A potpourri of current articles. Hope you don’t feel like Pepper the Robot after you read them! AI won’t boost cybersecurity, that’s cutting corners (Cybernews) AI tools that make cybersecurity more effective and faster in response are increasingly available. They are estimated in a Techopedia article rounding up multiple studies to be a global market of over $133 billion by 2030. IBM claims that organizations with AI cybersecurity took 100 days less to identify and contain data breaches. Yet AI can also leave organizations more vulnerable to cyberattack. Hackers and ransomwareistes have been using AI for years in phishing and... Continue Reading
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Breaking: Walgreens’ VillageMD shutting in Florida; Change Healthcare system websites cyberattacked (updated 23 Feb)
...to go to connecting links go to blank screens. Optum is not disclosing further information and perhaps shouldn’t at this point. Change Healthcare is part of UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and processes 15 billion transactions a year filled with PHI and PII, which adds to the scariness factor. TechCrunch, Becker’s, HealthITSecurity This is a developing story and will be updated Update 22 Feb: HISTalk reports that athenahealth customers are also affected, as their electronic data interchange is supported by Change Healthcare technology. UnitedHealth Group said in an SEC filing that a “suspected nation-state associated cybersecurity threat actor” gained access to Change... Continue Reading
Mid-week roundup: Cotiviti’s $10.5B stake to KKR; Cigna buys back $3.2B shares; VA Oracle Cerner faulty med records; LockBit ransomware websites cold-busted at every level, principals indicted; Trualta partners with PointClickCare
...exit. While money is leaking back into private equity deals, the new trend is to finance them with more cash than debt. Cotiviti release Cigna, having sold off its Medicare Advantage plans for $3.7 million to HCSC, is repurchasing $3.2 billion in stock (7.6 million shares) through agreements with Deutsche Bank and Bank of America. Cigna’s plan remains to repurchase $5 billion of common stock over H1 2024 after ending merger talks with Humana. FierceHealthcare, Cigna release VA warned about faulty medication records in the Oracle Cerner Millenium EHR. The culprit is in the Health Data Repository, according to a... Continue Reading
Teladoc closes 2023 with improved $220M loss, but weak forecast for 2024 leads to stock skid
...Gorevic, the forecast will be for growth at best in low single digits, which is not what Wall Street wanted to hear. This could be sandbagging–or reality. Telehealth visits dropped 45% in 2022 from 2020 (Trilliant Health), with more recent CMS Medicare data on visits falling 73% in Q2 2023 from Q2 2020. Other factors: telehealth modules in EMRs and population health platforms, many more competitors like Included Health (Grand Rounds/Doctor on Demand) and MDLive. Teladoc post-Livongo writedown has assiduously focused on cutting costs, higher margins, and getting on that ‘path to profitability’, cutting jobs in data science and engineering,... Continue Reading
Telemental news roundup: Brightside Health expands Medicaid/Medicare partners; Blackbird Health gains $17M Series A; Nema Health’s PTSD partnership with Horizon BCBSNJ
...model considers in an ‘understand-first’ approach how children’s brains develop over time and the impact that growth has on mental health. Another unique aspect is that they developed a series of ‘Blackbird Biotypes’ based on 50 million data points drawn over a decade that identify patterns of behavior in clusters of individuals with similar symptoms-linked brain features. These assist in assessment, accurately identifying the underlying root cause of symptoms, and proposing integrated and personalized treatment plans. Blackbird claims this approach results in substantially lower use of medications and ED utilization. Last year, Evolent Health co-founder and COO Tom Peterson joined... Continue Reading
Mid-week news roundup: Elevance-BCBSLA, SCAN-CareOregon mergers scuttled; Amwell’s $679M loss, layoffs; Invitae genetics files Ch. 11; innovations released from DeepScribe, Essence SmartCare (DE), fall detection at Atrium Health (SC)
...million [TTA 2 Nov 23]. In 2024, Amwell will concentrate on expanding its tech partnerships with current customers and winning new clients, according to management on the earnings call. Amwell’s shares are a cheap buy at just over $1.30, but this Editor’s experience is that Federal contracts especially with DOD or related are unpredictable in cash flow. Just ask Oracle. FierceHealthcare, Healthcare Dive Invitae, a genetics testing data company, filed Chapter 11. It’s another sign that this former darling sector of health tech/biotech has fallen on hard times (see 23andMe, TTA 2 Feb). This week’s filing in the US District... Continue Reading
AliveCor v. Apple latest: Federal court tosses AliveCor suit on heart rate app data monopolization
...the HRPO. The AliveCor argument in the 2021 lawsuit was that Apple should have made the earlier algorithms available, and that Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition Law. Apple’s argument was that the HRNN was more accurate, this was a genuine improvement that provided better data, and that third parties had no right to interfere in Apple’s design and business decisions. Since it was a summary decision, we do not know the details of Judge White’s reasoning. AliveCor’s full statement, provided by AliveCor, is: AliveCor is deeply disappointed and strongly disagrees with the court’s decision to dismiss our anti-competition case and... Continue Reading
Another icy bucket: who is liable when a healthcare AI system fails?
...in a buyer’s market, for terms that minimize purchasers’ liability risk. Licensing agreements should, for instance, require developers to provide information necessary for effective risk assessment and monitoring, including developers’ assumptions regarding the data that models will ingest, processes for validating models, and recommendations for auditing model performance. Purchasers should also insist on favorable terms governing liability, insurance, and risk management in AI licensing contracts–in other words, indemnification. If developed in-house, ensure that you have adequate insurance to cover claims. Apply lessons learned from older forms of decision support. Courts examine whether the recommendation was evidence-based and whether the physician... Continue Reading
Sell NHS medical records to fund AI, biotech? Not quite what’s in the Blair-Hague report. (updated)
...#2 is the point making the headlines in the Independent and Sky News. The reports do not explain that the sale of the NHS medical records would be done through the NHSDT. It would negotiate data-sharing agreements with external organizations and be capable of joining profit-sharing arrangements, while guarding that data would not be sold to third parties and be strictly anonymized. The plain language of the recommendation: “Provide research entities with access to the anonymised data in return for financial profit, which would benefit the NHS. This could happen via a range of mechanisms, varying from direct financial payment... Continue Reading
23andMe data breach may have targeted those of Jewish and Chinese heritage; company valuation crashes (updated)
...$200 and exceeding $1,100 never took off. Growing their $4oo million Lemonaid buy from fall 2021 into a more robust and integrated telehealth platform never happened. Her long-term bet was moving into drug discovery using all that DNA data, but only two drugs of 50 have reached early-stage human trials. Whether 23andMe will climb out of this crater, both financial and data security, as they did several times in early days, is to be seen. But Wojcicki’s personal brand apparently remains in great shape, unlike their data security. Also Futurism *Updated 2 Feb for additional references, content, and copy editing... Continue Reading
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