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News 10/2/19

October 2, 2019 News Comments Off on News 10/2/19

Top News

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VSP Global acquires the popular optical retailer Visionworks.

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VSP’s many eye care-related businesses include EHR and practice management software vendor Eyefinity.


HIStalk Practice Musings

One more reason to pick up a book: An AMA study finds that the more non-medical books residents read, the more their symptoms of burnout decrease. The study’s authors write that, “Leisure reading has an established role in the context of medical student education, where it is thought to reduce stress while fostering empathy and creativity.”

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Hard-working residents may enjoy “The Body: A Guide for Occupants,” the latest from one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson. As those familiar with Bryson’s style already know, he tends to pack an amazing amount of facts, humor, and personal stories into his works. And “The Body” is no different, according to this review by The Guardian.

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Young entrepreneurs in your life may appreciate a copy of “Girl CEO” by Ronnie Cohen and Katherine Ellison. Epic’s Judy Faulkner is a featured business leader, alongside 39 other women like Taylor Swift and Venus Williams.


Webinars

Nothing scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Professional Billing will expand operations when it relocates its Montgomery, AL headquarters to larger office space nearby later this year. The family-run medical billing and practice management business employs 350 people across eight offices in five states.


Announcements and Implementations

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Practice management company Unified Women’s Healthcare will offer Qure4u’s patient engagement app to its network of 1,600 Ob-Gyns.

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EHR, RCM, and practice management company AllMeds partners with HealthWatch to add chronic care management services to its EHR, RCM, and practice management solutions.

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ISalus Healthcare announces GA of ENTChoice, software for ENT practices that combines EHR, practice management,  billing, and telemedicine capabilities.

Simple Interact and Health 1 Technologies develop technology that automatically pushes patient intake forms from Simple Interact’s front office automation software to Centricity EHRs.


Telemedicine

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Telemedicine kiosk vendor OnMed will use Athenahealth software to transmit patient data to its secure servers.

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HCAP Partners invests $6 million in BetterNight, a virtual care platform developed by San Diego-based Sleep Data that includes video visits, remote patient monitoring, and digital therapeutics for people suffering from sleep apnea and/or insomnia.


Other

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Elite Dental Associates in Dallas will pay the HHS Office of Civil Rights $10,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations that occurred when the practice responded to a Yelp review by disclosing the patient’s last name and condition. A further review found that the practice had done it multiple times with other patients.


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 9/30/19

September 30, 2019 News Comments Off on News 9/30/19

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Matter, a health IT startup accelerator based in Chicago, announces plans to develop an innovation center in New York City through a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corp. Matter has helped launch 200 startups since opening its doors five years ago. Given its Chicago roots, it has developed a strong relationship with the neighboring AMA, resulting in an AMA Interaction Studio and physician feedback on developing products.

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Matter plans to open its NYC center in 2021.


HIStalk Practice Musings

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I came across this list of the six books shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. I’m not a huge non-fiction fan, but may take a peek at “Clearing the Air” by Tim Smedley solely based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top-of-cover enticement.

Aside from “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, I can’t recall reading a riveting, science-based book that I then recommended to everyone I knew. Please turn me on to new titles via a quick email.


Webinars

October 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Canada-based Well Health Technologies consolidates its Open Source Clinical Application Resource (OSCAR) EHR assets into a new division called Well EMR Group. Built on the acquisitions of KAI Innovations, NerdEMR, OSCARprn, and OSCARwest, the new group has released OSCAR McMaster Professional Edition EHR software.


Government and Politics

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National Coordinator Don Rucker, MD and Deputy National Coordinator Steve Posnack reflect on ONC’s progress over the last year, and share their patient-access and interoperability to-do list for 2020. Highlights include releasing a final strategy and recommendations for reducing health IT-related burden on clinicians, and working with HHS OCR to ensure patients have ways to access and share their PHI.

