• Spok Customers Receive Top Ranking from U.S. News & World Report®​

    All 21 adult ‘best hospitals’ in new 2019-20 rankings trust Spok for clinical communications

    SPRINGFIELD, VA – July 31, 2019 – Spok, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Spok Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPOK) and a global leader in healthcare communications, announced that all 21 adult hospitals named to U.S. News & World Report’s 2019-20 Best Hospitals Honor Roll use Spok clinical communication solutions to facilitate care collaboration and support exceptional patient care.

    “We are proud and honored that for seven consecutive years, all of the adult ‘Best Hospitals’ have been Spok customers,” said Vincent D. Kelly, president and chief executive officer of Spok Holdings, Inc. “We congratulate the Honor Roll hospitals for achieving this prestigious ranking. Partnering with all the best hospitals during a time of industry transformation has fueled our mission to continue to develop communication technology to make care collaboration easier.”

    The 2019-20 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll recipients are among the more than 2,200 hospitals and health systems in the U.S. that use Spok solutions to streamline communication and connect care teams with each other and the information they need, when they need it. In addition, nine of 10 hospitals on the 2019-20 Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll also trust Spok for clinical communications.

    U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in hospital rankings, has conducted the Best Hospitals rankings for 30 years. The rankings are among the most referenced by consumers because they are based primarily on objective data, including risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates, volumes, patient experience, patient safety, and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators. 

     

    About Spok 
    Spok, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Spok Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPOK), headquartered in Springfield, Virginia, is proud to be a global leader in healthcare communications. We deliver clinical information to care teams when and where it matters most to improve patient outcomes. Top hospitals rely on the Spok Care Connect® platform to enhance workflows for clinicians, support administrative compliance, and provide a better experience for patients. Our customers send over 100 million messages each month through their Spok® solutions. Spok is making care collaboration easier. For more information, visit spok.com or follow @spoktweets on Twitter.

    Spok is a trademark of Spok Holdings, Inc. Spok Care Connect is a trademark of Spok, Inc.

    Media Inquiries:
    Jill Asby
    +1 (952) 230-5363
    [email protected]

    Posted 7.31.2019

  • Alabama One Health Record and InterSystems Set New Standard in Disaster Preparedness Ahead of Hurricane Season

    InterSystems HealthShare powers Alabama’s state health information exchange to enable patient tracking and more accurate care amidst disaster recovery efforts

    CAMBRIDGE, MA – July 29, 2019 – The number of natural disasters the world has experienced has steadily increased over recent years, both in terms of volume and impact. According to the World Health Organization, every year natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires affect nearly 160 million people worldwide. Disaster preparedness is critical to ensuring human safety in the face of unpredictable events, which requires reliable access to patient health records. This is why Alabama One Health Record relies on InterSystems, a global leader in information technology platforms for health, business, and government applications, to power Alabama’s statewide health information exchange (HIE).

     

    Alabama One Health Record® is the State HIE in Alabama, covering 323 locations, 14 hospitals, and nearly three million lives. Its goal is to improve care coordination and patient access to health information, particularly for those living in rural areas. In the past year, Alabama One Health Record has used all the core services within the HealthShare product suite, including Unified Care Record, Patient Index, Health Connect, and Health Insight to help accomplish these goals.

    One purpose of Alabama’s HIE is to assist with recovery efforts in the form of patient tracking during and after natural disasters. For instance, when Hurricane Michael made landfall in October 2018, Alabama One Health quickly helped locate missing patients who were evacuated or had fled from Florida to neighboring states to seek medical care, and as a result of these efforts, 32 high-risk patients who were connected to Alabama facilities were located.

    In addition, the HIE worked with the Georgia Regional Academic Community Health Information Exchange (GRAChIE) to link networks to neighboring states in the event the hurricane impacted patients in Georgia.

    Alabama One Health has leveraged its experience from Hurricane Michael to become more closely connected with the state and local emergency management groups, and is now striving to be a more integral part of future emergency planning, whether for hurricanes, tornadoes, or other natural disasters and emergencies.

    “With InterSystems HealthShare, we demonstrated the value that HIEs have in recovery efforts surrounding natural disasters,” said Gary Parker, Director of Alabama One Health Record®. “We are working closely with InterSystems to expand our reach and pilot new use cases to further improve patient care in Alabama and accommodate the additional hospitals and patients that are in line to be connected through our system this year.”

