< + > The essence of VBC lies in data-driven decision-making

Health systems should get organized on alignment, transparency and reciprocity to further their VBC efforts, and providers need support to better understand and interpret population health data, says John Fryer, president of Tribus and CRO at Lumeris.

< + > Will CMS' Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver program become permanent?

Signs point to yes – and mature remote patient monitoring and telemedicine tools will be key to helping providers capitalize on the shift, one technology leader says.

< + > FOLX Health Meeting Patients Where They Are With Telehealth

FOLX Health (FOLX, pronounced “folks”) is the leading healthcare providers for the LGBTQIA community. Today they serve over 12,000 members. FOLX uses technology, like telehealth, that allows patients to access care when it is convenient for them and in a place where they feel comfortable and safe. Their use of technology and the personalized care they deliver has led to extremely high patient satisfaction scores and patient loyalty.

Healthcare IT Today had the chance to sit down for a one-on-one conversation with Liana M. Douillet Guzmán, Chief Executive Officer at FOLX to find out more about their use of telehealth and their approach to delivering care to their unique patient population.

Challenges for Patients

Right from the start of the conversation, Guzmán highlighted the challenges faced by their unique patient population:

• 78% did not have access to affirming care before they found FOLX
• 71% actively avoided seeking health care for fear of discrimination

“We live within an incumbent model that was at best, not built for us,” stated Guzmán. “We exist to change that reality for our community and create a space that is not just affirming but also expert on our differentiated medical needs.”

By providing expert care through clinicians that respect the community, FOLX has achieved a 85+ Net Promoter Score and is growing every month, mostly organically through word-of-mouth.

Meeting Patients Where They Are

FOLX uses a mixture of self-built and off-the-shelf systems to deliver care to their patients. More than that, the company has chosen to adopt technologies that help it meet their patients where they are.

“Our patients can meet us from the safety and comfort of their own home,” said Guzmán. “This is means people who are living in care deserts can access care for the first time. We can deliver medications directly to their homes. Our patients are in control of where, when, and how they receive care.”

Guzmán was particularly proud of their streamlined intake form which has a total of 400 questions, only some of which need to be filled in by patients. Their intake system uses a “progressive forms” approach, like most websites do, that only presents questions that it doesn’t already have answers to and only the questions that are needed for their appointment context.

Watch the interview with Liana Guzmán to learn:

• How FOLX plans to continue growing and expanding services in the next 12 months
• What technology Guzman is most excited about
• Why NPS is so important to FOLX

Learn more about FOLX Health at https://www.folxhealth.com/

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

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< + > Thoma Bravo and Madison Dearborn Partners Sell Syntellis Performance Solutions to Roper Technologies

Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) and Thoma Bravo today announced that they have completed the sale of Syntellis Performance Solutions (Syntellis), a leading provider of enterprise performance management (EPM) software, data, and intelligence solutions, to Roper Technologies, Inc. (Roper) in an all-cash transaction for an enterprise value of $1.4 billion. Syntellis will be combined with Roper’s Strata Decision Technology business.

Syntellis became an independent company with the investment support of Thoma Bravo and MDP when it was separated from Kaufman Hall in August 2020. Over the past three years, MDP and Thoma Bravo have worked closely with Syntellis and its management team to enhance and innovate the company’s integrated EPM solutions to better serve Syntellis’s growing global client base. During this period, Syntellis made meaningful investments in product and platform enhancements, including to its Axiom365 SaaS offering, and enhanced its planning and performance product offering by acquiring Stratasan, an industry leader in advanced healthcare market intelligence and data analytics.

“Thoma Bravo and MDP’s support and collaboration have propelled our growth, helped advance our product roadmap, and enabled us to better serve our valued clients,” said Flint Brenton, Chief Executive Officer at Syntellis. “Today’s announcement is a testament to the great work from the entire Syntellis team and marks an exciting new chapter for the company. As part of Roper, we will further our mission to empower our clients to optimize performance through our industry-specific, tailored solutions.”

“We are immensely proud of our partnership with the Syntellis and Thoma Bravo teams, the product and platform enhancements we have helped Syntellis deliver, and the success we have achieved together,” said MDP Managing Director and Co-Head of the Health Care team, Jason Shideler, and Managing Director, Will Ritchie. “Syntellis has grown from a captive software division of a consulting firm into one of the leading EPM providers serving the health care, higher education, and finance industries. We believe Syntellis will continue to thrive in combination with Strata at Roper.”

