EHR action: Allscripts acquires Practice Fusion, expands footprint in small/ambulatory practices

January 9, 2018 | by

A significant EHR acquisition kicks off an action-packed week. Announced today by leading EHR Allscripts is their acquisition for $100 million of independent practice EHR Practice Fusion. Allscripts, which has been usually in the top five US EHRs (Kalorama April 2017 survey), vastly expanded its hospital market share with August’s acquisition of #2 McKesson‘s health IT business and with this would be ranked just behind EHR leader Cerner. In acute care settings, Epic and Cerner dominate with 25 percent of the market each with Allscripts/McKesson far behind #3 Meditech (KLAS April 2017). 

Practice Fusion, one of the pioneers in the small practice/ambulatory EHR starting with a basic free, ad-paid model in 2005, has 30,000 ambulatory sites serving about 5 million patients each month. In the Allscripts view, they will now be able to offer “last mile” reach to the under-served clinicians in small and individual practices” and close gaps in care. Allscripts President Rick Poulton noted in the statement that “We believe this transaction will directly benefit Practice Fusion clients, who will now have access to Allscripts solutions and services. We look forward to welcoming Practice Fusion team members to our family.” which leads one to believe that the Practice Fusion name will be sunsetted. Allscripts release and Healthcare IT News

From being the leader in small practice EHRs, Practice Fusion found the last few years difficult as competition expanded into their segment, from eClinical Works, drchrono, athenahealth, and NextGen to small practice packages from Epic and Cerner.

It should be noted that Practice Fusion in 12 years went through 13 funding rounds, raising almost $158 million from a long list of VC luminaries such as Kleiner Perkins, Artis Ventures, Founders Fund, and Qualcomm Ventures (Crunchbase). However, it disappointed its investors and Wall Street, which expected two years ago a $1.5 billion IPO. The $100 million from Allscripts is all cash and the price is “subject to adjustment for working capital and net debt”–an exit which was surely not the sugarplum in the eyes of its 2014 and prior  investors. CNBC

A basket of reflections, considerations on CVS-Aetna: Epic, Cerner, the model, and hospitals’ role

December 14, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/canary-in-the-coal-mine.jpgw595.jpeg” thumb_width=”150″ /]With the holidays and the end of the year coming in a little over two short weeks, there’s plenty of room for thoughts, reasoned speculation, and some unusual takes on the CVS-Aetna merger. This Editor remains in her belief that among us, there’s a bit of exhaustion and an attitude of ‘wait and see’ around the topic among us. The canaries have a case of the vapors….

Let’s sort through some of the more interesting POVs expressed of late by our fellow pressies, which Readers can consider in between cups of good cheer and bites of All That Food. Bear in mind that this merger has a long road to go on a hard road, with potholes marked DOJ and (in this Editor’s opinion) HHS, before it’s a done deal in 2018.

  • A big win for Epic. Currently the EHR for CVS’ MinuteClinics and most recently the care management programs of CVS Specialty, Epic is bullish on the opportunities in what their VP of population health termed the ‘gray space’ in the patient experience outside of the traditional sites of care. In October, CVS added Epic’s Healthy Planet population health analytics platform to learn more about drug dispensing patterns and medication adherence–this Editor believes in preparation for merger talks. The open question this Editor has after all the glow in this article is how Aetna’s varied systems (e.g. ActiveHealth, Medicity, and others) would integrate into Epic, and the price of poker, because with Epic it’s never free. Ask any hospital. Healthcare IT News.
    • Certainly, their main competitor Cerner is feeling the heat after a slowdown in its VA plans, the single largest EHR implementation ever. Congress has held up initial funding making the contract effective (Washington Technology). It is geometrically more complicated than their simultaneous DoD implementation, with $10 billion estimated over 10 years (FCW). Other wrenches in the works: a fresh CliniComp lawsuit against Cerner based on infringement against their 2003 patent on remote hosting, and their appeal of the no-bid award to Cerner [TTA 23 Aug] against VA. Kansas City Business Journal, Healthcare IT News
  • Is it going to increase cost? It might. And what about info sharing with providers? A Harvard Medical School professor opined to Marketplace that instead of self-treatment at home for a cold, the patient might actually traipse to a MinuteClinic for care, thus driving up healthcare costs. This resembles the RAND logic around telemedicine consult expense we deflated in a series of articles back in the spring. Information sharing with regular providers is a bigger issue which urgent cares, telemedicine, and clinics already are dealing with. The paradox is that integration with a payer, with a retailer’s ability to track ancillary purchases such as OTC meds and DME purchases, might actually help that issue. But will it? Will a combined CVS-Aetna share information or hoard it, further disempowering patients? This Stat article calls on Mark Bertolini to promote shared information, engagement, and accountability to balance the scales.
  • Do we really need hospitals? If they don’t change, we might need a lot less of them except for highly specialized treatment. And this is likely a good thing. The HBR points out that CVS-Aetna is hardly the only threat to the traditional hospital–there’s Johns Hopkins’ Hospital at Home program for older adults, UnitedHealthcare’s growing network of providers under OptumCare, including the recent deal for DaVita dialysis centers, and free-standing, low-cost “neighborhood” hospitals, almost like pop-up stores. The article doesn’t mention ‘consult stations’ like Europe’s H4D, which is proving that the kiosk idea isn’t dead. 

