Apple unveils new health features

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Darius Tahir (@dariustahir)

APPLE UNVEILS NEW HEALTH FEATURES: Apple executives demoed new health-related products during the Worldwide Developer Conference Monday, including smartwatch-based fitness tracking software for specific activities, such as yoga.

Among other news from the company was the Health Records API, which will allow some customers to send data from their health records directly into certain consumer apps such as medication management systems.

Since January, Apple has partnered with a gradually growing number of providers to allow patients to download their EHRs to the Health app, which is pre-downloaded on iPhones. Now, external developers can use a mechanism known as an application programming interface to funnel health data into new products with a patient’s permission.

One app, called Medisafe, can automatically pull a patient’s prescription list into its medication tracking system. That app could remind patients to take pills or notify them about harmful drug interactions, according to Apple. Researchers could also use the Health Records API to developers to automatically gather information about study participants instead of subjecting them to long questionnaires, according to the news release.

WATCHDOG FINDS SEVERE DELAYS IN VA CHOICE: A new GAO review of the VA’s Veterans Choice Program finds that veterans referred outside the VA system in 2016 waited an average of 64 days for care although the limit was supposed to be 30 days, Morning eHealth’s Arthur Allen reports.

The Choice Program, which expanded veterans’ access to private-sector medical care, began in 2014. It is to be replaced by a new, more integrated program under a law signed by President Donald Trump last month.

The GAO called for the VA secretary to establish an electronic system for “seamless, efficient information sharing” among the department’s health centers, contractors, veterans and community providers -- that’s the general goal of the 10-year, $10 billion Cerner contract that was signed last month. Pros can read the rest of the Arthur’s story here.

WHAT’S IN NIH’S NEW DATA STRATEGY: The agency on Monday released a final data strategy plan to prepare its research program for the flood of incoming information from new technologies, Morning eHealth’s Darius Tahir reports. The strategy focuses in particular on the growth in genomic and EHR data, also calling for the creation of more powerful data analysis tools for researchers and clinicians alike.

The plan is an update from a previous draft, which wascriticized for a lack of emphasis on data standards and integration of analytic tools in workflows, among other issues. The final plan focuses more than the draft on using EHRs to support research, AMIA’s Jeff Smith said. He noted that there’s currently too much variability whether data sharing plans are a scorable part of grant applications, but that that change might be too granular for a strategy document. Pros can read the rest of Darius’s story here.

eHealth Tweets of the day:

Mark Friedberg @MWFriedberg Clinically-nonsensical features undermine clinicians’ trust in#EHR decision support.
Example via@TAYLORatKLAS: an EHR that makes you indicate whether an infant is chewing tobacco. #futureofEHR

Christina Farr @chrissyfarr I genuinely wonder if this is the most powerful thing Apple can do for our health: Helping kids and adults unplug. Beneficial for stress relief, sleep, mental health & more.#WWDC

It’s MONDAY at Morning eHealth. After having binged “Killing Eve,” your author desperately needs a new women-driven spy show to tide her over ’til Season Two. What should she watch next? Recommendations and news tips to [email protected]. Reach the rest of the team at @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.

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TRUMP CAMPAIGN MOVES TO QUASH VA DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT: President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has demanded private arbitration of a $25 million lawsuit brought by an employee who says she was slandered by a campaign official, Arthur reports.

The suit was brought by a Hispanic outreach worker who alleges that Camilo Sandoval, who now serves as executive-in-charge for the VA Office of Information and Technology, harassed her and sexually discriminated against her. The campaign has said that the woman, Jessica Denson, violated a campaign non-disclosure agreement by suing.

After campaign CEO Steve Bannon promoted Denson in the summer of 2016, according to the suit, Sandoval threatened to fire her, and began a rumor campaign aimed at discrediting her, including a claim that she had leaked some Trump tax records. The campaign failed to come to her defense, she alleges. Read the Pro story here.

MORE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ATHENAHEALTH’S JONATHAN BUSH: The health IT company’s CEO is facing allegations that he created a “sexually hostile environment” at athenahealth, according to a female employee referenced in public records, Bloomberg reports. Those records follow his apology last week for assaulting his ex-wife over a decade ago — an incident that was revealed in court documents that recently became public.

The allegations have been building as the company considers a takeover offer from Elliott Management, an activist hedge fund. Some observers wonder if the timing is a coincidence, and whether the news could pressure athenahealth to accept the offer — which it appears so far to have rebuffed. Neither Elliott nor athenahealth have directly commented on the relationship between the allegations and the takeover offer, Bloomberg reports. But a 2017 Fortune report suggests that the hedge fund may have used controversial tactics in the past — such as hiring private investigators to find information on takeover targets to use as leverage.

STATES CRITICIZE NEW CMS MEDICAID, CHIP SCORECARD: CMS will publicly track the performance of Medicaid and CHIP programs through a new “scorecard” that ranks states on a range of quality measures — an effort to provide a better look at just how well those programs are performing. The federal site consolidates data submitted by states in one location and also tracks CMS’ own performance on a few metrics, like how long it takes the agency to review waiver applications.

For now, the site is just a “conversation starter” that relies on states’ voluntary participation, and poorly performing programs don’t face any penalty, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said. But she added that the agency is still examining measures that could be added in the future and whether the scorecard can be used to hold states more accountable.

…. The new CMS site immediately received low marks from the National Association of Medicaid Directors, which criticized the scorecard for rating states without accounting for differences in their Medicaid populations. “The measures remain problematic,” NAMD said in astatement, suggesting several areas for improvement. “Until these fundamental variances are addressed in the Scorecard, it will not be possible to make apples-to-apples comparisons between states.”

PENTAGON INVESTIGATES RONNY JACKSON: The Defense Department’s inspector general is investigating Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former nominee for VA secretary. Jackson, previously Trump’s physician, withdrew from the selection process in April after allegations surfaced that he drank on the job and liberally distributed sleeping pills without proper prescriptions. Jackson still works within the White House Medical Unit. Read more here.

TELADOC ACQUIRES ADVANCE MEDICAL: Virtual care provider Teladoc has acquired Advance Medical, another telemedicine company, for $352 million. The acquisition could connect Teladoc to a broader international market, according to a news release. Advance Medical is already established in markets such as Europe, Asia and Latin America.

ETREAT ACT GETS TRADE GROUP SUPPORT: In other telemedicine news, Health IT Now, which leads the Opioid Safety Alliance, has published a letter of support for the Expanding Telehealth Response to Ensure Addiction Treatment (eTREAT) Act (S. 2901 (115).That bill would ease restrictions for Medicare reimbursement for telemedicine-based substance abuse treatment — specifically, it would waive restrictions on the originating site of care. The bill was recently introduced by Sens. John Thune, Mark Warner, Ben Cardin, John Cornyn, Brian Schatz and Roger Wicker. Co-signers on the letter of support included Teladoc, the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

—Virtual consults encourage men to seek mental health help, CNBC reports

—Developers are worried about Microsoft $7.5 billion GitHub purchase, according to MIT’s Technology Review

—Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka’s advice for blockchain startups

—Stat reports on patients who want immunotherapy despite lack of evidence

—Bloomberg writes on the new immune-system therapy that eradicated a patient’s breast cancer