Top News
Athenahealth acquires 12-employee, Austin-based care coordination system vendor Patient IO, in which Athenahealth had invested in October 2015 via its More Disruption Please Accelerator program. This is the second company Athenahealth acquired from the MDR accelerator, the first being scheduling system vendor Arsenal Health.
The three-year-old company had raised $4.3 million in three funding rounds. Its app offers collaborative care plans, secure messaging, wearables integration, medication management, and notifications.
Reader Comments
From Mick Mars: “Re: HIMSS Analytics vs. Definitive Healthcare for primary intelligence for vendors. People at our company hate HIMSS Analytics, but you lose HIMSS points and thus get a worse booth location if you drop them. Both companies are dropping their prices by the day, but it’s still a six-figure decision.” I’ll invite vendor readers to weigh in on the pros and cons of each since as a non-vendor, I haven’t worked with either company.
From CEO Cynic: “Re: KLAS. We stopped paying their ransomware fees last year.”
From Mobile Man: “Re: farming tech bubble. I find interesting similarities with our approach to healthcare IT. I wonder what would happen if we had Meaningful Use money for agriculture?” A Fortune article describes technology companies that create expensive sensors and data tracking software for farm equipment while keeping the data rights for themselves so they can sell it to fertilizer and equipment vendors. Venture capital firms are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Silicon Valley-designed agtech such as GPS-guided tractors and aerial imaging drones that farmers aren’t buying, with experts saying farmers just need basic technology to track people and equipment, digitize their paper notes, and to display history of previously recorded problems. The market is soft because startups have bailed out and left farmers holding expensive equipment, the systems can be difficult to install and use, and those systems often don’t tell the farmer anything they don’t already know. At least some farmers already have their form of Meaningful Use in which they, like doctors, are paid by taxpayers to reduce their productivity (leaving fields unplanted or seeing fewer patients, respectively). We’re lucky government market interference doesn’t lead us into either starvation or death from unmet medical needs.
From Chilblains: “Re: Athenahealth. This is kind of a big deal – Doran was a huge asset and his departure, along with that of Ed Park, makes me wonder whether Kyle Armbrester and the new CTO can fill the holes.” Athenahealth GM of AthenaCoordinator Doran Robinson leaves the company to work for an online furniture company. ATHN shares have slid 6 percent in the past year vs. a 13 percent gain in the Nasdaq.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Here’s my ingenious, semi-technical solution for patient engagement. Insurers look you up on Facebook to find your friends and family members, then bribe them secretly to encourage your healthy behaviors by applying peer pressure in the form of, “That’s a lot of wine for a weekday,” or, “You might want to sew on those shirt buttons with fishing line so they don’t shoot off under pressure and put someone’s eye out.”
I ran a comment last week from a reader who observed staff at Suburban Hospital (MD) operating under downtime procedures for a handful of hours. I’ve found that the problem wasn’t Epic, it was a connectivity problem among Johns Hopkins hospitals due to a power surge that overheated conduit. It’s interesting to me that hospital systems have become reliable enough that when someone says “XX system was down,” it’s usually not the system itself but rather the connectivity to it or a workstation-related issue. It’s not much consolation that a given system is running perfectly even though users can’t access it, but that is the case most of the time these days except during application software upgrades.
Listening: the new single from the Pixies, preceding the September 30 release of their new album, their first without Kim Deal. Their new stuff is familiarly full of droning guitar riffs and the quirky pop culture references of Charles Thompson IV (aka Black Francis, Frank Black). I can never get this song out of my head, nor do I wish to.
Webinars
None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre for webinar services. Past webinars are on our HIStalk webinars YouTube channel.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Digital engagement vendor Zillion raises $28 million in a Series C funding round. I interviewed President Bill Van Wyck in May 2016. He summarized Zillion’s market position then as:
The differences in the market exist where healthcare has been trying to build vertical silo products to address specific conditions. The reality is that patients don’t typically have just one condition. They are overweight and may have depression, or they may be diabetic and need other types of procedures and support. There are co-morbidities and multiple chronic conditions that exist in the real world. Having a common backbone platform like Zillion where you can design, create, and deploy programs to patient populations and then refine and refine and modify those programs at scale is a differentiator for healthcare stakeholders. When you look at what they’ve been building, typically none of them interact with existing systems. They’re not interoperable. They don’t always reach patients on the devices and the technology that they use day to day.
