– Modernizing Medicine announced it has acquired
orthopedics EHR vendor Exscribe bringing together two of the healthcare
industry’s leading, all-in-one orthopedic EHR vendors.
– As part of the acquisition, Exscribe Founder and CEO,
Dr. Sachdev and other members of the Exscribe team will be joining Modernizing
Medicine.
Specialty-specific EHR provider Modernizing Medicine announced it has acquired
orthopedics electronic
health records (EHR) vendor Exscribe.
The acquisition brings together two of the healthcare industry’s leading,
all-in-one orthopedic EHR vendors with a shared mission of increasing practice
efficiency by transforming how healthcare information is created, consumed and
utilized. Modernizing Medicine and Exscribe will work together to accelerate
innovation and bring to market advanced EHR, practice management, and
technology solutions intended to improve physician efficiency, reduce burnout,
and support value-based care.
“Exscribe and Modernizing Medicine have a shared commitment to customer success and improving patient outcomes and we are excited to work together to leverage our combined orthopedics expertise to move the industry forward,” said Dan Cane, CEO of Modernizing Medicine. “Both companies were founded on the belief that the best EHRs are built specialty specific ‘by physicians, for physicians,’ and that product excellence is a direct reflection of the strength of our team. With that, we are excited to welcome the talented individuals at Exscribe to the Modernizing Medicine family and are confident that we can leverage our combined expertise to enhance and grow our solutions to meet the needs of customers of virtually any size and orthopedic specialization.”
Orthopedic Healthcare Solutions
Exscribe was founded in 2000 by nationally-renowned
orthopedic surgeon Ranjan Sachdev, MD, MBA, CHC, who was looking for a better
way to manage his orthopedic practice. Working with a team of orthopedists and
IT professionals, Dr. Sachdev developed the Exscribe Orthopaedic EHR, which today
is among the leading specialty-specific healthcare technology solutions
available. Leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, Exscribe’s
EHR is intuitive, enabling orthopedists to use one-click treatment plans for
specific conditions, including orders for surgery and therapy, prescriptions,
patient education, referral letters, and more.
Post-Acquisition Plans
Exscribe Founder and CEO, Dr. Sachdev and other members of
the Exscribe team will be joining Modernizing Medicine, and through the
increased scale and combined expertise, both companies intend to continue
providing world-class technology solutions and support to orthopedic customers.
Modernizing Medicine’s top-rated specialty-specific orthopedic electronic
health records (EHR) system, EMA® Orthopedics, has been named the number one
EHR in orthopedics for three consecutive years by Black Book™.
“Modernizing Medicine is known for its state of the art web based offerings, growing presence in the orthopedics space and commitment to working with customers to build solutions that meet the needs of orthopedists and their office staff,” said Dr. Sachdev. “Existing Exscribe customers will experience very few immediate changes. In the long term, we look forward to leveraging the decades of expertise from both companies to build fully interoperable EHR technologies that solve administrative inefficiencies and promote orthopedic excellence.”
Financial detail of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are widely expected to serve as a cornerstone technology that drives the delivery of modern patient care.
But can the EMR alone support all the informatics capabilities required by an ever-evolving healthcare industry? The rapid growth of precision medicine, particularly the use of genetic and genomic information during clinical decision making, is a compelling example that functionality beyond the EMR is required. Not only does genomic data represent a category of information used differently than traditional clinical knowledge, but the volume of data generated through molecular testing alone also requires informatics and management of a higher magnitude than previously required.
The EMR is designed to reflect a snapshot (or collection of snapshots) in time: clinical summaries, annotated lab and test results, operation notes, etc. These are mostly stored as isolated documents, loosely coupled with the rest of the patient chart. They need to remain available for reference over time, in some instances, so providers can chart and contextualize ongoing trends and chronic conditions. However, these views are anchored in time and represent limited actionable value during clinical decision-making months, years, and decades later.
Genomic information, on the other hand, represents a patient’s life signature. DNA rarely changes over the course of an individual’s lifetime. This means the results from germline testing – a patient’s molecular profile – conducted early in life are relevant, meaningful, and actionable during clinical decision making far into the future. They can also deliver insights exposing heritable proclivities that may be life-changing or life-saving for family members as well.
This recognition in and of itself alerts healthcare leaders that they need to adopt an advanced, more sophisticated strategy for data governance, management, and sharing than the approach traditionally applied to other clinical information systems, such as EMRs.
To be successful, healthcare organizations need an accelerator external to the EMR that is built on a data model unique to the management of molecular knowledge so test results and genomic insights can be used and shared across clinical specialties and care settings, as well as overtime. In addition, the rise of precision medicine requires an agile informatics platform that enables the cross-pollination of genomic data with clinical insights and ever-advancing discoveries in genomic science.