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And speaking of ONC, the office is hiring a Washington, DC-based economist to conduct research on the adoption, use, and impact of health IT and related HHS policies and programs. The role will also entail the development, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs and policies.


Telemedicine

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Sam’s Club will use 98point6’s software and services to provide telemedicine to members who sign up for its new health-related discount bundles. Developed through a partnership with Humana, the bundles will include free prescriptions for popular generics, unlimited $1 virtual visits, dental discounts, free lab tests, and prepaid health debit cards.

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Insurance software startup Jauntin’ launches a membership-based telemedicine service that offers unlimited visits for $15 per month and 33 free medications. The company has created buzz in insurance circles by creating software that allows traditional payers to automate the process of offering extremely short-term policies that cater to freelancers.

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At-home testing company BodyHealth IQ adds online wellness consults to its list of services, giving consumers the ability to talk with a physician about their results.


Other

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Dr. Jayne’s latest Curbside Consult catches us up on the latest in voice-recognition technology for the exam room. Google Glass is apparently far from dead, as her conversation with Glass-powered scribing company Augmedix founding chairman Ian Shakil reveals. Given Amazon’s forays into healthcare, I wonder if it will soon enter this territory, given last week’s news that the company is introducing Echo Frames. Priced at $180, the specs give users access to Alexa, which providers and vendors have already been toying with as part of an invite-only developer program.


Sponsor Updates

  • ITether adds access to Healthwise’s evidence-based curriculum to its outpatient care coordination and patient engagement software.
  • AdvancedMD will host its global user conference, Evo19, October 2-5 in Orlando.
  • EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the APHCA Annual Conference October 1-3 in Gulf Shores, AL.
  • Healthwise will exhibit at AdvancedMD’s Evo19 conference October 2-5 in Orlando.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 9/25/19

September 25, 2019 News Comments Off on News 9/25/19

Top News

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In Canada, primary care and software company Well Health Technologies acquires consulting firm OSCARwest EMR Services. It is Well Health’s fourth acquisition of OSCAR-related companies, giving it a strong foothold in the open-source EHR market.

Well owns and operates 19 primary care clinics, and provides EHR software and services to 856 clinics across Canada.


HIStalk Practice Musings

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Mr. H beat me to the punch in mentioning the upcoming biopic about medical huckster John Brinkley, who made a name for himself in the 1920s by claiming to cure male virility problems with grafts of goat gonads. If you can’t wait for the movie with Robert Downey, Jr., check out “Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam.” Fans of quackery may also want to read “The Road to Wellville” by TC Boyle. It’s been years since I’ve read it, but I do remember enjoying the bizarre tale of cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg’s infamous Battle Creek Spa (not to mention the 1994 movie of the same name).

Thanks to John for sending over several reading recommendations related to management and personal and professional development:

  • “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott. “This is a lot about how to manage well, have difficult conversations, and get the best out of your staff. I’ve used a number of the techniques in the book with success.”
  • “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. “It’s about how to handle feedback (obviously). Some great tips. You can find Sheila (and Doug) giving a talk on this on the Internet and that will probably be a little more palatable. Concepts are good but the writing is a little dry.
  • “The Motivation Myth” by Jeff Haden. “I picked this up as a cheap Kindle after reading a bit on LinkedIn. I’m a bit addicted to continual self improvement. Haden does a nice job at dispelling myths and pointing out what works. One simple concept he points out is that motivation comes from simple, small increments of success. You get a little taste of success and that motivates you to keep going. (That is – it’s not driven from what you are passionate about.) He covers so many disparate things, it’s almost a bit funny (how to become rich, how to lose 10 lbs in 30 days, etc.), but the main concepts are solid.”

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His recommended self-discovery titles include “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” by Richard Rohr, and “The Road Back to You” by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile.

I love it when readers turn me on to new authors, concepts, and guilty pleasures. Please email me with your favorites and/or latest discoveries.


