• 71% of Healthcare Leaders Report Limited to No Integration of Their Patient Engagement Capabilities

    CHIME global research reveals inconsistent, disjointed patient experiences remain chronic pain point for healthcare providers

     

    • A majority of survey respondents cite inconsistent patient experiences across interaction points (63%) and disjointed patient experiences (58%) as significant or extreme challenges for their organization
    • Integrating patient capabilities is a high priority for 55%; however, fragmented ownership of engagement capabilities and limitations of legacy IT infrastructure represent obstacles to combining these functions onto a single platform
    • A cloud-based, integration-first platform that supports a range of channels and functional areas offers a remedy to long, costly custom integration projects and paves the way for more unified, seamless patient journeys

     

    SAN FRANCISCO–Sept. 29, 2022–Talkdesk®, Inc., a global cloud contact center leader for customer-obsessed companies, in collaboration with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), today released a new research report, The Future of Patient Experience: Unifying Interactions in Healthcare. The report examines the causes and far-reaching consequences of disconnected patient experiences and sheds light on the barriers to technology consolidation. 

     

    Healthcare providers have made significant investments in recent years to better orient care around patients. Along with those efforts, many have adopted digital technologies, resulting in unintended negative consequences. While delivering greater access to channels and automation, the technology often takes the form of disparate point solutions, creating siloed data and fragmented patient interactions. In fact, 71% of survey respondents say their organizations have limited to no integration of patient engagement capabilities. 

     

    Fragmentation in patient interactions is a widespread problem for healthcare providers and can lead to critical information gaps, failure to effectively address patient issues, and even worsened patient outcomes. It can also cause friction for patients as well as patient services staff, and drive burnout and attrition for the latter. Survey respondents cite inconsistent (63%) and disjointed (58%) patient experiences among their most pressing challenges. As patients have more choices for their healthcare interactions and consumer expectations for great service become higher, it is essential provider organizations use technology that transform patient engagement capabilities.

     

    “Consistently high-quality experiences before, between, and after clinical encounters are critical to the health and well-being of patients, but more progress is needed in the healthcare sector’s evolution to a journey that is truly patient-centric, transparent, and accessible,” said Lorren Pettit, vice president, CHIME Digital Health Analytics. “Unifying the disparate components of patient interactions to deliver experiences that are straightforward and easy to navigate is a clear opportunity for bringing that vision to life.”

     

    In pursuit of this vision, more than half (55%) of those surveyed consider integration of their patient engagement capabilities a high priority for the coming year. A sizable number (84%), however, do not think this can easily be accomplished at their organization via any existing platform. They view de-centralized ownership of related capabilities and inflexibility of existing technology architecture as the most significant barriers such an approach would need to overcome. 

     

    “The internal barriers faced by healthcare leaders aren’t surprising given the high cost, time, and organizational will it takes to consolidate patient engagement point solutions,” said Patty Hayward, vice president of healthcare and life sciences strategy, Talkdesk. “A cloud-based, integration-first platform that supports a range of channels and functional areas offers an alternative to custom integration projects and paves the way to more unified, seamless patient journeys.”

     

    To read more of the research findings, download the report, The Future of Patient Experience: Unifying Interactions in Healthcare.

     

    Methodology

     

    The report was based on a quantitative online survey conducted in collaboration with CHIME Digital Health Analytics, a global market intelligence and survey research hub. The survey was fielded in July 2022 to senior leaders in healthcare. Findings are based on 115 global interviews with executives from healthcare systems, hospitals, ambulatory facilities/physicians offices, and nursing facilities. Leaders primarily represented IT functions, but also patient experience, clinical experience, and operations. 

     

    Additional Resources: 

     

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    About Talkdesk

    Talkdesk® is a global cloud contact center leader for customer-obsessed companies. Our automation-first customer experience solutions optimize our customers’ most critical customer service processes. Our speed of innovation, vertical expertise, and global footprint reflect our commitment to ensuring that businesses can deliver better experiences across any industry and through any channel, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and accelerated business outcomes. 

     

    Talkdesk is a registered trademark of Talkdesk, Inc. All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.  

     

    Media Contact: 

     

    Camille Beasley 

    [email protected]

    (972) 896-1936

    Posted 9.29.2022

  • 10 Healthcare Organizations Band Together To Urge HHS To Postpone Information Sharing Compliance Deadlines

    WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2022 – Today, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), along with nine (9) other healthcare provider organizations, sent a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Xavier Becerra, requesting that HHS offer providers an additional year to comply with the October 6th, 2022 information sharing deadline.

    CHIME has been an ardent supporter of information sharing – and continues to advocate for patients’ ability to access their healthcare information in a digital format. In order to meet the rapidly approaching deadline, CHIME members have been working diligently, with scarce resources at times, to ensure they are prepared to be in compliance when the upcoming deadline goes into effect.

    “CHIME members remain steadfast in their dedication to be a trusted partner for patients and safeguard their ability to access their healthcare records, but it’s clear that more time is needed to ensure that providers have a thorough understanding of these important policies,” said Russ Branzell, President and CEO of CHIME. “There has not been enough guidance on best practices and potential enforcement.” Overwhelming feedback from CHIME members, representing a broad range of providers from across the healthcare continuum – including their electronic health record (EHR) vendors, indicates that they are not fully prepared for the Oct. 6 deadline.