Consider these examples of how EMRs fall short of expectations for optimal use of genomic intelligence:
1. Studies have found that, despite ubiquitous availability of molecular tests, providers consistently fail to identify patients most at risk for heritable diseases. The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) recently released research showing that half the women meeting national guidelines for genetic screening are not getting the tests they need to determine their breast and ovarian cancer risk.
The reason? “The full story of a patient’s risk for heritable cancer within their record often does not exist in a single location,” says the JAMIA article. “It is fragmented across entries created by many authors, over many years, in many locations and formats, and commonly from many different institutions in which women have received care over their lifetimes.” In other words, no matter which EMRs they use, health systems routinely miss opportunities to improve care for patients they see. To achieve greater success, providers need tools that exceed EMR functionality and span multiple clinical systems.
2. Shortly after birth, Alexander develops a seizure disorder. The neonatologist orders a germline test to help her arrive at a precise diagnosis and begin targeted treatment. This approach is successful and Alexander thrives. In addition to genomic variants identifying the cause of his seizure disorder, the test results also contain information about other heritable risk factors, including cardiovascular disease.
Decades later, in the 70s, Alexander sees his primary care provider (PCP) with a rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath. After doing routine lab work, the PCP diagnoses congestive heart failure (CHF). If, however, the PCP had access to Alexander’s genomic test results – which remain as relevant and accurate as when he was an infant – the PCP would have noted a variation that indicated the CHF was due to dilated cardiomyopathy, requiring a different treatment regime.
It is vital that health leaders immediately begin to plan an informatics strategy that accommodates genetic and genomic data while empowering providers to leverage these insights at the point of care as they make routine, yet critical, clinical decisions. As they evaluate their approach, they would do well to ask the following questions:
– Which providers in my organization are already ordering genomic tests on their patients? How are test results being stored and managed – and can they be easily shared with and accessed by others in the health system?
– As the volume of genetic and genomic testing accelerates – and it will – how will we manage the volume of data generated? How will we apply consistent governance to the ordering process? How can we ensure results will be consumed as discrete data so our organization can optimize its value now and in the future?
– What steps do we need to take so our precision medicine strategy remains current with changing science? Which informatics tools deliver access to up-to-date knowledge bases and clinical guidelines to ensure optimal medical decisions are made?
The advent of precision medicine represents a new standard of care for healthcare providers from coast to coast. Genetic and genomic information supplies a new data set that can be used to arrive at more accurate diagnoses sooner and more effective treatment faster. This, in turn, supports better outcomes, higher patient (and provider) satisfaction, and competitive differentiation for the health system adopting precision medicine first in its market.
But to capture this value, healthcare leaders must look beyond their legacy EMRs, recognizing that they were not developed nor do they have the capacity to properly handle the upcoming data revolution. Instead, industry innovators are looking for platforms agnostic to individual EMRs and integrated with molecular labs to address the next-generation demands of precision medicine.
About Assaf Halevy
Assaf Halevy is the founder and CEO of 2bPrecise, LLC, leading an international team dedicated to bridging the final mile between the science of genomics and making that data useful at the point of care. He joined Allscripts as senior vice president of products and business development in 2013 when the company acquired Israel-based dbMotion. An initial inventor and co-founder of dbMotion, Halevy helped develop the leading clinical integration and population health management platforms in the industry today.
With 13 patents pending in the areas of actionable clinical integration, interoperability, and precision medicine, Halevy leverages his industry expertise by evaluating strategic alliances and partnerships for U.S. and international markets. Halevy was invited to participate in several U.S. government activities and contribute to an HHS privacy committee task force. In 2016, he was part of a small selective group of executives invited to the White House by Vice President Joe Biden to discuss the future of interoperability.
– Withings partners with healthcare IT integration
company Redox, which will make its remote patient monitoring solution, Withings
MED·PRO CARE, compatible with nearly all EHRs used by physicians, hospitals,
and medical institutions.
– Through the partnership, physicians can now order and
ship Withings clinically-validated connected health devices directly to their
patients through their EHR.
– As patients use their Withings devices, which are
designed to be simple to use daily, their physicians can access and analyze
their patients’ data seamlessly through Redox.
Withings, early
pioneers of the connected health revolution, today announced it has partnered
with Redox, a single, secure API
endpoint that connects and integrates provider EHRs with healthcare
products and services. The partnership makes MED·PRO CARE, the
unique Withings remote patient monitoring solution, compatible with nearly all
EHRs used by physicians, hospitals, and medical institutions.
