We should be concerned that the forthcoming MINIMUM cybersecurity standards will lead to many organizations being even less prepared than…
Monday Morning Update 6/19/23
Top News
Oracle has declined to comment about its layoffs in the former Cerner business last week, but affected employees have cited numbers ranging from 500 to 1,200.
Reddit commenters said that recently hired managers were targeted, along with the HealthIntent and CommunityWorks teams, support service owners, and employees who were assigned to the VA’s stalled implementation.
Reader Comments
From Innit: “Re: [cancer screening technology vendor name omitted.] Fired the CEO and two of four salespeople after missing financial goals.” I left the name out pending a company response. Its leadership page and the LinkedIn profiles of the CEO and salespeople have not changed.
From Staffer: “Re: Children’s Mercy KC. Brought in expensive consultants to train the entire workforce on culture. Executive leadership talks the talk, but some are not changing or are almost weaponizing the culture concepts against staff. I’m curious about reader experience – how is the perception of your organization, has it run a culture initiative, did leaders change or did they get swapped out, and did the organization change following the initiative?” My only experience with this was in my short, long-ago stint with a for-profit company, but I suspect the same challenges remain:
- The organizations that undertake these projects are already in trouble and expect consultants to fix their most pressing problems.
- Executives who created the problems pretend to participate, but don’t actually plan to change their own behavior.
- Hiring a bunch of expensive consultants creates pressure to deliver ROI quickly, but culture change is slow and uncertain.
- Companies are paying consultants to ask their employees what they think instead of talking to them directly, which pretty much says it all with regard to the disconnect between management and employees.
- It’s a big de-motivator to ask for opinions that are then ignored.
- It’s easier to recognize a good or bad culture than to turn one around.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Nearly half of poll respondents have experienced a negative impact of a previously signed non-compete agreement. A couple of folks mentioned that non-competes should include compensation – either the old company pays you while your time-out ticks away or gives you vesting or other benefits to offset your potential lost earnings – but the Epic model of pushing the non-compete onto providers and consulting firms means that you might not get offers and won’t know why.
New poll to your right or here, as suggested by a reader: does the fear of losing your job force you to work in a suboptimal or unethical way?
Listening The Descendents (that’s how they spell it), inserted into my YouTube feed because I’ve been listening to the Hives. An HIStalk search finds that I mentioned them in 2017, where I noted that the lead singers of at least three punk rock bands have earned PhDs – Bad Religion, The Offspring, and The Descendents. They look like Walmart-fashioned grandpas waiting for the Applebee’s early bird special, but then they just rip into blazing fast and highly skilled punk rock that sends youthful moshers flinging themselves off the stage. The band formed in 1977, with Milo Aukerman stepping down temporarily to earn a UCSD PhD in molecular biology followed by postdoctoral research. Also on my playlist: the reader-suggested collaboration between Dolly Parton and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, in which Parton’s warbling pairs surprising well with Halford’s growl as collaborators whose combined age is 148.
Lorre always offers Summer Doldrums incentives to new HIStalk sponsors this slow time of year, along with some first-year perks for small startups that need a boost. Contact her.
Webinars
June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.
July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Optum dissolves its Startup Studio incubator after three years and 100 health companies incubated.
Sales
- The VA awards Sierra7 and partner AvaSure a contract to provide a TeleCare Companion solution to seven VA medical centers in VISN 9, powered by AvaSure’s TeleSitter solution.
People
John Noseworthy, MD (Mayo Clinic) joins Northwell-created virtual-first care ecosystem vendor Caire as executive chair.
Brent Averette (Komodo Health) joins Transcarent as SVP of enterprise sales.
Damo Consulting founder and CEO Paddy Padmanabhan, MBA died Thursday of cancer.
Privacy and Security
Politico reports that Senators Peter Welch (D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have expressed concern to Amazon President and CEO Andy Jaffy that the company’s virtual Amazon Clinic may be collecting and sharing health data from customers. They ask in a letter that Amazon provide its patient authorization form, which they have heard requires prospective patients to consent to data disclosure that waives HIPAA protections. They also want to review sample provider contracts and how collected is shared.
A newly declassified report confirms that US spy agencies routinely purchase commercially available data on US citizens that includes their browsing history and cell phone location.
Other
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield — noting that 60% of the claims it receives for Ozempic suggest that it is being prescribed for weight loss rather than diabetes — sends letters to prescribers warning them that it will alert law enforcement and state licensure boards when it suspects inappropriate use or fraudulent activity. The letter provides few details, but since prescribers can legally order drugs for off-label uses, it seems likely that the insurer is going after doctors who improperly claim that patients have diabetes in getting insurance to pay.
A New York Times report says that the corporatization of healthcare has alienated physicians whose bosses order them to behave in profit-seeking ways that don’t align with their values. It notes that some doctors have been fired for raising issues related to patient safety or poor working conditions and are forced to hit productivity targets that preclude showing empathy or support. They also have to manage patients whose don’t have the insurance or cash to afford potentially beneficial treatments.
