< + > All private hospitals in Singapore to connect to national EMR

The Ministry of Health has secured their commitment to integrate patient data with the national EHR starting next year.

< + > OIG again deems HHS' infosec program ineffective

In its FISMA review for FY 2024, the watchdog agency said that the U.S. Health and Human Services was unable to meet managed and measurable maturity for core metrics.

< + > Okta Does Identity and Onboarding at Home and in the Clinical Setting

It’s widely understood that passwords for access to digital resources are both insecure and annoying for the users. Sandeep Kumbhat, Field Chief Technology Officer at Okta, points out that digital cards, widely used in health care systems, also have their difficulties: they must be securely distributed, and a constant stream of outside visitors has to be accommodated.

Modern identity systems must support a wide range of devices and accommodate telehealth, which means the patient should be onboarded without having to come into the clinical office. The identity system should also support different experience for different types of patients, such older or younger people with differing expectations.

Okta handles identity and security through facial recognition. Even consumer mobile devices can do this securely, allowing patients to set up accounts at home. The patient might use a driver’s license at the start to prove their identity, but can then move from one service to another without logging in again.

Kumbhat points out that single sign-on is especially hard to implement in the current health care environment, where mergers and acquisitions lead to multiple identity systems within the same organization. The experience should nevertheless be unified so that the clinicians’ and patients’ experiences are seamless. A diversity of identity systems, loosely tied together, also creates more opportunities for cyberattacks, which are growing rapidly.

Okta is currently integrated with a number of EHRs including Epic, allowing automatic onboarding, offboarding, and role changes for both staff and patients.  Plus, it ties into your HR system to automatically deprovision accounts when staff leave as well.  That fills a massive security hole for many healthcare organizations.

Kumbhat talks a bit about future directions, which include protecting a session against user mistakes or other types of compromises, and making it easy for the patient to come back.  Check out our video interview with Sandeep Kumbhat from Okta to learn more (And be sure to check out our previous interview at Okta’s Oktane conference that talks about Call Verification in healthcare).

Learn more about Okta: https://www.okta.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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< + > Health system CIOs' strategic responsibilities continue to evolve

The typical chief information officer in healthcare is taking on more responsibility for determining strategy and digital transformation, with 84% of CIOs now part of their organization's executive leadership team.

< + > Healthcare AI and Implementing AI Responsibly with enGen

It’s no surprise that one of the hottest topics of discussion at the HLTH 2024 conference was AI.  We love AI and see its potential to transform so many parts of healthcare.  However, we were particularly interested in learning where AI is not just a discussion point but is actually making an impact on healthcare.  Plus, we think it’s important to talk about how AI can be used responsibly in healthcare.

That’s exactly what we got when we had a chance to interview Maynd Jolly, CFO at enGen and Mike Stimpson, CTO at enGen at the HLTH 2024 conference.  We start off the interview asking Stimpson to share how enGen is implementing AI responsibly.  Plus, he shares some examples of AI driven innovation including things like predictive AI along with the impact that they are having on healthcare.

Then, we shift gears a little bit to learn from Jolly about some of the major cost trends in the healthcare industry.  We also asked him how AI is going to impact these trends.  Plus we ask Jolly to look at profitability and to share the link between improving healthcare outcomes and profitability.  As we hear all the time, no margin no mission.  However, as we said above, we also want to pursue these new opportunities that AI is providing responsibly.

Jolly also shares with us how enGen is working to make sure that the right care is being given at the right time and how you can proactively facilitate that outcome.  Doing so takes hard work, the right technology, and the right data.  Plus, as Jolly points out at the end, you can’t do it alone.  You have to create the right partnerships to be able to create a solution that works for all of your customers.

Watch our video interview to learn more about healthcare AI, using it in a responsible manner, and much more.

Learn more about enGen: https://goengen.com/

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 and YouTube.

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.

enGen is a proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene.

< + > Technical Debt is Stifling Healthcare Innovation

The following is a guest article by Prasanna Ganesan, Founder and CEO at Machinify

With enterprise technology evolving more rapidly than ever before, and the advent of AI and other new tools, it has been a struggle for organizations to keep up. This lag is also known as “technical debt”—the idea that IT systems fall behind the latest and greatest technologies because teams opted to “borrow” against long-term quality in service of short-term workability. A recent report from Forrester found that nearly four in five IT decision leaders in the U.S. face at least moderate levels of technical debt.