    Alabama One Health Record® is in the midst of expanding its recovery services by providing first responders with access to the HIE, enabling them to see the patient’s Unified Care Record while in the field and deliver more timely and accurate information while en route to the Emergency Department’s EHR. Enabling access to a patient’s holistic health record enables first responders to better respond to who may be suffering from substance abuse or behavioral health problems, and ensure they administer the appropriate care.

    “Alabama One Health Record® has proven that with the right technological support, healthcare organizations can ensure patient safety and save lives, even in the face of record-breaking natural disasters,” said Don Woodlock, VP of HealthShare. “We are eager to expand our relationship with Alabama One Health Record® and continue to support their preparedness efforts as we head into another hurricane season.”

    For more information about the HealthShare product suite, visit https://www.intersystems.com/products/healthshare/.

    About InterSystems 
    InterSystems is the information engine that powers some of the world’s most important applications. In healthcare, finance, government, and other sectors where lives and livelihoods are at stake, InterSystems has been a strategic technology provider since 1978. InterSystems is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), with offices worldwide, and its software products are used daily by millions of people in more than 80 countries. For more information, please visit http://www.intersystems.com/.

    Contacts

    Jackie D’Andrea 
    InkHouse PR 
    [email protected] 
    781-966-4143

    Posted 7.29.2019

  • Longstanding Client Expands Relationship with CynergisTek to Amplify Vendor Security Management

    Deep-Rooted Customer Enhances Existing Security Program by Leveraging Leading Cybersecurity Firm’s Managed Service to Assess and Mitigate Vendor and Third-Party Risks

    Austin, TX — July 25, 2019 – CynergisTek, Inc. (NYSE AMERICAN: CTEK), a leader in healthcare cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance, today announced that one of its longest-standing customers has expanded its relationship with the company by adding the Vendor Security Management (VSM) program to its existing privacy and security services. The large healthcare system currently contracts with CynergisTek for its Compliance Assist Partner Program (CAPP) and Patient Privacy Monitoring Program, as well as partners with the company to provide security assessments for a variety of its other affiliated locations.

    The healthcare system has adopted services to identify vulnerabilities and analyze risk to meet HIPAA requirements and ensure security weaknesses do not go undetected with its many supply chain partners. The organization now has three ongoing managed service partnerships with CynergisTek, including the latest addition of the VSM program for managing third-party risk.

    Vendors working with healthcare organizations have accounted for more than 20% of the breaches reported in 2019, and the largest. With the cybersecurity workforce shortage continuing to grow, coupled with budget constraints, organizations are facing the challenge of maintaining an effective security plan. CynergisTek’s VSM program supports organizations’ risk awareness and allows for seamless assessments of third-party vendors. Specifically, this offering monitors and evaluates vendors’ level of risk and compliance and determines how organizations can manage that risk in order to keep third parties accountable and address vendor security gaps.

    “The majority of our longstanding customers started out with our Risk Assessment service and then soon after joined our more comprehensive security program and became CAPP members,” said Mac McMillan, CEO and President, CynergisTek. “Recognizing other areas of need, we have added more managed services such as VSM, Managed Security Services, Medical Device Security Management, and Patient Privacy Monitoring Services. We are encouraged to see more of our clients adding these additional services to further strengthen their programs.” 

    Healthcare faces a daunting task in trying to keep pace with the many risks to information and systems. Additionally, third parties and their subcontractors can represent operational, reputational, financial, and compliance risks. Supply chain partners such as cloud providers, service providers, outsourcers, etc. form a critical component of most healthcare entities business strategy. Understanding and addressing the risk that these valuable business partners represent is critical to success. A proactive life cycle approach to vendor security enables protection of patient information and operations and supports positive supply chain partnerships.

    About CynergisTek, Inc,.
    CynergisTek is a top-ranked cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance management consulting firm dedicated to serving the healthcare industry. CynergisTek offers specialized services and solutions to help organizations achieve privacy, security, and compliance goals. Since 2004, the company has served as a partner to hundreds of healthcare organizations and is dedicated to supporting and educating the industry by contributing to relevant industry associations. The company has been named in numerous research reports as one of the top firms that provider organizations turn to for privacy and security and won the 2017 Best in KLAS award for Cyber Security Advisory Services.

