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Dr. Timothy Ferris, Chairman and CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, Joins Health Catalyst Board
SALT LAKE CITY, UT – January 23, 2018 –Health Catalyst, a leader in healthcare analytics, decision support and outcomes improvement, announced today that Timothy G. Ferris, MD, Chairman and CEO of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO), has joined the company’s board of directors, replacing Penny Wheeler, MD, the CEO of Allina Health, whose board term is now completed.
“I am thrilled to join the board of Health Catalyst, a company with which I have worked closely since 2015,” said Dr. Ferris. “I had the privilege of partnering with Health Catalyst on a collaboration aimed at fostering and accelerating the adoption of population health management (PHM) strategies and practices nationally, to improve the quality of healthcare and lower costs, helping health systems meet the needs of patients, providers and payors. I look forward to sharing that experience and know-how to help more health systems across the U.S. improve the quality and affordability of patient care.”
The MGPO is a multi-specialty medical group of nearly 2,500 physicians affiliated with 999-bed Massachusetts General hospital in Boston. Dr. Ferris was previously the medical director of the MGPO, and the senior vice president for Population Health at both Mass General and its Boston-based parent organization, Partners HealthCare, an integrated healthcare delivery system that includes community hospitals, primary care and specialty physicians, specialty facilities, community health centers and other health-related entities.
A photo of Dr. Ferris is available to download here.
“We are thrilled that Dr. Ferris accepted our invitation to join the board,” said Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst. “He is one of the most capable, forward thinking CEOs in healthcare today and a champion of healthcare improvement and innovation. Tim’s understanding of healthcare economics, delivery and improvement is as deep and significant as any healthcare executive with whom I have interfaced. He is a remarkable leader and innovator, and we are deeply honored that he has agreed to share his insights and guidance by participating on our board of directors.”
Since 2012, Dr. Ferris has led the design and implementation of system-wide care delivery changes at MGPO and Partners HealthCare to respond to the changing healthcare environment, enhancing care delivery, increasing access to care, and reducing the healthcare cost burden. He has successfully turned new laws, regulations and payment policies into opportunities to provide better care for patients.
Beyond his work at the MGPO and Partners HealthCare, Dr. Ferris has played multiple roles at the national level, including chairing the steering committee of the National Quality Forum and working as a member of the Secretary of Health and Human Services independent advisory council on physician payment policy. His clinical interest involves caring for medically complex patients, geriatrics, and respiratory and heart conditions. He still practices as a physician today, including making home visits to the elderly.
Dr. Ferris was educated at Middlebury College, Oxford University (M.Phil.), Harvard Medical School (MD), and Harvard School of Public Health (MPH).
Last month, Dr. Wheeler completed her years of service as a member of Health Catalyst’s board of directors. Dr. Wheeler is the President and CEO of Allina Health, named one of the nation’s top five large hospital systems by Truven Health Analytics.
“I want to thank Dr. Wheeler for her extraordinary contributions to our company, including through her exemplary board service. She has always been a champion for the patient, and has been a consistent advocate for the company’s mission-orientation,” said Burton. “Her experience leading the design and implementation of organization-wide clinical service lines at Allina Health has assisted us in driving significant and measurable improvements in care, service, and efficiency for patients across the country. I deeply respect and admire Penny’s goodness, strength and leadership, and feel blessed to have been mentored by her over the past several years.”
The Health Catalyst board of directors includes the following members in addition to Ferris and Burton: Board Chairman Fraser Bullock, Co-Founder and Senior Advisor at Sorenson Capital; Michael Dixon, a partner in Sequoia Capital; Promod Haque, Senior Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners; Todd Cozzens, Managing Director of Leerink Capital; John A. Kane, former Chief Financial Officer of IDX Systems (now GE Healthcare); Anita Pramoda, CEO and founder of Owned Outcomes; and Duncan Gallagher, the retired Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and CFO of Allina Health.
About Health Catalyst
Health Catalyst is a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company committed to being a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare outcomes. We are the leaders in a new era of advanced predictive analytics for population health and value-based care with a suite of machine learning-driven solutions, decades of outcomes-improvement expertise, and an unparalleled ability to integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem. Our proven data warehousing and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 85 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Health Catalyst’s technology and professional services help to keep patients engaged and healthy in their homes and workplaces, and to optimize their care when it becomes necessary. We are grateful to be recognized by Fortune, Gallup, Glassdoor, Modern Healthcare and a host of others as a “Best Place to Work” in technology and healthcare. Visit www.healthcatalyst.com, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
For more information contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications for Health Catalyst
916.346.4213
[email protected]Posted 1.23.2018 -
Nuance Unveils AI-Powered Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 to Improve Documentation Accuracy and Efficiency
Latest Version Provides 99% Accuracy to Clinicians in Smaller Practices, Driving Improved Patient Visits and Cost Savings
Burlington, MA. – January 22, 2018 – Nuance Communications, Inc. today announced the release of Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4, the latest locally installed version of Nuance’s industry-leading clinical speech recognition solution for smaller practices. Through deep learning technology and sophisticated acoustic models, Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 puts Nuance’s leading artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology in the hands of busy clinicians in independent practices. Increased documentation efficiency allows for more time with patients, improved quality to better inform care teams and staff, decreased turnaround time and increased cost savings.
Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 is an easy-to-install, easy-to-use documentation solution that enables enhanced clinician productivity within practices of 24 clinicians or fewer though quick creation of accurate patient notes to help keep pace with patient loads and better manage practice throughput. Distinct from non-medical speech recognition solutions, this latest edition combines state-of-the-art speech recognition technology with 90 medical vocabularies and sophisticated acoustic models to yield 99 percent accuracy out-of-the-box, with no need for voice profile training.
In addition to a streamlined setup, Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 offers contextual guidance and productivity tips tailored to clinician usage that helps accelerate proficiency and discover advanced features. Its deep learning technology continuously learns and adapts to voice and environmental variations, helping automatically refine performance. These capabilities are especially helpful in addressing the unique challenges facing smaller ambulatory clinics, such as administrative overload, revenue pressures and regulation demands.
“The outstanding performance of Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 is a culmination of decades of Nuance’s innovation in AI,” said Michael Clark, senior vice president and general manager of Nuance Healthcare Provider Solutions. “By applying machine learning to real-time document capture, we are helping address the challenges of smaller ambulatory clinics to transform the documentation process, and improve both the clinician experience and patient care.”
Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 allows healthcare providers to create narrative documentation directly in EHR fields three times faster and more accurately than ever before. Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 allows clinicians to spend less time documenting and more time with patients, all while decreasing documentation costs and driving appropriate reimbursement.
“With state-of-the-art documentation technology designed for healthcare professionals, Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 brings AI to smaller clinics at an affordable price,” said Mike Whalen, Executive Vice President of eDist Business, a leading wholesale distributor of speech recognition solutions for healthcare and other industries. “It will bring improved accuracy and functionality to our market as well as improved clinician productivity, EHR adoption and documentation quality. The significant financial benefits are critical to practice viability.”
The latest version of Dragon Medical Practice Edition also delivers:
- Greater mobility – Compatibility with Windows 10 touchscreen devices provides clinicians with the ability to document on-the-go. Hybrid touch and keyboard interaction also work together seamlessly for controlling multiple features.
- Enhanced usability – The newly designed DragonBar provides easy access to popular capabilities and automatically collapses when not in use freeing up screen space.
- Powerful voice capabilities – Clinicians can use simple voice commands to interact with select web-based applications and websites, generate text within applications and EHR textbox fields, or use the Dragon dictation box to compose content.
Nuance is committed to helping clinicians provide their best patient care and helping healthcare organizations improve the way they capture and communicate the patient story. For more information about Dragon Medical solutions for clinicians, please click here.
About Nuance Healthcare
Nuance provides intelligent systems that support a more natural and insightful approach to clinical documentation, freeing clinicians to spend more time caring for patients. Nuance’s healthcare solutions capture, improve and communicate more than 300 million patient stories each year, helping more than 500,000 clinicians in 10,000 global healthcare organizations to drive meaningful clinical and financial outcomes. Nuance’s award-winning clinical speech recognition, medical transcription, CDI, coding, quality and medical imaging solutions provide a more complete and accurate view of patient care.About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit http://www.nuance.com/.Trademark reference: Nuance and the Nuance logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.
For Media Inquiries:
Palmer Reuther
Corporate Communications, Healthcare
(978) 697-9227
[email protected]Posted 1.22.2018 -
CHRIS MILLER NAMED PARTNER AT CUMBERLAND CONSULTING GROUP
NASHVILLE, TN – January 22, 2018 – Cumberland Consulting Group announces the promotion of 10-year company veteran Chris Miller to partner. Miller joins the leadership team of Cumberland’s Provider Division and will be leading the multi-year enterprise Epic implementation for the University of Vermont Health Network. Previously, Miller served as principal for the company.
“Chris has made significant contributions to Cumberland over the past decade, successfully leading some of our high-profile projects for health systems,” said Brian Cahill, CEO of Cumberland Consulting Group. “In addition to his expanded role on the leadership team, he will continue to serve as a trusted adviser for our provider clients.”
Miller has extensive experience in leading strategic, enterprisewide IT projects for some of the country’s largest providers. He specializes in leading clients through the strategic planning and execution of healthcare IT initiatives, including budgeting, resource planning and project management. Prior to joining Cumberland, Miller was a member of Epic’s implementation services team.
“I’m honored to join the ranks of the leadership team of this growing organization,” Miller said. “And, I am especially excited to continue working with the Cumberland team to help our provider clients meet their goals.”
Miller holds a Bachelor of Science degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University and is an active member of his local community of Atlanta.
About Cumberland Consulting Group
Founded in 2004, Cumberland Consulting Group is a leading healthcare consulting and services firm that helps some of the nation’s largest payer, provider and life sciences organizations implement and optimize technologies to maximize operational efficiency. We offer our clients comprehensive consulting services with a focus on strategic advisory, implementation, optimization and outsourcing. For more information, visit www.cumberlandcg.com or follow us on Twitter at @CumberlandCG.Posted 1.22.2018 -
Inside CHIME: News of Note
1.18.18
By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public RelationsHere is a roundup from CHIME of recent news and upcoming events:
Liz Johnson shares a vision for healthcare IT: Liz Johnson, chair of the CHIME Foundation Board and CIO of Acute Care Hospitals & Applied Clinical Informatics at Tenet Healthcare Corporation, discussed future directions in healthcare IT in an article published in the Foundation newsletter, Insights. She focused on access to care, data science, payment systems and the role of the CIO in the future. The article is available here.
