News roundup: Oak Street’s Pykosz departs CVS, Musk’s Neuralink gains Canadian clinical trial, VA healthcare improvement bill omits EHR oversight measures, 23andMe’s Mirador precision medicine partnership

November 27, 2024 | by

Another CVS departure. As Glenview Capital taps its feet waiting for CVS financials to improve, Mike Pykosz, appointed less than a year ago to head up their Health Care Delivery unit, is departing. His replacement is Dr. Sreekanth Chaguturu. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Chaguturu will be working two jobs–president of Health Care Delivery as well as EVP and chief medical officer of CVS Health, saving an executive salary. This may be the capper of a two-month 52-card pickup that started with rumors of a breakup that would split off Aetna, replacement of CEO Karen Lynch, a new head of Aetna, and four new board seats given to Glenview. [TTA 19 Nov]

No date was given for Mr. Pykosz’s departure, but the wording in the release made it appear that it was effective immediately. His LinkedIn post from last Tuesday indicated that he was moving on by end of November, this week. According to new CEO David Joyner, Pykosz had informed management earlier in the year that he was planning to depart and had worked to ensure a smooth transition. Mike Pykosz had previously been CEO and co-founder of Oak Street Health, acquired by CVS for $10 billion in May 2023. In the following months, OSH integrated with elements of Signify Health, in-store Minute Clinics, and grew from 170 units to 250 locations. Whether any of them are profitable is not disclosed and likely not probable, though CVS made much of OSH’s and Signify’s 36% increase in quarterly revenue versus prior year. There is also no disclosure of Mr. Pykosz’s future plans though his LinkedIn post mentions that he was “excited to be able to dedicate time to investing in, advising, and supporting innovative healthcare companies, helping them meet their strategic goals and build better healthcare solutions as well as spend more time with family and friends.” including coaching grade 3 basketball. Bet on hearing from Mr. Pykosz after what is likely a prolonged non-compete agreement and a good rest. Healthcare Dive

Elon Musk’s brain-computer implant, Neuralink, to enter a clinical trial with Health Canada. This is the first outside-US trial for Neuralink. It comprises the N1 brain implant and R1 robot, which is used to place the 64-thread implant into the brain. The study will be performed by the University Health Network (UHN) hospital at its Toronto Western Hospital. The “Canadian Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface” (CAN-PRIME) subjects will be Canadian-resident patients with tetraparesis or tetraplegia resulting from cervical spinal cord injury or the neurological disease ALS who also have a life expectancy of at least 12 months. Earlier this year, an American implant patient moved a mouse by thought [TTA 21 Feb] and is now playing video games and online chess. Neuralink received approval last month for Blindsight, an implant for sight restoration. Mobihealthnews

VA service improvement bill manages to omit Oracle EHR oversight measures. The bipartisan omnibus bill titled ‘The Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act” (H.R. 8371) passed the House last week. It introduced many benefits to VA healthcare workers and to veterans, but managed to pass the House without the ‘guardrails’ that the House Veterans Affairs committee deemed necessary to continue the Oracle EHR rollout, replacing the obsolete VistA system. The committee spokesman, Mark Takano, D-Calif., attributed the omission of requirements included under the EHR Program RESET Act to “a lack of political viability in both the House and Senate”. The chair of the Technology subcommittee, Matt Rosendale (R-Montana), went considerably further and voted against the entire bill. Both blamed Oracle: Takano attributed it to “the army of lobbyists that Oracle unleashed to kill it” and Rosendale stated that “Oracle Cerner bought and bullied their way into getting this bill passed without their company being scrutinized.” The bill now goes to the Senate in the minimal time before the ending of the 118th Congress next month.   

The requirements in the omitted RESET Act included most of what has been discussed in both Senate and House to remedy Oracle Cerner Millenium’s stopped-dead implementation in the VA.

  • Increased Congressional oversight of EHR deployments, ensuring that each implementation of the new EHR “met or exceeded”  pre-deployment efficiencies before moving to the next one
  • Requiring VA to provide lawmakers with quarterly reports with additional data “on user adoption and employee satisfaction” with the Oracle Cerner system
  • Requiring VA to supply data on “employee retention and turnover at medical facilities where such electronic health record system is in use.”

