< + > U.K. Hospitals Declare ‘Critical Incidents’ As Ambulance Crisis Persists

Several are declaring 'critical incidents' as Covid-19 continues to hit the country's health service.

< + > Feeding Dogs Raw Meat Might Exacerbate The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis

In a new study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, a team of researchers at the University of Bristol observed that pet dogs who were predominantly on a diet of raw meat were far more likely to poop drug-resistant E.coli bacteria.

< + > Plagues Upon The Earth: Disease And The Course Of Human History By Kyle Harper — Review

This book is a comprehensive environmental, ecological, economic, demographic and political history of humans and their infectious diseases, and it is distinguished by its nuance and readability

< + > Biden Covid-19 Positive Again, Is Paxlovid Rebound More Common Than Claimed?

Kevin O’Connor, DO, the Physician to the President, wrote that such a rebound in Covid positivity is “observed in a small percentage of patients treated with Paxlovid.” But is that percentage in actuality a lot higher?

< + > Bonus Features – July 31, 2022 – House passes bill to extend telehealth flexibility to 2024, only 60% of practices hit their 2021 revenue goal, and more

Welcome to the weekly edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features. This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job.

News 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed by a 416-12 vote the Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID–19 Act of 2021, which would extend the telehealth flexibilities put in place during the public health emergency until the end of 2024. Meanwhile, the American Telemedicine Association and its trade arm, ATA Action, have called on Congress to consider two other telehealth extensions: The High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) and Health Savings Account (HSA) telehealth tax provision, and the Ryan Haight Act in-person waiver for the remote prescription of controlled substances.

The latest report from MGMA indicated that cost concerns remain a challenge in healthcare, with only 60% of practices hitting their revenue goals in 2021. Practices appear to be suffering from a one-two punch of high inflation and low productivity, which remains below its pre-pandemic level for both physician- and hospital-owned practices. Primary care in particular seems to be suffering, as visit volumes have yet to return to their 2019 levels.

Studies

A survey of Surescripts users found an 8% increase in the use of electronic prescriptions for specialty medications in the first five months of 2022 compared to 2021. Surescripts also reported a 24% increase in the number of prescribers enrolled in May 2022 compared to May 2021.

A survey of healthcare leaders  by patient engagement vendor pCare and research firm WBR Insights indicated that demand for technology to improve the patient experience is on the rise, with 65% of organizations saying more patients want a tech-enabled care experience. While 95% of organizations said digital engagement tools improve the patient experience, 42% said there are “significant gaps” between what patients expect and what they can provide.

Partnerships

• Virtual cardiology care company Heartbeat Health is working with Caption Health, which applies AI to heart ultrasounds, to make scans and follow-up appointments available via telehealth.
• Preventive care delivery platform Fullscript has joined the athenahealth Marketplace app store.
• Health information network Availity will be the provider data management partner for Symphony Provider Directory, California’s provider directory utility and a part of the Integrated Healthcare Association.
• Digital Diagnostics is partnering with ArchWell Health to bring its diagnostic devices for diabetic eye disease into the community centers where ArchWell provides senior care.

Products

• Cardiac care company iRhythm Technologies received FDA 510(k) clearance for the ZEUS System for the Zio Watch, both currently in development. The wearable device and its underlying operating system intend to provide long-term, continuous monitoring for atrial fibrillation.
• Digital health provider for substance use disorder treatment CHESS Health released its ePrevention tool to help providers and community organizations identify at-risk patients and recommend interventions.
• AmerisourceBergen launched DTx Connect, an ordering and fulfillment platform for digital therapeutics.
• Linus Health announced the availability of its brain health platform, which combines cognitive screenings and decision support tools to help detect dementia in its early stages.
• Nurse-1-1 released its live chat tool, which provides patients with access to more than 3,000 providers in its nationwide network. On average, patients can connect to a provider within eight seconds.
• In vitro fertilization decision support tool Fairtility launched the AI Academy to educate and engage the IVF community about the responsible adoption of AI in fertility care.
• HIPAA compliant email provider Paubox unveiled Paubox Marketing, which is designed to help provider send personalized yet compliant email marketing messages.
• Value-based payment platform provider Clarify Health launched Clarify Access, an analytics tool designed to help pharma companies develop market access strategies.

People

• Policy and reimbursement consultancy Applied Policy hired Steven Johnson as Health Policy Director. Johnson is a 12-year CMS veteran who worked on MSSP’s quality reporting requirements.
• Value-based care service provider Greater Good Health hired Michael Grover, formerly of Optum, as Chief Financial Officer.

If you have news that you’d like us to consider for a future edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features, please submit them on this page. Please include any relevant links and let us know if news is under embargo.

< + > Overstretched U.K. Family Doctors Facing ‘Unsustainable’ Demand

U.K. family doctors are delivering more appointments, even as the workforce shrinks.

< + > Three Months After Covid-19, Individuals Are More Prone To Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease

In a recent study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers warn that three months after recovering from a Covid-19 infection, some individuals are at a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

< + > New York: Monkeypox Outbreak Declared Disaster Emergency By Governor Kathy Hochul

The state of New York has had at least 1,383 confirmed monkeypox cases, the most of any state in the U.S.

< + > Oncoustics Closes New Funding to Advance its AI Innovations in Ultrasound and Address Huge Unmet Clinical Needs in Liver Disease

Oncoustics’ SaMD Works on Any Ultrasound System Making AI-Driven Diagnostics, Surveillance and Treatment Monitoring Available and Accessible at Point of Care

Oncoustics (http://www.oncoustics.com), the leader in ultrasound-based tissue characterization solutions announces the initial close of a $5 million+ seed round of funding to advance its SaMD (software as a medical device) technology for the low-cost assessment of structural diseases at point of care. Oncoustics’ first products will focus on liver disease, one of the fastest-growing causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. The round is co-led by Creative Ventures and Saltagen Ventures.

Other investors in the round include NorthSpring Capital Partners, Fraser Kearney Capital Corp., Pallasite Ventures, and Dr. Chen Fong, a renowned radiologist, entrepreneur/investor and inductee into the Order of Canada for his contributions to medical technology innovation and philanthropy. With this close, Oncoustics is pleased to add Dr. Fong on behalf of Saltagen, and James Wang of Creative Ventures to its board of directors.

The Novel Oncoustics Approach
Oncoustics’ patented approach utilizes both the ultrasound images as well as the acoustic data derived from the raw sound signals to automatically differentiate tissue types. Every different type of tissue in the body bounces back a unique acoustic signature and Oncoustics mines these signals to differentiate healthy versus diseased tissues. Oncoustics has been collecting ultrasound signal datasets and has amassed the largest RF signal data set in the world. This hardware-agnostic approach works on any ultrasound system, including new low-cost point-of-care ultrasound systems, making this an affordable and accessible diagnostic tool.

James Wang, partner at Creative Ventures who leads AI investments, leveraging his background in computer science specializing in AI/ML, shared, “Oncoustics’ approach is unique. They mine the raw data that is typically thrown away and can use this to go beyond what can be seen by the human eye. They’re basically creating a ‘virtual biopsy’ that has vast applications in healthcare. Innovations like Oncoustics are what will help change the trajectory of our currently unsustainable healthcare system and costs.”

Leveraging the rise of new point-of-care ultrasound systems, Oncoustics takes advantage of all the benefits of these systems, including their low cost, portability and ease of use, and builds on this by guiding the data acquisition and providing easy-to-read results via a smartphone app.