    With clinician burnout rates at an all-time high, CHIME believes that moving forward with unclear and inconsistent information sharing about data requirements could further strain healthcare providers, their support staff, and may inadvertently undermine HHS’ goals to reduce provider burden, improve interoperability, and empower patients with their information. Branzell stated that the “need for clear guidance is so important, and we need to make sure that all healthcare providers fully understand the many nuances of these complex policies.”

    Additionally, there are many small and rural providers that rely heavily on their EHR vendors for regulatory compliance support. While several EHR vendors have initiated information sharing programs for their customers, there are still hundreds of smaller health information technology (health IT) vendors not yet ready to meet these complex requirements.

    In addition to postponing the compliance deadline, the letter also requests that HHS use corrective action warning communication to providers – especially before they impose any financial penalties or begin formal investigations. CHIME urges HHS to ensure that providers and clinicians have the guidance, education, and technology to support these new policies before full implementation and enforcement of information sharing regulations. We believe strongly in information sharing and want to see these policies succeed. A successful implementation of information sharing necessitates that all stakeholders have the critical tools, knowledge, guidance, and systems in place to meet the requirements of the deadline. This is simply not the case for the majority of the providers represented by CHIME.

    Download the Letter from 10 Industry Stakeholders to the US Department of Health and Human Services Urging Agency To Postpone Information Sharing Compliance Deadline.

    For any questions on the letter, email [email protected].

     

    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), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 5,000 members in 56 countries plus two U.S. territories and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME and its three associations provide 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.

     

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    Contact

    Calli Dretke
    Vice President & Chief Digital and Marketing Officer
    CHIME                                                                                                           
    734.412.6255
    [email protected]

    Mari Savickis                                                                               
    Vice President, Public Policy                                                            
    CHIME                                                                                                           
    202.294.3828
    [email protected]

    Posted 9.26.2022

  • BrightInsight Selects Lyniate to Enhance Interoperability

    Strategic Engagement Will Improve Information Exchange for Regulated Digital Health Solutions Built on the BrightInsight® Platform 

    BOSTON and SAN JOSE, Calif. (September 13, 2022) – BrightInsight, provider of the leading global platform for biopharma and medtech regulated digital health solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Lyniate, a global leader in healthcare data interoperability. BrightInsight selected Lyniate Envoy®, a managed service solution, to upgrade interoperability capabilities on its platform for regulated digital health solutions around the world.  

    BrightInsight selected Lyniate – ranked Best in KLAS® for 13 consecutive years – for its proven technology, experienced team, and flexible deployment options. Lyniate solutions are at work in 7,000 healthcare information-sharing deployments, connecting more than 1 million data endpoints across more than 1,700 healthcare organizations across 60 countries. Built on a deep understanding of workflows in and around the EHR, Lyniate Envoy connects data from any source to any destination in any format and brings this to the table to help customers overcome data-sharing barriers. Lyniate’s experience with FHIR, HL7, X12, CCD, C-CDA, MFT, and other health data standards across various EHR vendors including Epic, Cerner, Meditech, and others, allows for digital health solutions to be utilized by healthcare providers within their existing workflow. 

    Lyniate’s seamless data exchange capabilities will increase the value and impact of the regulated digital health solutions that are hosted on the BrightInsight Platform. Leading biopharma companies rely on BrightInsight and its Disease Management Solution to help their patients more easily manage their conditions. Having the ability to seamlessly integrate daily vitals and medication adherence information from a patient app to healthcare providers can enhance the clinical outcomes of a digital health solution. Similarly, having access to demographics and historical treatment information within the EHR allows for patient identification and diagnosis of different conditions, enabling biopharma companies to better connect patients with their therapies.  

    For medtech, BrightInsight’s Connected Diagnostics Platform enables In Vitro Diagnostics manufacturers to automate lab workflows, such as ordering and receiving results. Lyniate will enable integration with Lab Information Systems (LIS) to provide an integrated experience for the end lab users and more comprehensive visibility of usage and clinical insights for the manufacturers.  

    Partnering with Lyniate for interoperability is an important milestone in the newly launched BrightInsight Ecosystem. This new ecosystem brings together the world’s leading healthcare and technology companies to revolutionize patient care through digital health solutions. BrightInsight will serve as underlying infrastructure for biopharma and medtech regulated digital health solutions, which require a reputable, flexible, data integration solution. 

    “The BrightInsight Ecosystem of partners is working to solve the biggest healthcare challenges to drive digital engagement and put the patient at the center of care,” said Ferry Tamtoro, Chief Technology Officer of BrightInsight. “We selected Lyniate because we are wholly aligned on security and patient privacy and share the same commitment to customer success. Lyniate really stands alone with their combination of scalability, flexibility, breadth of interfaces, and the trustworthiness of a solution based on one the most proven platforms in healthcare combined with their deep industry experience and longevity in the market.” 

