News 5/13/22

Top News

Bon Secours Mercy Health launches Accrete Health Partners, a digital holding company that will manage its digital health services, investments, and partnerships.

It will be headed up by Chief Digital Officer Jason Szczuka, JD.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor Experity.The Machesney Park, IL-based company is the leading software and services company for on-demand healthcare in the US urgent care market, providing an integrated operating system complete with electronic medical record, practice management, patient engagement, billing, teleradiology, business intelligence, and consulting solutions. Nearly 50% of the US urgent care market runs on Experity solutions. With Experity, providers can best meet the demands of the evolving on-demand space and deliver high-quality, high-velocity care by streamlining operations, improving patient experiences, and optimizing revenue. A GTCR portfolio company, Experity’s leadership is comprised of growth-minded urgent care experts and business leaders committed to improving on-demand healthcare for all. Thanks to Experity for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health Catalyst acquires Armus, which provides clinical registry development and data services.

This is an insightful comment from digital health advisor Marc Sluijs.

Sales

• Mount Sinai Medical Center chooses ActX Genomic Decision Support, integrated with Epic.
• American College of Cardiology chooses the care management platform of Biofourmis as the exclusive virtual platform for its TRANSFORM(3) study.

People

Kermit Randa (Syntellis Performance Solutions) joins recruiting software vendor Symphony Talent as CEO.

Ryan McDaniel (Huron Consulting Group) joins Impact Advisors as VP / ERP service line leader.

Announcements and Implementations

Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health announce plans to merge, creating a system that will have 67 hospitals, 150,000 employees, and $27 billion in annual revenue with locations in Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. The combined organization will be called Advocate Health, with headquarters in Charlotte, NC and with an academic component in Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Both organizations use Epic. The announcement cited several technology issues as contributing to the decision to merge – healthcare becoming more digital, population health management, and analytics. The health systems pledge to create 20,000 new jobs while making healthcare more affordable.

Microsoft-owned Nuance and The Health Management Academy form The AI Collaborative, which brings together executives of hospitals that are using AI technologies. The big draw for participants is that they get a trip to Microsoft’s headquarters – which always arouses both technical and business geeks – and attend annual summits.

A new KLAS report on go-live support finds that CSI Healthcare IT is busiest, and along with Experis Health, is best at vetting resources.

Government and Politics

Cerner will issue the VA an unspecified credit for failing to meet the minimum system uptime requirements specified in the $10 billion contract.

Two owners of a “purported” telemedicine company plead guilty to participating in an elaborate scheme of bribes, kickbacks, and fraudulent prescriptions for drugs and medical equipment that netted them $32 million and cost insurers $64 million.

Other

The BMJ reports that drug companies and universities that were found in NHS Digital audits to have breached patient data-sharing agreements – repeatedly, in some cases — have not had their access to that data revoked. The article notes that clinical commissioners authorized the release of patient data to Virgin Care without patient permission and the company then refused to allow NHS Digital to audit their compliance while also refusing to delete the information.

US hospitals are rationing the use of contrast media after a GE Healthcare facility in Shanghai, China temporarily closes due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Experts say not only does most of our contrast supply comes from a single country, hospitals sign preferred vendor contracts that give them no alternative source.

A NordPass review of user passwords finds, not surprisingly, that number-formed combinations starting with “12345” represent seven of the top 10 most common. but a common one I hadn’t thought of us “1Q2W3E,” which alternates top and bottom row keys at the left of the keyboard. A similarly digitally lazy choice at #33 is “ZXCVBNM,” which is the first six bottom-row keys left to right. Several of the commonly used passwords include f-bomb variants, which would make an interesting analysis to see if unrestrained anger toward passwords is linked to even more bitter interaction with online humans.

Sponsor Updates

• Bamboo Health announces record company growth and the opening of its office in Boston.
• CereCore joins the ServiceNow Partner Program.
• Get Well will offer medically-endorsed guided imagery and meditation audio programs from Health Journeys to its customers and their veteran patients.
• GHX makes Exchange Advantage, a unified platform that automates end-to-end digital transactions, available to all suppliers in North America.
• Interbit Data publishes a new white paper, “The value of 24/7 access to critical patient data – a nurse’s perspective.”
• InterSystems will relocate its Boston headquarters, taking up the top 14 floors of a new building at One Congress.
• Diameter Health publishes a new brief, “Why Upcycling Data Matters.”

Blog Posts

• Best Practices for Fielding a Project Team (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Using “SMART” Reference IDs for Workday (ERP) Data Conversion (Impact Advisors)
• 3 Ways to Increase Telehealth ROI (EVisit)
• 4 digital enhancements to improve patient access (Experian Health)
• 5 Elements of a Superior Solution for Health Systems That Need to Grow Margins (Gyant)
• Honoring the Role of Nurses in Empowering Patients (Healthwise)
• Did Your IT Project Fail? Here are 4 Ways Change Management Could Change the Outcome (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Using “SMART” Reference IDs for Workday (ERP) Data Conversion (Impact Advisors)
• AI in healthcare: A wicked problem and needed solution (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Why Upcycling Data Matters (Diameter Health)
• Hospital Week 2022: Celebrating Healthcare Systems and Healthcare Workers (Loyal)
• Medhost University: Multiple Options for Optimizing Medhost Product Knowledge (Medhost)
• How to Make Coordination of Benefits More Transparent and Truly Coordinated (Myndshft)
• Avoid Information Overload: Making Business Intelligence Data Actionable for SNF Rehab Therapy (Net Health)
• National Nurses Week: How can we better support the nurses that work so hard to care for us? (Nuance)
• Achieving Interoperability in the Real World (Netsmart)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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