    Forward-Looking Statements
    This release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of CynergisTek that can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “may” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties relating to product/service development, long and uncertain sales cycles, the ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection, market acceptance, future capital requirements, competition from other providers, the ability of our vendors to continue supplying the company with equipment, parts, supplies and services at comparable terms and prices and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Certain of these risks and uncertainties are or will be described in greater detail in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. CynergisTek is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

    ###

    Investor Relations Contact:
    CynergisTek, Inc.
    Bryan Flynn
    (512) 402-8550 x8
    [email protected]

    Media Contact:
    Aria Marketing
    Danielle Johns
    (617) 332-9999 x241
    [email protected]

    Posted 7.25.2019

  • CHIME’s First CI2O Innovation Summit to Include Innovation Guru Vijay Govindarajan

    ANN ARBOR, MI, July 25, 2019 – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is launching a new educational program designed to drive innovation in the industry, with one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation headlining the event. Through CHIME Innovation, CHIME will hold the first CI2O Innovation Summit on Sept. 19-20 in Chicago. The event is open to members of CHIME as well as healthcare executives from other organizations, with limited seating.
     
    The CI2O Innovation Summit explores the intersection between senior information executives and senior innovation executives using a format that is designed to encourage interaction and collaboration. The two-day event will include a keynote address from Vijay Govindarajan, a distinguished professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business who helped pioneer the concept of reverse innovation, which is any innovation first adopted in the developing world. He also will discuss the Three Box Solution, a strategy for optimizing an already existing business while simultaneously creating a new one. Winner of a 2019 50Thinkers Distinguished Achievement Award, he has published numerous books, including Reverse Innovation in Health Care: How to Make Value-based Delivery Work and The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation.
     
    “Many of our members are being asked to lead innovation in their healthcare organizations and they are looking to CHIME for guidance,” said Shafiq Rab, MD, chair of CHIME’s Board of Trustees, a CHIME Innovation Advisory Board member and senior vice president and CIO at Rush University Medical Center. “The summit will offer a roadmap by bringing information executives and innovation executives together to share ideas, learn from each other and be inspirited.”
     
    The CI2O Innovation Summit will include a mix of keynote presentations, fireside chats and moderated “fishbowl panels” that will let members of the audience join thought leaders in discussions about evolving roles, creating a culture of innovation, evaluating digital innovators and successes. It will feature prominent CIOs who have been at the forefront of innovation as well as executives in non-IT roles.
     
    “We want the CI2O Innovation Summit to be innovative as well as be about innovation,” said Jonathan Fritz, JD, executive director of CHIME Innovation. “Vijay Govindarajan will set the stage with concepts that have turned some executives on their heads – the idea that we can look at the developing world for high-quality, low-cost innovations that can transform health and care globally. We expect the ‘fishbowl panels’ will generate a lot of creative dialogue about what innovation truly means and why we need it in healthcare. We will pack a lot into just a day and a half of programming.”
     
    The CI2O Summit will be held Sept. 19-20 in the Convene-Chicago Building in Chicago. More information is available here. 
     
    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 2,900 members in 56 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners 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 care 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
    Posted 7.25.2019

  • CI2O Innovation Summit to Explore Intersection between Innovation and Information

     

    7.25.19
    By Liz Johnson, MS, FAAN, FCHIME, LCHIME, FHIMSS, CHCIO, RN-BC, Retired CIO
    Marc Probst, CIO, Intermountain Healthcare

    More and more, our members are being asked by their leadership to bring innovation into their healthcare organizations. For some, that change is reflected in a new job title and for others, in new duties folded into their role as CIO. This is an exciting opportunity, but also a potentially daunting one.

    To help healthcare leaders navigate this uncharted territory, CHIME Innovation is launching a new educational event: the CI2O Innovation Summit. The CI2O Innovation Summit will explore the intersection of information and innovation (hence the 2) by bringing together senior executives and thought leaders who are at the forefront of this movement. As summit co-chairs, we have challenged our steering committee to make the event itself innovative, putting aside traditional formats for an interactive experience designed to spur conversation and collaboration. Seating will be limited, with a maximum attendance of 75, but don’t expect to sit and be lectured. Instead, we will have “fishbowl panels” with a moderator, three or four thought leaders sitting at the center of a half circle or circle and one or two open seats available for anyone in the audience to join in and participate.

    We are stretching beyond CHIME’s traditional criteria for participation, too, making CHIME members eligible along with a limited number of healthcare executives from other organizations. Our goal is to encourage an exchange of ideas from diverse perspectives, to emphasize that innovation is applying a creative mindset to a problem. The solution may be a wildly novel technology that defies the imagination, or it may be an interesting twist on an existing strategy used successfully in another industry.