    “This engagement is a testament to the sophisticated capabilities we offer to reliably integrate into hospitals and health systems across the globe. Through this partnership, BrightInsight is able to connect Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) solutions to healthcare organizations in markets critical to biopharma and medtech companies, including the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific,” said Erkan Akyuz, CEO of Lyniate. “We continue to see increasing demand for solutions that meet the stringent security and privacy requirements of regulated biopharma and digital therapeutic segments. Lyniate is committed to extending its leadership as a premier interoperability partner and is pleased to partner with BrightInsight to serve these markets.” 

    The Lyniate Envoy and BrightInsight teams are currently migrating interfaces to the Lyniate platform, which are planned to go live on BrightInsight customer selected sites before the end of the year. 

    About BrightInsight: 
    BrightInsight provides the leading global platform for biopharma and medtech regulated digital health solutions. When speed matters, we help companies accelerate time to market for regulated digital health offerings across therapeutic areas, including apps, healthcare provider interfaces, analytics dashboards, algorithms, medical devices, connected combination products, diagnostics and Software as a Medical Device (SaMD). BrightInsight replaces the need for lengthy and complex ‘build from scratch’ implementations by offering configurable software solutions and a proven platform built on Google Cloud under a Quality Management System to support global security, privacy and regulatory requirements. When building digital health products on the BrightInsight Platform, compliance is future-proofed as intended use changes scale across geographies. 

    For more information, visit BrightInsight’s website, Blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. 

    Posted 9.15.2022

  • Clearsense Unveils New Website and Updated Company Brand

    Clearsense®, a specialized healthcare analytics company that increases the value of data and provides governance and transparency, has just unveiled a completely new website and refreshed brand.

    Jacksonville, FL (September 14, 2022) It’s official: Clearsense has a bold new look. Launching a new website with refined messaging, videos, and other marketing materials that provides a deeper glimpse into the value of Clearsense’s family of products, services, and their next-generation data management and delivery platform.

    The Clearsense rebrand comes on the heels of their new Chief Marketing Officer, Larry Kaiser, who took the helm in January of 2022. Updating the website was the first priority, setting the globally-focused analytics firm apart from its competition.

    “When we designed our new website and marketing materials, we wanted to elevate not just our company- but the industry as a whole,” stated Chief Marketing Officer Larry Kaiser. “We wanted to showcase a data platform that was innovative, robust, and most importantly, easy-to-use. The new website and updated branding showcase the company’s strategic growth vision.”

    With rich details that feature an inside view of the platform and its robust add-on services, the website features colorful iconography, easy-to-access video demos, and product screenshots. Showcasing how healthcare providers and organizations can gain important insights from trusted data, the tools and services allow any team to take data to an entirely new level.

    Launched today, the new fully responsive Clearsense website will continue to be updated with industry-leading and thought-provoking whitepapers, case studies, and insights to elevate conversations around technology, data, governance, and transparency.

    Featuring members of the leadership, delivery, and data science teams, the site features relevant and timely posts to help any healthcare CIO or team remain fresh in today’s tumultuous healthcare landscape.

    The Clearsense rebrand features new insights, whitepapers, blog posts, and so much more. Already garnering attention, the Clearsense rebrand focuses on making the brand even more sustainable.

    About Clearsense

    Committed to leading transformation in healthcare, Clearsense® creates a data journey, all the way from number to key insight. Cloud-based, AI-enabled, and HITRUST-certified, the platform of data solutions ensure data governance, implementation, and analytics are rapidly mainstreamed while remaining scalable and secure. Driving faster outcomes in clinical, financial, and operational environments, Clearsense is powering the innovation of tomorrow—right now. Learn more at Clearsense.com.

    Kate-Madonna Hindes
    Director of Marketing
    [email protected]

     

    Posted 9.15.2022

  • Stoltenberg Consulting’s Health IT Industry Outlook Survey Reveals Hospital CIO Plans Amid IT Talent Strain

    PITTSBURGH, August 30, 2022 — According to the 10th annual Health IT Industry Outlook Survey conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc., a leading healthcare information technology consulting firm, “retaining and budgeting for qualified IT resources” looms as hospitals and health systems’ most significant operational burden related to IT. Taking the top spot for a third consecutive year, IT talent strain earned 65% of survey votes — reaching an all-time high in 2022.

    To keep up with such resource burden and “great resignation” turnover, healthcare organizations seek new IT talent programs, with 54% of CIOs identifying “flexible IT staffing support to ramp up or down with real-time project demands” as the most desired area for additional support.

    “Hospitals are facing fierce competition for qualified IT staff,” said Stoltenberg Consulting CEO Sheri Stoltenberg, “yet they are also tasked with uncovering further pandemic recovery cost savings. Instead of frantic quick-fill tactics, IT departments must strategize a pipeline of cross-certified, on-demand resources. Utilizing a flexible IT support program curbs continuous onboarding cycles, eases pressure on existing staff for priority IT initiatives, and speeds up issue resolution to quickly return clinicians to patient care.”

    In joint efforts to maximize system value, “getting the most out of existing IT purchases” ranked as the highest CIO priority for IT-related financial goals at 64%, while catching up on “EHR new version upgrades and/or system alignment” earned the greatest IT spending focus at 43%. Both topped their categories for a second year in a row.