Cardinal Health acquires 18-employee Iowa City, IA-based telepharmacy software vendor TelePharm, which allows pharmacists to verify prescriptions and counsel patients by video from any location.
People
Col. Mike Regan, former VP/CIO of Lower Bucks Hospital (PA) and an executive with Siemens Healthcare while he also pursued a 35-year career in the Air National Guard, is named Deputy Adjutant General-Air of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Announcements and Implementations
Cerner will use episodes of care software from 3M Health Information Systems in its HealtheIntent population health management system.
In Australia, two northern Queensland hospitals go to market for for a clinic and hospital EHR, with $26 million budgeted. Cairns Hospital, the major health system, is already live on Cerner, which probably places it in a strong bidding position.
Government and Politics
ONC announces the winners of its Blockchain in healthcare challenge, which drew 70 submissions. The 15 winners from which up to eight will be selected to present at the ONC/NIST workshop September 26-27 are:
Blockchain and Health IT: Algorithms, Privacy, and Data (MIT). A peer-to-peer network that enables parties to jointly store and analyze data with complete privacy that could empower precision medicine clinical trials and research.
Blockchain: Securing a New Health Interoperability Experience (Accenture). Blockchain technologies solutions can support many existing health care business processes, improve data integrity and enable at-scale interoperability for information exchange, patient tracking, identity assurance, and validation.
Blockchain Technologies: A whitepaper discussing how the claims process can be improved (Humana). Smart contracts, Blockchain, and other technologies can be combined into a platform that enables drastic improvements to the claims process and improves the health care experience for all stakeholders.
Blockchain: Opportunities for Health Care (Deloitte). Presentation of an implementation framework and business case for using Blockchain as part of health information exchange to satisfy national health care objectives.
A Case Study for Blockchain in Healthcare: “MedRec” prototype for electronic health records and medical research data (MIT Media Lab, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center). A decentralized record management system to handle electronic health records, using Blockchain technology that manages authentication, confidentiality, accountability and data sharing.
The Use of a Blockchain to Foster the Development of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (National Quality Forum). Use of the Internet of Things in combination with Blockchain technology for Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs).
Powering the PhysicianPatient Relationship with HIE of One Blockchain Health IT (Adrian Gropper, MD). “HIE of One” links patient protected health information (PHI) to Blockchain identities and Blockchain identities to verified credential provider institutions to lower transaction costs and improves security for all participants.
Blockchain: The Chain of Trust and its Potential to Transform Healthcare – Our Point of View (IBM). Potential uses of Blockchain technology in health care including a detailed look at health care pre-authorization payment infrastructure, counterfeit drug prevention and detection and clinical trial results use cases.
Moving Toward a Blockchain -based Method for the Secure Storage of Patient Record (Drew Ivan). Use of Blockchain as a novel approach to secure health data storage, implementation obstacles, and a plan for transitioning incrementally from current technology to a Blockchain solution.
ModelChain: Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Predictive Modeling Framework on Private Blockchain Networks (UCSD/VA San Diego). ModelChain is a framework used to adapt Blockchain to enable privacy-preserving health care predictive modeling and to increase interoperability between institutions.
Blockchain For Health Data and Its Potential Use in Health IT and Health Care Related Research (Laura Linn and Martha Koo, MD). A look at Blockchain based access-control manager to health records that advances the industry interoperability challenges expressed in ONC’s Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap.
A Blockchain-Based Approach to Health Information Exchange Networks (Mayo Clinic). Blockchain-based approach to sharing patient data that trades a single centralized source of trust in favor of network consensus, and predicates consensus on proof of structural and semantic interoperability.
Adoption of block-chain to enable the scalability and adoption of Accountable Care (Ramkrishna Prakash). A new digital health care delivery model that uses Blockchain as a foundation to enable peer-to-peer authorization and authentication.
A Blockchain profile for Medicaid Applicants and Recipients (Institute for the Future). A solution to the problem churning in the Medicaid program that illustrates how health IT and health research could leverage Blockchain-based innovations and emerging artificial intelligence systems to develop new models of health care delivery.
Blockchain & Alternative Payment Models (King Yip). Blockchain technology has the potential to assist organizations using alternative payment models in developing IT platforms that would help link quality and value.
Privacy and Security
Two West Virginia hospitals owned by Appalachian Regional Healthcare go back to paper when their computer systems are infected by unspecified malware. The systems went down last weekend, and according to a Tuesday update on AHR’s site, are still down.