    We have a terrific keynote speaker with Vijay Govindarajan. A distinguished professor at Dartmouth and a former fellow at Harvard Business School, he helped pioneer the concept of reverse innovation – that is, any innovation first adopted in the developing world. You can read more about him and our other speakers here.

    The CI2O Innovation Summit will be Sept. 19-20 at the Convene-Chicago Building in Chicago. CHIME has reserved a block of rooms at the W Hotel City Center in Chicago. For more details and to register, go here. We will be there, and we hope to see you, too. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please email Jonathan Fritz, the executive director of CHIME Innovation, at [email protected].

    More Inside CHIME:

    Posted 7.25.2019

  • News of Note


    7.25.19
    Candace Stuart – Director, Communications & Public Relations

    CHIME’s Leslie Krigstein and Marc Probst make the case in D.C. for a nationwide unique patient identifier:  CHIME Vice President of Congressional Affairs Leslie Krigstein and CHIME Policy Steering Committee member Marc Probst recently participated in a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., to educate Senate staffers about the need for a nationwide unique patient identifier (UPI). The House has approved an amendment to lift a UPI ban. Members are encouraged to contact their senators now and ask them to follow suit. The policy team prepared a toolkit, which is available here.

    Piedmont Healthcare CIO Geoff Brown wins IT award: CHIME member Geoff Brown, CIO at Piedmont Healthcare, received a 2019 Southeastern Software Association (SSA) Impact Award from the Technology Association of Georgia. The award was given under the Corporate Internal (IT) Software Development Group title.  SSA Impact Awards recognize companies that have built notable software solutions that deliver a significant positive impact on customers and the business community.

    More Inside CHIME:

    Posted 7.25.2019

  • MUVE Health and Quil Announce Partnership, Bringing Personalized Digital Health Platform to Total Joint Replacement Surgery

    Reducing Cost and Improving Outcomes and Satisfaction for Consumers

    LEAWOOD, KS – July 24, 2019 – MUVE Health, a ValueHealth company, the nation’s premier value-based outpatient total joint replacement provider announces a new partnership with Quil, the digital health joint venture between Comcast NBCUniversal and Independence Blue Cross. Quil delivers an actionable and personalized digital health platform to patients and caregivers by using various navigation technology and interactive digital tools that smooth the normal fragmented experience of getting and paying for healthcare.

    Quil combines its healthcare and consumer engagement expertise with the powers of precision data, state-of-the-art technology and secure mobile apps to help individuals navigate today’s healthcare landscape. Quil serves individuals, healthcare providers, and payors nationally to deliver personalized episodic care pathway content through apps accessible through smartphones, tablets, computers, and televisions.

    MUVE Health’s protocol-driven Total Joint Replacement program delivers outstanding proven clinical outcomes via a combination of meticulously developed integrated care pathways, world-class surgical settings, and education-focused recovery suites delivered under Value Based contracts including prospective bundles with the country’s first Patient Outcome Warranty with reinsurance.

    ValueHealth has an ongoing commitment to payment reform and consumerism with an understanding that every healthcare journey is unique. Integrating Quil’s digital health journey platform expands Muve’s patient steerage and care capabilities to deliver step-by-step activities and content that better prepares patients and caregivers for surgery, discharge and recovery. Throughout a patient’s journey, the solution will integrate custom care plans, physical therapy and nurse navigation oversight that monitors thresholds and triggers follow up care, enhancing MUVE Health’s proprietary integrated care pathways and recovery guidance and overall patient satisfaction and outcomes.

    Carina Edwards, CEO, Quil, stated, “At Quil, we believe that to deliver real value, you need to meet patients where they are to drive deep patient engagement. We know that adherence to care plans and reducing the anxiety around surgical events results in reduced risk and improved patient health outcomes. We are proud to support MUVE Health as it transforms the delivery of total joint replacement care.”

    “At Muve, we pride ourselves on delivering clinical and economic value by providing a patient experience that exceeds our clients’ expectations,” said Rod Carbonell, President of MUVE Health, LLC. “Quil’s platform will innovate how information and content is shared among patients, their families and caregivers, empowering them to be their own recovery champions during their surgical episode of care. We are excited to launch this phase one of our integrated platform in our Mid-Atlantic and Texas regions before expanding to additional high priority markets.”

