Over its first 50 years in existence, how did the EHR lose its way?

Given that EHR adoption doubled between 2007 and 2012 and EHR expenditures in the United States grew an annual average of 5.4% from 2015 to 2019, totaling $14.5 billion in 2019, this may sound like a strange question to ask. But it’s earnest, and asking it acknowledges that electronic health records, first conceived and implemented during the presidential administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, haven’t lived up to a half-century of promise.

The vision for the EHR was simple but powerful: Provide a longitudinal electronic record of patient health information, inclusive of patient demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, and radiology reports, to automate and streamline the clinician’s workflow. What isn’t stated, but is implied, is that the goal of the EHR is to improve patient outcomes.… Read the rest

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What You Should Know:

– Healthcare private equity firm Heritage Group launches a $300M fund to invest in high-growth healthcare services and technology companies.

– Heritage is backed by some of the leading healthcare organizations in the nation, including large provider systems, payers, and healthcare service providers.

Heritage Group, a Nashville, TN-based healthcare-focused private equity firm, today announced the closing of over $300 million in its oversubscribed third fund, an increase of nearly $100 million over its prior fund in 2016. Heritage will continue its successful strategy of investing in solution-oriented, high-growth healthcare services, and technology businesses that are addressing the industry’s most pressing challenges.

“We are very pleased with the market’s response to our offering, especially during such a challenging economic environment,” said Paul Wallace, partner at Heritage. “We are grateful for the ongoing support of our longtime

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What You Should Know:

– Modernizing Medicine announced it has acquired
orthopedics EHR vendor Exscribe bringing together two of the healthcare
industry’s leading, all-in-one orthopedic EHR vendors.

– As part of the acquisition, Exscribe Founder and CEO,
Dr. Sachdev and other members of the Exscribe team will be joining Modernizing
Medicine.

Specialty-specific EHR provider Modernizing Medicine announced it has acquired
orthopedics electronic
health records (EHR) vendor Exscribe.
The acquisition brings together two of the healthcare industry’s leading,
all-in-one orthopedic EHR vendors with a shared mission of increasing practice
efficiency by transforming how healthcare information is created, consumed and
utilized. Modernizing Medicine and Exscribe will work together to accelerate
innovation and bring to market advanced EHR, practice management, and
technology solutions intended to improve physician efficiency, reduce burnout,
and support value-based care.

“Exscribe and Modernizing Medicine have a shared commitment to customer success and improving patient outcomes and we are

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What You Should Know:

– Shields Health Solutions and Excelera announce a major
specialty pharmacy merger that will form a combined company that consults with
700+ hospitals in 43 states, including Mass General Brigham, Yale New Haven,
Intermountain Healthcare and Henry Ford.

– The network of hospitals is designed to improve patient
care through an infrastructure that helps with things like acquiring prior
authorization for specialty drugs and staying adherent to them. It can also
lower costs for patients by negotiating lower rates from manufacturers with the
leverage of insights from 1 million+ patients in those hospitals.

Shields Health Solutions (Shields), the leading health
system specialty pharmacy integrator, has joined
forces with ExceleraRx
Corp. (Excelera), a healthcare company that empowers integrated delivery
networks, health systems, and academic medical centers to provide personalized,
integrated care for patients with complex and chronic conditions focused on
improving patient care. 

Merger Reflects Growing … Read the rest

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In a bid to shift the foundation of healthcare reimbursement, CMS is pushing for significantly more reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid services to be tied to value-based care (VBC) contracts. To accomplish this, tackling the biggest healthcare cost line items, such as anesthesia, will be at the top of the list.

Additionally, anesthesiology, with its convoluted hospital/practice ties and complex reimbursement process, represents a prime example of the challenges and exponential potential of VBC in healthcare. We recently spoke with Spencer Lilly, a former Atrium Health executive and consultant at abeo to understand some of the key drivers of high anesthesia and best practices to optimized value-based contracts for providers. 

HITC: In a COVID-19 pandemic, what are the key drivers of high anesthesia costs, and how they can be lowered? 

