a 2019 ransomware attack on the ill-prepared practice that exposed the PHI of 14,000 patients.

Research and Innovation

A study in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine finds that telehealth is an effective form of keeping FQHC patients with diabetes connected to their care teams and involved with their care regimens.

Other

Medical Management Resource Group, which does business as practice management company American Vision Partners, announces that the November breach of one of its network servers may have exposed the PHI of 2.4 million patients.

Sponsor Updates

• Healing Hands Ministries (TX) adds Sunoh.ai medical AI scribe capabilities to its EClinicalWorks system.
• Nordic releases a new Designing for Health Podcast featuring Mark Townsend, MD.
• Black Book’s list of top, physician-rated small hospital health IT vendors includes Waystar in the category of RCM platforms/rural end-to-end software systems.

Blog Posts

• Bedroom blunders: The hidden usability issues of hospital-at-home devices (Nordic)
• CMS Update: Texting Patient Orders in Healthcare (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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