    “This is the first phase of a national partnership that will accelerate the transformation to value based high performance orthopaedic care facilities which deliver an unprecedented consumer experience, bring transparency to patient cost and enable the consumer to be empowered in their engagement in the care and recovery process,” said John Palumbo, Executive Chairman of ValueHealth. Earlier this year, ValueHealth, the parent company to NueHealth and MUVE Health, announced a national partnership with Rothman Orthopaedics transforming orthopaedic clinical practices in total joint outpatient surgical care. Layering in the Quil partnership deepens ValueHealth’s roots as a technology-enabled and data-driven company. Ultimately, it helps enable ValueHealth’s ability to perform in a value-based care model offering bundles with warranty to deliver exceptional clinical and quality outcomes.

    Quil, headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, was a natural fit for the MUVE Health organization as it continues to expand its Philadelphia market development with three joint venture hyper-specialty centers this year with Rothman Orthopaedics.

    Media Contact: 
    Whitney Courser 
    913.387.0674 
    [email protected]

    About MUVE Health

    MUVE Health is the nation’s premier value-based outpatient total joint replacement provider. MUVE Health’s protocol-driven orthopaedic program delivers outstanding clinical outcomes at a predictable cost, in an optimized outpatient environment, unparalleled in recovery guidance and patient experience. MUVE Health is expanding nationally in 2019 with three centers currently under development in the Philadelphia market and three additional centers in Texas. The Muve program has received The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Advanced Certification for Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement. Muve’s Lakeway location is the first ASC in the state of Texas to earn this advanced certification, awarded exclusively to Joint Commission-accredited hospitals, critical access hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers seeking to elevate the quality, consistency and safety of their services and patient care. For more information, visit www.MUVEhealth.com.

    About Quil

    Quil, a digital health company, delivers actionable and personalized health itineraries for patients and caregivers, answering the question “What Happens Next?” in their healthcare journeys. We combine the powers of precision data, state-of-the-art technology, and security with unparalleled consumer reach to help individuals navigate today’s chaotic healthcare landscape. Headquartered in Philadelphia, PA with additional offices in New York City, Quil serves individuals, healthcare providers, and payors nationally. For more information, visit www.quilhealth.com.

    About ValueHealth

    ValueHealth is the parent company to NueHealth and MUVE Health and is a technology-enabled, market-based platform that assists payors and providers in delivering prospective bundle payment arrangements which are an alternative to high-cost fee-for-service surgical care for their members and patients. ValueHealth’s platform affiliates: NueHealth, MUVE Health, Benefit Management, Healthcare RE and the ValueHealth Transformation Center uniquely position the platform to deliver high-value surgical care benefiting payors, employers, providers and patients. ValueHealth redefines what it means to be a healthcare network. Its Ambulatory Centers of Excellence (ACE)™ network platform facilitates new levels of accessibility, alignment, risk readiness and consumer transparency. For more information, visit www.valuehealth.com.

    About Rothman Orthopaedics

    Since its founding in 1970, Rothman Orthopaedics has grown from a single Philadelphia office into one of the nation’s largest and most-respected orthopaedic practices. Rothman Orthopaedics remains consistently focused on treating both routine and complex musculoskeletal issues that result in a higher quality of life for its patients. It’s a research pioneer committed to uncovering the root cause of orthopaedic diseases and injuries and finding better ways to treat them. It’s a teaching organization that trains dozens of residents and fellows each year and conducts teaching sessions via simulcast and webcast to colleagues around the world. As the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute has grown in capability, staff and reputation, it has broadened its reach into dozens of communities throughout the Philadelphiasuburbs, New Jersey and New York. For more information, visit www.rothmanortho.com.

    Posted 7.24.2019

  • A Look at Past Award Winners and How You Can Participate

    7.25.19
    By Zach Donisch, By Zach Donisch, Director, Membership Services

    The deadline for submitting applications and nominations for CHIME and CHIME Foundation awards is rapidly approaching. Would you like to be a contender, or know someone you think is worthy?  Here is a look at three past award winners and their contributions to healthcare: Liz Johnson; 2014 Federal Public Policy Award for CIO Leadership; Randy McCleese, 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year Award; and Dana Sellers, 2017 CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award.

    Liz Johnson, 2014 Federal Public Policy Award for CIO Leadership

    Liz Johnson started in healthcare as a nurse, and she has never lost sight of the needs of clinicians and patients in the next phase of her career in health IT. Liz retired this year as chief innovation officer at Tenet Healthcare following three years as CIO of Acute Care Hospitals and Applied Clinical Informatics at Tenet and more than a decade in other executive informatics roles. Along the way she developed a passion for public policy that made her a standout in the CHIME Policy Steering Committee and in Washington, D.C. Read more here.