Webinars

September 26 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Patient Education Data: A Key Ingredient for Improving Quality and Patient Experience.” Sponsor: Healthwise. Presenters: Victoria L. Maisonneuve, MSN, RN, director of the Nursing Center for Excellence and Magnet program, Parkview Health; Marta Sylvia, MPH, senior manager of quality improvement and outcomes research, Healthwise. Healthcare data is everywhere! It’s scattered across various systems and in countless formats, making it difficult to collect and glean actionable information. Knowing where to start depends on what your organization wants to accomplish. By focusing on your patient education data, you can drive quality improvement across your organization. Vicki Maisonneuve will share how her team analyzes data around the use of patient education. By combining different data sets, she can easily identify trends, gaps, and opportunities to improve quality and patient experience across Parkview Health

October 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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The retail primary care business model sees yet another twist as Partners in Primary Care opens its fourth office in a Walgreens pharmacy. A subsidiary of Humana, the medical group is piloting the concept to offer seniors a one-stop shop for healthcare. It currently operates one Walgreens-based practice in Kansas and three in Missouri. 

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Online behavioral health screening software vendor Nview Health raises over $4 million in seed funding from BIP Capital.


Announcements and Implementations

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Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists implements patient engagement and care collaboration software from Updox across its 22 locations.

ReferralMD integrates ConferMed’s e-consult software with its referral management technology to offer providers and patients quicker access to specialists.

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Solis Mammography goes live on ERad’s radiology information system at 65 facilities across six states.


People

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The American Academy of Family Physicians names Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Associate Dean Gary LeRoy, MD president. The AAFP published a great interview with LeRoy highlighting his time in the industry, views on health IT, goals for his term, and what keeps him up at night: “Physicians are drowning in digital data, and it’s causing burnout because we can’t escape from the constant barrage of information. A redesign of EHRs will provide some level of relief.”


Telemedicine

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Online birth control and skin care company Alpha Medical expands its services to include membership-based virtual care. The Silicon Valley-based startup has also broadened its reach to include Georgia, Virginia, and Washington.

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The Tignish community of Prince Edward Island in Canada will soon become one of the first areas in the world to offer primary care via telemedicine from a doctor in another country. Semi-retiring physician Declan Fox has agreed to see patients one or two days a week from his home in Ireland after his last official day at the Tignish Health Centre. A nurse practitioner will remain on site to facilitate video visits with Fox until a permanent replacement can be found.


Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

News 9/23/19

September 23, 2019 News Comments Off on News 9/23/19

Top News

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App-based house call and telemedicine company Heal acquires New York City-based Doctors on Call for $15 million. The acquisition, Heal’s first, will enable it to tap into DoC’s Medicare clientele.


Webinars

September 26 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Patient Education Data: A Key Ingredient for Improving Quality and Patient Experience.” Sponsor: Healthwise. Presenters: Victoria L. Maisonneuve, MSN, RN, director of the Nursing Center for Excellence and Magnet program, Parkview Health; Marta Sylvia, MPH, senior manager of quality improvement and outcomes research, Healthwise. Healthcare data is everywhere! It’s scattered across various systems and in countless formats, making it difficult to collect and glean actionable information. Knowing where to start depends on what your organization wants to accomplish. By focusing on your patient education data, you can drive quality improvement across your organization. Vicki Maisonneuve will share how her team analyzes data around the use of patient education. By combining different data sets, she can easily identify trends, gaps, and opportunities to improve quality and patient experience across Parkview Health.

October 2 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Tryon Medical Partners CEO Dale Owen says he fully expects to see employed physicians continue to break away from hospitals to form or join an independent practice. North Carolina-based Tryon, which was borne out of the exodus of several dozen physicians from Atrium Health, is working with a handful of MDs breaking away from CaroMont Health to form its first family practice expansion in the area. Owen insists, “The whole area is better served from a cost and value standpoint on the patients’ behalf if there are more independent doctors, rather than controlled referral patterns.”