The reality is that we won’t know what this merger entails until it actually happens, if it happens–and its final shape will take years to mold. Related: CVS-Aetna: the canary says that DOJ likely to review merger, Analysis of the CVS-Aetna merger: a new era, a canary in a mine–or both?, CVS’ bid for Aetna–will it happen, and kick off a trend? (what will Amazon and other retailers, including supermarkets, do?)

Verily’s million points of BYO health data to take to your next doctor visit

October 11, 2017 | by

Verily‘s visit to last week’s Health 2.0 conference had an odd-but-fun tack, comparing the data received from human bodies to the billions of data points generated by an average late-model automobile in normal operations. We generate a lot less (ten orders of magnitude difference, according to Verily Chief Technology Officer Brian Otis), but Verily wants to maximize the output by wiring us to multiple sensors and to use the data in a predictive health model. Some of the Verily devices this Editor predicts will be non-starters (the sensor contact lens developed with Alcon) but others like the Dexcom partnership to develop a smaller, cheaper continuous blood glucose monitor and Liftware, the tremor-canceling silverware company Google acquired in 2014, appear promising. Key to predictive health is the Study Watch, which is a wearable that collects a lot of data but is easy to wear for a long time. Mobihealthnews

But what to do with this All That Data? Where this differs from a car is that the operational data goes into feedback loops that tune the engine’s performance, perform long-term monitoring, electrical system, braking, and more. (When the sensors go south or the battery’s low, watch out!) It’s not clear from the talk where this overwhelming amount of healthcare data generated goes to and how it becomes useful to a person or a doctor. This has its own feedback loop this Editor dubbed a few years ago as the Five Big Questions (FBQs): who pays, how much, who’s looking at the data, who’s actioning it, how data is integrated into patient records. That’s not answered, but presumably these technologies will incorporate machine learning and AI to Crunch That Data into bite-sized parts.

Which leads us back to Verily’s parent, Alphabet a/k/a Google. All that data into Verily devices could be monitored by Google and fed into other Google programs like their search engines and Adwords. Another privacy problem? 

Perhaps health systems are arriving at the realization that they have to crunch the data, not avoid it. For the first time, this Editor has observed that a CMIO of a small health system in Illinois and Sanford Health‘s executive director of analytics are actually welcoming patient data and research. Startups in this area such as PreventScripts labor on that “last mile” of clinical decision support, preventative medicine. EHRs are also into the act. Epic launched Share Everywhere, where patients can grant access to their data and clinicians can send updates into the patient portal (MyChart). What’s needed, CMIO Goel admits, is software that combines natural language processing and algorithms to track by disease and specialty–once again, machine learning. Healthcare IT News 

It’s EPIC: Ehealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

September 12, 2017 | by

The EPIC project’s aim is to improve the use of technology in both health and social care for the better health and well-being of people in Cornwall and–quite ambitiously–improve the Cornish economy through developing this sector. Its core is at the University of Plymouth with partners Creative England, Kernow Health CIC, Cornwall Partners in Care, and the Patients Association, with partial funding by the European Regional Development Fund.

