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
HIMSS is planning to sell its annual conference to Informa. Fierce Healthcare confirmed the news as initially reported by Trade Show Executive. The deal only appears to involve the trade show – next slated for March 11-15, 2024 in Orlando – and makes no mention of smaller HIMSS events (in-person or online) or the Healthcare IT News or MobiHealthNews publications that HIMSS Media owns. (Also no immediate news as to whether the speaker submission process will be any easier, but many hoping it will be.)
AWS announced the AWS HealthScribe service for building clinical applications that use generative AI and integrating them with EHRs and other systems. The announced noted that M*Modal parent company 3M Health Information Systems, virtual primary care provider Babylon, and ScribeEMR are early adopters of HealthScribe.
Studies
The second annual Evolution of Care report from WellSky noted that the average length of stay for patients awaiting discharge to post-acute care is one day longer than it was in 2019, which leads to increased care costs and lowered patient satisfaction. One culprit is staffing in post-acute care – 87% of nursing homes report moderate to high staffing shortages.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of U.S. consumers rate medical billing as challenging to understand, according to a recent survey from HealthLock. In addition, 60% of survey respondents said privacy and identity theft were significant problems in healthcare.
Partnerships
- Care coordination company Quantum Health is integrating Kindbody in-person and online fertility care into its offering.
- HealthBook+ is integrating Isabel Healthcare self-triage functionality into its consumer-facing care guidance application.
- Imaging EMR OmegaAI from RamSoft is hosting Mirada Medical image visualization tools on its platform.
- Patient engagement platform Gozio Health is integrating Hyro conversational AI tools.
- ABOUT Partners and Panda Health are collaborating to support care transitions.
Product and Company News
- Medical image sharing platform Pocket Health launched Appointment Reminders for hospital and imaging center users.
- Surgical workflow software company LiveData added support for women’s services to LiveData PeriOp Planner.
- Virtual primary care platform Hello Alpha launched the Ahead with Alpha weight management program.
- UltraSight was granted FDA clearance for its AI-powered ultrasound guidance technology.
- Virtual reality therapy reduces neck pain and lower back pain, according to research from XRHealth published in BMC.
- Care management support reduces readmission costs by at least 50%, according to research from Laguna Health published in The Journal of Healthcare Management.
Sales
- Cognizant extended its relationship with Gilead to manage the company’s global IT infrastructure in a five-year contract worth $800 million.
- VA Palo Alto Health Care System tapped Verizon Business, a partner since 2020, for its full spectrum private 5G network.
- Missouri-based CoxHealth tapped Philips to co-design an in-house virtual care tool.
- Miami-based UniVida Medical Centers transitioned to eClinicalWorks Cloud EHR.
Accreditations
- Innovaccer received NCQA Measure Certification for HEDIS for its Data Activation Platform.
- Carta Healthcare completed Type 2 System and Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) examination for its Cartographer clinical data abstraction 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.