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Great Hill Partners sells behavioral health technology vendor Qualifacts to Warburg Pincus for an undisclosed sum. The majority investment will allow the company to focus on product development and sales and marketing efforts.


People

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Ryan Anschuetz (Coverall North America) joins behavioral health EHR and practice management vendor Therapy Brands as VP of sales.

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E-consult software company RubiconMD names Sarah Alexander (Lumeris) COO and Fred Ronnau (CareAllies) CTO.


Announcements and Implementations

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Compulink Healthcare Solutions announces GA of MyEyeStore, an online retail store and management system optometrists can add to their websites to generate new revenue streams.

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Walmart Health implements Zotec’s RCM software at its new pilot clinic in Dallas, GA.

Symplast adds patient engagement and relationship management capabilities from Red Spot Interactive to its EHR and practice management software for plastic surgeons.


Telemedicine

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MDCallU launches a membership-based telemedicine service for consumers powered by MDLive. A service like this seems like a perfect fit for those healthy, tech-savvy consumers looking for a way out of the traditional world of never-affordable insurance. Aside from the need to have some sort of policy that covers unforeseen issues (and hopefully prevents medical bankruptcy), I bet business models like this one become more popular in the coming months.


Other

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I find it interesting that 23andMe is exhibiting at the AAFP’s Family Medicine Experience Conference this year. I can’t tell if they’ve exhibited before. The company plans to highlight “how our service works and how family doctors can help their patients use genetic information to make more informed decisions about their health.” I have to wonder how often family physicians field DNA testing questions from their patients, and how much misinformation they have to deal with. I’m also wondering if 23andMe is trying to lure physicians into selling their kits to patients. I’d love to hear from physicians who’ve had conversations with patients about the validity of consumer genetic testing results. Email me if you have stories to share, or if you’re attending FMX and spot anything our readers may find post-worthy.


Sponsor Updates

  • EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the AMA’s 2019 FMX September 25-27 in Philadelphia.
  • Madison Magazine names Nordic as the best place to work in Madison, WI.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

News 9/18/19

September 18, 2019 News Comments Off on News 9/18/19

Top News

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AI-powered clinical documentation company Robin Healthcare raises $11.5 million in Series A funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. The company’s Robin Assistant captures clinical notes through audio and optional video during an appointment, and then transmits them directly to a practice’s EHR.

The company’s executive team boasts experience at One Medical, Scribes STAT, and HonestHealth.


HIStalk Practice Musings

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“Girl with a Pearl Earring” fans will be happy to know that Tracy Chevalier’s newest book, “A Single Thread” debuts this week. I spent a few minutes on her homegrown website and love that she plans to dress in a fashion similar to that of her 1930s heroine for the book’s launch in the nave of Winchester Cathedral, where the story takes place. As she enthuses at the end of her update, “Long live books!”

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Hyland VP of Content Services Engineering David Luzier recommends “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown in the company’s latest “What our execs are reading” blog.

I’d love to highlight what you, your colleagues, or book clubs are reading. Email me with your titles and I’ll be sure to share in an upcoming post.


Webinars

September 19 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2020 Code Updates.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, director of terminology mapping, IMO; Theresa Rihanek, MHA, RHIA, classification and intervention mapping lead, IMO; and Julie Glasgow, MD, senior clinical terminologist, IMO. The 2020 regulatory release is right around the corner. Join IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders as they discuss new, revised, and deleted codes; highlight revisions to ICD-10-CM index and tabular; discuss changes within Official Coding Guidelines; share potential impacts of the code set update; and review ICD-10-CM modifier changes.