CHIME Collaboration Award winners discuss key factors for a successful collaboration: Deborah Gash and Steve Hess, winners of the 2017 and 2016 CHIME Collaboration Awards, reflected on what needs to be in place for a successful collaboration with a partner in industry in the Insight newsletter. They said that aligned goals, aligned priorities and compatible cultures are key. The article is available here.
CHIME seeks Fall Forum Planning Committee members: CHIME is seeking members for the 2018 Fall CIO Forum Planning Committee. Interested members need to apply here by Jan. 21 to be considered. Applicants will be asked to rank by order of preference four subcommittees: Keynote Speaker Subcommittee, Plenary & Sunrise Session Subcommittee, Track Session Subcommittee and Leadership from the Edge (LFTE) Subcommittee. If you have any questions, please contact Summer O’Neill, CHIME’s director of education.
More Inside CHIME
- Randy McCleese Receives CIO of the Year Award from CHIME, HIMSS – Candace Stuart
- NHS England CIO Joins CHIME Board, Shafiq Rab Named Chair-elect – Candace Stuart
Posted 1.18.2018 -
Inside CHIME: Randy McCleese Receives CIO of the Year Award from CHIME, HIMSS
1.18.18
By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public RelationsFor decades, Randy McCleese has successfully bridged seemingly disparate communities. McCleese, CIO of Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Ky., has been welcomed at White House events and rural hospital board meetings. He has addressed policy makers in Washington, D.C., executives in health systems, his peers at health IT conferences and IT students at his local university. As a CIO, he has led strategic initiatives to bring innovations that improve efficiency and patient care to small and rural hospitals. And he has managed to do these herculean tasks – with limited resources – while also devoting countless hours to organizations that share his passion for healthcare IT and professional excellence.
Randy McCleese, FCHIME, LCHIME, CHCIO, FHIMSS, Chief Information Officer, Methodist Hospital
His outstanding service has earned him the 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year award. The award was announced this week by CHIME and HIMSS. The award is given annually to a CIO who has shown significant leadership and commitment to the healthcare industry during his or her career. The recipient is selected jointly by the boards of CHIME and HIMSS.
As a CIO in a small and rural healthcare system, McCleese faces the same regulatory and institutional demands as his colleagues in large, urban systems. But he also must consider the needs of patients in remote towns and how to sustain those facilities and services. “My sights are set on not just what is going on with technology or in the hospitals,” he said. “I am heavily involved in the ambulatory area as well, in the clinics we have. Most of those patients can’t afford to drive 25 to 30 miles, or they are not able to drive 25 to 30 miles to the next biggest town.”
In April of 2017, McCleese joined Methodist, a 192-bed acute care hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital and a 19-practice physician network, where he oversees all IT functions. He previously served as vice president of information services and CIO at St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, Ky. He has been a member of CHIME since 1998 and an active participant in CHIME’s public policy initiatives since the program’s inception about a decade ago. He has held numerous leadership positions, including a member of the CHIME Board of Trustees from 2012-2015; CHIME Board chair in 2014; CHIME Foundation Board chair in 2015; and chair of the CHIME Policy Steering Committee in 2015.
In 2016, he won both the CHIME Federal Public Policy Award for CIO Leadership and the Outstanding Service Award. He has been on the CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO advisory panel and participated in the development of the CHIME Foundation Certified Healthcare Executive program. He became a CHIME fellow in 2012 and achieved CHIME lifetime status in 2014.
“Randy proves that you don’t have to be from a large organization to have a big impact in our industry,” said Russell Branzell, president and CEO of CHIME. “Randy has worked tirelessly in Washington on behalf of small and rural health systems by educating decision makers about their needs and constraints. He also helped broaden the perspective of our members and showed us how we can do more with less. This award is well-deserved recognition for his dedication and generosity.”
McCleese joined HIMSS in 1997 and became a HIMSS fellow in 2005. He has been an active member of the Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of HIMSS, serving on the board from 2002-2009, and as president from 2004-2005. In 2008, he initiated the chapter’s Kentucky Advocacy Day at the state legislature, an annual visit to state legislators that continues today. He also served as the vice chair of the national HIMSS Advocacy Committee in 2008, the same year he received the HIMSS Founders Leadership Award.
“Randy McCleese represents the highest standards of leadership, working with local, regional and state representatives to advocate and advance the value of digital technologies in improving the health of patients at his hospital and beyond,” said Hal Wolf III, president and CEO of HIMSS.
He has been active regionally and locally, too, helping to found the Northeast Kentucky Regional Health Information Organization and serving on the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE). In 2012, he was invited to represent KHIE at a White House town hall meeting on health IT, where he and 80 other healthcare IT leaders were recognized for their accomplishments. He also has taught IT courses as an adjunct faculty member at Morehead State University.
