News 4/5/23

Top News

Content services platform vendor Hyland Software lays off 1,000 employees, 20% of its workforce.

The company blames the layoff on economic conditions and the unexpectedly high cost of moving to a cloud-based system.

Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired a majority stake in Hyland in 2007 for a reported $265 million and has led it through a long string of acquisitions, which in healthcare includes Valco Data Systems, EWebHealth, and Lexmark’s Perceptive business. 

Reader Comments

From Dr. Jacoby: “Re: Novant Health. It’s interesting to look at the jobs of the three top executives who were among its recent 50 layoffs.” Novant’s announcement suggests that it has scaled back some departments along with the executives who ran them, so it’s probably more than just these folks in their respective areas:

• Jesse Cureton, MBA, EVP/chief consumer officer. He had held the job for 10 years, which focused on strategic planning and marketing and public relations.
• Angela Yochem, MS, EVP/chief transformation and digital officer.She took the job in 2020 and served for nearly three years before that as CTO. She was Novant’s top technology executive, with the CIO, CTO, CMIO, and CISO reporting to her, and also served as GM of NH Enterprises.
• Paula Kranz, MA, MPA, VP of innovation development. She was executive director of Novant’s innovation lab for the past 15 months, which it closed last week with all employees laid off.

From Stiletto: “Re: podcasts. Trough of disillusionment.” Media forms that lower the participation bar — web pages, online communities, blogs, video channels – can become fading fads when audiences realize that the lowered barrier to entry encourages lesser talents. Newly launched podcasts dropped sharply in 2023, several were eliminated by NPR, Spotify is laying people off from the podcast platforms it acquired, and advertisers are questioning ROI due to low audience numbers and unfavorable demographics. Content that draws a loyal audience will do OK, maybe even better once Darwinism weeds out the AV club types (of which I would be one, which is why I haven’t dabbled). I like the idea of podcasts for commuters or travelers, but otherwise they don’t seem to align with the TL;DR skimmer attention span.

From Flapjacks: “Re: HIMSS Accelerate. Dr. Jayne said she hasn’t heard it mentioned. Have you?” No, other than I think I recall the HIMSS conference registration form trying to get me to opt in to Accelerate. It was Hal Wolf’s pet project and even he leaves no trace there. I clicked Events and HIMSS23 wasn’t among the three that were listed.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Health data exchange vendor Lyniate changes its name back to Rhapsody, the original moniker of the company before it merged with Corepoint Health in 2019.

Wellth raises $20 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to $40 million since launching in 2014. Its behavior-change app incentivizes users to build and maintain healthy habits. Investor Frank Williams, co-founder and former CEO of Evolent Health, joins the company as chairman of the board.

A Rock Health analysis finds that six Q1 digital health funding founds accounted for 40% of the quarter’s total, although its definition of “digital health” covers a lot of ground:

• Monograph Health, $375 million (in-home dialysis).
• ShiftKey, $300 million (shift bidding).
• Paradigm, $203 million (drug trials technology).
• ShiftMed, $200 million (on-demand workforce management).
• Gravie, $179 million (health benefits management).
• Vytalize Health, $100 million (Medicare ACO).

Billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht resigns from Cano Health’s board, citing poor governance and a questionable collaboration with MSP Recovery. He and two other board members who also resigned control 36% of the company and will push for asset sales and removal of the CEO. The company was valued at $4.4 billion when it went public on the NYSE via SPAC merger in June 2021, but shares have since lost 90% of their value.

Fujifilm sells its Japan-only EHR to Wemex, which is owned by PHC Group.

CHIME will convene its members-only Healthcare CISO Boot Camp April 12-15 in Salt Lake City.

Sales

• UC Davis Health (CA) will offer Propeller Health’s remote monitoring program to high-risk patients with asthma and COPD. 
• Transcarent will use CareJourney’s provider cost and quality insights data.
• Northwell Health (NY) selects patient monitoring technology and services from Philips.

People

Andrew Miller (Engooden Health) joins Elucid as CTO.

Caregility promotes Wendy Deibert, RN, MBA to CNO.

CitiusTech names Rajan Kohli (Wipro) as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centers (IL) goes live on Meditech Expanse.

Kittitas Valley Healthcare (WA) goes live on AdaptX’s OR Advisor, ED Advisor, and Clinic Advisor.

The Coalition for Health AI releases its “Blueprint for Trustworthy AI Implementation Guidance and Assurance for Healthcare.” The PDF is here.  Among the founding members are Duke Health, Google, Mayo Clinic, Microsoft, MITRE, Stanford Medicine, UCSF, and several CMS groups including ONC.  

Uber Health adds same-day prescription delivery to its patient transportation app for providers.

Government and Politics

The FDA publishes proposed guidance that will enable developers of AI-reliant medical devices to automatically update products that are already being used in clinical settings.

Privacy and Security

Northwest Texas Healthcare System and Doctors Hospital of Laredo (TX), both subsidiaries of Universal Health Services, notify patients that a November 2021 phishing incident at Adelanto Healthcare Ventures, a consulting firm with ties to one of their mutual business associates, may have exposed sensitive patient information. Interestingly, CommonSpirit Health affiliate St. Luke’s Health (TX) notified its patients about the same incident last November, making sure to stress that the breach was not related to CommonSpirit’s ransomware attack the month before.

Other

A small study finds that GPT-4 can accurately turn free-text radiology reports into structured templates, although that tool raises privacy concerns in sharing data with third parties. 

A gated University of Pennsylvania study in Health Affairs determines that 98.6% of hospital websites use computer code that enables data transfers to third-parties that include tech companies, social media platforms, advertising firms, and data brokers.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD releases 31 updates with enhancements to telehealth, medication cards, claims status, and mobile prescription drug monitoring program features.
• Ascom will provide UniHA, a cooperative purchasing network for French public hospitals, with its medical alarm management systems including software, mobility solutions, and services.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Mergers and acquisitions in the senior services sector.”
• Bamboo Health will exhibit at Rx Summit April 10-12 in Atlanta.
• Nordic releases another episode of its In Network podcast feature, Designing for Health: “Designing for Health: Interview with Dr. Archana Tedone.”
• Biofourmis and Current Health will participate in the Digital Medicine Society’s and Moffitt Cancer Center’s CancerX project to accelerate innovations for cancer prevention and treatment.
• CoverMyMeds issues a clarification regarding its recently announced layoffs, as well as the impact on its Columbus facility.
• CTG publishes a new case study, “CTG Helps Leading Medical Lab Improve Donor Insight and Client Service.”

Blog Posts

• Factors for Successful Offshoring of Revenue Cycle Management Services (AGS Health)
• How to improve your population health using SDoH data (Arcadia)
• Preventing Workplace Injuries is Best for Your Workers (and Your Budget) (Bardavon)
• Big and Small Ways Healthcare IT Can Address Technical Debt (CereCore)
• Putting Power in the Hands of Patients: The Human Side of Pharmaceutical Marketing (ConnectiveRx)
• What We’re Looking Forward to at HIMSS23 (Dimensional Insight)

Contacts

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