“Their technique of mining and analyzing the ultrasound RF signal makes perfect sense to me, as the raw data is much richer than what is available in standard medical images,” said Dr. Fong. “This tool would make ultrasound much easier to use and would benefit millions of at-risk patients.”

The OnX™ Liver Assessment Solution
Oncoustics’ first product, the OnX liver assessment solution, is focused on detecting structural liver diseases including fibrosis and steatosis (fat) that can occur in all types of chronic liver disease (CLD). CLD today affects more than 2 billion people globally and is rising dramatically, driven by a condition called Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). NAFLD has grown rapidly due to the rise in obesity, metabolic disorders and type 2 diabetes. UCLA Health estimates that up to 46% of the U.S. population has or is at risk of NAFLD.

“There’s a tsunami of need around detecting these types of liver diseases and our ultimate goal is to decrease or eliminate the need for high-end imaging or painful and invasive biopsies,” said Beth Rogozinski, CEO, Oncoustics. “With this new round of funding, we will accelerate our liver solutions and enable low-cost diagnostics for earlier interventions and better patient care.”

“Oncoustics has progressed and gained incredible traction since we first invested in them and has even demonstrated that their approach works on any anatomical area of the body that the ultrasound can image,” said Dr. Fong who was an angel investor through the Creative Destruction Lab. The company has several follow-on liver products in development as well as clinical data on other organ indications including prostate, kidney, breast and thyroid diseases and cancers.

The Oncoustics platform promises a whole new level of access to care with the benefits of ease of use, accessibility, affordability, and optimizing clinical workflows.

About Oncoustics
Oncoustics (www.oncoustics.com) applies AI to raw ultrasound signals to do tissue characterization at point of care for low-cost, noninvasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need. The Oncoustics solutions for ultrasound will be submitted for regulatory approval in the United States (FDA 510(k)), Canada (Health Canada medical device license) and the European Union (CE Mark). The OnX Liver Assessment Solution has not been cleared for clinical use and is For Investigational Use Only.

< + > What Technology Will Be Available in the Healthcare Facility of the Future?

Yesterday we looked at what the healthcare facility of the future will look like.  As we continue our look at healthcare facilities and what changes we’ll see, today we’re going to look at what technology the Healthcare IT Today community thinks will be needed and included in a healthcare facility.  Here’s a look at a few of the ideas they shared.

Michael Rivers, Director of Ophthalmology at ModMed
Key technologies that make up the “exam room of the future” won’t be in the exam room at all. They will evolve our understanding of healthcare from an episodic experience to on demand. Wearable technologies will allow physicians to monitor patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, and empower more proactive treatment. We will also see more app-based digital patient engagement tools that help patients focus on health goals and have their questions answered between clinic visits.

Mandira Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager Acute & Payer Markets at PointClickCare
Connected devices and telehealth will be essential technologies in the “exam room of the future.” These technologies have been key in the evolution of how healthcare is delivered. Telehealth for example is no longer a shiny object, it’s table stakes. Healthcare interactions in the cloud allow physicians to better understand, intervene and glean insight on care when they’re not in the room with the patient. Similarly, it allows for industry-wide collaboration as data sharing is enhanced.

Kimberly Powell, Vice President of Healthcare at NVIDIA
Every hospital will be smart, using real time sensors and AI edge computing to help healthcare professionals deliver more precise and efficient care from surgical robots, to automated x-ray rooms, to interactive virtual assistants. Using the power of digital twins, hospitals, operating rooms, humans and health can be simulated to make personalized predictions for the best possible healthcare delivery.

Punit Soni, CEO at Suki
Voice is going to be the next transformative interface in healthcare and can do very powerful things due to the advancements of AI, NLP and ML. Today, voice technology can understand your intent regardless of how you say something; learn a physician’s specific preferences or terminology; identify clinical entities like diagnoses; and suggest correct ICD-10 codes. In the future, we envision surgical suites and medical devices being powered by voice.

Curtis Gattis, CEO & Co-Founder at LeadingReach
As we move to a fully digital healthcare world in the next 10 years, the extinction of the fax machine will finally happen. Healthcare leaders and facilities will fully lean into tech solutions, gaining insights on critical metrics such as referral-to-appointment ratio and referral response rate. With strong referral tech in place, patients will receive the timely care they need instead of being left behind, which happens 50 percent of the time with outdated processes that involve faxing.

Max Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder at Sprinter Health
What technologies will be in the exam room of the future? The biggest gain is from better interoperability, not from some magic futuristic tech. Augmented Reality, robotic remote surgery, AI diagnostic algorithms – all these things are great, and will continue to improve. But just making sure the care team knows the details of what the patient is going through, having access to that diagnostic information even if the patient isn’t physically present, and being able to communicate care and treatment plans back to other supporting clinicians would be a massive transformation from where we are today.

What do you see as the future of technology that will transform the healthcare facility?  Let us know in the comments and on social media.

< + > PatientBond, Vizient team up for digital behavior change tools

The patient engagement partnership aims to help AMCs, pediatric providers, community hospitals and others close gaps in care, reduce readmissions and more.

< + > A Cooling Implantable Device For Pain Relief

Scientists at Northwestern University have engineered a new pain-relieving device that could serve as a replacement for opioids or other highly addictive medications.

< + > Will Amazon’s Foray Into The Primary Care Market Be A Wake-Up Call Or A Torpedo For Legacy Health Systems?

Amazon’s latest move is poised to not only reduce the hide-and-seek aspects of acquiring basic health care today, but also significantly alter the primary care landscape through increased access to in-home services with a patient-centered focus.

< + > Monkeypox Symptoms Are Different From Previous Outbreaks, Doctors Warn

It’s possible monkeypox patients with atypical symptoms could have gone undiagnosed for some time, researchers said, potentially explaining how the outbreak had become so widespread by the time it was detected.

< + > Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae retires after 30 years

He will be replaced by his son-in-law and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare general manager Brad Porter.

< + > Vaccine Rollout Was Weaker In Greater Black Populations And Rural Areas, Study Finds

Covid-19 vaccines were less available in U.S. counties with higher Black and Hispanic populations, according to a new study.

< + > Two In Five Children In India Have No Access To Vitamin A Supplementation

In a new study published in the journal BMJ Global Health, a researcher based in India found that two in five Indian children have never received vitamin A supplementation.

< + > Mayo Clinic, Mercy working together on major 10-year data initiative

The collaboration, which will see the health systems working with deidentified data for algorithm development and validation, will focus on patient outcomes and aim toward "personalized, predictive and proactive medicine."

< + > Reduce Physician Burnout by Addressing Usability and Interoperability Says CMA President

All around the globe, healthcare systems are beginning to strain and fray as physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals leave their positions or scale back their hours. There is no silver bullet. Restoring our health systems and re-energizing staff is going to require change and improvement on many fronts. Technology can help, but only if it reduces the administrative burden. Dr. Katharine Smart, President of the Canadian Medical Association believes interoperability is key to reducing physician burnout.

Healthcare IT Today sat down with Dr. Smart at a recent conference in Toronto to discuss the healthcare workforce crisis and how Health IT can help.

Worrying Trend

“Physicians are absolutely experiencing burnout at double the rate before the pandemic, it’s now over 50% of physicians and extends to nurses and other healthcare professionals,” stated Dr. Smart. “It’s really worrisome. We are in a situation where we have problems with access and not enough staff. That’s not where we want to be.”

Recently, there have been noticeable signs of the healthcare workforce crisis. In Canada headlines are starting to appear around local Emergency Departments reducing their hours due to a shortage of staff. The same is happening in Europe.