McCleese favors collaboration and focuses on the positive, which motivates those around him. “When you accentuate the positive, it multiplies itself and people do better,” he observed. He will be honored on March 5 at the 2018 CHIME-HIMSS CIO Forum in Las Vegas and will officially receive the award at the HIMSS18 conference that runs from March 5-9 in Las Vegas. The award is named for John E. Gall Jr., who pioneered implementation of the first fully integrated medical system in the world in El Camino Hospital in California in the 1960s.
More Inside CHIME
- News of Note – Candace Stuart
- NHS England CIO Joins CHIME Board, Shafiq Rab Named Chair-elect – Candace Stuart
Posted 1.18.2018 -
Inside CHIME: NHS England CIO Joins CHIME Board, Shafiq Rab Named Chair-elect
1.18.18
By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public RelationsThe CHIME Board of Trustees has selected William Smart, CIO of National Health Service (NHS) England, to represent CHIME’s international members. In this advisory role, he will represent CIOs and senior healthcare IT executives from more than 50 countries. The board also named Shafiq Rab, senior vice president and CIO of Rush University Medical School in Chicago, chair-elect.
Shafiq Rab, FCHIME, MD, MPH, CHCIO, Chair-elect, CHIME Board of Trustees; SVP & CIO, Rush University Medical Center
“It is a privilege to have Will join the CHIME board,” said Russell Branzell, president and CEO of CHIME. “Will and NHS England aren’t just talking about transformational leadership; they are showing the healthcare IT world what it will look like through the NHS Digital Academy. He has proven to be a powerful advocate for England’s CIOs and chief clinical information officers, and his dedication and strategic vision will be huge assets as we set CHIME’s course for 2018.”
Smart assumed the role of CIO England in 2016 after six years as the CIO of Royal Free London NHS Trust Foundation. As CIO of NHS England, he champions the use of digital technology to advance healthcare and provides strategic leadership to a health system that is responsible for the provision of services across England. He has been active with the NHS Digital Academy, an ambitious educational initiative designed to promote digital innovation and train health leaders. CHIME supports the initiative, which launched in August.
William Smart, Chief Information Officer, NHS England
Smart replaces Jan-Eric Slot, CIO at Bernhoven Hospital in Cologne, Germany, who joined the board in 2016. During Slot’s tenure, international membership burgeoned. Currently, CHIME’s international membership exceeds 400.
“Jan-Eric’s perspective as a CIO from Europe helped us recognize the commonalities healthcare IT professionals share regardless of nationality,” Branzell said. “Our members’ health systems may differ but we all wrestle with challenges like cyber threats, interoperability and educating C-suite leadership. We have a lot we can learn from each other, and we thank Jan-Eric and all our other board members for so generously sharing their time and knowledge.”
Smart began his term on Jan. 1.
More Inside CHIME
- News of Note – Candace Stuart
- Randy McCleese Receives CIO of the Year Award from CHIME, HIMSS – Candace Stuart
Posted 1.18.2018 -
Year in Review: What 2017 Taught Us About the Changing Landscape of Data Integration
Orion Health Shares Its Top 6 Blog and Video Posts of the Year
SCOTTSDALE, AZ – January 16, 2018 – The future of healthcare is in its data, and easy exchange of data is the future of the industry. The Orion Health Knowledge Hub featured over 120 original blog and video posts in 2017 related to this topic.
Orion Health offers a full spectrum of data-driven healthcare solutions, from integration and interoperability to population health and precision medicine. The company accommodates healthcare organizations no matter where they are on their technology-adoption journey, leading to improved healthcare delivery and greater outcomes as they move through the data-platform continuum.
Here are the organization’s most popular entries of the year.
Making the interface engineer’s job easier
The major EMR vendors work hard to keep users on existing EMR platforms as long as possible, even if it means preventing users from taking advantage of big data, enhanced computing, increased data storage, and the financial incentives of value-based care. In this short clip, Damian Leopard, solutions consultant at Orion Health, explains why a hospital’s integration department no longer needs to go back to their EMR, financial system or HIS system vendor to ask for a new interface to be able to exchange information—such as patient demographics—with a new system downstream.
The security advantages the cloud gives us
A 2017 HIMSS Analytics Cloud Survey found that 65% of healthcare organizations currently use the cloud or cloud services. Several hospitals have moved to a totally “data-center free” environment. In this video, Steve Crusenberry, senior vice president, SaaS and operations, discusses the benefits of cloud storage over the use of traditional data centers. One key benefit to the cloud, Crusenberry explains, is that it gives users a deeper set of security controls, because many security tools and technologies are built into today’s cloud platform in order to keep patient records safe from prying eyes.
Does your health IT vendor protect you from ransomware?
According to the Identity Threat Resource Center (ITRC), 30% of all U.S. data breaches affect the healthcare sector, second only to the business sector. HIPAA Journal’s November 2017 Healthcare Breach Report showed that while the number of breaches was down month on month, the number of individuals impacted by healthcare data breaches actually increased.
