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 and Studies
A joint study by Omada Health, Rock Health, and the Digital Medicine Society, based on a survey of employers, payers and benefit consultants, found that 90% of purchasers view virtual care as a high priority, and the majority are willing to adopt innovative approaches, but few have a real understanding of what virtual care is. The water is muddy, according to the report, because few vendors distinguish between telemedicine – a replacement for an in-person appointment – and virtual care – a broader set of services. As a result, 95% of buyers who offer virtual care want to expand but need a roadmap to help them determine their next steps.
Another joint study, this one involving CareEvolution, Scripps Research, and The Rockefeller Foundation, concluded that data from wearable devices could forecast COVID-19 infection rates as many as 12 days earlier than CDC data alone. Such prediction was possible through the combination of resting heart rate and step count data, along with patient self-reported data such as test results and symptoms. Authors note that the use of wearable data provides an early signal for changes in disease prevalence and should be used alongside other methods for tracking viral illnesses, including wastewater data and medical records.
ONC published a blog post highlighting how to meet the 2015 Edition Cures Update requirements for ONC certification. Specifically, certified health IT developers have a Dec. 31 deadline for meeting requirements for FHIR-based API standardization. The key takeaway: If vendors haven’t talked to their ONC Authorized Certification Body to schedule test with an ONC Authorized Testing Lab, they probably should.
Partnerships
- Firefly Health and Sprinter Health are integrating Firefly’s in-home clinical services with Sprinter’s virtual primary care.
- Mobile engagement platform Gozio Health expanded its integration with Artera, a patient outreach tool.
- Primary care EHR Elation Health has integrated with Ribbon Health, a provider data management platform.
- Patient-owned research platform Savvy Cooperative has partnered with ProofPilot, maker of an automated digital protocol platform for clinical trials.
- Insurer K&B Underwriters has teamed up with VirtuSense Technologies to offer fall risk analysis and prevention tools to post-acute care organizations.
Products
- Precision analytics vendor hc1 released Sendout Management, which consolidates lab performance data to inform operational decision-making.
- Digital health and safety platform Connect America announced its platform for continuous at-home monitoring, along with an alert service built in partnership with data platform HealthShare Exchange.
- Diagnostic tool provider Everly Health released Spotwell for iPhone-based blood sample sufficiency validation.
- Care coordination company Quantum Health released a care navigation tool for self-insured employers.
- Data integration and analytics company Qlik added enhanced encryption to Qlik Cloud and announced that the product received SOC2 Type 2 + HITRUST Attestation.
- Engagement platform Twilio released a customer data platform for health and life sciences.
- KAID Health published a case study demonstrating the effectiveness of analyzing structural and textual data for The Villages Health, identifying previously undiscovered clinical attributes for 15% of patients.
- Kahun demonstrated better overall performance compared to other symptoms checkers, as reported in the International Journal of Medical Informatics.
- Heart ultrasound diagnostics provider Caption Health received regulatory approval to sell its technology in Australia and Canada.
- CareCloud earned ONC certification for two EHRs, VertexDR and talkEHR, for compliance with 21st Century Cures Act interoperability requirements.
- Change Healthcare announced that its hospital customers have moved more than 10% of their imaging data to the cloud.
- ModMed received a patent for its adaptive logic software, which is used to automat documentation.
- Spatial released Spatial Space Kit and announced WellStar Hospitals as a customer using immersive sound to help patients and clinical staff relieve stress.
Sales
- Ascension is using Qualtrics for gathering patient experience feedback.
- Northern Ohio’s NOMS Healthcare selected Axuall for workforce management optimization.
- The South Dakota Department of Health selected Avel eCare to connect EMS agencies in the state to emergency physicians and registered nurses via telemedicine.
- LabCorp opted for Oracle Cerner to manage its hospital-based laboratories in 10 states.
Awards
- The Biotech Breakthrough Awards Program announced its 2022 award winners. Winners in healthcare categories include Helio Genomics (overall genomics company of the year), CelerisTx (therapeutics platform of the year), and Abbott (medtech solution of the year).
- Healthcare learning and training startup EmpiricaLab was selected to the Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator.
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.