Technology Can Help

“One of the biggest causes of burnout, especially for family doctors is administrative burdens,” shared Dr. Smart. “And a lot of that comes from electronic medical records. An EMR is supposed to make your life easier and there are really powerful things about EMRs, but inadvertently they have actually increased the amount of time physicians spend on paperwork.”

Dr. Smart believes that vendors need put more effort into partnering with physicians and physician organizations to improve EMR technologies. She also believes that improving interoperability will help reduce the burden on physicians and nurses.

“Our decisions [as physicians] are only as good as the information we have and when we don’t have all the patient’s information, that’s a risk,” explained Dr. Smart. If health data were more interoperable and shared more freely, then there would be a reduction of unnecessary tests. Instead of physicians ordering tests that patients had already taken elsewhere, a record of it would already exist and be seen by the physician. Less tests means less paperwork.

As well, there would no longer be a burden on staff to fax (yes fax) information to a patient’s other specialists.

Dr. Smart also singled out virtual care and telehealth as technologies that could help during the staffing crisis. If there were insufficient resources in a one region then doctors from another region could step in, virtually, to help provide access until local staffing returned to normal.

“Our challenge is how do we move from talking to actually doing something about the problem,” said Dr. Smart. “In this unique moment, as we are moving though the pandemic, there is an opportunity for people to be more open to doing things differently.”

Watch the full interview with Dr. Katharine Smart:

Listen and subscribe to the Healthcare IT Today Interviews Podcast to hear all the latest insights from experts in healthcare IT.

And for an exclusive look at our top stories, subscribe to our newsletter.

Tell us what you think. Contact us here or on Twitter at @hcitoday. And if you’re interested in advertising with us, check out our various advertising packages and request our Media Kit.

< + > How telehealth can help solve the physician specialist shortage

Dr. Chris Gallagher, a cardiologist and CEO of SOC Telemed, sees "the power of telemedicine to change patients' lives and make a real difference to hospitals' bottom lines."

< + > Leveraging Technology to Improve Referral Management in Home Health Care

The following is a guest article by Adeel Sarwar, Chief Technology Officer at CareCloud

Home health care fills an important niche in ensuring quality, affordable care for a wide range of patients. The demand for home health services is projected to grow nearly eight percent annually through 2030, which is fueled by the majority of the Baby Boomer generation reaching the Medicare age of 65 and growing orthopedic-related diseases. 

While these are two large factors behind the increased demand, other factors are driving the increase, including the technological advances that enable better remote care. As Americans have become more accustomed to new ways of interacting with businesses, especially during the pandemic, demands for convenience and flexibility have increased.

While the growth of home health services promises to increase the quality of life and convenience for patients in need of care, there is a critical need for the industry to prepare for this demand by ensuring the proper infrastructure is in place so that patients can access the care they need when they need it. Nowhere is the need for updating home health infrastructure more necessary than in the area of referral management.

Currently, the home health industry operates in much the same way it has historically from a workflow perspective. Home health agencies perform the administrative functions involved with connecting providers with patients in need of home care. There are a host of specific tasks around this role, but one major function includes qualifying providers, assigning patients to those providers, and scheduling days on which appointments will take place. Pairing clinicians with patients requires tremendous amounts of time and planning, and doing this task manually only complicates the matter. 

The process begins when a patient is referred to a specialist home health provider by his or her primary care physician. These referrals are traditionally transmitted by way of phone calls, faxes, or emails with scanned documents attached. Large home health agencies or even specialty practices such as physical therapy may receive hundreds – or even thousands – of these referrals on a daily basis, each of which must be physically reviewed by a healthcare administrator, then manually entered into an electronic medical record. Details that must be entered can be extensive, including patient demographics, insurance information, referral authorization codes, and more. 

In the case that referral information is incomplete, the healthcare administrator must then reach out to the patient or referring physician and follow up for the missing details. Once all required information is completely and accurately entered, the administrator then moves into the process of verifying patient eligibility with the payer. It is only after eligibility is verified that the work of matching a patient with the correct provider can begin. 

The matching process requires that the case manager, or administrator, considers a number of factors, beginning with the skill set of available care specialists. Other factors a case manager must consider before matching a provider to the patient includes the clinician’s current workload, the location of the clinician’s other patients, and any complexities related to geographic location or commute. Some patients may require additional accommodations, such as language specialists or special time constraints.

Only after the right provider has been identified can the case manager reach out to the patient to schedule an appointment. At this point, the case manager has spent an average of four hours prior to even scheduling the first appointment.

Once the appointment day is set, individual providers typically plan and visit their assigned patients. However, as they go about their day, any number of factors can present challenges that interfere with their planned schedule. At times a patient may not be home at the scheduled time. It may also happen that an appointment takes longer than anticipated, causing delays for the remainder of the day. Transportation can also present additional challenges. As the provider shuttles from home to home, they may face unexpected traffic or transportation delays, or they may have to take an emergency appointment across town and away from their next group of scheduled appointments. Sometimes the providers themselves face illness or family emergencies that require them to miss their scheduled appointments.

Missed appointments are a big problem, costing the overall healthcare industry between $50 and $150 billion annually. Beyond the financial ramifications, missed appointments have a real impact on patient health. An Annals of Medicine study noted that patients with frequently missed appointments tend to “experience poorer health outcomes.” Specific to home health care, a 2018 article in the Journal of Clinical Nursing highlighted the need for improved operational productivity, including mapping software that accounts for patient needs in addition to optimal geographical routing.

The urgency to resolve the challenges that abound, from the initial referral to execution of the appointment, is compelling. It becomes even more so when we consider that the technological capability necessary to manage these challenges already exists and is being used regularly outside of the healthcare field already. 

We need only to leverage and build on these existing technologies to create a solution that improves and speeds up referral management in home health care while also expanding our capacity to manage the growing demand in our field.

The time is right for solutions that enable speedier intake processes including electronic referral management and task-sorting, as well as automatic data entry and eligibility confirmations, so that patients in need of care can be connected with specialist providers more quickly. We need algorithms that suggest provider-patient matches based on the unique needs and considerations of both parties. 

Today we can employ automated convenience reminders that confirm dates, times, and locations of each appointment to mitigate missed appointments. We need technologies that flex to real-time situations, including traffic delays and family emergencies, so that patients can receive the care they need, as scheduled. Automated check-ins that allow the home health provider to spend more time on care and less time on planning and record-keeping would not only make the provider’s job easier, such solutions hold the potential to enable a higher quality of care.

As an industry, we need to continue to work toward a better, more connected care ecosystem that offers optimal outcomes both for today’s patients and for those of the future. Using automated technology in home health care is key to improving care, workflows, and profitability, while improving the experience and outcomes for patients. 

My company and others are working to transform the industry in just this way. We at CareCloud are very excited about the future of home health care and the accessibility it unlocks for so many patients. With greater connections and better use of automated technologies to bridge the gap between patients and providers, home health care today will look different from tomorrow. Join me in calling on the industry to leverage our resources to improve the care experience of providers and patients alike. 

About Adeel Sarwar

Adeel Sarwar, Chief Technology Officer, joined CareCloud in 2004. Mr. Sarwar has extensive experience in designing and developing healthcare products and has the unique ability to align revenue growth, strategy, and innovation with IT business goals. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

< + > ATA cheers prospective telehealth extensions, but calls for more

With a House bill that would extend Medicare telehealth flexibilities through 2024 set to be debated this week, the American Telemedicine Association is asking policymakers to safeguard two other key provisions.

< + > Manufacturing Titan 3M Is Spinning Off Its Healthcare Business Into A Separate Company

With this, the manufacturing company formally enters the highly competitive healthcare industry.