Technologies can include: personal and clinical apps, activity/fitness trackers, telemedicine, therapy websites for cognitive behavior, sensor-based alarm and ADLs that can support people in hospital or with dementia. Robots like the humanoid Pepper from SoftBank are also within their scope.

Having started only in May, EPIC (not to be confused with the EHR) is still starting up for its three-year run. The website describes two ‘strands’ of work: the first organized around 10 working groups which are meeting through September (seven left) to identify problems and develop technology-based solutions. The second phase is to help the developers enter the market, when ready matching them with clinician and patient groups. The economic part is that these new Cornish companies supply not only Cornwall but also ‘export’ to the UK.  

More information is available on their website or by emailing Katie Edwards at University of Plymouth. Hat tip to Susanne Woodman of BRE Group.

Cerner DoD deployment on time; Coast Guard EHR shopping; Air Force, VA sharing teleICU

July 6, 2017 | by

The US Department of Defense announced that the deployment of Cerner’s EHR MHS Genesis at the Naval Hospital in Oak Harbor, Washington is on time for later this month. It’s a little unusual that anything this big and in the government is actually on time. It’s also meaningful for VA, as they are adopting MHS Genesis in an equally, if not longer, rollout [TTA 7 June]. Healthcare IT News

Less well known is the Coast Guard‘s dropping its costly six-year deployment of the Epic EHR last year and reverting to paper. They are not in the MHS Genesis rollout because the CG is part of the Department of Homeland Security, despite its service roots and structure similar to the US Navy. This has led to much speculation that their final choice will be DoD’s Cerner platform, although the OpenEMR Consortium has already answered their April RFI.

And even less noticed was the late June announcement that the US Air Force Medical Operations Agency and the VA are implementing a tele-ICU sharing arrangement, giving the USAF access to the VA’s capabilities at five AF locations: Las Vegas; Hampton, Virginia; Biloxi, Mississippi; Dayton, Ohio; and Anchorage, Alaska. The VA central tele-ICU facility is in Minneapolis. Doctors there can remotely consult, prescribe medications, order procedures and make diagnoses through live electronic monitoring. Becker’s Hospital Review, VA press release

Tenders closing quickly: Cornwall/Isles of Scilly, Blackpool

June 13, 2017 | by

Susanne Woodman of BRE, our Eye on Tenders, had sent these earlier but your Editor was at fault in being tardy in reviewing them. But there’s still time!

  • Cornwall/Isles of Scilly: The University of Plymouth and E-health Productivity & Innovation Cornwall & Isles of Scilly (EPIC) are seeking to engage specialist support for the Social Care Sector and Care Homes across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to develop their awareness and capability to adopt emerging ehealth products and services. This is closing Wed 14 June so go to the Plymouth website for more information. Gov.UK Contracts Finder
  • Blackpool Council: They are inviting “suitably experienced care organisations to participate in an exploratory exercise to help the Council better understand the market position with regards to supporting individuals with a learning disability and/or autism to live independently through use of assistive technology.” This closes Monday June 19. Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), Due North website

VA says goodbye to VistA, hello to Cerner for new EHR–and possible impacts (updated)

June 7, 2017 | by

The new sheriff just turned the town upside down. Veterans Affairs’ new Secretary, Dr. David J. Shulkin, as expected moved quickly on the VA’s EHR modernization before the July 1 deadline, and moved to the same vendor that the Department of Defense (DoD) chose in 2015 for the Military Health System, Cerner. VA will adapt MHS GENESIS, based on Cerner Millenium. The rationale is seamless interoperability both with DoD and with private sector community providers and vendors, which base their services on commercial EHRs. The goal is to have one record for a service member through his or her lifetime and to eliminate the transition gap after discharge or retirement. (Transition gaps are also repeated when reservists or National Guard are called up for active duty then returned to their former status.) Another priority for VA is preventing the high rate of suicide among vulnerable veterans.