For those IT leaders and others in their situation, it’s especially crucial that technical debt is addressed promptly since it compounds at a very high interest rate. Organizations anxious to apply quick fixes to deep-rooted problems might see short-term benefits and avoid large-scale disruption for a while but eventually, too many of these band-aid solutions will slow innovation to a crawl. It’s nearly impossible to improve or change a module when it’s unclear what the follow-on effects will be. When a new tool is added on as a patchwork fix for one problem, it results in additional technical debt in another area, and the cycle continues.

Healthcare’s Technical Debt Problem

Technical debt is ubiquitous across a number of industries, but healthcare is uniquely susceptible to its effects because such a large proportion of the tech stack is past its use-by date, resulting in the stack itself feeling like technical debt.

Providers, payers, and vendors are all impacted by technical debt, but few healthcare stakeholders demonstrate the long-term problems created by short-term fixes better than those in payment integrity. These solutions, which are designed to help health plans pay claims more accurately and efficiently by enforcing specific policies and guidelines, are rife with outdated, inflexible technology.

Today’s payment integrity architecture arose from many small-scale, tactical fixes, made to patch the claim adjudication process with band-aid after band-aid. The result is a complicated chain of cobbled-together elements and processes, many of which are redundant, and each of which has its own flawed understanding of the policies they are intended to consistently enforce. The resulting system is one that’s unable to efficiently help health plans fix claims adjudication processes.

Because insufficient components were patched over rather than replaced, technical debt continued to build, and the system we’ve ended up with is unable to holistically fix root problems from the ground up. Many of these systems need to be entirely redesigned to review claims in a new way.

Steps to Pay Back Technical Debt

Reducing technical debt comes down to two essential steps. First, organizations must isolate the debt into digestible, modular chunks. Then, within each chunk, they need to plan a progressive takeover of one implementation by another in a way that doesn’t impact external systems. For the first step, IT teams need to locate the system or module that is being asked to do more than it’s designed for and, therefore, performing poorly. If it is not yet isolated from other systems, the software implementation needs to be redone so that it can be. From there, the second step can commence, starting by putting a plan in place to replace the module that, critically, will not rely on a hot swap.

Sticking with the payment integrity example, the health plans that have effectively overhauled these processes have done so via a safe migration strategy that relies on a gradual transition. They implement an update that wraps around a primary system that’s a source of technical debt, learns how the module in the primary system is doing its job, and, once confident, offers a new method to correct the primary system. From there, an iterative test-and-expand process is used to shift more and more responsibility to the new system over time. As this process progresses, more functionalities can be transitioned over to the new system to make a centralized, modernized, automated, and patchwork-free technology stack.

Technologies like AI and automation will continue to play a larger and larger role in healthcare processes, and organizations will need to avoid technical debt by proactively staying up-to-date with solutions that allow them to operate as effectively as they can. The ones who don’t will be left behind and once their technical debt compounds face an uphill climb to catch up.

< + > Maven Clinic Announces $125 Million Series F Round of Funding to Chart the Next Decade of Innovation in Women’s and Family Health

New Funds will Fuel Growth of Maven’s End-to-End Platform, with a Focus on Scaling its Fertility & Family Building Program, Now the Largest Fertility Benefits Provider Globally

Maven Clinic, the world’s largest virtual clinic for women’s and family health, today announced that it has raised a $125 million Series F funding round led by StepStone Group, with participation from existing investors General Catalyst, Sequoia, Oak HC/FT, Icon Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Lux Capital. This brings Maven’s total funding to more than $425 million.

“Over the last 10 years, Maven has created and scaled a comprehensive virtual care model in one of the most underfunded sectors in healthcare,” said Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO at Maven Clinic. “The next decade is about transformation. We now have the platform breadth, depth, and data required to create the scaled change this industry so sorely needs. With each member supported, we continue to prove that to build better healthcare for everyone we must first build it for women and families.”

Maven Clinic offers the only global benefit to cover the entire reproductive life cycle on one platform, from preconception and family building to pregnancy, parenting, menopause, and midlife. More than 2,000 clients in 175 countries trust Maven to support their employees, including Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, and L’Oreal.

Maven will use the capital to further invest in Maven Managed Benefit, Maven’s fertility benefits administration platform, as well as reinforce and expand its end-to-end platform, which includes virtual care delivery across maternity, parenting and pediatrics, and menopause. Across its platform, Maven will invest in the technology powering its human-led care model, harnessing artificial intelligence to personalize and enhance care for its members. Additionally, Maven will use this capital to bolster its value-based offerings across both fully insured and Medicaid populations.