< + > Oracle exec testifies before Senate on EHR modernization

"While I fully appreciate substantial challenges exist," he said of the rocky Cerner Oracle rollout, which has been put on pause, "the fact is that more is working than is not."

< + > How AI can power early detection of dementia

"Neurocognitive health interventions must be multipronged and personal, which necessitates the use of digital tools to adequately equip health systems to meet this growing need," one expert says.

< + > KLAS Differentiates Patient Communications from Patient-Driven Care Management Solutions

In a recent report, KLAS Research separated their Patient Outreach category into two new categories. The Patient Communications category groups together solutions that are primarily focused on administrative outcomes like appointment reminders and payment reminders. The Patient-driven Care Management Solutions are ones that focus on clinical outcomes and helping patients through their care journey. This separation was done based on provider and vendor feedback as well as KLAS’s own in-depth analysis of the market.

Healthcare IT Today sat down with Dan Czech, Senior Insights Director for Patient Engagement at KLAS Research to talk about these new categories, the reasoning behind the separation, and the findings in their new report: “Patient Communications Landscape for 2022”.

Why the separation?

Czech had this to say when asked about the reasons behind the separation: “We had used Patient Outreach, which was the former category name, as almost a landing space for any patient engagement solution that had some form of communication with patients. We quickly realized that Vendor A and Vendor X were very different in their approach to the market and the needs they were trying to meet.”

According to Czech, over the years, KLAS received a lot of feedback from both vendors and provider organizations about the former patient outreach category and how it wasn’t “quite hitting the mark”. So Czech and the team at KLAS looked for a way to use a data-driven approach to separating the large number of vendors in this single category by the type of work that they do.

“The primary differentiator between the two is: patient communications are often flexible communication tools that at their core are appointment reminders, broadcast messaging type tools, but can be used to deliver different types of content and different types of messages to patients,” explained Czech. “Whereas a Patient-driven Care Management Solution is a communication tool, but it’s really driven around a specific journey or pathway or template. It’s a very specific and targeted communication path.”

17 Capabilities

After consulting with provider organizations, vendors, and internal experts, KLAS identified 17 capabilities to measure solutions in BOTH categories. Those 17 were arranged into 4 broad groups:

• Clinical communication. Examples: patient/provider messaging, patient guidance/care navigation, post visit follow-ups
• Administrative communication. Examples: appointment reminders, broadcast messaging
• Financial communication. Example: payment reminders
• Other communication. Examples: patient surveys, adhoc messaging to patients

Solutions in the Patient Communications category would presumably be graded more on the measures that fall in the Administrative and Financial groups while Patient-driven Care Management Solutions more in the Clinical group.

Ranked Vendors

The report from KLAS featured 14 Patient Communication vendors: Klara, WELL Health, PatientBond, CipherHealth, Luma Health, Relatient, RevSpring, Intrado, Perfectserve, Upfront, SR Health, Millennia Patient Services, Odeza, and Vocera.

There were 5 vendors in the Patient-driven Care Management category: Get Well, Twistle, Wolters Kluwer, Wellbe, and Quil.

When asked about other popular vendors in this space that did not make the list, Czech had this to say: “We hear about a new company daily, if not more frequently. We’ve created some new entry points to being measured at KLAS – what we call an Emerging Technology Report or a Spotlight Reports for new up-and-coming vendors. If [a vendor] has a significant customer base, we can go through the standard measurement process. There are several [vendors] on our radar that just due to capacity constraints and other factors we just couldn’t get to for this research.”

Helping Providers

It will be interesting to see how these new categories will help provider organizations. There is a reasonable argument to be made that using a vendor that excelled at helping patients through a hip-replacement through educational materials for appointment reminders was ineffective. The former requires high quality customizable educational content. The latter, simple messages delivered at specific times or based on specific workflow triggers.

By separating these solutions, KLAS is perhaps helping providers to better focus on the features that are needed in each situation.

Watch the full interview with Dan Czech to learn:

• Whether the lines will blur between these categories over time
• Why augmenting EHRs is a path to communication success versus competing with them
• Why the quality of content is a differentiator for Patient-driven Care Management Solutions

Listen and subscribe to the Healthcare IT Today Interviews Podcast to hear all the latest insights from experts in healthcare IT.

And for an exclusive look at our top stories, subscribe to our newsletter.

Tell us what you think. Contact us here or on Twitter at @hcitoday. And if you’re interested in advertising with us, check out our various advertising packages and request our Media Kit.

Transcript

[00:00:09] Colin Hung: Hello and welcome to Healthcare IT Today, where we explore the latest healthcare technology trends and discover valuable insights in health IT. I’m Colin Hung and joining me today is Dan Czech, Senior Insights Director for Patient Engagement with KLAS Research, Dan, welcome to the program.

[00:00:38] Dan Czech: It’s nice to be with you today Colin.

[00:00:40] Colin Hung: I’m excited because you came out with, or KLAS came out with a new Segment Insights that was focused on patient communications. I think the title of it was “Patient Communications Landscape for 2022”. There was a lot of great stuff in this report and I want to dive into it with you.

[00:00:59] Dan Czech: That sounds fun. I love to talk about this topic.

[00:01:03] Colin Hung: So first of all, right off the bat, I gotta ask you this. In this report, you actually divide what once was a single category of vendors and products into two separate categories. You now have patient communication solutions and then something you call patient driven care management solutions. Can you help us with that distinction? What’s the difference between the two?

[00:01:28] Dan Czech: This decision to split the categories, actually one of the main purposes of this report was to find a way to take a data-driven approach to separating the vendors by the type of work that they do.

[00:01:42] We were hearing both from the vendors, as well as provider organizations that had shared their perspective with KLAS, that it wasn’t quite hitting the mark. We had used patient outreach, which was the former category name, as almost a landing space for any patient engagement solution that had some form of communication with patients. We quickly realized that Vendor A and Vendor X were very different in their approach to the market and the needs they were trying to meet.

[00:02:09] So in an effort to provide clarity to provider organizations and help compare, as much as possible, similar vendors. That was our decision to split these two categories. It was really interesting the way that we went about doing this – we asked every customer of these vendors that we spoke with: what were the different use cases you used this technology for?

[00:02:33] We had a list of about 17 capabilities and we went through this list with every organization. We had some gut feel for what we thought the vendors would look like. And it was appalling when I did the analysis and started to compare the different vendors. It just popped out of the page in my spreadsheet that “these vendors” are clearly this type and “these vendors” are clearly that type. It was really easy.

[00:02:58] Then as I started to dig deeper in the analysis, it followed through. Patient Communication vendors typically saw one type of outcome, which was more administrative outcomes. And then Patient Driven Care Management Solutions typically saw clinical type outcomes like reduced readmissions or reduced length of stay.

[00:03:18] So the way we look at this, what we saw in the data, the primary differentiator between the two is: patient communications are often flexible communication tools that at their core are appointment reminders, broadcast messaging type tools, but can be used to deliver different types of content and different types of messages to patients.

[00:03:37] Whereas a Patient Driven Care Management Solution is a communication tool, but it’s really driven around a specific journey or pathway or template, whatever you’d like to call it. Let’s say for example, a total knee replacement, an organization may use one of these solutions to engage the patient prior to the procedure to prepare them, make sure that they come in ready to go and,able to get the best care, then follows them through their inpatient stay all the way post surgery into recovery and patient reported outcomes. It’s a very specific and targeted communication path. So that’s the main difference between the two.

