Mid-week roundup: another hurdle for Oracle Cerner VA delay, Walmart builds out clinic infrastructure, Cerebral round 3 layoff of 15%, Evolent Health’s 9% layoff, Quil Health age-in-place tech shuts

March 1, 2023 | by

Oracle Cerner EHR rollout faces yet another hurdle. The Department of  Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that the next go-live, Ann Arbor (Michigan) Healthcare System, originally scheduled for completion by July 2023, would be delayed until much later this year or even early 2024.  It turns out that a key reason for the delay is that Ann Arbor is a VA research center, and there are major concerns that the EHR changeover won’t blend well with their medical research. VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal told FedScoop during a media roundtable that “…there are many VA medical centers that are heavy with clinical research because of their academic affiliations, and so those centers will need this research functionality. It’s not just an issue with the Ann Arbor Hospital.” In the article, Dr. Elnahal also lamented that the VA health system running on two separate EHRs, VistA and Oracle Cerner, presented additional risks to security. Also FedHealthIT   Hat tip to HISTalk 24 Feb

Walmart’s 32 clinics are building out their infrastructure. Working with their Epic EHR, all the clinics are now operating on the Horizon Cloud on Azure platform paired with VMware cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology services. A blog published by VMware interviewing BreAnne Buehl, director of life sciences solutions for VMware, and David Rhew, MD, global chief medical officer at Microsoft, details the ambitions of Walmart to move beyond ‘minute clinic’ to broader primary care and chronic disease management, into proactive predictive analytics. Becker’s Hospital Review, VMWare

And on the less cheerful side:

  • Beleaguered telemental health/ADHD provider/prescriber Cerebral announced another 15% layoff, cutting 285 people. It is its third layoff in one year, following a 20% cut last October.  Cerebral is also closing its medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program for opioid use disorder (OUD). A Cerebral spokesperson said the decisions were made to reorganize the company to “refocus on the most important service offerings for our patients.” Another reason for the MAT program closing is the pending renewal of requiring in-person visits for certain mental health medications. For instance, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is proposing that buprenorphine can be prescribed via telehealth for treating OUD for 30 days but then an in-person exam would be required.  Last year, Cerebral faced still-unresolved DOJ and FTC actions on their telehealth prescribing of ADHD and other controlled Schedule 2 medications, from deceptive advertising (FTC) to overprescribing (DOJ) [TTA 18 Nov 22]. Topping this off are dueling lawsuits with former CEO Kyle Robertson [TTA 30 Nov 22]. Cerebral at the end of 2021 was valued at $4.8 billion by Softbank and other investors, but no one wants to talk about its worth today.  Reuters, Layoffs Tracker, Behavioral Health Business
  • Payer/provider management services organization Evolent Health quietly laid off 460 positions in its Chicago operations, about 9% of their 5,100 person staff, starting in December 2022 into last month.  Their Q4 net loss doubled to $11.25 million on $382 million in revenue, doubling 2021’s $5.65 million loss, though full year 2022 closed with a final loss of $19 million, about half of 2021. The company projects Q1 revenue of $420 million to $440 million, with 2023 revenue of $1.92 billion to $1.96 billion with a shift of emphasis to specialty care, bolstered by its closed acquisition in January of Magellan Specialty Health from Centene. Layoffs Tracker, Washington Business Journal
  • Quil Health shut down operations, with employees departing 10 February and executives 24 February. The Philadelphia-based Comcast-Independence Blue Cross joint venture was founded in 2018 to support older adults and caregivers in ‘aging-in-place’ alert and monitoring technology. The sole report in HISTalk states that the website is offline plus their CEO Carina Edwards updated her LinkedIn profile for Quil with a February 2023 end date and changed the company description to past tense, pushing up her board positions. Their Facebook page is still live but no posts after 16 January after announcing their joining the AARP AgeTechCollaborative. In 2019, this Editor wrote that they were developing pre- and post-care support through TV (!) with Comcast working on an ambient sensor-based device to monitor basic vital signs and fall detection, which launched in 2020 as Quil Assure. To this Editor, it sounded like a home version of QuietCare circa 2009 with multiple sensors and diagnostics. 

News roundup: The state of Finland’s health tech, American Well-Cisco team for TV consults, Tech for Quality Care in Manchester 9 July

June 20, 2019 | by

Finland shows its sisu in health tech startups. It’s a country you wouldn’t think of readily as hospitable to startups, but they’ve leveraged their tech skills (think the pivots that Nokia has accomplished) to create patient outcome and remote patient monitoring companies that are making an impact in Europe. Some which are making an impact are Meru, Kaiku, and Navigil. Venture capital is ‘thinnish’ which leads to companies seeking seed and development funding from government sources and later on, foreign investors. Mobihealthnews is profiling these companies in conjunction with Business Finland, a government entity. HIMSS and Health 2.0 also had their European conference in Helsinki, and this article discusses how their national health service, Kanta Services, leverages digital health in e-prescribing, they have a national database called the Patient Data Repository that collect patient data records to make them accessible to providers and patients, and the My Kanta patient portal.

Back to the 1990s? Tech device maker Cisco is teaming up with American Well to convert TVs to a video portal via a set-top unit. This is targeted to older adults and those with multiple chronic conditions who may not be comfortable with laptops, tablets, or smartphones, but wouldn’t mind using their TV to connect to a doctor. How it work seems to require a ‘smart TV’–the patient would activate the device on the TV, connect it to Wi-Fi, and initiate the video consult with the doctor and caregiver. No information on timing, markets, or pricing at this time. CNBC. Why does this sound like a klutzy non-starter to this Editor, who went through the fad of interactive TV in the Mad ’90s? It seems to need more than just consults.  Mobihealthnews notes that Quil Health, a Comcast-Independence Blue Cross joint venture, is targeting pre- and post-care support through the TV. Comcast is also rumored to be working on an Alexa-like ambient sensor based device to monitor basic vital signs and fall detection.

Using Technology for Quality Care on 9 July is a free half-day conference/workshop at Kings House Conference Centre, Manchester. It is the first of a series of regional workshops in the North West region to learn from local areas where councils, care providers, and suppliers work together using technology to support care. More information is on this PDF and on the Local Government Association website. Hat tip to Reader Adrian Scaife who just recently joined Alcuris Ltd. as Business Development Manager.