A judge rules that a lawsuit brought by the mother of a murdered TV news anchor against two hospital employees who viewed her medical records can proceed, although the judge finds that the hospital is not liable for the actions of its employees.
Innovation and Research
Researchers question whether physicians should order more diagnostic imaging tests or inform patients when their studies turn up incidental findings of unknown significance. The authors say genetics testing may provide a model that’s applicable to radiology, where patients decide upfront how much they want to know and their medical experts don’t disclose minor, low-risk findings. Others caution that it’s not practical in a litigious malpractice environment to withhold information of unknown future significance, especially when a lot of diagnostic imaging tests are performed purely to avoid malpractice claims.
Technology
Huffington Post covers the hospital use of virtual reality as an alternative to drugs for pain management and relaxation.
Two radiologists in Canada create Tipso, which projects PACS images onto a surgical drape so that surgeons can manipulate them with their hands without breaking the surgical field. Tests suggests that the system can reduce surgery time by up to 15 percent.
Other
A former Mount Sinai School of Medicine researcher who was fired in 2010 for data fraud and then sued the school unsuccessfully for discrimination shoots two men outside a Chappaqua, NY deli, one of them the dean of the medical school, in an apparent revenge attack. Both the dean and a bystander suffered non-life threatening injuries.
A Gallup poll finds that healthcare, pharma, and the federal government take the bottom three spots in consumer perception. Restaurants and the computer industry top the list.
Researchers find that one-fifth of genetic research papers whose authors used Microsoft Excel to analyze their data contain incorrect gene names, as the authors fail to notice that the worksheet software automatically translates symbols (SEPT2) to dates (September 2).
In China, a state-run newspaper covers a hospital’s Internet addiction treatment center that has used electroshock on 6,000 people, mostly teenagers who are sent there by their parents. The patients are forced to attend ideological education and military training and are given shock treatments for breaking any of 86 rules, which include not taking their meds on an empty stomach and not sitting in the dean’s chair. Such treatment would be equally popular with providers here if insurance would pay for it.
Sponsor Updates
Gibson Consultants publishes “Independence remains a rewarding choice for doctors” by Aprima CEO Michael Nissenbaum and Chadwick Prodromos, MD.
Arcadia Healthcare Solutions analytics earns NCQA PCMH pre-validation.
Impact Advisors is recognized as one of the largest healthcare management consulting firms.
KLAS recognizes Nordic as a top performer in optimization services.
Besler Consulting publishes a “2017 IPPS Final Rule Analysis.”
Leadership Columbus selects CoverMyMeds Communications Manager Mike Bukach for its Signature Program Class of 2017.
The Mental Health Association of Erie County will honor CTG for its contributions to the cause at its annual Benefactor Society Reception on September 7 in Buffalo, NY.
Elsevier Clinical Solutions receives a Merit Award for Patient Education from Health Awards.
Fortune features comments from Extension Healthcare CEO Todd Plesko in an article on WhatsApp.
Built in Colorado profiles Healthgrades CTO Bill Bell.
Blog Posts
Attend EVO16 – This Year’s AdvancedMD User Conference (AdvancedMD)
The Powerful Convergence of Medical Device Data and Analytics (CapsuleTech)
Healthcare Perspectives Differ: Can Care Coordination Narrow the Gap? (CareSync)
Staffing Model Innovation in the NICU (ECG Management Consultants)
Taking an Outside-In Perspective to Product Management (Spok)
10 Things to Share with Your Digital Agency Before Starting a Campaign (Evariant)
Does Your Clinical Documentation Hit the Specificity Target? (Galen Healthcare Solutions)
Security Q and A With Grace Hua (PatientSafe Solutions)
What it’s really like to help keep a US health system’s vitals in check (GE Healthcare)
How to Effectively Manage Your Optimization Process After Go-Live: MOP IT Up! (Hayes Management Consulting)
Breaches, MACRA, and Value-Based Care Headline IHT2 HIT Summit (HBI Solutions)
EMR Data Integration/Conversion – Do the pieces fit and are they accurate? (HCTec)
EHR Training Best Practices: Part 2 & 3 (The HCI Group)
Contacts
Mr. H, Lorre, Jennifer, Dr. Jayne, Lt. Dan.
More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.
Get HIStalk updates. Send news or rumors.
Contact us.