[00:04:18] Colin Hung: I like, I like one of the distinctions you made there. Although both sets of tools and vendors play in the opposite world, what I heard was that the patient communication side is really focused on administrative outcomes. Getting you back in, payments, those kinds of things. Whereas the patient driven communication tools, what you’re saying is it’s more driven on the outcomes for that individual patient and helping them through that journey of whatever is happening with them, with their procedure or with the disease that they have, or a condition that they have and so forth.

[00:04:54] Dan Czech: That’s right.

[00:04:55] Colin Hung: Awesome.

[00:04:56] Dan Czech: What’s interesting is that many of these vendors on both sides cross both. They show a small portion of clinical outcomes if you’re a patient communications vendor, but you almost hear from every organization that’s a patient communications customer – reduce no-show rates. That’s the industry standard for these types of tools. Everybody talks about reducing their no-show rates.

[00:05:22] Colin Hung: I want go back to something you said earlier and, and it’s kind of related to no-shows. That is the main use case – appointment reminders or reminders that you need to make an appointment based on where you are in your journey or how long you’ve not seen a doctor or specialist. You came up with 17 use cases as part of in this report…were these the 17 that you knew going in that people were using it for or did you discover these as part of creating this report? There’s a lot in here, there’s wellness reminders, care gap reminders, patient surveys, payment reminders, pre-surgery education. These are all use cases that were in this report.

[00:06:07] Dan Czech: So this list was actually driven by a couple of different inputs. One was, KLAS has held multiple summits over the past couple of years, focused on patient engagement. Right before the pandemic hit, we held one late in 2019. Our goal was to refine the list of what a patient engagement solution should offer. The summit prior to that we came up with a list of 80 capabilities, not just communication capabilities, but broad patient engagement capabilities.

[00:06:41] And we targeted this group. This was a group of vendor executives, provider organization, executives. There were even patients in the room and we had surveyed patients as well. We worked through that meeting to focus the list of communication capabilities. We used that as a starting point. We refined the rest from what we had been hearing from provider organizations, as well as what vendors had both on their websites and as well as conversations that they shared with us.

[00:07:08] 17 is still a lot of capabilities, but the different and the specific types of communications are almost endless that organizations can use these tools for.

[00:07:19] Colin Hung: Companies like Klara, WELL Health, Relatient, and Solutionreach. These are all companies that are highlighted in your report. They are truly flexible. They can send messages that are more than just apointment reminders. They can include links to education and other things as well. The vendors have gone beyond the single use cases like they had when they first started years and years ago.

[00:07:44] I’m going ask you about that. Did you run into situations where the providers have multiples of these solutions? Did they have more than one of these vendors that were in your report?

[00:07:56] Dan Czech: Yeah, we did. It wasn’t common, but we did. I would say it was more common that they had a patient communications and a patient driven care management solution, because while they overlap a little bit, the use cases are pretty distinct. But there were several organizations that were using two different solutions. They may be using one for their inpatient needs and one for their ambulatory needs. Or they may have a specific department that was using one solution that the vendor had gotten in through a department lead or whatever their entry point was, but they may have one isolated use case. And also a more enterprise platform.

[00:08:35] We do see both in this space and then broader patient engagement technology, organizations are trying to get to as few vendors as possible. And you see that in vendor development and through acquisitions and development as well, where they are trying to increase the number of capabilities that they offer to an organization in an effort to gain that stronghold and really become an indispensable solution.

[00:09:05] Colin Hung: So today they’re separate categories. Do you see these vendors in both these spaces coming back together again down the road? or do you think they’re going to be separate and distinct for a long time given that the use cases are so different?

[00:09:20] Dan Czech: You know, I think that’s something we’ll have to keep an eye on over the next couple of years.

[00:09:24] I would anticipate from what we’ve seen in other patient engagement technologies, that the organizations will continue to expand their functionality and capabilities in this space. I think sometimes provider organizations in particular are a little hesitant when a vendor comes in and says: “we can do it all, we can be your solution for everything”. Sometimes that’s a bad thing. You don’t want a Jack-of-all-trades that’s a master of none.

[00:09:58] If they have a really targeted need for a specific type of communication, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these organizations that meet that very specific need maintaining relevance.

[00:10:12] Colin Hung: Gotcha. It makes sense because you’re right, none of us want and no provide wants to implement a monolith. I think they’ve learned some hard lessons there. But also, they don’t want best of breed where you have 19 vendors that do basically the same thing. Somewhere in the middle is the magic spot. It will be interesting to track this over the next few years.

[00:10:34] Dan Czech: I think the other thing organizations will be considering – they do today and will even more in the future – how do these communication solutions augment what my EMR vendor is already doing? It’s a decision point today. Those that augment rather than compete with EMR and portal technology are gonna be the ones that stay compelling in this industry.

[00:10:57] Colin Hung: Let’s switch for a moment to talk about the patient driven communications side. There, you highlighted some companies in the report like GetWell, Twistle, and Wolters Kluwer. One of the things I noticed when reading it is all three of these companies create their own content for those specific conditions or procedures that they’re helping patients journey through. It sounds like that is a key differentiator today. Is that what you found?

[00:11:27] Dan Czech: Yes. We saw from their customer’s perspectives that while the content is there, it’s not always created equal. It doesn’t always apply to their specific care journey or pathway for the way they do business as an organization. So I think there will always be a need to customize the content that is provided.

[00:11:49] I do think that the basic content as this market matures over the next handful of years will get relatively standardized and I hate to use the word “commodity”, but it’ll be consistent across the industry. Organizations will be able to leverage best practices from other organizations that have helped refine the content and start from a much better starting place.

[00:12:14] Colin Hung: It sounds like down the road, the creation of the content may no longer be a huge differentiator, but the customization is definitely sounding like it’s going to be a requirement. For my hospital, my organization, I want my patients journey this way so I want extra content here, or I want my own content there. That was highlighted in the report – how easy or hard it was to customize that content was a big factor for a lot of the providers you spoke to.

[00:12:43] Dan Czech: Yeah. And it’s interesting, there’s a parallel to this on the patient communication side with appointment reminders. If you look back, 3, 4, 5 years ago, many organizations were choosing their own journey with how frequently do I communicate with my patients. What does that cadence look like? What do the messages look like? It’s relatively standard in the industry today. We’ve done enough studies about what is the right frequency to reach out to your patients. What should those messages look like. So that is no longer the differentiator that it used to be.

[00:13:18] I would anticipate the content for patient driven care management to be similar if you look two or three years down the road.

[00:13:26] Colin Hung: Now, of course, whenever you come out with a report like this, and this is true of any KLAS report there are companies that are looking at this list and this report and saying “Hey, how come we’re not on there?” “You forgot about so-and-so” and “what about this vendor?” What’s the message to them? How can they get on these reports or into your radar?

[00:13:47] Dan Czech: Yeah. I would say, especially with patient engagement, we probably hear about a new company on a daily basis, if not more frequently than that. We’ve actually, over the past few years, created some new entry points to being measured at KLAS – what we call an Emerging Technology Report or a Spotlight Reports for a new up-and-coming vendor. We’ll talk to early customers and share with the industry, what outcomes and successes those early customers are seeing. So that’s one entry point for an organization that wasn’t measured in this report.

[00:14:20] If they have a significant customer base, we can go through the standard measurement process and talking to their customers and including them in this category going forward. There are several on our radar that just due to capacity constraints and other factors we just couldn’t get to for this research.

[00:14:41] I would say there’s probably another few dozen communication solutions in the market today. If not more,

[00:14:49] Colin Hung: I can imagine that that the grid that you have is going to have a lot more logos on it the next iteration that you do this report

[00:14:55] Dan Czech: Yep

[00:14:58] Colin Hung: Dan, final question. Where can people go to download the report?

