Midweek heat wave roundup: GE Healthcare’s new name, hospital-to-home health trending big, over 2 million patient records hacked

GE’s breakup into three public companies, announced last November [TTA 12 Nov 21], has been formalized with brand names. No surprise, the healthcare business has but a teeny tiny change to GE HealthCare (logo left) and after the spinoff will be trading sometime in early 2023 under GEHC on Nasdaq because “GE HealthCare will benefit from the exchange’s profile and track record as a market for innovative, technology-led public companies, particularly in the healthcare sector. The heritage ‘meatball’ (as we called it in marketing internally, but formally the Monogram) will be retained but the color will change from poison green to “compassion purple” to reflect more humanity and warmth and achieve greater distinction”. The hardest hit part of GE, the energy businesses, will be spun off as GE Vernova and key color an ‘evergreen’. What is left will be GE Aerospace, retaining its name and change its color to an ‘upper atmosphere’ blue that is almost black. Outer space, anyone? GE release, interview on YouTube

Au courant is hospital-to-home (H2H) and home health, digitally enabled mais bien sûr.

• Mass General Brigham (MGB) is reportedly expanding its current 25-bed program to 200 in the next 2.5 years. Since 2016, MGB has treated nearly 1,800 H2H patients. By end of 2023, they plan 90 hospital-at-home beds managed across Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and Salem Hospital. Their new head for home-based care will be Heather O’Sullivan, who comes from EVP and chief clinical innovation officer spots at Kindred at Home, acquired by Humana in 2021. FierceHealthcare
• Out in rural Wisconsin, Marshfield Clinic is rolling out a H2H program with DispatchHealth, to coordinate medical care for injuries and illnesses including viral infections, COPD exacerbations, congestive heart failure, and more. The goal is to reduce non-emergency ED visits. DispatchHealth can also perform services such as onsite diagnostics, mobile imaging, and CLIA-certified labs for kidney function, electrolytes, and urinalysis. In March 2021, they closed a $200 million Series D bringing their funding to unicorn level. HealthcareITNews
• UHG’s Optum has moved closer on its $5.5 billion acquisition of LHC Group home health and hospice [TTA 31 Mar] with shareholder approval on 21 June. Once closed later this year, LHC will be integrated into Optum Health. LHC operates in 37 states and the District of Columbia, employing about 30,000 individuals. Home Health Care News, Becker’s

And what would a week with a heat wave that melts runways at RAF Brize Norton and Luton be without a couple of big data breaches to heat up things? Stolen: an iPad chock full of 75,000 Kaiser Permanente patients’ PHI from Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center’s COVID-19 testing center. While the information on the iPad included first and last names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and dates and location of service (but not SSN or financial information), Kaiser was able to remotely erase the data. At this point, there is no evidence of theft or misuse. NBC Los Angeles, Becker’s   An even larger breach of 2 million records came via a February hack attack on health provider debt collector Professional Finance Company (PFC). Hackers got into PFC’s computers and accessed patient names, addresses, SSN, health insurance, and medical treatment data. Among the 650 client companies affected were Banner Health and Nevada physician network Renown Health. Healthcare Dive