Withings MED·PRO CARE
Withings launched MED·PRO CARE, its remote patient
monitoring platform, to allow caregivers, medical institutions, and private
organizations to manage multiple patients’ physiological data through the
company’s portfolio of connected health devices and data analytical
capabilities.
Patients benefit from beautifully designed devices that
require little to no set up to fit effortlessly into their daily lives. In
fact, thanks to the Withings Data HUB, a plug and play cellular gateway created
specifically for Withings MED·PRO solutions, health providers can even deliver
devices to patients that require no set up or daily management at all.
Clinically Validated Health Devices Now Compatible with
EHRs
Through the partnership, physicians can now order and ship
Withings clinically-validated connected health devices directly to their
patients through their EHR in just a few simple steps. Patients can use their
Withings devices to monitor and track their health in their traditional home
environments while their physicians access and analyze their data seamlessly
through Redox. The solution is HIPAA compliant and uses HL7 international
standards.
“During the pandemic, the importance of remote patient monitoring soared. However, for its long term success and utilization to be assured, it must be simple for both physicians and their patients,” said Mathieu Letombe, CEO of Withings. “Our partnership with Redox means Withings now integrates into practically every EHR system allowing physicians and hospitals to easily send Withings devices to their patients and access insights into their daily blood pressure, weight, sleep patterns, heart rates, and more. With Redox’s one connection and our range of devices, designed to easily integrate into patients’ everyday lives, the entire process is effortless for all involved, and many of the common frictions associated with remote patient monitoring are removed.”
Availability
Withings connected health devices are now available through
Redox.
– Elation Health, which provides an easy-to-use and
affordable clinical technology platform for more than 7 million independent primary
care clinicians serving 14M+ patients – including an EHR raises $40M in Series
C funding from Al Gore’s sustainable investment firm, Generation Investment
Management.
– Elation’s API-enabled platform also allows
organizations to transform the patient and provider experience and implement
their own models of data-driven, value-based care.
– Company will surpass a milestone this year of
delivering more than 20 million in-office and virtual visits through their
provider network.
Elation
Health, a clinical-first technology company powering the future of
independent primary care, today announced a Series C financing round of $40
million led by Al Gore’s Generation Investment
Management, a firm that invests in sustainable businesses accelerating the
transition to a more healthy, fair, safe, and low-carbon society. The round
also included participation from existing investors, including Threshold Ventures and Kapor Capital.
Clinical-First Commitment to Independent Primary Care
Independent primary care is one of the few areas in healthcare where upfront investment leads to significant savings in the long term. For every dollar spent on primary care, studies suggest that as much as $13 in downstream healthcare costs are avoided. Increased spending on primary care is also associated with fewer emergency department visits and reduced total hospitalizations and specialty interventions for chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure
Elation Health was founded in 2010 after siblings Kyna and
Conan Fong struggled to help their father transition his solo primary care
practice from paper charts to a digital system. Born from that experience,
today Elation Health powers the largest network for independent primary care,
with 14,000 independent clinicians caring for seven million patients. The
company offers an EHR
solution, enterprise APIs, revenue cycle services, patient engagement app, and
access to interoperability partners.
The company surpassed a milestone this year of delivering more than 20 million in-office and virtual visits through its provider network. In addition to serving small practices, Elation has partnered with primary care innovators such as Crossover Health and Cityblock Health to provide the underlying clinical platform for technology-enabled, team-based care.
Helping Intendent Practices Shift to Virtual Care Amid The
COVID-19 Pandemic
In 2020, Elation Health’s customer base of independent
practices has faced significant business challenges as primary care shifts to
virtual settings and the pace of insurance and government policy change has
accelerated. The company has responded by expanding its role as a critical
technology partner — including adding HIPAA-compliant telehealth to its core
offering, deepening support for Medicare and Medicaid quality programs, and
delivering new patient engagement capabilities for patients to schedule
appointments and interact with practices. Elation’s API-enabled platform also
allows organizations to transform the patient and provider experience and
implement their own models of data-driven, value-based care.
Expansion Plans
In the year ahead, Elation Health will continue to invest in
its core platform, while adding new capabilities to support business operations
for independent primary care. The company has plans to develop solutions in
billing and payment collection, patient population management, interoperability,
and quality reporting — ensuring practices have the tools to drive high-quality
patient outcomes and business success.
– Today, MEDITECH announced MEDITECH Cloud Platform—a
suite of solutions available to healthcare organizations of all sizes that
further extend the possibilities of the Expanse EHR.