[00:15:01] Dan Czech: Yeah, you can go to KLASResearch.com and, and click on our report section of the website. You can also reach out to me at dan.czech@klasresearch.com and I’ll get a copy of the report to you. We love doing these reports and our mission at KLAS is to improve the delivery of healthcare in the world, by bringing transparency to how well vendors deliver for their customers.

[00:15:23] So any healthcare organization that wants access to that [report] and is using it to help make a smart purchasing decision, we want that in their hands.

[00:15:32] Colin Hung: Amazing Dan. Thank you so much for the information you shared today. It’s been a pleasure having you on the program.

[00:15:37] Dan Czech: Likewise, this was a lot of fun Colin. Thank you for inviting me.

< + > Progress In The Search For Broadly Neutralizing Monoclonal Antibodies III

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< + > Fosun Pharma Shares Gain After Tie-Up With New Covid Drug Supplier Genuine Biotech

Genuine Biotech rec'd China approval on Monday for use of HIV drug in Covid-19 treatment

< + > Will Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Monkeypox Tweet Further Sexually Transmitted Infection Misconception?

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< + > Was Key Alzheimer’s Research Manipulated?

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< + > Athletes Of Color May Be Particularly Vulnerable To Heat — Here’s Why

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< + > Biden’s Covid Symptoms ‘Have Almost Completely Resolved,’ Doctor Says

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< + > Manchin Tests Positive For Covid As Senate Dems Prepare For Votes On Same-Sex Marriage, Prescription Drug Costs

The 74-year-old Democratic senator said he will isolate and follow CDC guidelines.

< + > UT Austin, MITRE team up on ethical AI initiative

As artificial intelligence and machine learning are deployed more widely and consequentially across healthcare and elsewhere, "it is vital that we address safety, security and equity concerns."

< + > The HIV/AIDS Battle Is A Global Health Fight That We Can Win

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< + > Monkeypox Vaccine Gets Green Light In Europe

The decision comes days after the WHO declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency and said risk from the disease in Europe was “high.”

< + > How Dangerous Is Covid-19 Now?

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< + > Altera Digital Health to deliver Provation's anaesthesia solutions to Te Whata Ora Waikato

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< + > CDC: First 2 Monkeypox Cases In Children In U.S., Outbreak Count Reaches 2,891

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< + > Bonus Features – July 24, 2022 – OCR resolves 11 HIPAA enforcement actions, ONC releases USCDI v3, and more

Welcome to the weekly edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features. This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job.

News

The HHS Office for Civil Rights resolved 11 investigations as part of its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative, issuing fines ranging from $3,500 for a Massachusetts psychiatric consultant to $240,000 for the 17-hospital Memorial Hermann Health System. “It should not take a federal investigation before a HIPAA covered entity provides patients, or their personal representatives, with access to their medical records,” OCR Director Lisa J. Pino said in a statement. OCR has resolved 38 investigations since launching the Right of Access Initiative in 2019.

ONC released the United States Core Data for Interoperability Version 3 (USCDI v3). As described in the latest ONC Standards Bulletin, v3 expands the USCDI from 52 data elements in 16 classes to 94 elements in 19 classes, with additions focusing on equity, public health, and documenting health insurance coverage.

In other interoperability news, the Sequoia Project published a TEFCA “flow-down” resource that lays out how Qualified Health Information Networks must comply with their contractual obligations supports trusted exchange through all levels of TEFCA participation.

Studies 

Malicious attacks remain the No. 1 cause of healthcare data breaches, according to the latest report from Fortified Health Security. The report also indicated that 337 breaches impacting 500 or more people were reported to OCR in the first half of 2022.

A survey from Software Advice found that nearly two-thirds of nursing homes report poor health outcomes from staff shortage, with a demanding workload and inadequate pay the most common reasons for high turnover. If staff shortages can’t be filled, nearly 60% of nursing homes will have no choice but to turn residents away.

Research from Teladoc Health indicated that an integrated approach to managing multiple chronic conditions can lead to improved patient outcomes such as reduced blood pressure or blood sugar levels. Providing an integrated experience also improves patient engagement and satisfaction metrics, namely Net Promoter Score.

Partnerships

• Medable has partnered with Withings to integrate Withings sensors and devices with Medable’s decentralized clinical trial platform.
• Insurance enrollment platform HealthSherpa has seen 10x growth in its pipeline for ICHRAs, or individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, since partnering with payment provider Alegeus in 2020.

Sales

• Maryland-based Frederick Health implemented MEDITECH’s Expanse Genomics to incorporate discrete genetic data into clinical decision making and decrease ordering and resulting times by 50%.
• Women’s health provider Organon is working with Cognizant to support its global pharmaceutical manufacturing supply chain.
• Senior and chronic care provider Bedrock Management Services Organization tapped CareCloud to support its home-based exercise physiology program.
• Senior care provider Curana Health is using the Innovaccer Health Cloud to build a value-based care platform to manage high-risk populations in senior living communities.
• Single sign-on vendor OpenAthens has renewed its contract with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the procurement arm of England’s National Health Service.
• New Jersey-based CarePoint Health is using technology from facility management vendor Sodexo that lets patients scan a QR code instead of calling a nurse to request non-clinical services such as bathroom cleanings.
• Patient relationship management platform Solve.Care is the payment currency of choice for the Metaverse Doctors Alliance (MDA), which is building South Korea’s first health clinic in the metaverse.

Funding

• Robotic eye surgery company ForSight Robotics raised $55 million in Series A funding with plans to build a platform for fully robotic cataract surgery.
• Fold Health has emerged from stealth mode with $6 million in funding. The company is building a platform to house the disparate applications used to run a primary care office.

If you have news that you’d like us to consider for a future edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features, please submit them on this page. Please include any relevant links and let us know if news is under embargo.

< + > ‘Pink Sauce’ Goes Viral On TikTok, Here Are The Concerns With This Condiment

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< + > Augmented & Virtual Reality In Healthcare Is Poised To Become A Nearly $10 Billion Dollar Market

This market will likely grow nearly 3.5 times over the next 5 years.

< + > Weekly Roundup – July 23, 2022

Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.

One Hospital’s Approach to Better Revenue Cycle Efficiency. The unofficial theme of this year’s HFMA conference was how hospitals are dealing with staffing challenges in RCM and collections. Dawn Johnson of Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare spoke to John Lynn about the health system’s partnership with Knowtion Health to outsource some types of claims and improve front-end registration processes for others. Read more…

Direct Primary Care Moves North of the Border. Inspired by the popularity of DPC practices in the United States, Lotus Medical is bringing DPC to Quebec City. Colin Hung talked to CEO Philippe Marcotte about how the company is bringing technology and centralization to the care experience while operating in the confines of a single-payer system. Read more…

Is Crowdfunding a Great Option for Health IT Companies? Amid the news that secure communications platform Rhinogram has launched a crowdfunding campaign, John asked CEO and chairman Dr. Keith Dressler about the company’s decision. One key advantage: A large number of small investors also means a large number of brand ambassadors. Read more…

How the City of Paterson, N.J. is Addressing the Opioid Crisis. In the latest edition of the CIO Podcast, John talks to Ed Boze, the city’s chief innovation officer, about the role of technology in supporting Patterson’s community-based opioid treatment program, which is backed by a $1 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Read more…

10 Ways to Secure the Internet of Medical Things. With the average hospital room using up to 20 connected medical devices, IoT security has never been more important. Vinugayathri Chinnasamy from Indusface provided 10 tips to help hospitals monitor connected devices and secure the networks they run on. Read more…

Make Digital Payments Work for You – and Your Patients. Hospitals are increasingly embracing a digital-first approach to patient payments, but AccessOne President and CEO Mark Spinner said organizations need to do more than just direct patients to a portal to make a payment. Read more…

Featured Health IT Job: eCQM/dCQM Measure Developer at the Connecticut-based Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), posted on Healthcare IT Central.

