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3 Tech Investment Lessons From Houston Methodist’s Chief Innovation Officer
Roberta Schwartz, Houston Methodist’s chief innovation officer, has had years of experience overseeing technology adoption at her organization. At a conference, she highlighted how important it is for digital health tools to have strong EHR integrations and encouraged hospital leaders to not be afraid of starting various technology initiatives in unrelated areas.
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Payer’s Place: Dr. Anil Singh
Dr. Anil Singh shares his insights into the strategies employed by the organization to identify the most effective digital solutions for their members.
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How HCA Is Integrating Google’s Generative AI Into Its Emergency Departments
This year, HCA Healthcare and Google Cloud have expanded their partnership by exploring ways to integrate Google’s generative AI into HCA’s workflows. The most developed project under this initiative is a pilot that began in February in which HCA’s emergency department physicians are testing a voice-enabled medical dictation tool to save them time on clinical documentation.
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CMS Is Getting More Serious About Penalizing Hospitals For Price Transparency Noncompliance
CMS has fined two hospitals in September for alleged violations of its price transparency rule. This marks the third month in a row that the agency has issued fines against hospitals for price transparency noncompliance, following a yearslong period of light enforcement.
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Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill To Impose Harsher Penalties On Those Who Assault Healthcare Staff
This week, senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would make it a federal crime to assault hospital workers. Even though nearly 40 states have passed laws to intensify penalties for violent acts committed against healthcare personnel, there is currently no federal law protecting hospital employees from assault or intimidation.
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Providers & Payers Need to Learn How to Play Nice Sooner Rather Than Later
Even though providers and payers don’t always get along, they need to come together now more than ever. In the post-pandemic landscape, the healthcare industry won’t be able to maintain care quality and protect patient access without strong collaboration between these two parties, health system leaders said during a virtual panel.
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Medicare Startup Prioritizing ‘Movement As Medicine’ Snags $17M
Bold, a Los Angeles-based company offering a healthy aging platform for older adults, closed a $17 million Series A funding round. The startup seeks to improve the health of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries through personalized exercise programs designed to prevent falls, decrease musculoskeletal pain and boost physical activity levels.
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Generative AI, RPM Were Among the Biggest Trends In Health IT Fundraising During Q2
Healthcare IT companies raised $1 billion in venture capital in Q2 — down slightly from the $1.3 billion raised in Q1 but up significantly from the $451.3 million raised in Q4 2022. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these investments were made in companies offering generative AI products. Another key trend was increasing cash flow to remote patient monitoring startups, likely caused by expanded reimbursement for these services.
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Discover the Next-Gen Platform for Integrated Collaborative Care
Beyond EHRs and digital front doors, reducing the gaps in patient care journeys.
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How Hospitals Should Manage Cybersecurity Risks, Per Baptist Health’s CIO
As health systems shore up their defenses against cybercriminals, they should openly communicate with their third-party vendors about data security risks and work together to actively manage those risks. That was some of the advice given by Aaron Miri, Baptist Health’s chief digital and information officer, during a Tuesday webinar.
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Babylon Health’s CEO ‘Should Spend Some Time With Elizabeth Holmes’
U.K. doctor David Watkins has been a public critic of Babylon Health and its AI technology for years, during which has received anonymous emails from Babylon employees who shared his concerns but feared to speak out publicly. After Babylon collapsed, a former employee publicly declared that the AI engine was indeed faulty. As a longtime skeptic of Babylon’s claims surrounding its technology, Watkins said that Ali Parsa, the company’s CEO, shouldn’t be treated any differently to Elizabeth Holmes.
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How Meditech Plans to Integrate Google’s Generative AI Into Its EHR
Over the past year, Meditech has deepened its relationship with Google Cloud by exploring ways to embed Google’s generative AI into its EHR. Some of the use cases the EHR vendor is exploring include an enhanced search and summarization tool that would present clinicians with a longitudinal view of their patient and a tool that would auto-generate clinical documentation for the hospital course summary.
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HHS Issues Proposal Bolstering Nondiscrimination Protections For People With Disabilities
HHS released a new proposed rule to update nearly 50-year old regulations protecting people with disabilities from discrimination while seeking healthcare. With its new proposal, HHS is amending the regulations to be clearer in their language, as well as more aligned with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act and amendments to the Rehabilitation Act.
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4 Steps Needed to Improve Patient Safety On a National Level, Per PCAST
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued a report that laid out four recommendations to improve patient safety across the nation. Some of these included creating federal leadership positions focused on advancing patient safety and hastening research on systems of safe care.
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Devices & Diagnostics, Health Tech
Abbott-Bigfoot Deal Proves That Diabetes Is a Hot Area for Digital Health Investment
This week, Abbott announced its plans to acquire Bigfoot Biomedical — a startup selling a “smart” insulin pen cap, which collects data from a user’s CGM to help them calculate the right dose. Most analysts were unsurprised to hear of the acquisition given that the two companies have been collaborating for more than six years, but they said the deal reinforces the steady pace of digital innovation in the diabetes care space.