    Randy McCleese, 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year Award

    “I grew up as one of 10 children on a hardscrabble farm in northeast Kentucky, so this award is tremendous.  However, it was not possible without the tremendous support of my family and coworkers.” So said Randy McCleese about being recognized at the CHIME HIMSS Spring CIO Forum for being named winner of the 2017 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year Award. Randy has been a strong advocate for small and rural healthcare systems and an inspiration for many of his colleagues. Read more here.

    Dana Sellers, 2017 CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award

    Dana Sellers has had a myriad of successes in her career. The co-founder of Trinity Computing Systems and Encore Health Resources, she began her career as a systems engineer for IBM but was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. As the then-retired CEO of Encore, she added another title to her long list: the 2017 CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award. Read more here.

    This year some outstanding members from CHIME and the CHIME Foundation will be named winners of CHIME awards. Learn about CHIME’s various awards and eligibility criteria here. Nominations will close on July 29.

    More Inside CHIME:

    Posted 7.24.2019

  • MphRx Secures Certification on New G-Cloud 11 Framework

    London – July 24, 2019 – My Personal Health Records Express (MphRx) today announced that they are again confirmed as a supplier on the UK Government’s G-Cloud framework, part of the Digital Marketplace.

    With the G-Cloud 11 Framework Agreement, MphRx can offer Minerva, an Open-standards based Digital Health Interoperability Platform to all public healthcare (NHS) organizations across the UK. It is listed under the ‘Cloud Software’ service type on the Digital Marketplace.

    Through the framework, public sector bodies can deploy, host and support cloud-based software faster and cost-effectively compare to entering into individual procurement contracts. All public sector organizations, including agencies and arm’s length bodies, can use the Digital Marketplace and G-Cloud framework, coordinated by the Crown Commercial Service of Cabinet Office.

    The platform will allow NHS organizations to aggregate health data from disparate healthcare IT systems into a single unified health record. The unified health record can be leveraged to engage patients and care providers using easy to use and intuitive Web and Mobile applications. The platform can be used to automate and digitally transform healthcare processes to drive higher efficiency and better outcomes. Being open and standards-based, Minerva provides Open FHIR APIs to allow innovation and collaboration in a vendor neutral manner.

    “Securing a spot on the G-Cloud 11 framework further reaffirms our commitment to the UK marketplace. We are very excited to leverage this opportunity to offer Minerva to drive better outcomes through digital transformation. Our presence on the framework allows NHS organizations to accelerate the implementation of their Digital Roadmaps and Transformation plans in a cost-effective manner,” said Varun Anand, Co-Founder & COO at MphRx.

    -ENDS-

    About MphRx
    MphRx, Inc. is a rapidly growing healthcare technology company headquartered in New York, with presence in the UK, Australia, Singapore, India and Brazil.

    MphRx has created the Minerva, a Digital Health platform with deep interoperability at its core. Minerva is currently deployed in over 20 countries with health systems leveraging its capabilities to drive their Interoperability and Digital transformation initiatives for over 80 million patients. MphRx is an EN ISO 13485 and ISO 27001 certified organization.

    For more details, visit www.mphrx.com or contact us at [email protected].

    PR Contact
    Varun Anand
    [email protected]
    Office: (561) 866 4156

    Posted 7.24.2019

  • Pivot Point Consulting Provides Services for Bayhealth to Alleviate IT and EHR Operational Burdens and Free Up Resources for Strategic Initiatives.

    NASHVILLE, TN – July 24, 2019 – Healthcare IT consulting leader, Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company, introduced a modern solution for healthcare systems facing challenges around utilizing costly IT consultant labor. Their new On-Demand service gives organizations access to certified IT experts when needed. It provides a flexible resourcing model that adjusts to meet any organization’s budget and includes a proven Service Request process to ensure success.

    Pivot Point will work with Bayhealth to provide a team of Epic certified professionals, business intelligence developers, interface analysts and 3rd party application experts to support their application environment, reporting team and interface development.

    The On-Demand team will perform general application break fix, tier-2 application tasks, BI, interface and reporting development. This will free up Bayhealth’s team from day-to-day EHR and IT maintenance allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives.

    About Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company
    Pivot Point Consulting enables healthcare organizations to realize the most value from their technology and data through their KLAS ranked advisory, implementation/optimization, managed services and talent solutions.

