Amazing that the takeaway is that its easier to buy a gun than to get credentialed as a physician is…
News 12/31/21
Top News
Rhode Island’s attorney general is investigating a breach of the state’s Public Transport Authority after thousands of people who have never worked for RIPTA were told that their health information had been compromised in the incident.
RIPTA says a previous insurer had sent it files that contained the information of people who had no connection to RIPTA. It did not name the insurer or explain why the information was not deleted.
RIPTA’s HHS breach filing says that 5,000 people were affected, but the letters it sent said that the information of 17,000 people was involved.
Webinars
None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.
People
Juli Stover (Envision Healthcare) joins EVisit as chief strategy officer.
Industry long-timer Miriam Paramore retires as president and chief strategy officer of OptimizeRx.
Hannah Luetke-Stahlman, MPA (Cerner) joins WellSky as VP of its personal care solutions business.
Dan Ferris, MBA (Hillrom) joins Iris Telehealth as chief marketing officer.
Announcements and Implementations
HealthStream CEO Robert A. Frist, Jr. donates $2.25 million worth of his personally held company shares that will be distributed to 1,000 employees who don’t receive executive-level equity grants.
Privacy and Security
The president of Capital Region Medical Center (MO) warns of long ED wait times and overloaded phone lines as the health system recovers from a December 17 cybersecurity incident.
A surgeon in Spain is sentenced to a year in jail for illegally accessing the medical records of his housekeeper of 23 years to verify that she was sick enough to justify missing work.
Other
Computerworld interviews Mark Eimer, SVP, associate CIO, and CTO of 17-hospital Hackensack Meridian Health (NJ), about his department’s IT accomplishments in 2021:
- Rolled out 3,000 Chromebooks to employees who were being shifted to remote work, increasing its Chromebook count to 5,000 with Citrix Workspace providing access to Epic.
- Replaced Office 365 with Google Workspace for 40,000 employees who now use Docs, Meet, Chat, and Spaces. He observes that Office 365 applications don’t work well together, while Google offers a seamless experience in providing 80% of Office’s functionality. He also notes that Microsoft’s pricing was “exorbitant” in an environment where hospital payments are being reduced.
- Moved ahead with a goal “to move off as many Microsoft platforms as we can” because Windows is always targeted by ransomware attacks.
- The health system is expanding its use of Google Cloud and is talking with Google executives about developing Workspace apps that support healthcare-specific workflows.
A NEJM Catalyst commentary piece says that telemedicine’s value can be maximized through sustaining innovation (improving what is already being done) and disruptive innovation (providing simpler solutions for simpler needs or for patients whose needs are not being met). It says that both in-person and virtual physician visits give patients “more than what they need and less of what they want,” with an example being people who use virtual solutions for hair loss, obesity, and contraception who haven’t seen a doctor for years. The authors tout the potential value of remote patient monitoring and coaching for chronic conditions. The graphic above shows the complexity of patient needs (and eventual profitability of the solution) at the top of the pyramid that is occupied by Firefly Health, which has expanded its virtual primary care platform by starting a health plan (the company’s executive chair is former Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush).
An anonymous physician describes how their telehealth work ruined their career:
- Their work as an independent telehealth contractor turned into an “antibiotic dispensary service.” Physicians had to keep patients happy at all costs since they were being graded on customer service scores.
- They were placed on a performance plan for using templated notes, with the alternative being that the telehealth company would report them to the National Practitioner Data Bank.
- The terms of the performance plan limited them to 10 consults per day for one month, after which the company told them they failed the plan because they didn’t work 30 consecutive days. The company reported the physician to the NPDB.
- NPDB allows any health entity to report a physician. The reported physician cannot challenge the claim.
- The physician says their professional reputation was damaged, they lost income, and they are having a hard time finding work, leading them to question whether they should leave medicine.
Physicians at Durham, NC-based private, for-profit Private Diagnostic Clinic — whose doctors work at Duke University and its health system – sue Duke for requiring 400 of PDC’s 1,850 physicians to take jobs instead with the recently formed Duke Faculty Practice to be able to continue their research. The lawsuit claims that Duke’s previous attempts to acquire PDC fell through because of its estimated value of $1 billion, so Duke is trying to take it over for free.
A virtual meeting of the Beverly, MA board of health is taken over by masking opponents who used the meeting software to hand off speaking to those with similar beliefs, including one who urged someone to burn down the house of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. A participant declared that a proposed mask mandate would violate her HIPAA rights.
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I like the style of this post a lot, especially to point out the blatantly obvious contradiction:
“A NEJM Catalyst commentary piece says that telemedicine’s value can be maximized through sustaining innovation (improving what is already being done) and disruptive innovation (providing simpler solutions for simpler needs or for patients whose needs are not being met).”
“An anonymous physician describes how their telehealth work ruined their career:”
It’s a good reminder while we all want to innovate and create the next big thing, the real solution often lies in just fixing what’s blatantly wrong, relatively easily fixable, and screaming in our face.
I get that Outlook 365 is more expensive than Google Docs etc., but clearly Hackensack is doing this more for the Google Partnership than because Outlook 365ms features (clearly industry best tools for word and spreadsheets, not to mention that PowerPoint is so vastly dominant that who can even name a competitor).
I don’t even buy the pricing reason because while Hackensack might say hospital reimbursement rates might be under pressure their revenues are up, their margin is fine, and their executive salaries are what’s truly “exorbitant” for a non-profit.
Re: Mark Eimer interview
I am surprised that Mr. Eimer chose to highlight basic, keeping the lights on stuff as his hospital’s tech related achievements in 2021.
Was there no tech related innovation at all in this 17 hospital organization? Nothing that improved lives of their patients? Nothing that improved quality and efficiency of delivery of care? Nothing that helped their providers?
I interpreted the “overserved” line in that article as a patient who wants some propecia is overserved by going to an In-Person office visit or scheduling a 30 minute video visit with a provider. The Propecia market in the entire United States market could be served by a few providers taking phone calls at their home and that would be a lot cheaper and more efficient for everyone. Taking up an extra appointment slot at their primary care provider is an overuse of the provider’s valuable time.