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Amazon has acquired direct primary care provider One Medical in an all-cash deal valued at $3.9 billion. One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin will remain in the role upon completion of the acquisition, which needs approval from One Medical shareholders as well as regulatory approval.
• Medical imaging vendor Intelerad announced a growth investment from TA Associates that is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022.
• Ambulatory EMR and care coordination vendor Canvas Medical raised $24 million in Series B funding and announced ONC certification, which makes its customers eligible for value-based Medicare and Medicaid programs.
• Pediatric virtual behavioral health provider Brightline received a $10 million extended Series C investment from Northwell Health, which is the largest pediatric care provider in the state of New York.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.

< + > WHO Calls Monkeypox A Global Health Emergency

The designation is WHO’s highest alert level and is reserved for “serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected” events that threaten more than one country and may require an immediate, coordinated international response.

< + > Around 1 In 16 Children Develop Long Covid, Study Suggests

The study also found nearly 10% of children who were hospitalized with Covid-19 showed long-term symptoms.

< + > Dozens charged in sprawling $1.2B telehealth and genetics fraud crackdown

"The Department of Justice is committed to prosecuting people who abuse our healthcare system and exploit telemedicine technologies in fraud and bribery schemes," says assistant AG.

< + > Shares Of One Medical Surge 68% After Amazon Agrees To Buy Health Care Company For $3.9 Billion

The acquisition comes after shares of 1Life Healthcare, the parent of One Medical, have tumbled over the past year.

< + > National Cancer Institute Appoints First Woman Director

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< + > Can Inflammation Lead To Cognitive Issues? Past Research Says 'Yes', With Implications For Covid-19

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< + > Frictionless Healthcare? Amazon Wants To Try

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< + > One man’s quest to rid health IT investing of systemic racial and gender bias

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< + > DOJ seizes $500K from North Korean hackers that targeted healthcare

Health systems in Kansas and Colorado had made sizable bitcoin payments after ransomware attacks – that money has now been recovered by the FBI and will be returned.

< + > Featured Health IT Job: eCQM/dCQM Measure Developer – CORE

We like to regularly feature a healthcare IT job that might be of interest to readers. Today, we’re featuring the eCQM/dCQM Measure Developer – CORE position that was recently posted on Healthcare IT Central. This position was posted by Yale New Haven Health and is in Connecticut.

Here’s a description of the position:

The Yale/Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) is a leading national outcomes research center dedicated to transforming healthcare for the betterment of people and society by leveraging data, analytics, and technology. We have assembled a talented, multidisciplinary group who are committed to developing solutions to the practical needs of medicine and healthcare. Our organization combines the highest academic ideals with a pragmatic approach that emphasizes the production of useful knowledge. We are distinguished by our creativity, dedication, experience, and skills, and our commitment to having our work make a tangible difference to patients, the public, and society. For additional information on CORE, please visit our website: https://ift.tt/RI3qJCW The eCQM/dCQM Measure Developer will function in a multidisciplinary team environment, working closely with CORE clinical and technical staff to code, test and maintain electronic clinical quality measures using Clinical Quality Language (CQL) and Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources (FHIR). They will be responsible for translating quality measure specifications into CQL scripts and testing against the FHIR data model using tools developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) such as the Measure Authoring Tool and Bonnie, as well as leveraging open-source code projects such as the CQL-engine and Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injury (HAPI) FHIR server. They will also contribute to the design and development of novel software tools to support measure calculation and data validation. They will additionally source solutions from, and contribute to, relevant open-source projects and participate in community events such as Health Level Seven (HL7) Connectathons. We seek a candidate who is a problem solver and strong communicator who is excited to learn about CMS and Office of National Coordinator (ONC) policies governing eCQM. The ideal candidate should be eager to become an expert in quality measurement and quality measurement digital tools. The list of accountabilities is not intended to be all-inclusive and may be expanded to include other duties that management may deem necessary from time to time. The duties of this position can be carried out remotely if this meets the business needs of CORE. Flexible work schedules and telecommuting are available if needed and /or desired

1. Code, test and maintain electronic clinical quality measures using Clinical Quality Language (CQL) and Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources (FHIR).
2. Translate quality measure specifications into CQL scripts and test against the FHIR data model using tools developed by CMS such as the Measure Authoring Tool and Bonnie, as well as leveraging open-source code projects such as the CQL-engine and Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injury (HAPI) FHIR server.
3. Assist with the design and development of novel software tools to support measure calculation and data validation.
4. Source solutions from, and contribute to, relevant open-source projects and participate in community events such as Health Level Seven (HL7) Connectathons.
5. Assists with defining user requirements and testing strategies for ensuring functionality of digital measure technologies.
6. Applies health data standards and interoperability such as HL7 FHIR Accelerator activities and the Office of National Coordinator certification regulations and policies.
7. Assists CORE staff in specifying and testing eCQMs and other digital measures.
8. Assist in the adaption of software products to support data collection for quality measurement, such as applications for patient reported outcome measures (PRO-PMs).
9. Other duties as assigned.

EDUCATION
Bachelors degree in computer science, medical informatics, or data science is required. Advanced degree preferred.

EXPERIENCE
A minimum of 2 years of experience in the development, programming, and data aspects of clinical quality measurement or clinical support applications closely related to measurement and clinical informatics preferred. This experience should include 1) knowledge of electronic health record data; 2) familiarity with CQL; 3) experience with eCQM development using CMS tools, including Bonnie and MAT; and 4) knowledge of HL7 versions (e.g., Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), FHIR) and the versioning process. Other desired experience includes using and contributing to open-source code projects. Proficient in building software tools from source code and debugging issues with minimal guidance. Experience using query languages and working with complex data models. Proficient coding in one or more general-purpose languages (e.g., Python/Java/Go/C#).

LICENSURE
Office of National Coordinator (ONC) electronic health record (EHR) certification preferred.

SPECIAL SKILLS
Well-developed communication skills including strong data visualization, verbal communication and presentation skills. Able to articulate results and work product based on audience. A curiosity about, and passion for, breaking through longstanding barriers to advance low burden, electronic quality measurement that leverages emerging technologies and better enables a learning health system. Accuracy and attention to detail. Outgoing, friendly, and professional with an organized approach

Looks like a great opportunity for those with experience as a hospital network or systems engineer in healthcare. If this looks like a position that would interest you, check out the full details for the job and how to apply.

As always, you can search our Health IT job board for a variety of jobs from leading companies in the industry. You can also register for free and post your resume where recruiters search for job candidates regularly.

< + > Northern Health to expand virtual ED access to COVID-19, aged care patients

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< + > Connected beds can save India's public hospitals over $250M per year: study

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< + > SingHealth extends Sunrise contract with Altera Digital Health for interoperability

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< + > InnovationRx: General Catalyst’s New Healthcare Fund; Plus: Covid Boosts Diabetes Risk

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< + > Intelerad Announces Significant Investment from TA to Accelerate Growth

TA joins Hg and ST6 in supporting Intelerad to advance clinical efficiency and patient care through innovative medical imaging technology

Intelerad, a leading global provider of enterprise medical imaging solutions, today announced that TA Associates (“TA”), a leading global growth private equity firm, has signed a definitive agreement to make a growth investment in the company. TA joins Intelerad’s majority investor, Hg, a leading software and services investor, and ST6, a highly experienced team of software operating executives and minority investor. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022 pending customary regulatory approval.

