At least one part of Oracle Cerner’s work is done. The Military Health System (MHS), which covers 9.6 million active duty beneficiaries and 205,000 medical providers, announced yesterday that the rollout of the Genesis EHR is complete in the continental US. The final go-live was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which covers 6,800 clinicians and providers in military hospitals and clinics across Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Texas, and Kentucky. It was also deployed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Corps, which is under the Department of Commerce. The final 14% of the MHS system is overseas. That rollout will start in September 2023, including Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the UK. Bases in Guam, South Korea, and Japan will follow in October. DOD’s one joint facility with the VA, the James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, will deploy in March 2024. All other VA healthcare centers are on hold indefinitely. With the wrapup of MHS Genesis and the pause on VA’s Millenium rollout, Oracle has reportedly laid off over 500 staff on these Federal projects [TTA 16 June]. DVIDS release
Telehealth’s selective savings. A new study out of the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business found, like other studies such as Epic Research’s, that telehealth visits reduced future outpatient visits, in their study within 30 days, by 14%. This saved $239 per patient in outpatient costs. But telehealth was more effective for some specialties than others. It had the most impact on cost reduction for behavioral health, metabolic disorders, dermatology, and musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders, with a significant reduction of 0.21 outpatient visits per quarter (an equivalent cost reduction of $179). This suggested to the researchers a substitution of telehealth versus traditional clinic visits. But telehealth’s impact was nearly nil when it came to circulatory, respiratory, and infectious diseases, not significantly reducing the number of future visits or costs. The study sampled hospital-based outpatient clinics in Maryland from 2012 (not a typo) to 2021. Becker’s, UT News, Informs Pubonline (abstract only)
Senior living monitoring system CarePredict adds $29 million from four main investors. This is a Series A-3, which one assumes adds on to an existing Series A, which was $9.5 million in 2019. The round was co-led by SV Health Investors’ Medtech Convergence Fund and Aspire Healthtech Partners with existing institutional investors Secocha Ventures and Las Olas Venture Capital plus private family offices and individual investors. CarePredict pioneered a wearable bracelet, the Tempo, that wirelessly tracks residents’ activities of daily living (ADLs) in assisted living (AL), independent living (IL), and continuing care (CCRC) settings. Interpretation of ADLs in a platform can predict changes in health and wellbeing leading to better health and extended residence. CarePredict has expanded its platform reporting with other tracking such as context beacons, visitor and wander management, PinPoint digital contact tracing, and family communication apps. CarePredict release, Mobihealthnews
How much does Amazon have on you? If you are a user of Amazon’s Echo system, you already know that Alexa is always listening to you. What you may not know is that Amazon stores that information in a database, including parts of overheard conversations that have nothing to do with Alexa, since Alexa is always on. Even if you (like your Editor) don’t have an Echo but have a Kindle (unlike your Editor) or use the app residing on most smartphones, Amazon knows what you read, what you flip through, and your start and stop times. The Amazon Sidewalk mesh network, used with Alexa and Ring cameras, extends the reach of your router and shares your network with your neighbors. This is in addition to your shopping and even what you look at. In the context of the rollout of Amazon Clinic pending, delayed to 19 July [TTA 27 June], where Amazon is 1) only an intermediary to providers but 2) demand access to all your PHI and PII before allowing access to them, can we as professionals admit this is a glaring privacy violation and that the FTC is actually right?
Kim Komando, well known for her radio and online shows advising non-techies on tech, has an excellent article on how Amazon is piling up information on us all. This is based on a 2021 Reuters investigation and also contains a link to her interview with the two Reuters reporters. The article also describes how to find out what Amazon has on you. Warning–they don’t make it easy. She also addresses the Amazon clinic issue in a FoxNews article.
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