Gerard Scheitlin, Orion Health’s chief risk officer and VP of security, risk, and assurance, shares the importance of asking IT vendors how they prevent and deal with ransomware attacks. In order to properly assess how prepared they are for a potential breach, Scheitlin advises asking IT vendors to explain their approaches to five key areas:
- Prevention
- Social engineering
- Reaction
- Technology
- Process
The seamless integration of systems
There are best practices for developing user profiles that improve data access for providers, rather than impeding it. Instead of only addressing the who of data access, user profiles ought to address why that data is being accessed to help support the various combinations of access and priority. It’s important to note that filtering by user profile and identity are not mutually exclusive approaches. By gatekeeping data access based on user credentials as well as identity, more of the right data becomes accessible without compromising security.
The two phases of machine learning in healthcare
A recent PWC study found that 39% of provider executives are investing in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics. In this video, Jeff Turpin, Orion Health’s director of product development, discusses the two phases of classic machine learning in healthcare and explains why access to real-time data is crucial for minimizing readmission risks and improving outcomes for patients.
Tailoring alerts to how physicians prefer to work
In this clip, Turpin talks about information overload and how it can be a huge issue for clinicians. However, having too little information can be a problem, too. A configurable, modern platform can increase users’ productivity by giving them the ability to tailor alerts in real time and minimize the time spent looking for the right information when they need it the most. Data is key to making the right decisions and fine tuning your systems so they can perform optimally in your setting.
Orion Health blog and video posts are curated on the company’s Knowledge Hub. Launched in early 2016, Orion Health’s Knowledge Hub is the place for experts to share their vision in the form of insightful videos, white papers, case studies, reports, webinars and blog posts. With a focus on enabling healthcare organizations to better serve patients everywhere, topics include interoperability, precision medicine, population health, value-based care, real-time analytics, artificial intelligence, EMRs, open APIs, care coordination, public health, and various other current trends and issues relevant to CIOs and other healthcare leaders. In healthcare, anything is possible with the right vision and the right technology, and Orion Health offers their Knowledge Hub as a way for healthcare leaders to navigate the ever-changing landscape of patient care so they can constantly improve the services they offer as we enter a value-based world.
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About Orion Health
Orion Health is a global healthcare technology company delivering interoperability, population health and precision medicine solutions. Thousands of clinicians use Orion Health software to deliver care for more than 100 million patients in more than 25 countries. The company employs over 1,200 people globally and is committed to continual innovation. For more information, visit orionhealth.com.
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Media Contact:
Marcia Rhodes: 480.664.8412 ext. 15; [email protected]
Posted 1.16.2018 -
Healthcare Luminaries Brent James, Eric Topol and Timothy Zoph Join Health Catalyst as Strategic Advisors
SALT LAKE CITY, UT – January 16, 2018 – Health Catalyst, a leader in healthcare data analytics, decision support and outcomes improvement, announced that three of healthcare’s most respected and well-known thought leaders are joining the company as strategic advisors. Brent James, M.D., Eric Topol, M.D., and Timothy Zoph bring to Health Catalyst many decades’ experience leading and inspiring a revolution in quality and the use of technology within world-class healthcare organizations.
Brent James, MD has been a global leader in bringing quality improvement science and methods to clinical care for over three decades. Dr. James recently left his position as the first Chief Quality Officer of Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City after playing a pivotal role in helping Intermountain to become internationally recognized for outcomes improvement and for establishing a deep culture of quality. As leader of the Intermountain Advanced Training Program, Dr. James has trained a globally diverse group of more than 5,000 senior physician, nursing, and administrative executives in clinical quality improvement science and methodology with proven improvement results, and over 50 “sister” training programs in more than 10 countries. He has been honored with numerous awards for quality and safety in the world of healthcare delivery, including the Deming Cup from the Columbia University School of Business in 2011 and the C. Jackson Grayson Medal, Distinguished Quality Pioneer—American Quality and Productivity Center in 2010.
Eric Topol, MD is Executive Vice President and Professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute, and the Founder and Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif. As a researcher, he has published over 1,100 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 190,000 citations, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. Dr. Topol previously ran the Cleveland Clinic heart program for 14 years, helping it to earn the No. 1 ranking by U.S. News and World Report for over 10 consecutive years. In 2012, he was voted the Most Influential Physician Executive in America by readers of Modern Healthcare. In 2016, Dr. Topol was awarded a $207 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to lead a significant part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, a one million American prospective research program. He is the author of two bestselling books on the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine and The Patient Will See You Now.
Timothy Zoph has more than 30 years of healthcare and IT experience with expertise in leadership development, security, strategy, IT consolidation, and facility design and construction.
One of the nation’s most respected and well-known healthcare CIOs, Zoph served for 21 years as Senior Vice President of Administration and CIO at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. In that role, he was responsible for technology strategy and delivery of information systems and had oversight for designing, building and activating over $1 billion of new facility projects. Under his leadership at Northwestern Medicine, the organization was named one of the “100 Most Wired Hospitals” 12 times. He was voted “CIO of the Year” twice, by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 2003, and by the Executives Club of Chicago in Cooperation with The Association of Information Technology Professionals in 2008.