Updates: VA confirmed that Epic and Leidos will keep the development of the online medical appointment scheduling program, awarded in 2015 and currently in pilot, to be completed in 18 months. The contract is worth $624 million over five years. Wisconsin State Journal  The House Appropriations subcommittee on Veterans Affairs likes the Cerner EHR change. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is meeting Wednesday to discuss the VA budget sans the EHR transition. The EHR numbers are expected to be sooner rather than later. POLITICO Morning eHealth 

Dr. Shulkin is well acquainted with the extreme need for a modernized, interoperable system serving the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), having been on the US Senate Hot Grill for some years as Undersecretary of Health for VA. The foundation for the move from homegrown VistA to Cerner was laid last year during the prior Administration through an August RFI for a COTS (commercial off the shelf) EHR [TTA 12 Aug 16] and in later hearings. “Software development is not a core competency of VA” and it has been obvious in system breakdowns like scheduling, maintaining cybersecurity and the complex interoperability between two different systems. To move to Cerner immediately without a competition, which took DoD over two years, Dr. Shulkin used his authority to sign a “Determination and Findings” (D&F) which provides for a public health exception to the bidding process. The value of the Cerner contract will not be determined for several months.

For those sentimental about VistA, he acknowledged the pioneering role of the EHR back in the 1970s, but that calls for modernization started in 2000 with seven ‘blue ribbon’ commissions and innumerable Congressional hearings since. He understated the cost in the failed efforts on interoperability with DoD’s own AHLTA system, VA’s own effort at a new architecture, and modernizing the outpatient system. This Editor tallied these three alone at $3 billion in GAO’s reckoning [‘Pondering the Squandering’, TTA 27 July 13]. 

It is still going to take years to implement–no quick fixes in something this massive, despite the urgency.

  • Both MHS and VA will be running two systems at once for years (more…)

VA’s moves spell the end of the homegrown EHR

August 12, 2016 | by

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is formally reaching out to the private sector to explore switching from its current, pioneering EHR system, VistA (also referred to as CPRS, Computerized Patient Record System) to a commercial system. Their ‘feeler’ is an August 5 and 8 notice in FedBizOpps.gov titled 99–TAC-16-37877 * RFI – VHA supporting COTS EHR REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI), Solicitation Number: VA11816N1486. This requests information on business support for transitioning to a commercial-off-the-shelf system (COTS–don’t governments love acronyms?–Ed.) and closes 26 August, which is not a lot of time even for an RFI.

VHA has been under extreme pressure from Congress to modernize its EHR, lately in July hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee. EHR replacement is also in line with the Congressionally-mandated, now concluded Commission on Care’s recently published recommendations on a total, top-down reorganization of VHA, including a sweeping reorg of their HIT management. The VHA strategy appears to be that while they are walking down the road to replace VistA and have already spent to assess where they are with KLAS and other EHR consultancies (spending $160,000+ on surveys), they are essentially ‘kicking the can down the road’ to the next administration (POLITICO’s Morning eHealth, 14 July).

Current state is to continue to upgrade VistA through late 2018, though the closely related Department of Defense’s Military Health System is in the long process of cutting its homegrown AHLTA over to Cerner-Leidos as MHS Genesis, awarded last August, with a first trial in the Pacific Northwest later this year (HealthcareITNews, Ed. emphasis). Of course, it will take the VHA years to roll it out; there are close to 9 million veterans enrolled in the closed system that is the VHA.  FCW, Morning eHealth 10 August

Love EHRs or hate them, the sheer size of the VHA and its growing concession that VistA won’t do in caring for American veterans makes it clear that the future of EHRs is in private systems from major developers–a field which is winnowing out to The Few (take that, GE).  (more…)

Our wrapup of news and tart takes on HIMSS 16 (updated redux)

March 9, 2016 | by

Lions Lie Down With Lambs, and Other Miracles!

HIMSS 16’s main ‘breaking news’ centered on HIT interoperability. The lead was US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell’s announcement on how Lions Will Lie Down With Lambs, Or Else. 17 EHRs that cover 90 percent of electronic health records used by U.S. hospitals–including the bitterest of rivals, Epic (the EHR everyone likes to hate) and Cerner, 16 providers including the nation’s five largest private healthcare systems, and more than a dozen leading professional associations and stakeholder groups (including HIMSS) pledged to implement three core commitments that allegedly will improve the flow of health information to consumers and healthcare providers. They are consumer access, no information blocking and standards. When? Where? How? Strictly TBD. HHS release, MedCityNews, Modern Healthcare, which dubbed it ‘another year, another promise’.