– This offering includes: Expanse NOW, High Availability
SnapShot, and Virtual Care solutions, all created to work naturally in the
cloud, and available through a subscription model.
Today MEDITECH
introduced MEDITECH Cloud Platform—a suite of solutions available to healthcare
organizations of all sizes that further extend the possibilities of the Expanse Electronic Health Record
(EHR). Multiple MEDITECH Cloud
Platform solutions are built on Google Cloud, enabling healthcare organizations
to further personalize their EHR in a way that is secure, reliable, and easy to
maintain.
Subscription-Based Cloud Model
Healthcare organizations can select one or a combination of
the solutions from MEDITECH Cloud Platform. The flexibility of the subscription
model enables a quick setup as well as the ability to add solutions as needed.
Additionally, the cloud combined with the subscription model provides
opportunities to add solutions in the future.
MEDITECH Cloud Platform Offerings
The all-new MEDITECH Cloud Platform offering includes: Expanse NOW, High
Availability SnapShot, and Virtual Care
solutions, all created to work naturally in the cloud, and available through a
subscription model:
Expanse NOW is a mobility app that empowers
physicians to manage everyday tasks and coordinate care on their smartphone
device. Integrated with Expanse, tasks and messages can flow between workload
and the app in real time.
High Availability SnapShot provides healthcare
organizations with immediate access to key patient data in the event of
unexpected or planned downtime. Patient information such as medications,
allergies, orders, and more is backed up securely and accessible via
cellular-connected devices.
Virtual Care gives new and existing patients access
to urgent virtual care on demand through the healthcare organization’s website,
as well as the ability to schedule virtual visit appointments. New patients who
request Virtual Care are automatically enrolled in the Patient Portal,
connecting them to the organization and in turn, enabling organizations to grow
their business.
Leveraging Google Cloud’s Capabilities
The Expanse NOW and High Availability SnapShot solutions
leverage Google Cloud’s core capabilities including compute and storage (as
well as their healthcare-specific data, analytics, security, and identity
management solutions) alongside existing on-prem solutions to provide high
availability and continuity of care in a secure and scalable service. They can
be easily accessible to critical care staff to improve healthcare continuity
across MEDITECH-powered healthcare organizations.
For more information about the MEDITECH Cloud platform,
visit here.
– NeuroFlow,
the leader in technology-enabled behavioral health integration, is now
available to healthcare providers through Epic’s App
Orchard marketplace. NeuroFlow combines provider workflow augmentation
solutions, clinical care dashboards, and a patient-facing application to create
a clinical feedback loop centered around behavioral health.
– Patient generated data including validated assessment
scores, mood and sleep ratings, and journal responses are fed into NeuroFlow’s
provider-facing web platform, which leverages a combination of machine learning
and natural language processing (NLP) from patient journal entries to risk
stratify patients and enhance care coordination efforts.
– The NeuroFlow integration with Epic will
help organizations accelerate their efforts toward integrated care by
facilitating reimbursement for collaborative care codes and optimizing value-based contracts.
– The launch is an encouraging development for health
systems seeking to practice any of a range of collaborative care models, a
clinical approach integrating both the physical and mental health of
patients. Hospitals and health systems using Epic can deploy NeuroFlow to
streamline clinical workflows and scale existing initiatives for measuring and
treating patients’ mental health symptoms.
– Cleveland Clinic develops the COVID-19 risk prediction model through Epic MyChart that is now available to health systems around the world.
– Healthcare organizations can present the clinically
validated model to patients in MyChart to assess their risk of having COVID-19.
Cleveland Clinic researchers have developed a COVID-19 risk prediction model that uses information from the patient’s comprehensive health records combined with patient-centered information in Epic’s patient-facing app, MyChart, to show an individual’s likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19. The COVID-19 risk prediction model is now available to health systems around the world through Epic.
Predicting positive COVID-19 tests could help direct limited healthcare resources, encourage those who are likely to have the virus to get tested, and tailor decision-making about care. Cleveland Clinic’s model was developed and validated using retrospective patient data from more than 11k patients tested for COVID-19 at Cleveland Clinic locations in Northeast Ohio and Florida. Data scientists used statistical algorithms to transform data from patients’ electronic medical records into the first-of-its-kind risk-prediction model. All data collected was housed in a secure database.
How It Works
Patients complete a short self-assessment in MyChart,
documenting information like symptoms they are experiencing and potential
exposure to COVID-19. The model uses that information, as well as clinical and
demographic data already in their electronic chart, to calculate their score.
Patients with high risk for having COVID-19 are advised to receive a test, and
their care team members can be automatically notified of a high-risk score.