“We’re excited to welcome TA as a partner on our continued journey to improve healthcare through innovative technology,” said Mike Lipps, CEO of Intelerad. “With their deep industry knowledge and experience scaling healthcare technology companies, the addition of TA and continued support from Hg will help Intelerad to significantly advance our growth strategy and value to customers.”

Founded in 1999, Intelerad provides medical imaging software and enterprise workflow solutions to healthcare providers worldwide. Headquartered in Raleigh, NC and Montreal, Canada, the company serves nearly 2,000 customers around the world, including radiology groups, outpatient imaging centers, hospitals and healthcare systems, managing over 50 billion medical images and empowering more than 300,000 clinicians, who collectively read over 140 million exams on Intelerad’s platform each year.

“We have followed Intelerad for several years and continue to be impressed by its differentiated solutions, strong growth and leadership position,” said Mark Carter, a Managing Director at TA. “Building on its momentum in the sector, we believe Intelerad is well positioned to further strengthen and expand its suite of solutions. We are supportive of Intelerad’s vision and excited to join the team as it enters the next phase of its growth journey,” added Ethan Liebermann, a Managing Director at TA.

Hector Guinness and JB Brian, Partners at Hg, said, “Intelerad has built a platform that is making a difference in patient care by enabling significant efficiencies and speed-to-results for healthcare organizations. We’re proud to have supported the Intelerad team, who have achieved significant progress in such a short period, doubling the size of the business in two years.”

Globally, demand for scalable imaging and workflow solutions continues to increase as imaging sites consolidate and the volume of procedures grows, placing greater pressure on productivity. Intelerad’s growth strategy is to provide customers with one of the most scalable imaging platforms in the world, and as a result, Intelerad customers are already benefiting from an expanded suite of solutions, best-in-class flexibility, and increased support which will enable them to drive clinical efficiency and focus on providing enhanced patient care.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the challenges facing this industry and accelerated the demand to improve patient care,” said Mark Friedman, Intelerad Executive Chairman and Managing Director at ST6. “Intelerad has recognized this need and is actively working to make its customers more productive, more agile, and more responsive. We look forward to partnering with TA to promote organic development and pursue strategic growth opportunities. The new investment from TA will help Intelerad further deliver the critical value that our customers need right now.”

Kirkland & Ellis is providing legal counsel to TA. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, DLA and McCarthy Tétrault LLP are providing legal counsel to Hg and Intelerad.

About Intelerad

Intelerad is one of the leading providers of medical imaging software and services for the healthcare industry. Headquartered in Raleigh, NC and Montreal, Intelerad has over 850 employees located in offices across six countries. Nearly 2,000 healthcare organizations around the world rely on Intelerad products to manage patient data, helping them reduce time and workload while improving patient outcomes. Intelerad’s award-winning enterprise imaging solutions have been recognized globally by KLAS, with Intelerad’s Ambra Health ranked #1 for Image Exchange in the 2022 Best in KLAS: Software and Professional Services report. To learn more, visit www.intelerad.com.

About Hg

Hg is a platform for software and services champions, focused on backing businesses that change how we all do business. Deep technology expertise, complemented by vertical application specialization and dedicated operational support, provides a compelling proposition to management teams looking to scale their businesses. Hg has funds under management of over $40 billion, with an investment team of over 160 professionals, including a portfolio team of almost 50 operators, providing practical support to help our businesses to realise their growth ambitions. Based in London, Munich and New York, Hg has a portfolio of over 45 software and technology businesses, worth over $100 billion aggregate enterprise value, with over 65,000 employees globally, growing at over 20% per year. Visit www.hgcapital.com for more information.

About TA

TA is a leading global growth private equity firm. Focused on targeted sectors within five industries – technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer, and business services – the firm invests in profitable, growing companies with opportunities for sustained growth and has invested in more than 560 companies around the world. Investing as either a majority or minority investor, TA employs a long-term approach, utilizing its strategic resources to help management teams build lasting value in high quality growth companies. TA has raised $47.5 billion in capital since its founding in 1968. The firm’s more than 110 investment professionals are based in Boston, Menlo Park, Austin, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. More information about TA can be found at www.ta.com.

About ST6

ST6 is an elite team of software operating executives that partner with private equity sponsors to transform software companies and accelerate value creation.

< + > Elevance Health Profits Eclipse $1.6 Billion On Medical And Drug Plan Growth

Elevance Health reported nearly $1.7 billion in second quarter profits as the health insurer formerly known as Anthem grew its diverse portfolio of medical and drug benefits.

< + > Defying Pullback In Investments, General Catalyst Launches $670 Million Healthcare Fund

There’s a bright side to the market doldrums, says managing partner Hemant Taneja: stronger companies will rise to the top as frothiness subsides.

< + > New Digital Health Services, Climate and Health, 988 Lifeline – Twitter Roundup

It’s been a while since we’ve done a roundup of interesting tweets.  Today I saw a number of interesting discussions and ideas that I thought may be useful and of interest to the Healthcare IT Today community.  Here we go.

Most new digital health services require building the new service *plus* a new business model because the new service doesn’t slot in to the status quo’s financial language. To rephrase this, what is an innovation that most easily slots in to today’s healthcare business model? https://t.co/nc92TQo5nN

— Jay Parkinson MD, MPH (@jayparkinson) July 19, 2022

If you don’t follow Jay Parkinson, MD you should. He’s always sharing interesting content (and pictures that make you jealous, but that’s ok). That said, this tweet is quite interesting. I’m interested to know if people agree with Jay. Do you need a new service and a new business model for it to really make an impact and take off? I can see where he’s going with this since I’ve seen this happen a lot of times before. Healthcare is so dependent on regulations and reimbursement that many of the most interesting things in healthcare capitalize on these changes. I think that’s particularly true now. What do you think?

This prediction seems spot on, especially for people who are working toward health equity.

The links between climate change and health inequities are just too tight to ignore.

— Abner Mason (@abnermason) July 19, 2022

I’m not sure I personally believe that it will go this far. Although, I do think that there’s a connection between climate and health that we don’t appreciate. Plus, as Abner Mason points out, it’s tied to health equity as well. Lots to chew on here, but it’s not clear how the current healthcare system will address it. My guess is that it will be outside of the current system.

HHS Secretary on 988 Lifeline: ‘Governors Have Got to Own This’ https://t.co/mpxKZTFaV2

— Amanda Griffith (@BumblePR) July 19, 2022

I’ll admit that I haven’t been following the details of the 988 phone line as I should be, but I’ve seen it pop up a bunch. It’s great that mental health is getting more attention. Although, it sounds like there’s still a lot of investment to really put the infrastructure in place to help people. I’d love to hear what people think from those who have followed it closer than I.

I’ve been walking Ford up and down this little path in the summer for 6 years.
We spend at least 20 minutes going back and forth.
It’s one of his favorite spots in town.
It never gets old. #CTNNB1 #Joy pic.twitter.com/gPWu3kZkUN

— Effie Parks (@OnceUponAGene) July 19, 2022

Ok. This isn’t really health IT related at all, but it’s just too beautiful and joyful to watch. Sometimes we make life too complex when all we need for joy is walking down the right path. Thanks Effie and Ford for reminding us of this. And if you’re not following the Once Upon a Gene podcast, go do that now.