Nextgov.com

Rep. Rosendale issued a press release blasting H.R. 8371. “…this bill ignored years of bipartisan work focused on requiring Oracle Cerner to fix its EHR System, that has resulted in veteran deaths, before it could be expanded to new VA Medical Centers and the company can continue to collect on its multibillion-dollar contract.” Omnibus bills like this are always shotgunned together as well. “The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee ignored regular order with this legislation which, by uniparty design, prohibited scrutiny and debate on the final product. That decision spearheaded a bad process for passing this bill which resulted in an unacceptable final product for our veterans. When a uniparty agreement comes together overnight, like it did with the Dole Act, it means a small group of individuals negotiated it and the American people – and in this case our nation’s heroes – get the short straw.”  

(Editor’s note: Senator Elizabeth Dole, who is still with us at 88, was a single-term Senator from North Carolina 2002-2006, but Cabinet member in two prior administrations as well as the widow of Senator Bob Dole from Kansas.)

Signs of life at 23andMe? The troubled genetic data company, which earlier this month shuttered what remained of its drug therapeutics unit and laid off 40% of its remaining employees, announced this week a research partnership with Mirador Therapeutics, a precision medicine company focused on immunology and inflammation. Mirador is using a targeted set of aggregated, de-identified genetic and phenotypic data from the 23andMe research database to combine with its Mirador 360 development “engine”. Most of the release is boilerplate with the requisite quote from the Mirador CEO, mixed with copy hyping previous 23andMe collaborations and their patient privacy policy which carefully omits the fact that you, personally, can withdraw from the research program, but your genetic data and limited identifiers cannot [TTA 8 Nov]. No financials or agreement duration are disclosed. 23andMe release, Endpoints News (paywalled)

Higi and Interpreta’s data mix partnership–questions on consent, data security

August 23, 2017 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Interpreta-Higi.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Higi (also higi), which has placed health monitoring kiosks in over 11,000 US retail locations and a 5.5 million signup base, and data cruncher Interpreta announced that they are partnering to blend Higi’s vital signs data with Interpreta’s claims, clinical and genomics data analytics. Based on Mobihealthnews’ article and the joint release, an individual’s health information taken at higi retail stations will be “prioritized within Interpreta in real time”. They also claim that for the first time, insurance payers and providers will be able to leverage biometrics data, clinical, claims and additional genomic information a person may obtain from genetic testing services into a ‘personalized care roadmap’ that closes gaps in care. This is positioned as a big advance in population health and it all sounds great.

Perhaps not so great are the details. What about consent and data security? Aside from absolutely no mention of patient consent and HIPAA compliance in the above news, this Editor suspects that past, current and future Higi users may not be made aware that their vital signs data recorded with Higi will be 1) sent into a non-Higi database and 2) integrated with other information that appears in Interpreta’s database. How is this being done? Is consent obtained? What then happens? Is it used on an identified or de-identified basis? Where is it going? Who is doing what with it? Can it be sold, as 23andme’s genomic information is (with consent, but still…)? “Interpreta works in the realm of precision medicine, continuously interpreting and synchronizing clinical and genomics data in real time to create a personalized roadmap to enable the orchestration of timely care.” but they do this for providers and health plans who are then responsible for privacy and data integrity. Consent for Higi to keep a record of your blood pressure when you drop into your local RiteAid or ShopRite is not consent for Interpreta to use or manipulate it. These questions should have been addressed in the release or an accompanying fact sheet. We welcome a response from either Higi or Interpreta.

And one last and exceedingly ‘gimlety’ observation by this Editor: kiosks get hacked, and here we have not a price to a McDonald’s meal but a portal to deep PHI. Here’s a two-part article in an industry publication, Kiosk Marketplace, if you are skeptical. Part 1, Part 2 

Health execs’ wish list for 2017: security, analytics, pop health…and telehealth (US)

January 6, 2017 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2017-upgrade-HITN-survey.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Healthcare IT News published the results of their October survey of 95 healthcare executives as to their forward plans (resolutions?) for 2017. It’s unsurprisingly centered on upgrades to the following areas:

  • Data security (52 percent)–definitely making up for lost time and spending due to the obvious threats from hacking and data breaches. In November alone, nearly two incidents a day (57) and over 458,000 records were reported by healthcare entities to HHS. (Protenus Breach Barometer)
  • Data analytics (51 percent)–figuring out what to do with all that patient data generated by….
  • Patient engagement and population health (44 percent each)–demanded by quality standards in CMS’ MACRA Quality Payment Program (QPP), including the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs)
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2017-introduce-investigate-HITN-survey.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]The surprises come here–the technologies they expect to introduce or investigate. Analytics and workflow correspond to the last two points above, but what is compelling is an apparent tipping point for technology which links the patient to care monitoring and access: telehealth (44 percent), smart medical devices (41 percent) and remote patient monitoring (34 percent). These overlap (as in telehealth and RPM require smart medical devices), yet these are strong numbers if they accurately reflect these execs’ actual (or eventual) spending. (Does it point to more clinically validated use of trackers like Fitbit? The Magic 8 Ball does not tell here….)