    The company provides strategy and consulting services for providers, payers and life sciences organizations – with 350+ consultants serving over 85 clients across the United States. Pivot Point Consulting has earned many industry and workplace quality awards including: Top three Best in KLAS for HIT Implementation and Support for four years running (2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018), Highest Rated Vendor in KLAS Implementation Services in the Select Category (July 2017), #1 in KLAS for Epic Consulting in the Select Category (2016), #9 in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in 2016.

    For more information about Pivot Point Consulting, visit http://www.pivotpointconsulting.com. Follow us on LinkedIn.

    About Bayhealth
    Bayhealth’s mission is to strengthen the health of our community, one life at a time. As central and southern Delaware’s largest healthcare system, Bayhealth is comprised of Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus and Bayhealth Hospital, Sussex Campus, the freestanding Emergency Department in Smyrna as well as numerous satellite facilities and employed physician practices encompassing a variety of specialties. Bayhealth is a technologically advanced not-for-profit healthcare system with more than 3,700 employees and a medical staff of more than 400 physicians. Bayhealth is an affiliate of Penn Medicine for Heart and Vascular, Cancer and Orthopaedics. In Fiscal Year 2018, Bayhealth recorded 96,858 emergency department visits, 18,963 patients admitted to beds, 2,303 births, and provided $62.3 million in unreimbursed care to patients. Visit Bayhealth.org for more information.

    Media Contact
    Emily Brock
    [email protected]

    Posted 7.24.2019

  • Reducing Medical Errors with a Nationwide Unique Patient Identifier

    For more information, please contact: 

    Rachel Bowen
    AHIMA Public Relations
    312-558-1770
    Candace Stuart
    CHIME, Director of Communications
    734-665-0000

    Reducing Medical Errors with a Nationwide Unique Patient Identifier

    AHIMA and CHIME urge Senate to support lifting ban on federal funding for unique patient identifier
     
    WASHINGTON – July 22, 2019 – Health information management leaders told members of Congress today that removal of a nearly two-decade ban on the use of federal funds to adopt a nationwide unique patient identifier would allow collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the private sector to identify solutions for reducing medical errors and protecting patient privacy.
     
    The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and theCollege of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) hosted the Congressional briefing to encourage Senate support for the U.S. House of Representatives’ recent repeal of the ban as part of the FY2020 Labor, HHS and Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations bills.
     
    During the briefing, members of the American Medical Informatics Association and the American College of Surgeons joined AHIMA and CHIME in recounting existing patient identification challenges and the patient safety implications when data is matched to the wrong patient and/or when essential data is lacking from a patient’s record due to identity issues.
     
    “Critical to patient safety and care coordination is ensuring patients are accurately identified and matched to their data,” said AHIMA CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE. “The time has come to remove this archaic ban and empower HHS to explore a full range of patient matching solutions hand in hand with the private sector focused on increasing patient safety and moving us closer to achieving nationwide interoperability.”
     
    “Now more than ever we need a nationwide unique patient identifier to ensure that patients are correctly identified in our increasingly digital healthcare ecosystem,” said CHIME President and CEO Russell Branzell. “This is a top priority for our members. We applaud the House for taking a leadership role on this issue by removing the ban and we strongly encourage the Senate to do the same.”
     
    The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) originally required the creation of a unique health identifier in 1998. However, Congress included language as part of the annual appropriations process that prohibited the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from using federal funds intended for the creation of a unique patient identifier out of privacy concerns.
     
    Not having a unique patient identifier system means that healthcare providers typically rely on a patient’s name and date of birth to identify their medical records in electronic health record (EHR) systems—information that is often not unique to one individual. This means that providers often have a difficult time properly identifying patients and often incorporate medical information into the wrong health record.
     
    “Those of us who work in provider organizations have seen the serious consequences of this ban on patients and their families,” said Marc Probst, CIO at Intermountain Healthcare and a member of the CHIME Policy Steering Committee. “Misidentifications threaten patient safety and drive unnecessary costs to health systems in an era when the industry and Congress are trying to lower healthcare costs. Congress has an opportunity to fix this, but only if the Senate also removes the ban on a unique patient identifier.”   
     