September 26 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Patient Education Data: A Key Ingredient for Improving Quality and Patient Experience.” Sponsor: Healthwise. Presenters: Victoria L. Maisonneuve, MSN, RN, director of the Nursing Center for Excellence and Magnet program, Parkview Health; Marta Sylvia, MPH, senior manager of quality improvement and outcomes research, Healthwise. Healthcare data is everywhere! It’s scattered across various systems and in countless formats, making it difficult to collect and glean actionable information. Knowing where to start depends on what your organization wants to accomplish.  By focusing on your patient education data, you can drive quality improvement across your organization. Vicki Maisonneuve will share how her team analyzes data around the use of patient education. By combining different data sets, she can easily identify trends, gaps, and opportunities to improve quality and patient experience across Parkview Health.

October 2 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “Conversational AI in Healthcare: What About ROI?” Sponsors: Orbita, Cognizant. Presenters: Kristi Ebong, SVP of strategy and GM of healthcare providers, Orbita; Matthew Smith, AVP and conversational AI practice leader, Cognizant. Conversational AI holds great promise to drive new opportunities for engaging consumers and customers across all industries. In healthcare, the stakes are high, especially as organizations explore opportunities to leverage this new digital channel to improve care while also reducing costs. The presenter experts offer a thought-provoking discussion around conversational AI’s timeline in healthcare, the factors that organizations should consider when thinking about virtual assistants through chatbots or voice, and the blind spots to avoid in investing in those technologies.

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


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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Oncology-focused patient relationship management vendor Navigating Cancer raises $26 million in a Series D round of financing led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and TT Capital Partners. The Seattle-based company will use the funding to make its technology more mobile-friendly, and develop population care capabilities enhanced by AI.


People

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Athenahealth hires Luis Borgen (Vistaprint) as CFO.


Announcements and Implementations

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Southwest Diagnostic Imaging Center in Dallas implements Royal Solutions Group’s Enterprise Care Management technology, which includes provider referral, patient intake, alerts, payment, and portal capabilities.

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Nuances develops pediatric-specific versions of its clinical communication and documentation, and analytics software.

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The Center Orthopedic & Neurosurgical Care (OR) implements an API that allows it to share data from its Allscripts EHR with PHR apps from MyLinks and Medlio.


Government and Politics

The Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas and the Wyoming Primary Care Association will partner to create the Great Plains Health Data Network using a $1.56 million grant from HHS. Former DocuTap/Experity software engineer Kyle Mertens will head up development of the new network.


Telemedicine

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The local paper profiles the work of the Medical Advocacy and Outreach clinic in Selma, AL. MOA serves HIV-positive patients through 10 telemedicine sites in central Alabama, and plans to expand to home-based care in the coming year. Its providers were initially skeptical of the virtual visit technology, but quickly realized its benefits: “In primary care, we touch the patient,” says Marguerite Barber-Owens, MD. “It was an adjustment for me. But then I saw the numbers. Selma has some of the most satisfied and [healthy] patients.” 


Other

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The local paper reports that a clinic in Melbourne, Australia has been faxing the extremely detailed health information of at least 10 patients to the wrong person for nearly two years. The man on the receiving end of the misdirected faxes initially hoped the problem would stop of its own accord. He finally came forward after deciding the issue may be a systemic problem that could impact patient safety. Faxing, while an archaic practice to many, seems to be the preferred method for many providers down under. The delivery method came under scrutiny last year in Victoria when a cancer patient died alone in a hotel room – a situation that may have been avoided if test results indicating he needed immediate care hadn’t been faxed to the wrong number just days before.

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Product designer Daniel Burka recounts Simple’s 17 month-long journey to building a no-fuss EHR for providers in India. The technology is focused on helping providers improve outcomes related to high blood pressure, can enable them to take blood pressure readings in 15 seconds. A favorite – and refreshing – snippet:

“AI, machine learning, and blockchain are all cool. But, it is a bit astonishing how often they come up in health tech discussions where ‘boring’ software will get the job done. What gets us excited is basic, well-built platforms, applied at scale to save lives.”


Sponsor Updates

  • AdvancedMD will exhibit at WebPT’s Ascend Conference September 19-21 in Minneapolis.

Blog Posts


Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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

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