“We are deeply honored that these three healthcare visionaries have elected to become strategic advisors to Health Catalyst and our clients,” said Dale Sanders, President of Technology for Health Catalyst. “Much of what we advocate in Health Catalyst can be traced back to the teachings and concepts that Brent James has championed for years. He’s known around the world for his tireless advocacy for pragmatic but dramatic improvements in clinical care and cost reduction. Tim Zoph and I worked together as CIO partners for several years at Northwestern. His influence, knowledge, mentorship and respect in the healthcare IT space is without peer. He’s also a digital business strategist, beyond healthcare, and grasped the importance of that before anyone in the industry. And Eric Topol is Eric Topol. What more can you say? He’s brilliant clinically and scientifically, and you won’t find anyone in the world who vocally challenges the status quo of healthcare, for the benefit of clinicians, patients and their rights, more than Eric. He is also a pinnacle of creativity and insight on the use of technology and data to improve healthcare.”
Tom Burton, President of Professional Services and Co-Founder of Health Catalyst, commented, “Brent James’ commitment to quality improvement and his confidence that we could do more for the industry was one of the key reasons Steve Barlow and I started Health Catalyst almost 10 years ago. Brent has been a friend, mentor and advocate of the company from the very beginning. We are thrilled to have him officially join Health Catalyst to directly help our customers improve outcomes.”
“We believe the cumulative effect of the strategic advice of these three industry giants will have a significant, positive impact on the lives of the nearly 100 million patients that our clients serve across the United States,” added Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst.
About Health Catalyst
Health Catalyst is a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company, committed to being a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare outcomes. We are the leaders in a new era of advanced predictive analytics for population health and value-based care with a suite of machine learning-driven solutions, decades of outcomes-improvement expertise, and an unparalleled ability to integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem. Our proven data warehousing and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 85 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Our technology and professional services can help you keep patients engaged and healthy in their homes and workplaces, and we can help you optimize care delivery to those patients when it becomes necessary. We are grateful to be recognized by Fortune, Gallup, Glassdoor, Modern Healthcare and a host of others as a Best Place to Work in technology and healthcare. Visit www.healthcatalyst.com, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
For more information contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications for Health Catalyst
916.346.4213
[email protected]Posted 1.16.2018 -
Nordic acquires The Claro Group’s revenue cycle transformation practice
MADISON, WI – January 16, 2018 – Nordic announced today that it has acquired the revenue cycle transformation practice of The Claro Group, LLC. With this acquisition, Nordic takes its first step beyond Epic-focused consulting and into the technology-agnostic management consulting world. This complements Nordic’s foundation as a leader in Epic revenue cycle solutions, recognized as a KLAS Category Leader as far back as 2014 and a KLAS top performer in revenue cycle optimization in 2017.
Managing Directors Cathy Smith and Shannon Yasseri will continue their roles from The Claro Group leading this complementary set of strategic revenue cycle services for Nordic. The revenue cycle transformation practice provides broad solutions across the revenue continuum focused on providing value, improving provider and patient experience, reducing avoidable losses, and improving financial performance. Its results-oriented, end-to-end tailored solutions focus on patient access to care, and clinical delivery through revenue realization.
“The acquisition of the revenue cycle transformation practice from The Claro Group is another step in our mission to create truly customized end-to-end solutions for our client partners,” Nordic CEO Bruce Cerullo said. “The approach that The Claro Group’s revenue cycle transformation practice has taken is a holistic view of the people, process, and technology – allowing us to provide a myriad of complementary services. This type of strategic guidance will be extremely beneficial to our clients.”
“We will miss our colleagues in the revenue cycle transformation practice a great deal,” Claro’s Chairman George Hansen said. “They are a world-class business who will succeed and expand with greater access to the resources and clients at Nordic. We at Claro are excited to re-focus on our core businesses including disputes, claims, investigations and our related practices.”
Smith founded the revenue cycle transformation practice at The Claro Group in January 2011 after a successful tenure as managing director of revenue cycle services at Huron. She previously served in leadership roles at Wellspring Partners and Arthur Andersen. She is a nationally-recognized expert in the areas of healthcare operational and financial management, patient financial services, and information technology with over 25 years of healthcare experience.
Yasseri joined The Claro Group in August 2011 and provides executive project oversight for its management consulting services. She has over 20 years of experience improving hospitals and health systems’ financial performance, including both net revenue realization and cost reduction efforts. Prior to joining The Claro Group, Shannon was a senior director at Huron and held senior roles at both Wellspring Partners and Vizient.
Together Smith and Yasseri’s teams have delivered over $100 million in proven net revenue increases for their clients by realigning staff and responsibilities, improving business office workflows, standardizing referral management, implementing revenue performance metric visualizations, and training clinicians on processes that change health outcomes and impact revenue.
During their tenure, The Claro Group appeared on Modern Healthcare’s list of largest revenue-cycle consulting firms from 2015-2016.
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Scott Gierman
Marketing Manager
O: 608.395.6985 | C: 618.694.9107Posted 1.16.2018 -
Kaleida Health CIO Cletis Earle Takes Helm as 2018 CHIME Chair
ANN ARBOR, MI, Jan. 16, 2018 – Cletis Earle, the 2018 chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Board of Trustees and senior vice president and CIO at Kaleida Health in Buffalo, N.Y., envisions a time when the healthcare IT community works as one to improve patient care, whether that means sharing strategies to strengthen cybersecurity or pooling resources to reach needy patients. He sees the IT community better reflecting the gender, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic profiles of the patient populations they serve.