A TV station in Australia profiles the country’s first standalone, nationally accredited virtual hospital.
Sponsor Updates
- CereCore publishes a case study titled “Epic Advisory Services: An Acquisition and Install Story.”
- Experity celebrates a successful investment cycle with an employee trip to Orlando.
- Meditech publishes a new e-book, “A strong revenue cycle begins and ends with a satisfied patient.”
- Nordic releases a new Making Rounds Podcast, “Turning data into insights with managed services.”
- OmniSys parent company XiFin names Kyu Rhee, MD senior strategic advisor.
- Surescripts publishes a podcast titled “Bringing Healthcare to the People: How Dr. Brett Giroir Serves His Nation.”
- Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, and Virginia Children’s Care Network join Premier’s Kiindo pediatric-focused collaborative and purchasing alliance.
- Verato publishes a new white paper, “What Is Referential Matching?”
- Waystar customer Alivi Health announces that it has achieved a 99.89% clean claim rate.
Blog Posts
- Vyne Medical Introduces Fax Complete (Vyne Medical)
- Building a Data-Driven Culture: A Conversation with NeuroFlow Senior Director of Data Science Bill Lynch (NeuroFlow)
- How AI helps healthcare organizations achieve the Quintuple Aim (Nuance)
- Getting to grips with chronic disease management (Nordic)
- ChatGPT, Telehealth, and Financial Burdens: Is It Here to Stay? (Optimum Healthcare IT)
- The Journey of an Electronic Prescription (Surescripts)
- EHR-Based Targeting Strategies for Medical Device Marketing (OptimizeRx)
- Do Doctors Still Use Pagers? (PerfectServe)
- What is Revenue Integrity in Healthcare? (PMD)
- Lessons from a Top-Performing Health System on Lowering Mortality Rates (Premier)
- 2023 HL7 FHIR DevDays Top 3 Takeaways (Redox)
- The Joint Commission’s new emergency management guidelines: What they mean for your organization (Spok)
- CMS Introduces Prior Authorization Regulations for Medicare Advantage (WebPT)
- Three key strategies to harmonize digital health data and improve health equity (Wolters Kluwer Health)
- How Population-Based Clinical Decision Support Encourages Holistic Patient Care (Zynx Health)
- Healthcare CIO Advice on Leading through the Complexities of Change (CereCore)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.
Re: Oracle Health:Cerner lay-off
I lost my contact from AMS so it is broader than is being communicated.
Re: Children’s Mercy KC. Brought in expensive consultants..
As one who was a consultant for many years, and hired consultants when I was in operations, here’s what I learned:
People that need consultants don’t know how to use them; and people that know how to use them usually don’t need them.
Especially when the consultants are brought in to address culture issues, I suspect that engagement failures are the norm. That was what I experienced.
In one memorable episode, I was part of an organization that brought in a consultant to re-orient the corporation to a customer service philosophy. The consultant was fine. The organization however hadn’t really bought in to the concept.
We had an employee who dared to implement the customer service principles. Doing so meant breaking Standard Operating Procedure; said employee was reprimanded/disciplined for the SOP ‘violation’.
The way I remember it, that was the definitive end of the customer service philosophy. No one took it seriously thereafter.
Another story.
My organization decided that it had a sexism problem. They brought in consultants and held mandatory training sessions for staff. Not just once, but twice!
Later, a particular manager, who was something of a “golden child” in the organization, got busted for sexist behaviour at an office party. Now, he was disciplined, it was true.
However I maintain to this day, if it had been anyone outside of the managerial group? It would have been an instant firing offence. The guy got preferential treatment because:
1). He was a manager, and the management team doesn’t like how it looks when they go after one of their own;
2). He was a rising star and they wanted to keep him around.
It all left a bad taste in my mouth.
The juxtaposition of items in your “other” section shows why physicians are becoming burned out, retiring early or just leaving the profession in mid-life. We aren’t being made to practice unethically or suboptimally due to fear of losing our jobs — there is plenty of work and locum tenens recruiters are making a killing in finders fees. We are unable to practice optimally because of the issues raised about the corporatized approach to medicine but also because of actions like Anthem’s letters. The fact that physicians have performance measures to meet based on reducing obesity but insurers won’t pay for obesity treatment including life changing medication such as semaglutide puts clinicians in untenable positions as it is. It is absolutely disgusting for insurers to threaten clinicians with legal or professional licensing sanctions for prescribing a drug approved and marketed for obesity (albeit under a different name). The important point is that physicians are impacted, but more importantly patients are not able to get valuable if they happen to be obese. Also, future patients and the whole US health system will experience further irreparable harm if the industrialization of medicine and abusiveness of insurers isn’t stopped.