Innovate or Die. For companies and providers, it’s not about compliance anymore but about improving patient outcomes due to value-based care and incentives. Providers will increasingly be responsible for patient care throughout the community to make their numbers. Having made this sound point, Dr John Halamka then proposes they will need a ‘care traffic control’ system through data aggregation, with a laundry list of ‘enablers’, directories and connectors surrounding the EHR. How this all will work together, and who will buy in already challenged practices and ACOs, plus how those 17 notoriously territorial EHRs will work with said ‘enablers’ — or complicators — is a mystery to this Editor. Pass the Advil, please. MedCityNews

Read on for more Top 10s, roundups, DOD and VA EHR news, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback tackles the closing keynote, and 10 ways you can become a HIMSS speaker! (more…)

Integrating inexpensive lab testing, imaging to EHR–and vice versa

August 28, 2015 | by

In the Dr Eric Topol patient-driven world, personal lab testing would be walk in, keep retail hours and not even need a doctor’s order. That is the model for Theranos, a well-funded low cost blood testing company operating 43 centers in California, Arizona (no doctor order needed) and one Pennsylvania Walgreens. Their latest alliance is with EHR physician practice giant Practice Fusion, which claims about 112,000 doctors actively using its cloud-based, ad supported platform, claims to be the fastest growing US EHR with at present 100 million patient records. The Theranos reporting app, which also connects patients with doctors who can help interpret the results (MD Connect) integrates with other EHRs (though not listed) and now the results will also show in their Practice Fusion patient record. Practice Fusion is also integrating imaging center RadNet‘s results.

Since the late 2000s, Practice Fusion has historically been the game changer in cost (one of the first in the cloud) and in catering to smaller practices. They are good at managing their hype, but as Neil Versel points out, there’s been a CEO ‘change-lobsters-and-dance’, there are questions about revenue and their awaited IPO seems far away, especially given the recent market upset. Hospital EHRs Cerner, Epic and NextGen now all have lower-cost practice versions that integrate with hospital versions. An American College of Physicians (ACP) 2014 survey identified that Practice Fusion is third (and tied with others) among most used practice EHRs behind Epic and eClinical Works, though strongest in solo practices. On the polar opposite of Mr Versel’s skeptical article is this breathless Forbes piece which confuses partnerships with acquisitions. Perhaps self-made billionaire Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes may decide to buy Practice Fusion!

US Department of Defense picks Cerner/Leidos/Accenture for $4.3 bn EHR

July 29, 2015 | by

Breaking News Updated  The winner of the massive, potentially ten year contract for the Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization program is defense computer contractor Leidos, which brought in Cerner and Accenture Federal Systems.The DOD announcement mentions only lead contractor Leidos, interestingly under the US Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, California. The announcement was released just after 5pm EDT today.

This combination beat the Epic/IBM and the Allscripts/Computer Sciences/HP bids. According to the DOD announcement, “This contract has a two-year initial ordering period, with two 3-year option periods, and a potential two-year award term, which, if awarded, would bring the total ordering period to 10 years. Work will be performed at locations throughout the United States and overseas. If all options are exercised, work is expected to be completed by September 2025. Fiscal 2015 Defense Health Program Research, Development, Test and Evaluation funds in the amount of $35,000,000 will be obligated at the time of award.” Modern Healthcare attended the embargoed press conference this morning and adds in its article that only one-third is fixed cost, with the remainder as ‘cost plus’, which could conceivably run the contract to the $4.33 bn ceiling over the 10 years. The system will be used in 55 military hospitals and 600 clinics, with an initial operational test as early as 2016 (Washington Post) and full rollout by 2023.  Interoperability with private EHR systems was a key requirement (Healthcare IT News).Over the 18 year life cycle, the contract value could be up to $9 bn, according to the WaPo.

The race to replace DOD’s AHLTA accelerated with the final failure to launch a plan to create a joint DOD-VA EHR in March 2013 [TTA 27 July 13], though hopes revived in Congress occasionally during the past two years [TTA 31 Mar].

It is also widely interpreted as a blow to Epic, which has been defensive of late about its willingness to play in the HIT Interoperability sandbox with other EHRs; certainly it cannot make Big Blue, which would undoubtedly have found some way to sell Watson into this, happy.