“Collaboration and diversity are what I am most my passionate about as I enter the chairmanship position at CHIME,” he said. “Those are the two projects I would love to continue to emphasize and highlight.”
Cletis Earle, Chair, Board of Trustees, CHIME; Chief Information Officer, Kaleida Health
As board chair, Earle will help shape CHIME’s future direction and play a key role in the education, professional development and networking programs that provide CIO members with the knowledge and the skills to be transformational healthcare leaders. A CHIME member since 2006, he is active on CHIME’s Public Policy Steering Committee. In 2017, he represented CHIME at a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing about bipartisan legislation designed to improve the Medicare program.
“Cletis is a great champion for CHIME and our members,” said Russell Branzell, CHIME president and CEO. “Whether he’s talking to peers in Buffalo or policy makers in D.C., he presents a clear vision for how healthcare IT leaders can contribute to quality healthcare.”
Earle offers a program in Buffalo as an example of what can be achieved through collaboration. Recognizing their mutual challenges, healthcare IT executives in competing organizations in Buffalo put aside their rivalries to develop a regional anti-phishing campaign and other steps to strengthen cybersecurity. The collaborative culture they developed has prompted New York state health IT professionals to work together and with other groups on challenges like getting nutritious food to those in need. Those programs could complement efforts to provide preventive care to whole patient populations.
“If we are sharing and we’ve broken down some of those barriers through collaboration, it makes the next iteration easier,” Earle observed. “That is where population health is moving. It makes the communication chain that much more robust rather than limiting and therefore you have a better outcome.”
CHIME’s first African-American chair, Earle hopes to extend workforce initiatives to diversify the pool of healthcare IT staff and leaders. In Buffalo, he has been working with the mayor on programs that include visiting primary through high schools to talk with students about their career options. The program also brings children to health IT sites so they can get a first-hand look at facilities and the working environment.
“There is a lack of diversity in health IT, and it is not just female but also diversity of cultures and socioeconomic diversity,” he said. “We need to tackle this from all sides.”
Earle joined Kaleida Health in 2016 after five years as vice president and CIO at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Cornwall and Newburgh, N.Y. Prior to that position, he worked at Brooklyn Queens Health Care in Brooklyn, N.Y., in roles that included support manager, director of technology, vice president, CIO and privacy officer. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of New Rochelle in New York and a master’s degree in information systems from Strayer University in Washington, D.C.
His term as CHIME’s board chair began Jan. 1, 2018, and will run through the end of the year.
About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,500 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
Contact
Candace Stuart
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
734.665.0000
[email protected]Posted 1.16.2018 -
Ochsner Health System and Vital Images® Announce New Partnership
Deployment to include entire Vitrea® Enterprise Imaging solutions suite
NEW ORLEANS, LA – January 15, 2018 – Ochsner Health System and Vital Images announced today a partnership to deploy an enterprise imaging solution that will support Ochsner and its vision of a multidisciplinary, multifunctional medical image-management system. Through the partnership, Ochsner will deploy Vital’s family of software products, known as Vitrea Vision, Vitrea Connection and Vitrea Intelligence, to deliver a complete enterprise imaging solution across the health system.
Dawn Pevey, Ochsner’s Vice President of Service Lines, stated, “We look forward to a long and collaborative partnership with Vital and are pleased to have a partner who shares our values of placing patients first, innovating healthcare and leading with compassion and integrity.”
Founded in the steadfast belief that the patient is first, Vitrea Enterprise Imaging solutions orchestrate data, making it easily accessible throughout the enterprise and focus on providing context and clarity to the information presented at the point of care. They are scalable to meet the unique and evolving needs of a healthcare organization. Vitrea Enterprise Imaging solutions establish connectivity, interoperability, and information clarity.
According to Dawn Cram, Ochsner’s IS Enterprise Imaging Director, Ochsner selected Vital not only based on the merits of the proposed solution, but also on Vital’s commitment to standards, interoperability, partner success and innovation. “Ochsner is proud to be a leader in innovation and looks forward to partnering with an organization like Vital, which is willing to foster the changes needed to advance enterprise imaging through the next decade.”
Dr. Joseph Hajjar, Ochsner AMD and Associate CMIO Imaging, added, “Our decision to partner with Vital was driven by the holistic approach their solutions enable in imaging informatics. Vital’s Enterprise Imaging solutions provide tools that will assist us and our partners to continue our journey toward value- based care by making images, related patient data and analytics readily and intelligently available to both our patients and providers. Our radiologists and cardiologists were quite impressed by the full suite of viewing modules, ranging from a simple enterprise viewer to the many advanced subspecialty viewing modules available. We look forward to consolidating systems and simplifying interpreting physician workflows.”
“Vital is looking forward to the opportunity to work with such a renowned and respected healthcare organization,” said Jim Litterer, CEO and President of Vital Images. “We are eager to bring our solution to Ochsner and help them to further enhance the outstanding care they provide to patients. We know that Ochsner is on a quest to innovate and lead in the delivery of real-time healthcare, and we are pleased to be part of the team making that happen.”
