HIMSS Watch: Trump attending, others not

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202), David Lim (@davidalim) and Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)

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Quick Fix

— HIMSS Watch: Trump attending, others not: The president’s attending the biggest health IT gathering of them all — but some prominent companies are declining to join the party.

— AI: Will it increase costs?: Artificial intelligence might actually increase health care costs, even if used well.

— Google defends Ascension deal: And Google is defending the Ascension data sharing deal in a letter to senators revealed today.

And more. But first, the jump.

eHealth tweet of the day: Genevieve Morris @HITpolicywonk “With vendors pulling out of #HIMSS2020 what do you think folks will do with the empty vendor spaces? We need some creative thinking here to come up with something fun. Maybe they could just put some folding chairs in the empty booths so we can all rest our feet.”

WEDNESDAY: How super was your Tuesday? Discuss superiority by email at [email protected]. Talk socially @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.


Driving the Day

HIMSS WATCH: TRUMP ATTENDING, OTHERS NOT — President Donald Trump is slated to attend the big health IT confab, it emerged earlier this week. Everyone, of course, is speculating that his appearance means the simultaneous publishing of those big interoperability rules.

HIMSS veterans surely remember that it’s not the first time a senior Trump administration official braved the 40,000-person industry conference; in 2018 Jared Kushner appeared alongside CMS Administrator Seema Verma to launch MyHealthEData, a patient data-focused collaboration between the White House and CMS.

Other groups, however, are choosing to skip the conference out of coronavirus fears. Cisco, Salesforce, Amazon, Intel, Siemens, AT&T and HL7 have all announced cancellations.

“The safety and wellbeing of our employees is our top priority,” an Intel spokesperson said in an email. The company has restricted travel to areas “significantly impacted by the ongoing coronavirus outbreak,” as well as “attendance at events that don’t apply similar travel restrictions to attendees.”

Still, the massive health IT conference scheduled for next week in Florida is “a go,” per spokesperson Karen Groppe on Tuesday evening.

Health IT Business Watch

AI: WILL IT INCREASE COSTS? — Artificial intelligence might improve health care — but the technology could inadvertently increase costs, our colleague Arthur Allen reports. Using pattern-recognition technology might uncover more cases of potentially malnourished kids or diabetes patients at risk of kidney disease, to cite just two examples from Mount Sinai’s work in AI.

If accurate, both results are fantastic for improved health, but they come with a challenge: more costs. And AI might also spur overdiagnosis for commercial or liability reasons. But for right now, AI is mostly being used as an “electronic triage,” Arthur writes, helping providers identify the highest-need patients.

GOOGLE DEFENDS ASCENSION DEAL — The deal between Google and Ascension giving the search giant access to health data is constrained by internal controls, the company said in a letter to a bipartisan group of senators released Tuesday.

The deal had given Google access to health data from the system. The partners argued the access would allow the tech giant to design new software services for doctors. But critics sensed risks: the potential for an advertising company to combine data sources and more finely target services to users.

Google says the terms of the deal prevent it from combining data or using it for business aside from creating software for Ascension.

Still, the senators want more details, and they’re turning to Ascension for information regarding the type and amount of data accessible by Google. And OCR’s investigation into Google isn’t closed, per The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal late last year.

Inside the Humphrey Building

FDA FLAGS MEDICAL DEVICE BLUETOOTH VULNERABILITY — A new cybersecurity flaw deemed “SweynTooth” could allow a hacker to wirelessly crash a medical device, FDA announced Tuesday.

The exploit, which could affect connected medical devices that use Bluetooth Low Energy to exchange information, affects multiple microchip makers including Texas Instruments, NXP, Cypress, Dialog Semiconductors, Microchip, STMicroelectronics and Telink Semiconductor. Many manufacturers have already released patches for the vulnerability.

TELEHEALTH SPOTLIGHT IN HELP HEARING — Senators pressed health officials Tuesday on the role of virtual care in treating coronavirus, including in rural areas. In response to a query from Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) about protecting rural, underfunded hospitals — the ones he said are “living paycheck to paycheck, almost” — HHS’ Robert Kadlec said the department was looking into how to make telemedicine available to more coronavirus patients. He said HHS was in talks with CMS about expanding reimbursement for use of the technology. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) later urged officials to tell Congress if they needed additional authority to expand telehealth use.

— More telehealth advocacy: The Connected Health Initiative — part of ACT | The App Association — is adding its name to the list of digital health trade and lobbying groups calling for the inclusion in a supplemental package to deal with coronavirus of a waiver on telehealth reimbursement restrictions during national emergencies as part of a letter to congressional leadership sent Tuesday.

It’s also calling on CMS to waive a 20 percent copay requirement on monthly remote patient monitoring. The letter argues that it’d be better to simply permanently address the reimbursement problem, rather than simply revisiting the waiver each time an applicable natural disaster comes along.

— Other coronavirus notes: Kadlec, the department’s top emergency preparedness official, is in charge of coordinating HHS’ coronavirus response, our colleague Adam Cancryn reports. … Widespread coronavirus testing could still be weeks away, officials and experts say, as David Lim and Adam report. … The CDC blocked an FDA official from the premises late February, per our colleague Dan Diamond; that official later discovered a potential problem with the CDC’s coronavirus test.

IDEAS FOR INTEROP MEASURES? CMS is gathering input on improvements to its Promoting Interoperability Program, which is the newest iteration of Meaningful Use (h/t Ben Moscovitch).

CMS is specifically interested in metrics that promote interoperability and health data exchange, give patients their information, and reduce clinical burden. You have til July 1 to weigh in.

A PLEA TO WRAP PRIOR AUTH INTO STAR RATINGS — The Medical Group Management Association wants CMS to update its Medicare Advantage star ratings program to reflect “burdensome” prior authorization processes for clinicians, the group said in a letter to CMS. Specifically, MGMA recommended that star ratings incorporate MA plans’ adherence to prior auth rules established by CAQH CORE, and whether MA plans exclude prior auth requirements for preoperative procedures and for clinicians in risk-based contracts, among other suggestions.

PERSONNEL NOTES — Google’s government affairs team is hiring a health outreach lead. … Allscripts’ chief financial officer, Dennis Olis, will be leaving the company; he’ll be replaced by Rick Poulton, who is doing double duty as President and CFO.

What We're Reading

Pharmaceutical companies are ramping up their spending on social media ads, The Washington Post reports.

Is Capsule Health — the self-proclaimed Uber of pharmacy — helping health care in New York City, asks MedPage Today.

Walgreens app has a breach of patients’ prescription data, reports CyberScoop.