POLITICO’s Morning eHealth had many tart observations today, mostly pertaining to the belief of some observers that Cerner will be strapped in meeting this Federal commitment and would find it increasingly difficult to innovate in the private sector.

Example–From Micky Tripathi, CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative: “My biggest worry isn’t that Cerner won’t deliver, it’s that DOD will suck the lifeblood out of the company by running its management ragged with endless overhead and dulling the innovative edge of its development teams. There is a tremendous amount of innovation going on in health IT right now. We need a well-performing Cerner in the private sector to keep pushing the innovation frontier. It’s not a coincidence that defense contractors don’t compete well in the private sector, and companies who do both shield their commercial business from their defense business to protect the former from the latter.”

Unnerving mergers (US-UK); DoD’s EHR picked; EHRs & AMA

July 28, 2015 | by

Blues feeling Blue about…The Anthem-Cigna merger, finalized last week (but yet to be approved by the US and likely the UK Governments as Cigna issues policies there), gives them bragging rights over the Aetna-Humana merger and Optum/United Healthcare in their covering of 53 million US lives as the largest US health insurer. Unnerved is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, of which Anthem is a part of with the Anthem and Empire Blue Cross plans plus others in a total of 14 states. But Anthem also competes with ‘the Blues’ in 19 additional states where it markets under a non-Blue brand, Amerigroup, primarily for Medicare and Medicaid (state low-income coverage). Many of the Blues are non-profit or mutual insurers; many are partial or single-state, like Independence, Capital and Highmark (PA/DE/WV) in Pennsylvania and Horizon Blue Cross of New Jersey. Their stand-alone future, not bright since the ACA, now seem ever dimmer in this Editor’s long-time consideration and that of Bruce Japsen writing in Forbes. Also Morningstar considers Anthem’s overpaying and the LA Times overviews.

Walgreens Boots Alliance, another recent merger of quintessentially American and British drug store institutions, named as its interim CEO Stefano Pessina. He previously ran Alliance Boots prior to the merger and is the largest individual shareholder of WBA stock with approximately 140 million shares, so one cannot call it a surprise. At a youthful 73 (see video), one assumes he also takes plenty of Walgreens vitamins and uses Boots No 7 skin care. Forbes.

Updated: The big EHR news is the US Department of Defense announcing the award of its Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization contract this week. At 10 years and $11 billion, even giant EHRs went phalanxed with other giant government contractors to face DOD: Epic with IBM; Cerner with Leidos, Accenture and Intermountain Healthcare; Allscripts with Computer Sciences Corp. and Hewlett Packard. Certainly there will be ‘gravitational pull’ that affects healthcare organizations, but the open and unanswered question is if that pull will include the far nearer and immediately critical lack of interoperability with the Veterans Health Administration’s (VA) VistA EHR. The Magic 8 Ball reads: Hazy, try again later.  Leidos/Cerner announced as winners close of business Wednesday 29 July. 

In other EHR news, US doctors vented last week on how much they hate the @#$%^&* things to the American Medical Association‘s ‘town hall’ in Atlanta. Bloat, diminished effectiveness, error, getting in the way of care due to design by those without medical background presently prevail. The AMA’s Break the Red Tape campaign asks CMS to “postpone” finalizing Stage 3 Meaningful Use (MU) rules so that it can align with new payment/delivery models. Better yet, they should buy thousands of copies of Dr Robert Wachter’s book [TTA 16 Apr] and drop them on every policymaker’s desk there, with a thud. Health Data Management 

HIMSS’ last full day highlights company partnerships

April 15, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/himss_chicago_2015-588×337.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]It’s almost time to Say Goodbye to Sinatra’s ‘My Kind of Town’, but there’s still news: Samsung+Partners Healthcare, IMS Health, AliveCor, Interoperability≠Humana, Panasonic+Cisco

  • Samsung and Partners HealthCare announced a direct-to-mobile partnership to develop chronic care management mobile software that monitors vital signs such as blood pressure, blood glucose and weight, as well as delivers mobile patient engagement, medication adherence and wellness self-management. Clinical trial is scheduled for June. Partners has always been a pioneer in the mHealth area, but playing with Samsung, Partners is flying at a slightly higher level than with Wellocracy and certainly the late Healthrageous. Partners release, Mobihealthnews (more…)

GE moving out of the hospital EHR business–and healthcare lending?