“It has been a pleasure working with MDP, Flint, and the entire Syntellis team to create a truly best-in-class EPM leader,” said A.J. Rohde, a Senior Partner at Thoma Bravo. “Together, we drove growth and innovation by building on the company’s strong product offering and its commitment to providing customers with the operational, financial, and strategic data they need to navigate their dynamic market environments and improve their business outcomes. We look forward to watching the company’s continued success as part of Roper.”

William Blair served as financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to MDP and Thoma Bravo.

About Syntellis Performance Solutions

Syntellis Performance Solutions provides innovative enterprise performance management software, data and analytics solutions for healthcare, higher education, and financial institutions. Syntellis’ solutions include Axiom, Connected Analytics, and Stratasan software. These solutions help finance professionals elevate performance by acquiring insights, accelerating decisions, and advancing their business plans. With over 2,800 organizations and 450,000 users relying on our solutions, we have proven expertise in helping organizations transform their vision into reality. For more information, please visit syntellis.com

About Madison Dearborn Partners

Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC (MDP) is a leading private equity investment firm based in Chicago. Since MDP’s formation in 1992, the firm has raised aggregate capital of over $28 billion and has completed over 150 platform investments. MDP invests across five dedicated industry verticals, including basic industries, business and government software and services, financial and transaction services, health care, and telecom, media, and technology services. For more information, please visit mdcp.com.

About Thoma Bravo

Thoma Bravo is one of the largest software investors in the world, with more than US$127 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2023. Through its private equity, growth equity, and credit strategies, the firm invests in growth-oriented, innovative companies operating in the software and technology sectors. Leveraging Thoma Bravo’s deep sector expertise and strategic and operational capabilities, the firm collaborates with its portfolio companies to implement operating best practices and drive growth initiatives. Over the past 20 years, the firm has acquired or invested in more than 440 companies representing over US$250 billion in enterprise value*. The firm has offices in Chicago, London, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.

*including control and non-control investments

About Roper Technologies

Roper Technologies is a constituent of the S&P 500 and Fortune 1000. Roper has a proven, long-term track record of compounding cash flow and shareholder value. The Company operates market-leading businesses that design and develop vertical software and technology-enabled products for a variety of defensible niche markets. Roper utilizes a disciplined, analytical, and process-driven approach to redeploy its excess capital toward high-quality acquisitions. Additional information about Roper is available on the Company’s website at ropertech.com.

About Strata Decision Technology

Strata Decision Technology provides an innovative cloud-based financial planning, analytics, and performance platform that is used by healthcare providers for financial planning, decision support, and continuous improvement. Founded in 1996, the Company’s client base includes over 2,000 hospitals representing over 450 healthcare delivery systems. The Company’s StrataJazz® application is a single integrated software-as-a-service platform that includes modules for financial planning, decision support, and performance management. Strata’s headquarters are in Chicago, IL. For more information, please visit stratadecision.com.

Originally announced August 8th, 2023

< + > Bonus Features – August 27, 2023 – Trilliant Health Opens its National Provider Directory for the First Time Ever, 60% of Patients Trust Independent Practices over Corporate Healthcare, 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

• Levita received FDA clearance for its new product, the MARS™ platform. MARS expands on the Levita Magnetic Surgical System, to create a first-of-its-kind minimally invasive surgical platform aimed at the abdominal surgery market. This new platform utilizes both magnets and machines to reduce the number of incisions and enable surgeons to have complete control during laparoscopic procedures.
• Trilliant Health, an analytics and market research firm, has announced that it will open access to its national provider directory. This means that information about America’s 2.7 million healthcare facilities, physicians, and allied health professionals will be publicly available for the first time.

Studies

• A new study by Tebra found that reduced administrative burdens and improved reimbursement rates ranked as the two highest changes independent practices want to see, both tied at 68%. However, when asked which is the most important, improved reimbursement rates jumps ahead of reduced administrative burdens at 39% compared to 23%.
• More than one-third of the 321 participating health system executives are planning to automate two or more RCM or finance functions in 2024 a recent survey by Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and Eliciting Insights reports. Additionally, 95% of health systems planning to purchase RCM or finance technology and services are open to considering “bolt-on” vendors outside of their electronic medical records system.
• Software Advice surveyed 1,000 US patients and found that while they want the fast care they receive from corporate practices, 60% trust independent practices over corporate healthcare. Most patients have no preference over which one to visit, but of those with a preference 38% prefer independent practices compared to the 8% who prefer corporate healthcare.
• Truveta recently published the results of their monitoring of hospitalization trends associated with six of the most common respiratory viruses on a regular basis.