    Stoltenberg Consulting surveyed healthcare CIOs — all members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) — through a virtual survey. Survey participants represented a comprehensive spectrum of U.S. hospital facilities, including multi-hospital health systems, community hospitals, academic medical centers and ambulatory surgical facilities. This year’s findings mark a decade of the annual health IT survey report.

    For a complete look at the 2022 survey results including the CIO help desk wish list segment, click below:

    Access the Report

    About Stoltenberg Consulting
    For over 27 years, Stoltenberg Consulting has exclusively served the healthcare industry by providing customizable IT support solutions. FlexSourcing, Stoltenberg Consulting’s three-time Best in KLAS Partial IT Outsourcing program, delivers day-one ROI through a versatile, certified health IT support workforce — including Tier 1+ help desk services — that can scale up at any time. Averaging 15 years of experience, Stoltenberg analysts are skilled in both financial and clinical systems with best practice expertise for Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH, NextGen, Allscripts, and eClinicalWorks systems. To see how Stoltenberg simplifies healthcare technology, visit stoltenberg.com.

    Media Contact
    Shana Tachikawa, Director of Communications
    Stoltenberg Consulting
    [email protected]

     

    Posted 9.13.2022

  • Southern Ohio Medical Center leverages MEDITECH Expanse to lower hospital-acquired C. difficile rates by 30%

    MEDITECH Professional Services engagement leads to earlier detection, isolation, and treatment

    August 30, 2022 Since implementing new Expanse workflows and tools in early 2022, Southern Ohio Medical Center (Portsmouth, OH) has seen a 30% relative change in hospital-acquired infection of C. difficile and a 32% relative change in canceled tests.

    These impressive results were driven by a collaborative effort between SOMC’s Quality Improvement Team and MEDITECH Professional Services (MPS) to advance evidence-based care, improve patient outcomes, and streamline the inefficient testing processes that were consuming the staff’s time.

    “We are always looking for better ways to provide care,” said SOMC Vice President of Clinical Integration and Chief Quality Officer Valerie DeCamp, DNP, RN, A-GNP-C, NE-BC. “Our performance model is called A Better Way and our team, in partnership with MEDITECH Professional Services, did just that. We found a better way to detect C. difficile infections and provide patient treatment earlier on.”

    Previously, SOMC’s manual process of C. difficile testing consumed an unnecessary 3.5 staff hours per week and resulted in numerous canceled tests, wasted supplies, and testing turnaround delays. By working with MPS to redesign workflows, improve documentation, incorporate real-time surveillance monitoring and alerts, and embed evidence-based clinical decision support into Expanse, they are now able to determine the risk of

    1. difficile and automatically trigger orders when appropriate. These changes have led to earlier detection, isolation, and treatment of patients with C. difficile, which have helped to improve patient outcomes, increased care team awareness, and helped to prevent community spread.

    “Collaboration between our internal team and MEDITECH Professional Services has helped us to set clear goals and develop a structured path forward,” said SOMC Senior Medical Infectious Disease Director Dr. David Byers. “We believe a significant part of our success was the extensive MEDITECH knowledge that the MPS team brought to the table. They helped us take our concept and build something that has greatly impacted our organization.”

    MPS, in collaboration with SOMC designed robust Business and Clinical Analytics reports to measure the impact of the C. difficile reduction efforts and identify areas of further need. Their 32% reduction in canceled tests has resulted in time savings of:

    • 5 hours of pharmacist time per week, previously spent reviewing all C. difficile orders
    • 3-5 minutes per specimen of time documenting test cancelation and cancelation reasoning within the patient chart
    • 5 minutes per test in the lab and a significant reduction in testing result delays
    • Time saved collecting unnecessary

    SOMC’s 30% relative change in hospital-acquired C. difficile is part of the organization’s continued efforts to maintain high quality metrics on a publicly reported measure; leading to higher consumer confidence, while allowing SOMC to avoid penalties based on value based payment models. This initiative has also helped their antimicrobial stewardship efforts by optimizing antibiotic prescribing practices.

    “In addition to the mortality attributed to C.difficile, the morbidity cannot be overstated,” said Byers. “This is a disease that I have seen upend the lives of previously healthy patients through multiple relapses or even colectomies, and often precipitated by antibiotics they didn’t need.”

    MEDITECH Senior Vice President Hoda Sayed-Friel believes that focusing on the prevention of hospital-acquired infections is an important strategy for improving the experiences of both patients and providers.

    “Southern Ohio Medical Center’s commitment to quality improvement really is an investment in their future,” she said. “Already they are making a huge impact on their community by improving patient outcomes and reducing staff burdens by maximizing the potential of their Expanse EHR. We are excited that Expanse and MEDITECH Professional Services are able to support them on their journey.”

    Moving forward, SOMC looks to leverage the work they completed with MPS as a foundational proof of concept to be applied to other desired targets for diagnostic stewardship.

    To learn more about Southern Ohio Medical Center’s quality improvement efforts, please read their blog post, “Serving your community with a quality strategy” and listen to Dr. Byers on This Week Health’s TownHall podcast.