April 15, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2000px-General_Electric_logo.svg_.png” thumb_width=”100″ /]Updated. Spring cleaning at GE continues that may affect healthcare more than EHRs. Neil Versel catches at HIMSS, if not an exclusive, close to it, by finally getting a GE exec to admit the awful truth–that they are phasing out their Centricity Enterprise (hospital) EHR. Versel: “It’s now helping customers with a “graceful transition over a number of years,” said Jon Zimmerman, general manager of clinical business solutions at GE Healthcare.” Even more remarkable, that decision was made three years ago. MedCityNews also updated their article to highlight some of their recent problems with Intermountain Health; we’ve also noted that UCSF converted to Epic after 12 years (see our Weekend Must Read).

The GE Capital exit may affect healthcare too. The other and more major part of the spring cleaning–their exit from GE Capital with the sale/spinoff of assets over the next two years–was announced over the weekend (Bloomberg). Their Healthcare Financial Services lends to healthcare entities including hospitals, life science and in senior housing/health facilities. It also houses the Healthymagination Fund, the capital source for GE Ventures, its early stage developmental arm for healthcare, software and energy. According to The Wall Street Journal, GE will retain healthcare financing to support what it makes in its GE Healthcare unit: ultrasound, imaging, patient monitoring and diagnostics industrial equipment, down to the Vscan (yes! it’s still there). We would bet that GE Ventures is safe. But does this mean that its healthcare real estate unit within Healthcare Financial Services, which lends to senior housing, skilled nursing and other medical properties, is on the block, especially as GE this weekend completed the sale of its real estate holdings? What else, we wonder, will GE sell at the right price to pull up share price–and in the longer term, the future of its manufacturing in areas like major healthcare equipment which have been facing a declining and heavily competitive US market?

Exiting the hospital EHR business makes sense for GE, but what else will it entail? While it retained a solid footprint of vendor loyalty and satisfaction (more…)

Ebola and health tech: where it can help, where it failed (Updated)

October 17, 2014 | by

 [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/keep-calm-and-enter-at-own-risk-3.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Ignore the sign…come on in, we can be quarantined together! Everyone is on Ebola-overload, so we will keep it short and sweet. The Gimlet Eye (recovering after an argument with a box, see below) advises a calm, adult-beveraged, low-media weekend with Mantovani, Bert Kaempfert or Percy Faith on the stereo.

  • Yes, digital health is addressing the needs that Ebola screening and care are generating. MedCityNews spotlights Medizone International’s AsepticSure peroxide/ozone aerial mist sterilizer which was originally developed to kill MERS and MRSA in field hospitals, to be tested by Doctors Without Borders in a 40-bed unit. Startup AgileMD launched a free mobile app for clinicians containing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Ebola prevention treatment guidelines (for what anything from CDC is worth….) Text message alerts used first in Sierra Leone are being expanded to seven West African nations for use by the Red Cross and Red Crescent (also BBC News). Sanomedics International has the TouchFree InfraRed Thermometer which is being used at US airports which are screening for passengers originating in West Africa, and Noninvasive Medical Technologies is promoting their ZOE fluid status monitor because it applies electrical currents externally to determine hydration levels.
  • Even crowdfunding’s getting into the act. Researcher Erica Ollmann Saphire and her colleagues at Scripps Research Institute  (more…)

Philips, Salesforce dive into health data integration

July 2, 2014 | by

Philips Healthcare and Salesforce announced last week their partnership to construct a connected, multi-point and collaborative data platform to benefit providers, payers and patients. The initial step is the launch later this summer of the Philips eCare Coordinator app for healthcare providers and a patient-centered Philips eCare Companion app, which will uptake data from Philips Healthcare medical devices into a variation on the Salesforce1 cloud platform. What’s emphasized in the releases and information from media sources is that it will be designed as an open platform for other device and software providers. (Data security problems down the line are anyone’s guess.) While Philips’ global CEO was part of the announcement and it’s expected that Philips will be lead dog for this, the only two customers mentioned were US and Salesforce’s. There were also few details on how clinical staff would access and use the data.

Cui bono from this? Philips of course, which of late has been lagging (more…)