Partnerships

• PicnicHealth and AstraZeneca are teaming up to advance real-world data development for early breast cancer (stages I-III).
• Microsoft is combining its large-scale cloud and AI technologies with Epic’s knowledge of the healthcare industry and clinical workflows to expand its strategic AI initiative.
• Talkdesk joins Epic’s new Pals program, strengthening the integration of Talkdesk Healthcare Experience Cloud platform with Epic’s EHR software.
• ShiftMed partners with Dignity Health Global Education to help healthcare professionals grow their skill sets and advance their careers, resulting in ShiftMed’s pool of 350,000 healthcare professionals receiving access to DHGE’s library of program offerings for RN’s, CNA’s, LPN’s and MA’s.

Products

• Innovaccer Inc. launched a new suite of AI solutions at their Innovation Keynote.
• A new medical alert service for residents across Ontario, Canada was just released by Health-Alert (Canada).
• The new iteration of Suki Assistant allows Cerner users to expedite the creation of clinical documentation with greater ease and efficiency. This update makes Suki the only AI-powered healthcare solution on the market with enhanced ambient integration capabilities across multiple EHR systems.
• Iron Bow Healthcare Solutions releases a new RPM solution powered by Carium and Entira Family Clinics updates their practice to include the eClinicalWorks Cloud.

Sales

• New Moffitt Cancer Center McKinley Hospital utilizes pCare’s interactive patient care system to ensure patient engagement throughout the whole care journey.
• Community Health Network uses Qualtrics’ XM Platform to transform its approach to experience management, resulting in a 300% increase in patient response rates.
• Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute leverages Filecoin, the largest decentralized data storage network, to democratize access to their cardiac research.

Awards

• The HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year (r2) Certified status has just been awarded to the MediQuant Healthcare Data Lifecycle Platform.
• Linus Health’s DCTclock,  an AI-powered digital cognitive assessment tool that spots discreet indicators of dementia that are invisible to the human eye, has won Fast Company’s 2023 Innovation by Design Awards in the User Experience Category.

People

• Danyele Homer, Director of Operations at Pear Suite (a digital health company working on empowering community health workers and addressing SDoH) has been promoted to Vice President of Operations.
• DUOS, a digital health company focused on empowering older adults to live independently, has appointed Jenn Kerfoot as Chief Strategy & Growth Officer.
• Carefeed, a resident and family engagement platform for the senior living industry, has added Steve Haynes as Chief Strategy Officer.
• Mark J. Tapping has been added to the advisory board of Vive Collective, a new investment platform.

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. Note that submissions received after the close of business on Thursday may not be included in Bonus Features until the following week.

< + > Weekly Roundup – August 26, 2023

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.

Flurry of AI, Partnerships, and New Features Announced at Epic UGM. Recap of the partners, product enhancements, and work into AI that Epic announced at this year’s Epic User Group Meeting (UGM). Read more…

Provider-Led Value-Based Care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Two experts from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Tennessee describe how they implemented value-based care from the provider’s point of view. Read more…

Navigating Correlation and Causation with Life Sciences in the Age of AI. Generative AI is an amazing tool capable of sorting and analyzing large sums of data. It is not, however, very capable of discerning the difference between correlation and causation in the data, leading to hallucinations. Read more…

RFID in Healthcare: Navigating Security & Privacy Regulations. RFID is expected to grow in healthcare, which could trigger some security concerns. However, if done correctly, RFID technology offers significant potential for improving efficiency and patient safety in healthcare applications. Read more…

Addressing Patient Burnout With Digital Transformation. For healthcare brands seeking to address patient burnout as part of the broader care challenge, digital transformation of the voice channel is critical – not only to blunt the impact of robocalls but to restore trust between healthcare providers and their patients, states Jim Tyrrell Vice President of Enterprise Product Management at TNS. Read more…

A Demo of the Real Time Health System with Zebra and Oneview Healthcare. Steve Yerkey, Director Solutions Architecture at Oneview Healthcare demonstrates how the Zebra tablet combined with their bedside software creates a great patient experience platform. Read more…

The Importance of Patient Portal Usability. Patients will often only use the patient portal to complete one specific task and never use it again. If you want your patients to regularly use the patient portal it is vital to make it easy to use and clearly communicate its uses to the patient. Read more…