Lilly: The biggest driver of anesthesia service line costs is … Read the rest

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One of the biggest challenges for biopharmaceutical companies of rare and orphan disease patient populations is optimizing disease management in a way that enhances the patient journey and improves outcomes. As these companies seek innovative solution partners, a patient-first approach that offers specialty Rx pharmacist expertise is critical for securing insurance coverage, coordinating care, ensuring compliance, and, ultimately, minimizing the daily impact of rare and orphan diseases. 

In today’s challenging healthcare environment, biopharma companies need to feel confident that their products are properly and promptly distributed, and reimbursements processed quickly and correctly. The best approach is to partner with a pharmacy, distribution, and patient management organization that offers a patient-first strategy for rare and orphan disorders, as well as personalized care programs designed to maximize the benefit of the therapies prescribed for patients. The goal is to improve the quality of life for … Read the rest

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to put an unprecedented amount of strain on the entire healthcare sector, and the industry has responded by accelerating the ways innovation is developed and adopted. Health leaders have faced a generational challenge and the result has been the rapid deployment of technology to address dire patient needs. Health systems, physicians, and frontline staff pulled together in remarkable fashion to implement these emerging technologies that enhance the ways patients access and receive care. 

The global health crisis also illuminated the severity of worse outcomes for patients with underlying conditions and comorbidities, and providers now have a deeper understanding of how they impact overall health. Diabetes and poor glycemic management have emerged as crucial underlying conditions that have negatively affected patient outcomes during the pandemic. While it has long been associated with worse outcomes, higher readmission rates, … Read the rest

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What You Should Know:

– COVID-19 care deferrals lead to three major boomerang
conditions that payers and providers must proactively address in 2021,
according to a newly released report by Prealize.

– COVID-19’s hidden victims—those who avoided or deferred
care during the pandemic—will increasingly return to the healthcare system, and
many will be diagnosed with new conditions at more advanced stages. Healthcare
leaders must act now to keep this boomerang from driving worse outcomes and
higher costs.

Prealize, an artificial
intelligence (AI)-enabled predictive analytics company, today announced the
publication of a new report that explores key medical conditions payers and
providers should proactively address in 2021. Healthcare utilization for
preventive care, chronic care, and emergent care significantly decreased in
2020 due to the COVID-19
pandemic, which will result in an influx of newly diagnosed and later stage
conditions in 2021. Prealize’s
2021 State of Health Market Report: Bracing … Read the rest

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HIT Consultant sat down with Mike McSherry, CEO, and co-founder of Seattle-based digital prescription platform Xealth to discuss digital health lessons learned in 2020 and what we can expect in 2021. As Xealth’s CEO, Mike also works with Duke Health, UPMC, Atrium Health, and The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network where he uses his background in digital health to connect patients and care teams outside of traditional care settings. 

HITC: In 2021, How can digital health reduce race and minority disparities in healthcare?

McSherry: The U.S. has struggled with health disparities, which this pandemic has widened. Many of these disparities can be linked to access, which digital health can assist with – telehealth makes care virtual from any location, clinical decision support can reduce human errors, remote patient monitoring helps keep patients home while linked to care. 

Digital … Read the rest

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What You Should Know:

– TigerConnect has announced an expansion in their suite
through the acquisition of Critical Alert, a leading provider of
enterprise-grade middleware for hospitals and health systems.

– For the hundreds of thousands of nurses that currently
use TigerConnect, these new capabilities will deliver real-time, contextual
information to their mobile device or desktop to allow them to work smarter,
prioritize responses, and efficiently coordinate care, all within the same
reliable TigerConnect platform they use every day for enterprise messaging.

 TigerConnect®,
a care team collaboration solution, today announced the acquisition
of Critical Alert, a Jacksonville,
FL-based leading provider of enterprise-grade middleware for hospitals and
health systems. Critical Alert’s product suite consists of a middleware suite
of products as well as traditional nurse call hardware servicing over 200
hospitals in North America. Financial details of the acquisition were not
disclosed.

Real-Time Care Team Collaboration for Hospitals

Founded … Read the rest

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