    Speakers at the briefing included:
     
    • Marc Probst, MBA, CHCIO, Chief Information Officer and Vice President, Intermountain Healthcare
    • Shaun Grannis, MD, MS, FAAFP, Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics, Regenstrief Institute, Inc.
    • Frank G. Opelka, MD, FACS, Medical Director, Quality and Health Policy, American College of Surgeons
    • Katherine Lusk, MHSM, RHIA, FAHIMA, Chief Health Information Management and Exchange Officer, Children’s Health System of Texas
    • Moderators, Leslie Krigstein, VP Congressional Affairs, CHIME and Lauren Riplinger, VP Policy & Government Affairs, AHIMA
     
    About AHIMA
    The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) represents more than 103,000 health information professionals in the United States and around the world. AHIMA is committed to promoting and advocating for best practices in health information and to actively contributing to the development and advancement of health information professionals worldwide. AHIMA’s mission is to empower people to impact health.www.ahima.org
     
    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, representing more than 2,900 members in 56 countries. CHIME enables senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve.
    Posted 7.22.2019

  • InterSystems and Rhodes Group Streamline Mobile Specimen Collection and Labeling Procedures

    Powered by InterSystems IRIS for Health, the eMyLabCollect application simplifies and automates lab processes and reduces errors

    CAMBRIDGE, MA – July 22, 2019 – InterSystems, a global leader in health information technology, and Rhodes Group, a specialized laboratory software company, announced the launch of eMyLabCollect, a cloud-based application built to streamline specimen collecting, tracking, and labeling and to automate laboratory receiving and processing procedures. Developed on InterSystems IRIS for Health™, eMyLabCollect is ideal for use by reference labs and large regional hospitals with multiple hospital information systems (HIS) or laboratory information systems (LIS).

    eMyLabCollect is independent of any particular LIS or HIS and can integrate with any system via an HL7 message. Doing so allows specimen collection to flow seamlessly from settings within or outside the hospital, such as long-term care facilities or home care locations. For instance, a mobile provider can now take five samples at a nursing home, three of which are for one hospital and two for another, and immediately print the correct instrument-ready and barcoded label for each patient and track the orders back to the correct source and corresponding physician or facility. eMyLabCollect eliminates relabeling and transcription errors and dramatically reduces labor and time in receiving processes at the lab.

    “InterSystems was a strong, collaborative partner in the development of eMyLabCollect,” said Steve Ayer, CEO of Rhodes Group. “We’ve built a partnership with InterSystems that grows and adjusts with us as the company grows and adjusts to new market needs. We employed an agile development cycle, leveraging InterSystems IRIS for Health our high-performance data platform, which enabled rapid, continuous development to adjust certain aspects while it was in progress to better suit the desired outcome.”

    The eMyLabCollect application was built on InterSystems IRIS for Health in about six months together with longtime InterSystems partner Sebrio Consulting.

    Applied features of eMyLabCollect include:

    • Healthcare Interoperability Standards Support (using HL7 feeds)
    • Healthcare message model/built-in transformations between modern and legacy data formats regardless of source
    • Scalability. eMyLabCollect was built as a multi-tenant solution leveraging containers and sharding to grow without having to re-architect.
    • Flexibility to move in the future to a different cloud, or on-premise. It allows for the addition of more health systems without sacrificing speed or performance.

    “Rhodes Group is at the forefront of the lab evolution – from a transactional entity to a strategic partner in healthcare,” said Don Woodlock, vice president of HealthShare®, InterSystems. “We are excited to see InterSystems IRIS for Health serve as the foundation for an application that will help shape the future of how labs interact with providers and payers.” 

    About Rhodes Group
    Rhodes Group, founded in 2000, provides laboratory software solutions and consulting services to improve the effectiveness of pre-analytical, post-analytical and revenue cycle management processes.  C21 is Rhodes’ LIS-neutral 21st Century Lab IT infrastructure that optimizes laboratory operations and clinical diagnostics to help labs address the challenges of today and prepare for the future. The Rhodes Group team brings more than 100 years of laboratory and technology experience to help labs significantly reduce costs, improve patient outcomes, and navigate the new Lab marketplace. For more information, visit rhodesgroup.com.

    About InterSystems
    InterSystems is the information engine that powers some of the world’s most important applications. In healthcare, finance, government, and other sectors where lives and livelihoods are at stake, InterSystems has been a strategic technology provider since 1978. InterSystems is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), with offices worldwide, and its software products are used daily by millions of people in more than 80 countries. For more information, please visit http://www.intersystems.com/.

    Media Contact
    Maddie Brosler | Account Executive
    Contact | [email protected]

    Posted 7.22.2019
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