Healthcare IT Today: Health IT Topic Roulette. This episode has surprise topics! John and Colin wrote down a list of ten topics and rolled a d10 to pick which topics they would discuss in this episode. Read more…

What Trend in RCM Are You Keeping Your Eye on Right Now and Why? Members of the Healthcare IT Today Community share what trends in RCM they are looking out for and why. Read more…

Microsoft CEO Sees Generative AI as Transformative as Relational Databases. Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft and Sumit Rana, Senior Vice President at Epic sat down at Epic’s 2023 User Group Meeting for a one-on-one conversation about generative AI. Read more…

Featured Health IT Job: Information Services Support Specialist, a hybrid position at Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic located in Toppenish, Washington posted to Healthcare IT Central.

Bonus Features for August 20, 2023: Healthcare orgs only use 57% of their data to drive decision-making, digital health is well represented on the Inc. 5000 list. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Marathon Health acquired Cerner Workforce Health Solutions, expanding Marathon’s footprint and accelerating the reach of its unique population health model to more employers, locations, and members.
• Innovator in identity and access management, Abbey Labs raised a $5.25 million seed round led by Point72 Ventures.
• Waystar acquired HealthPay24, an EngageSmart Solution, furthering their mission to simplify healthcare payments for providers and patients.
• $49 million funding round by TytoCare leads to new care models.

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

< + > Microsoft CEO Sees Generative AI as Transformative as Relational Databases

At Epic’s 2023 User Group Meeting (#epicugm), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Sumit Rana, Senior Vice President at Epic sat down for a one-on-one conversation about generative AI. Their conversation was fascinating on two levels. First, it was surprising that they did not speak to the deeper partnership between the two companies that was announced in the hours ahead of their time on stage. Second, was the blink-and-you-missed-it difference between how the two men view generative AI.

Deeper Partnership Between Epic and Microsoft

Early on Tuesday morning an announcement was made about the expanded collaboration between Epic and Microsoft for artificial intelligence in healthcare. In that written statement, Eric Boyd, Corporate Vice President – AI Platform at Microsoft had this to say:

“Today, we are announcing the expansion of our strategic initiative to bring AI to healthcare at scale, integrating conversational, ambient and generative AI technologies across the Epic electronic health record (EHR) ecosystem. Intended to speed development of solutions for healthcare’s most critical needs, the initiative will expand secure access to AI-powered clinical insights and administrative tools within a wide range of Epic modules to enhance patient care, increase operational efficiency, improve healthcare experiences, and support the financial integrity of health systems globally.”

Using its Azure OpenAI Service and Nuance DAX Express solutions, Microsoft will be working to:

• Enhance clinician productivity with note summarization
• Enchancing clinician productivity with embedded ambient clinical documentatino
• Driving administrative efficiencies through reduction in manual, labor intesive process
• Advancing medicin for better patient outcomes

The nature of the expanded partnership was mentioned in Epic CEO Judy Faulkner’s opening keynote, but during their on stage one-on-one conversation, neither Satya nor Rana took the opportunity to showcase the announcement. This honestly made their conversation better. The two men explored the topic of AI without turning their time together into a promo.

How Transformative will Generative AI Be?

One short exchange between Satya and Rana was truly fascinating.

In his opening, Rana shared the story of how he was playing with ChatGPT over the holidays and was immediately struck by the possibilities of the technology. He spoke about having a “gut punch” moment – similar to how he felt when he first got his hands on a SmartPhone. Rana then presented the following slide where he stated that generative AI would be as transformative and paradigm-shifting as personal computers, GPS, the Internet, and a number of other technologies.

While in conversation with Rana, Satya had a different take on generative AI. He likened generative AI to relational databases and the graphical user interface. While both these advancements were transformative in their own right, I do not believe anyone would put GUIs in the same world-changing category as GPS or the Internet.

What I gleaned from this brief exchange is that Satya sees generative AI as a powerful tool that will complement other technologies but will ultimately fade into the background (how many of us actually think about the relational database that underpins a solution?). This is in contrast to Rana who believes generative AI as a catalyst for completely new ways of doing things.

I agree with both gentlemen. I feel that generative AI will be transformative, allowing us to do things we never would have thought possible, BUT it will one day just be part of the underlying technology stack and will not occupy any more thoughtspace than GUIs do today.

It will be interesting to look back 5 years from now and gauge how transformative generative AI ended up being.