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About Ochsner Health System
Ochsner Health System is Louisiana’s largest non-profit, academic, healthcare system. Driven by a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate, coordinated clinical and hospital patient care is provided across the region by Ochsner’s 30 owned, managed and affiliated hospitals and more than 80 health centers and urgent care centers. Ochsner is the only Louisiana hospital recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a “Best Hospital” across four specialty categories caring for patients from all 50 states and more than 80 countries worldwide each year. Ochsner employs more than 18,000 employees and over 1,100 physicians in over 90 medical specialties and subspecialties, and conducts more than 600 clinical research studies. Ochsner Health System is proud to be a tobacco-free environment. For more information, please visit ochsner.org and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
About Vital Images
Vital Images, Inc., a Canon Group company, is a leading provider of diagnostic imaging and enterprise informatics solutions to help healthcare organizations deliver exceptional care while optimizing resources across multi-facility organizations. The company’s solutions are scalable to meet the unique needs of hospitals and imaging centers and are accessible throughout the enterprise anytime and anywhere. For more information, visit
www.vitalimages.com, or join the conversation on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
Posted 1.15.2018 -
CHIME and HIMSS Name Randy McCleese CIO of the Year
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Jan. 15, 2018) – For decades, Randy McCleese has successfully bridged seemingly disparate communities. McCleese, CIO of Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Ky., has been welcomed at White House events and rural hospital board meetings. He has addressed policy makers in Washington, D.C., executives in health systems, his peers at health IT conferences and IT students at his local university. As a CIO, he has led strategic initiatives to bring innovations that improve efficiency and patient care to small and rural hospitals. And he has managed to do these herculean tasks – with limited resources – while also devoting countless hours to organizations that share his passion for healthcare IT and professional excellence.
Randy McCleese, FCHIME, LCHIME, CHCIO, FHIMSS, Chief Information Officer, Methodist Hospital
His outstanding service has earned him the 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year award. The award was announced today by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The award is given annually to a CIO who has shown significant leadership and commitment to the healthcare industry during his or her career. The recipient is selected jointly by the boards of CHIME and HIMSS.
As a CIO in a small and rural healthcare system, McCleese faces the same regulatory and institutional demands as his colleagues in large, urban systems. But he also must consider the needs of patients in remote towns and how to sustain those facilities and services. “My sights are set on not just what is going on with technology or in the hospitals,” he said. “I am heavily involved in the ambulatory area as well, in the clinics we have. Most of those patients can’t afford to drive 25 to 30 miles, or they are not able to drive 25 to 30 miles to the next biggest town.”
In April of 2017, McCleese joined Methodist, a 192-bed acute care hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital and a 19-practice physician network, where he oversees all IT functions. He previously served as vice president of information services and CIO at St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, Ky. He has been a member of CHIME since 1998 and an active participant in CHIME’s public policy initiatives since the program’s inception about a decade ago. He has held numerous leadership positions, including a member of the CHIME Board of Trustees from 2012-2015; CHIME Board chair in 2014; CHIME Foundation Board chair in 2015; and chair of the CHIME Policy Steering Committee in 2015.
In 2016, he won both the CHIME Federal Public Policy Award for CIO Leadership and the Outstanding Service Award. He has been on the CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO advisory panel and participated in the development of the CHIME Foundation Certified Healthcare Executive program. He became a CHIME fellow in 2012 and achieved CHIME lifetime status in 2014.
“Randy proves that you don’t have to be from a large organization to have a big impact in our industry,” said Russell Branzell, president and CEO of CHIME. “Randy has worked tirelessly in Washington on behalf of small and rural health systems by educating decision makers about their needs and constraints. He also helped broaden the perspective of our members and showed us how we can do more with less. This award is well-deserved recognition for his dedication and generosity.”
McCleese joined HIMSS in 1997 and became a HIMSS fellow in 2005. He has been an active member of the Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of HIMSS, serving on the board from 2002-2009, and as president from 2004-2005. In 2008, he initiated the chapter’s Kentucky Advocacy Day at the state legislature, an annual visit to state legislators that continues today. He also served as the vice chair of the national HIMSS Advocacy Committee in 2008, the same year he received the HIMSS Founders Leadership Award.
“Randy McCleese represents the highest standards of leadership, working with local, regional and state representatives to advocate and advance the value of digital technologies in improving the health of patients at his hospital and beyond,” said Hal Wolf III, president and CEO of HIMSS.
He has been active regionally and locally, too, helping to found the Northeast Kentucky Regional Health Information Organization and serving on the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE). In 2012, he was invited to represent KHIE at a White House town hall meeting on health IT, where he and 80 other healthcare IT leaders were recognized for their accomplishments. He also has taught IT courses as an adjunct faculty member at Morehead State University.
McCleese favors collaboration and focuses on the positive, which motivates those around him. “When you accentuate the positive, it multiplies itself and people do better,” he observed. He will be honored on March 5 at the 2018 CHIME-HIMSS CIO Forum in Las Vegas and will officially receive the award at the HIMSS18 conference that runs from March 5-9 in Las Vegas. The award is named for John E. Gall Jr., who pioneered implementation of the first fully integrated medical system in the world in El Camino Hospital in California in the 1960s.
About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,500 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
Contact
Candace Stuart
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
734.665.0000
[email protected]Posted 1.15.2018