    Contacts

    Rose McCarthy
    Public Relations and Media Relations Manager MEDITECH
    781-774-5229
    [email protected]

    Posted 9.13.2022

  • SeamlessMD Expands Senior Leadership Team

    Healthtech Firm Gears Up for Growth with Key Executive Appointments

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    Toronto, ON – Sept. 13, 2022 – SeamlessMD, a leading Digital Care Journey platform for hospitals and health systems today announced the expansion of its leadership team with the addition of Jeremiah McGuire, as Vice President, Sales.

    Prior to joining SeamlessMD, Jeremiah held the role of Vice President, Sales & Strategy for WebMD, where he led clinical sales and strategy to deliver integrated patient education, engagement, and adherence solutions to health systems – including leading commercial efforts for their Krames digital patient education solutions. Jeremiah has served in a variety of senior sales leadership roles at organizations such as SONIFI Health, Netsmart Technologies, and Allscripts.

    “SeamlessMD is disrupting traditional health care delivery with its innovative digital care and remote patient monitoring approach. It is a unique opportunity for me to join the company at this stage given the surging demand for digital health solutions and make a real impact. I look forward to leveraging my experience as the company continues to innovate, scale, and deliver solutions that assist our clients to improve healthcare outcomes, better navigate and compete in a complex, evolving market,” said Jeremiah McGuire.

    Earlier this year, SeamlessMD appointed Tracy Staniland, Vice President, Marketing, and promoted two tenured directors Meherazade Sumariwalla, to the role of Vice President, Customer Success, and Denice Koo, to the role of Vice President, Patient Education. With the addition of Jeremiah, together with the founding partners, they will make up an expanded senior leadership team, taking an active role in executive decision making and leading the execution of company-wide strategic initiatives.

    Tracy Staniland has more than 20 years of B2B marketing leadership experience helping tech start-ups level up their brand, achieve growth targets, evangelize emerging and new categories, and forge strategic partnerships. Before joining SeamlessMD, Tracy held senior marketing roles at SaaS-based and AI companies focused on multiple verticals including healthcare and insurance. At PolicyMedical (now RLDatix), an enterprise policy management platform for healthcare, she led a high-performance marketing team focused on driving effective growth marketing programs. Tracy leads all aspects of the SeamlessMD’s marketing strategy including demand generation, communications, product marketing, digital and sales enablement.

    Meherazade Sumariwalla, an accomplished customer service advocate, recently promoted to Vice President, Customer Success, leads the company’s customer success team, where she is responsible for the vision and execution of customer service and support of SeamlessMD’s customer base. With a passion for building and maintaining strong relationships with customers, coupled with her healthcare consulting experience, Meherazade collaborates closely with them to achieve clinical outcomes through the full utilization of SeamlessMD’s Digital Care Journeys across multiple service lines.

    ‍Denice Koo has more than 15 years experience designing patient education and experiences using best practices in health literacy, adult learning, and risk communication. Dedicated to the advancement of health literacy and patient education, Denice has been instrumental in building the patient education practice at SeamlessMD for the past seven years, resulting in her recent promotion to Vice President, Patient Education. Denice is responsible for leading the company’s R&D efforts for all new digital care plans, including the development of content, quality assurance, and implementation.

    “I’m thrilled with the addition of Jeremiah to lead our business development strategies. His impressive track record driving revenue growth for innovative digital health solutions including digital patient engagement is a tremendous benefit to our team,” said Dr. Joshua Liu, CEO and Co-founder of SeamlessMD. “Today’s announcement signifies a key building block in our company’s journey as we move quickly to structure our organization for faster growth and to ensure that the needs of our customers remain front and center. Jeremiah, Denice, Meherazade, and Tracy are all highly capable, dynamic professionals with successful track records in technology and healthcare who will be instrumental in leading our team as we grow and execute on our mission to ensure that every patient gets the right care at the right time.”

    SeamlessMD has been recognized by AVIA Connect as a Top 5 Condition Specific Remote Monitoring Platform and has received multiple accolades for being one of the Best Workplaces in Canada.

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    About SeamlessMD

    SeamlessMD provides the leading Digital Care Journey platform for hospitals and health systems to engage, monitor and stay connected with patients across healthcare journeys. 30+ clinical studies & evaluations have shown SeamlessMD to improve the patient experience while reducing hospital length of stay, readmissions, and ED visits. Health systems such as UAB, Intermountain, Atrium, University Hospitals, MultiCare, Baystate, Trillium Health Partners, William Osler Health System, Sunnybrook, and others use SeamlessMD to elevate the patient experience, improve outcomes and lower costs. Patients access digital care plans on their smartphones, tablets or computers and are guided via reminders, education, and progress tracking. Providers receive alerts, monitor patients and access analytics to deliver better care. SeamlessMD is directly integrated with EHRs such as Epic, Cerner, Meditech and Allscripts. Learn more at www.seamless.md or follow SeamlessMD on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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    Media Contact:

    ‍Rachel Subramaniam
    Marketing Manager
    SeamlessMD
    Email: [email protected]  

    Posted 9.13.2022

  • Lumeon Wins Innovative Product of the Year from International Best in Biz Awards

    Care orchestration leader recognized for innovation in automating care coordination for hospitals and health systems.