Investing in Maven Managed Benefit, the Only Fertility and Family Building Solution to Integrate Care and Coverage in One Place

Maven Managed Benefit (MMB) combines the best of a carve-out fertility benefit with virtual care and health coaching to deliver better outcomes for families and cost savings for employers. MMB uniquely provides fertility education and Trying-to-Conceive (TTC) coaching, giving couples a pathway to conceive without IVF, while also ensuring those who need IVF receive the support and benefits they need to reach a healthy pregnancy. Maven’s performance network of 475+ fertility clinics are integrated with the virtual experience, allowing members to get real-time updates on their benefits and costs on the same platform they receive fertility education and coaching. In the past year, Maven has become the largest fertility benefits provider globally by lives under management.

Increasing Depth of Support Across Maven’s End-to-End Platform

Maternity & Newborn Care

Since 2014, Maven’s Maternity & Newborn Care program has set a new standard for prenatal and postpartum care. With more than 90% of Maven clients offering Maven’s maternity program, members are able to get support from the first trimester through returning to work. Clinical innovations include care matching based on cultural affinity, on-demand virtual doula care, and doula reimbursement through Maven Wallet, and robust perinatal mental health and social determinants of health screening. Maven has achieved industry-leading platform engagement that ultimately drives better outcomes and cost savings, and has published 15 peer-reviewed studies on its clinical and financial outcomes. In the past year, Maven’s Maternity & Newborn Care program has experienced more than 400% client growth. With this funding, Maven will leverage AI to further personalize care to support the diverse needs of its highest-risk members across its commercial, fully-insured and Medicaid lines of business.

Parenting & Pediatrics

Amid a parenting mental health crisis recently recognized as a public health issue by the U.S. Surgeon General, Maven is expanding its Parenting & Pediatrics product to meet the wide range of clinical and non-clinical needs parents face, from specialty pediatric care to support with complex learning and behavioral challenges. First launched in 2020 to support parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, membership in Maven’s Parenting & Pediatrics program has doubled over the last 12 months and now has more than 3 million lives under management.

Menopause & Midlife

With one in five people in the U.S. workforce in some phase of menopause transition, Maven’s Menopause & Midlife program provides a comprehensive approach to midlife health, encompassing not only symptom management but support for healthy aging for both women and men. Menopause & Midlife is Maven’s fastest-growing global program, with 300% year-over-year growth and more than 550 clients offering the program. With this funding, Maven will invest in deeper support for healthy aging, from chronic conditions to shifts in weight, sexual wellness, mental health, and career satisfaction.

“Maven is a technology platform and a healthcare company in equal measure,” said Jason Lee, Chief Product and Operating Officer at Maven Clinic. “Over the past decade, we’ve built a human-centered care engine powered by years of data on effective ways to drive outcomes. Today, that allows us to harness artificial intelligence to deliver at greater scale. From automating administrative functions in our payments product to empowering providers and care coaches to more efficiently influence behavior change and outcomes, Maven shows up for our members wherever they are in the world or in their health journey.”

Deepening Value-Based Maternity Care

Maven will use its Series F funding to enhance its value-based partnerships in maternity care, realizing its vision to make quality, equitable healthcare more accessible to everyone.

Since 2022, Maven has tripled its Medicaid market presence and demonstrated that it can engage Medicaid recipients early and often in their pregnancies: pregnant Medicaid members have 20+ touch points per month in the Maven platform.

Maven has consistently demonstrated the ability to deliver better pregnancy outcomes at lower cost across diverse populations. Through Maven, employers and health plans see a 2:1 clinical ROI, and the company has proven that it reduces C-section rates by 8-20% and NICU admissions by 20-28%.

“For a decade, Maven Clinic has defied preconceptions, repeatedly proving that women’s healthcare can be intuitive, technology-first, and high-quality for every customer, from patients to employers to payers and providers,” said Seyonne Kang, Partner at StepStone Group. “We look forward to seeing Maven continue reimagining healthcare for families in the coming years.”

About Maven Clinic

Maven is the world’s largest virtual clinic for women and families on a mission to make healthcare work for all of us. Maven’s award-winning digital programs provide clinical, emotional, and financial support all in one platform, spanning fertility & family building, maternity & newborn care, parenting & pediatrics, and menopause & midlife. More than 2,000 employers and health plans trust Maven’s end-to-end platform to improve clinical outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and provide equity in benefits programs. Recognized for innovation and industry leadership, Maven has been named to the Time 100 Most Influential Companies, CNBC Disruptor 50, Fast Company Most Innovative Companies, and FORTUNE Best Places to Work. Founded in 2014 by CEO Kate Ryder, Maven has raised more than $425 million in funding from top healthcare and technology investors including General Catalyst, Sequoia, Dragoneer Investment Group, Oak HC/FT, StepStone Group, Icon Ventures, and Lux Capital. To learn more about Maven, visit us at mavenclinic.com.

Originally announced October 8th, 2024