The presence of 2016-17’s ‘It Girl’, precision medicine (21 percent), which applies both data analytics and genomics to improve patient outcomes, isn’t surprising with the emphasis on quality care.

One can quibble that the sample size is small N, and the report doesn’t confirm the selection details like title, location, and type of organization, but the direction has to be cheering on many fronts. HITN’s overview, survey results (16 slides)

Eric Dishman departs Intel for NIH’s Precision Medicine Initiative Program

April 13, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/20160411-eric-dishman-pmi-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Late breaking news….Reported in Aging in Place Technology Watch from the Oregonian is that Eric Dishman, one of Oregon’s more famous sons (and certainly a star in health tech), is leaving Intel after 17 years. Currently an Intel Fellow and general manager of the Health and Life Sciences for the Data Center Group (profile), he is joining the National Institutes for Health (NIH) in their Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort program as a director. According to the Oregonian, Mr Dishman “will lead an effort to study more than 1 million volunteers to study the impact of “precision medicine” – the practice of studying an individual’s specific genetic makeup and lifestyle to produce targeted treatments. It had been a key focus of Dishman’s work at Intel, and he had helped design the study he will now oversee.” Mr Dishman had his own extreme experience with precision medicine to treat his recurrent cancer in 2012, which made him eligible for a life-saving kidney transplant later that year [TTA 27 Feb 14 and 12 Apr 2013]. He had recently been a key part of the PMI Network working group in this ‘audacious’ study as NIH, in announcing his appointment, termed it. His last day at Intel will be 29 April, according to Intel’s data center chief. Replacing him (at least in the organization) on an interim basis will be Steve Agritelley. NIH release, USNews interview

Laurie Orlov (hat tip re this article–Ed.) commented to this Editor that Mr Dishman could be considered the ‘father of Care Innovations‘; certainly he was crucial to the development of the original Intel Health Guide out of Intel’s Digital Health Group, and was prominently in the leadership of the early Louis Burns days of the company. His work during Intel spanned over LeadingAge’s CAST, Ireland’s Technology Research for Independent Living (TRIL) Centre, Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer’s Care (ETAC) and the Oregon Center for Aging & Technology (ORCATECH). Mr Dishman’s work is marked by a singular focus on delivering health into the home, changing aging and hospitals as we know them. Now he will be more focused on genomic medicine and changing disease treatments as we know them.

Your Editors wish him good fortune and hope that his experiences with NIH and in Washington will be fruitful and all that he intends it to be.

ELabNYC Pitch Day 2015

April 4, 2015 | by

Thursday 3 April, Microsoft’s NY Technology Center, Times Square NYC

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Elab.png” thumb_width=”100″ /]The third annual Pitch Day for the now 20 startup/early-stage life science, biotech and healthcare technology companies in the ELabNYC (Entrepreneurship Lab Bio and Health Tech NYC) is a culmination of their year-long program participation in this NY Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)-supported program. The entrepreneurs in the ELabNYC program primarily come from from the doctoral and post-doc programs from New York’s many universities, from CUNY to Columbia, from many parts of the world, and most have experience within the city’s multitude of major health research institutions from The Bronx to Brooklyn. New York is also a center of funding for life science and health tech ventures; it’s #2 with NIH awards totaling $1.4 billion. For the past few years, NYEDC has also supported these companies with finding access to capital, specialized space (e.g. wet labs such as the million square feet at Alexandria Center alone, plus Harlem Biospace and SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn) and partnerships with major companies such as Celgene, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and GE Ventures.

This Editor will concentrate on health tech companies–eight, up from five last year [TTA 17 Apr 14]. Each company pitched for five minutes on its concept, its current state of advancement (including pilots/customers), its team and a funding timeline. It was a very different mix from last year’s class, which focused on compliance, diagnosis, dementia and concussion. These companies focused on niches which are either not being served well or to substantially reduce costs. Nearly half the entrepreneurs were women, a substantially greater number than one usually sees in the biotech/health tech area. Short impressions on our eight, with links to their Executive Summaries on the 2014-15 ‘class page’: (more…)