     
    BOSTON – September 8, 2022 – Lumeon’s care orchestration platform has been recognized as the Most Innovative Healthcare and Medical Product of the Year by the International Best in Biz Awards, the company announced today. Lumeon won the Gold Award for the deployment of its virtual care solution within a large integrated delivery network (IDN). The IDN automated and virtualized a digital care plan, matching care to individualized needs to expedite healthy patients through pre-operative assessments and avoid the need for on-site appointments. The results were impressive: 

    • Fast-tracked 89% of patients into surgery, keeping them at home before the appointment. Of those patients, only 38% required the nurse-practitioner to call them to collect missing data, clarify issues, and further assess risks 
    • 60% increase in pre-operative team productivity 
    • Reduction in unnecessary testing; only 27% of patients required lab tests or EKGs 
    • 67% of patients required a minimal chart review, after which only 11% required an in-person visit, saving critical time for clinicians and staff 

    Digitizing and automating the manual steps of the pre-operative process boost care team productivity and deliver individualized, right-sized care for every patient, every time.  

    Lumeon’s automated care orchestration platform integrates real-time data, applies clinical knowledge, and employs intelligent automation to orchestrate care based on the individual needs of each patient, alleviating the burden on clinicians and staff, who otherwise coordinate care manually. The Lumeon platform dramatically enhances clinician and staff productivity while enhancing care team efficiency and reducing operating costs. 

    “Our care orchestration platform liberates clinicians and care teams from endless, time-consuming manual tasks and workflows which, in turn, allows them to deliver the most value to their patients,” said Greg Miller, chief growth officer of Lumeon. “The International Best in Biz Award demonstrates our leadership in automated care coordination.” 

    The Best in Biz Awards is the only independent business awards program judged by prominent members of top-tier press, from the Associated Press, The New York Times and Wired. Best in Biz Awards International is offered in more than 90 categories. Details about the Best in Biz Awards and the list of winners are available at www.bestinbizawards.com. 

    About Lumeon 

    Lumeon believes that care better coordinated is care better delivered. Lumeon is a digital health company that provides a cloud-based care orchestration platform that automates the tasks, workflow, activities, and events that occur during the process of coordinating care. With real-time, bi-directional data/system integration and the dynamic application of clinical intelligence and automation, Lumeon ensures that each patient receives the right care at the right time – every time. By automating care coordination, care teams deliver care faster, more efficiently, effectively, and consistently across the continuum of care, while also empowering clinicians and staff to work at the tops of their licenses and spend time with patients that need it most. 

    About Best in Biz Awards 

    Since 2011, Best in Biz Awards had made its mark as the only independent business awards program judged each year by a who’s who of prominent reporters and editors from top-tier publications from North America and around the world. Best in Biz Awards honors are conferred in two separate programs: North America and International, and in more than 100 categories, including company, team, executive, product, and CSR, media, PR and other categories. For more information about the International program, see: http://bestinbizawards.com. 

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    Media Contact 

    Philip Anast 

    Amendola (for Lumeon) 

    312-576-6990 

    [email protected] 

    Posted 9.8.2022

  • H1 2022 Healthcare Breach Report

    SEATTLE-Critical Insight, a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider specializing in protecting the networks of life-saving organizations and critical infrastructure, announced today the release of the firm’s H1 2022 Healthcare Data Breach Report, which analyzes breach data reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by healthcare organizations.

    With the healthcare industry continuing to be a top attack vector for cybercriminals and ransomware threat groups, H1 2022 saw an interesting change in targets as attackers moved from large hospital systems and payers, big targets that would likely yield the most data but also have more sophisticated defenses, to smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics that lack the same level of security preparedness, staff size, or budget.

    Aside from this change in victim focus, attackers this half of the year hit the jackpot, with the Eye Care Leaders EMR breach, which exposed more than 2 million records. This trend of focusing on a systemic technology that is used across most healthcare providers is a trend we anticipate continuing throughout the remainder of 2022.

    Key Findings:

    • Total Breaches Are Declining: The number of reported breaches crested during the second half of 2020 when organizations were so distracted by the pandemic that attackers had an easier time breaching their defenses. Since then, the total number of breaches has slowly, but steadily declined, from the peak of 393 to 367 in the first half of 2021, 344 in the second half of 2021, and 324 in the first half of this year.
    • Total Individuals Affected: The latest numbers are encouraging with roughly 20 million individuals affected in the first half of 2022, representing the third consecutive quarter of declining numbers, a 10% drop compared to the prior six-month period and 28% less than the first half of 2021.
    • Who is Getting Breached?: Healthcare providers represent 73% of total breaches, business associates represent 15%, and health plans 12%. The interesting trend is that breaches associated with healthcare providers dropped from 269 in the first half of 2021 to 238 in the first half of 2022.
    • Most Common Breach Causes: Hacks associated with network servers declined from a peak of 67% in the first half of 2021 to 57% in the first half of 2022. But EMR-related breaches soared from zero in the first half of 2020 to nearly 8% of all breaches in the first half of 2022.
    • One Thing We’re Watching: When we look at which segments of the healthcare ecosystem had Hacking/IT Incident type breaches, we’re now seeing smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics rising to the top. Breaches associated with health plans decreased by 53%, but attacks against business associates jumped by 10% and attacks against providers went up 15%.

    “Attackers are continuing to push the envelope and change the playing field when it comes to healthcare data breaches and attacks,” said John Delano, Healthcare Cybersecurity Strategist at Critical Insight and Vice President at Christus Health. “This move from large hospital systems and payers to smaller entities that truly have a deficit when it comes to cyber defenses, shows a massive change in victims and approach. As we continue into 2022, we anticipate attackers to continue to focus on these smaller entities for ease of attack, but also for evasion of media attention and escalation with law enforcement.”

    To download the report, please visit: https://cybersecurity.criticalinsight.com/healthcare-breach-report-h1-2022.

    About Critical Insight

    Critical Insight delivers cyber security that’s critical to your mission. We defend your organization with a personalized blend of MDR, managed, and professional services, to assess, test, and monitor 24×7. IT teams get their day jobs back with a full staff of expertise for less than the cost of one employee. We make cyber security a path to progress, from ensuring compliance to driving customer preference. We’re committed to defending those who serve us all, so no organization has to go without an effective cyber defense. Critical Insight. We Defend. You Thrive.

    Find out more at https://criticalinsight.com.

    Contacts
    Jake Milstein
    Critical Insight
    206-347-0588
    [email protected]

    Posted 9.6.2022

  • TEFCA: A leap toward achieving nationwide interoperability

    TEFCA: A leap toward achieving nationwide interoperability

    by Oracle Cerner
    Published on August 31, 2022

    Let’s celebrate some good news: We’ve reached a huge milestone on the road toward national healthcare interoperability.

    The CommonWell Health Alliance has announced its intention to apply to become a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) under the federal Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, known as TEFCA.

    The participation of CommonWell—which Cerner became a founding member nearly a decade ago —is a leap forward in achieving our vision for interoperability. Our shared goal is to build a nationwide health information exchange that will help give patients access to their healthcare data regardless of where they receive care.

    The nonprofit trade association, CommonWell, has created a vendor-neutral platform, which aims to break down the technological and process barriers that inhibit effective health-data exchange. Along with their members including Oracle Cerner, they are innovating together to drive nationwide health data exchange across an increasing number of disparate health IT systems and venues of care.  As of May 2022, CommonWell connects 27,000 provider sites, retrieving over 2.3 billion health records annually, and servicing 166 million unique individuals.

    Industry collaboration through TEFCA is aimed at creating a truly national network for which we’ve been striving and paving the way to better healthcare for all.

    Creating a ‘minimum floor’

    TEFCA, which springs from the 21st Century Cures Act (2016), establishes what the Office of the Coordinator for Health Information Technology calls a “minimum floor” of nationwide interoperability of health information. Policy goals include building on work already done to make data exchange possible and, ultimately, creating a single on-ramp to interoperability.

    With the foundational framework in place, CommonWell is well-positioned to join as a QHIN, an intention it made public when TEFCA was in its infancy. In essence, CommonWell has already been doing much of what the TEFCA framework requires. The organization is, therefore, preparing to be successful as a QHIN after review and approval from the recognized coordinating entity. A key point is that CommonWell’s record location service enables providers to get data from connected sites across the country in milliseconds.

    Better data access for patients

    We’re also encouraged that TEFCA gives patients the same right to their data as providers.

    Cerner has advocated for decades for patients and providers to have frictionless access to complete patient health records, wherever the data are stored.

    Cerner co-founder Neal Patterson went to Congress in 2015 with a personal message about traversing the healthcare system with his wife, Jeanne, and having to tote shopping bags full of paper health records wherever they went. His message: We weren’t doing enough to eliminate these stacks of paper. Neal argued that it needs to be as easy as swiping a credit card to get all your records. Despite best intentions and positive progress to address the problem, unfortunately we are still too far from this vision for patients.

    Today, Cerner’s passion and expertise in the nuanced challenges of health record interoperability pairs perfectly with Oracle, which has taken on similarly complex digital transformation challenges in other industries. Together, we’re reaching toward a future where our vision of ubiquitous, nationwide data exchange is a utility.

    CommonWell laid the groundwork for true interoperability, demonstrating the value of a nationwide network in many examples. One that comes to mind is how connectivity made possible through CommonWell enabled NorthBay to deliver seamless care and ensure patient safety amid two crises. However, though the pipes are laid, and data is flowing through a network that can continue to grow under TEFCA, the tools that help enable providers to derive meaningful insights are still lacking. We must do more to connect providers in ways that benefit patients while lowering the administrative burden.

    Eliminating duplicative data

    Today, providers are flooded with more data than they can possibly reconcile. Insightful data from outside records often goes unutilized.

    In response to client feedback, at Oracle Cerner, we’re focused on providing clinicians with simplified workflows aimed at eliminating duplicate data and providing a cleansed, holistic view of a patient’s care history. Through Seamless Exchange, we’re working to create a streamlined experience for providers so they can spend less time in the EHR and more time providing patient care.

    Today, we celebrate the largest step toward interoperability since the founding of CommonWell. At Oracle Cerner, we fully support CommonWell on its journey to become a QHIN, and we remain committed to our initiatives to simplify data exchange to improve caregiver experience and patient outcomes.

    As I often tell my team, it is an exciting time to be in interoperability.

    Sam Lambson is vice president of interoperability at Oracle Cerner.

    Posted 9.2.2022

  • Clearwater and CynergisTek Complete Merger, Bringing Together Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Compliance Leaders

    Combination of Clearwater, CynergisTek, and Recently Acquired TECH LOCK Positions Clearwater to Deliver Even Greater Value to Organizations Across the Healthcare Ecosystem and Other Highly Regulated Industries

    NASHVILLE, TN (September 1, 2022) – Clearwater announced today that its planned merger with CynergisTek has been completed, bringing together two market leaders who are joining forces to serve the cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance needs of healthcare organizations, as well as those in other highly regulated industries. As a result of the transaction, CynergisTek is now a privately owned company and will operate as a subsidiary of Clearwater, aside Clearwater’s recently acquired TECH LOCK Division. Common mission, values, and customer focus among all three companies provide a strong foundation to create a clear market leader in healthcare cybersecurity and compliance.

    In just over a month, Clearwater has combined with two other cybersecurity companies to create a solution set that includes a deep pool of experts across a broad range of cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance domains, proprietary purpose-built technology that enables efficient identification and management of cybersecurity and compliance risks, and a tech-enabled, 24x7x365 Security Operations Center with incident response capabilities. These services and technologies can be integrated into valuable and cost-effective managed services.

    For the past three years, either Clearwater or CynergisTek has been named the top Security Advisors & Consultants in Black Book Market Research’s annual healthcare industry survey, which this past year drew responses from nearly 3,000 IT and security professionals representing nearly 900 provider organizations. Clearwater also has been named the top Compliance and Risk Management Solution Provider in the Black Book survey for the past six years in a row. In addition, TECH LOCK has been consistently recognized among the MSSP Top 250 by the leading industry publication MSSP Alert.

    The merger of these three companies furthers Clearwater’s vision of building a recognized leader in cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, and risk management by offering the most comprehensive portfolio of products and services in the industry, all from a single, trusted partner.

    “We are incredibly excited about creating a larger, more scaled organization that is even better positioned to support our customers and proactively address their cybersecurity and compliance needs,” said Clearwater CEO Steve Cagle. “Ransomware attacks and breaches continue to disrupt the delivery of quality patient care and cost the healthcare industry hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, the processes of identifying risks on an ongoing basis and establishing and executing effective cybersecurity programs continue to grow in complexity. Our customers need capabilities to effectively prevent, detect and respond to cybersecurity attacks.

    “The combination of CynergisTek and Clearwater, bolstered by the additional managed security services and compliance services gained through Clearwater’s recent acquisition of TECH LOCK, equips us to deliver even greater value to organizations across the healthcare ecosystem and other regulated industries by creating a single solution provider that can address the industry’s growing list of cybersecurity needs,” Mr. Cagle continued. “We will continue to bring innovation to our customers and fulfill our commitment to be the healthcare industry’s premier partner for cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance solutions.”

    As a result of the just completed merger with CynergisTek, Mac McMillan, Tim McMullen, and Paul Anthony will be leaving CynergisTek following a transition process. The remainder of the CynergisTek management team will continue to be an important part of the combined company’s management team.

    “I’m incredibly proud of what we built at CynergisTek over the last two decades,” said Mac McMillan, CynergisTek CEO. “We have a legacy of contribution and service to both our clients and the healthcare industry as a whole focused on protecting the mission of care. Clearwater similarly has a legacy grounded in a commitment to healthcare. We have talked many times over the years about the opportunities that combining our two organizations could create. I look forward to seeing the tremendous things our teams can do together, in support of our customers.”

    ArentFox Schiff LLP served as legal counsel to Clearwater. Kirton McConkie PC and Holland & Hart LLP served as legal counsel to CynergisTek.


    About Clearwater

    Clearwater is a leading provider of cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance software, consulting, managed security services, and certification services for the healthcare industry and other highly regulated industries. Our solutions enable organizations to avoid preventable breaches, protect patients and their data, meet regulatory requirements, and optimize cybersecurity investments. Through its TECH LOCK Division, Clearwater provides 24x7x365 managed detection and response services that provide visibility to and mitigation of active threats. More than 400 healthcare organizations, including 70 of the nation’s largest health systems and a large universe of physician groups and digital health companies, trust Clearwater to meet their cybersecurity and compliance needs. For more information about Clearwater, please visit www.clearwatercompliance.com.


    About CynergisTek, Inc.  

    CynergisTek is a top-ranked cybersecurity consulting firm helping organizations in highly regulated industries, including those in healthcare, government, and finance navigate emerging security and privacy issues. CynergisTek combines intelligence, expertise, and a distinct methodology to validate a company’s security posture and ensure the team is rehearsed, prepared, and resilient against threats. Since 2004, CynergisTek has been dedicated to hiring and retaining experts who bring real-life experience and hold advanced certifications to support and educate the industry by contributing to relevant industry associations. For more information, visit www.cynergistek.com or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

     

    Media Contact:   

    Sean Chase
    Aria Marketing for CynergisTek & Clearwater
    (603) 307-9428
    [email protected]

    Posted 9.1.2022