Other healthcare providers around the country also have
developed risk prediction models, which they can integrate with Epic. For
organizations that want to use an existing model rather than developing their
own, they can quickly turn on the model designed, developed, and tested–and now
being shared–by Cleveland Clinic researchers.
“We have developed the first validated prediction model that can forecast an individual’s risk for testing positive with COVID-19 and then simplified this tool while retaining exceptional accuracy for easy adoption,” said Lara Jehi, M.D., Chief Research Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic. “We are excited to make this tool available to the 250 million patients around the world who have a record in Epic. The ability to accurately predict which patients are likely to test positive will be paramount in effectively managing a patient’s care as well as allocating our resources.”
– Epic Systems announces that more than 90 health systems across nine counties are expected to go-live on Epic, marking this fall as the busiest install season in Epic’s 41+ year history.
– Healthcare organizations in Australia, Belgium, Canada,
Finland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the
United States are transitioning more than 123,000 doctors, nurses, and support
staff to Epic’s EHR between September and the end of the year.
– Many healthcare organizations in the states are slated to go live before the second wave of COVID-19 is expected over the winter.
– During the first wave of the pandemic, many health systems
reported that Epic’s integrated, longitudinal electronic health records were
essential in driving effective care transformation.
– Cerner today announced the historic and successful
first deployment of a modern EHR at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in
Spokane, WA.
– The go-live marks the first time in history three federal departments (VA, DOD, and USCG) are using the same EHR.
Cerner Corporation today
announced the historic and successful first deployment of a modern electronic health record
(EHR) at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical
Center in Spokane, WA. The go-live marks the first time in history three
federal departments are using the same EHR — a historic milestone toward
improving the secure and seamless exchange of health information across the
federal government.
In addition to the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the EHR was implemented at its four community-based outpatient clinics across Washington, Montana, and Idaho, as well as the West Consolidated Patient Account Center, a VA business operations facility in Las Vegas.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) now joins the
Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security, via the
U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), in the successful deployment of Cerner-powered
technology that will create a single health record for 18 million Service
members, Veterans plus their family members. The technology is designed to
provide Service members a smoother transition when they leave active duty, as
well as provide VA clinicians the information they need to help Veterans
get quality individualized care.
“This new system is much more than an EHR,” said Travis Dalton, president, Cerner Government Services. “It is a platform to help drive interoperability across the continuum of care and ensure data flows between federal agencies and to commercial partners. This can help improve health outcomes, create public health infrastructure, enable more effective predictive clinical models and create better informed research critical to solving some of the nation’s most pressing health challenges, such as suicide and the opioid epidemic. Though there is still much work to be done, this go-live, along with the deployment of Cerner’s Centralized Scheduling Solution at Columbus and joint health information exchange are key proof points that EHRM is and will continue to be a success. We congratulate VA on this historic achievement and are proud to support this momentous initiative.”
Cerner announces an open call for additional health systems to sign on as testing partners of their EHR-integrated Voice Assist technology. Voice Assist will allow clinicians to interact with the EHR by just using their voice. Clinicians will be able to issue voice commands to complete a range of tasks that can save significant time and reduce the administrative burden on care teams by replacing manual data documentation.
How Voice Assist Technology Works
Using the phrase ‘Hey
Cerner,’ clinicians will be able to search for and retrieve information from
patient records, place medication orders and set up reminders. Clinicians will
be able to seamlessly switch between dictating the clinical note and navigating
the patient’s chart, improving efficiency and enhancing the health care
experience.
Examples of Voice Assist’s current functionality
include:
Chart Search
“What is the latest white blood cell
count?”
Reminders
“Remind me to call the patient in 6 months
about their high cholesterol”
“St. Joseph’s Health is excited to pilot Cerner’s Voice Assist technology, which will enable our clinicians to complete several tasks in the EHR via voice commands. We envision that this technology will be conducive to more meaningful clinician patient interaction since the clinicians will spend less time manually documenting. We hope to see improved efficiency, clinician and patient satisfaction throughout this trial period.” – Lisa Green, Director Clinical Information Systems, St. Joseph’s Health.
“At IU Health, we’re creating designated innovations centers where we trial the latest new technologies in real clinical workflows. This allows us to move new tools into our system rapidly and iteratively. We’re excited to pilot Cerner’s Voice Assist, which will allow our clinician’s to handle several tasks in the EHR with their voice. This technology will help our clinicians to focus their attention on their patients. We believe voice has the potential to increase clinician efficiency and hopefully, result in higher patient and clinician satisfaction.” – Cliff J. Hohban, Vice President, IS, Applications & PMO, IU Health
Availability
Voice Assist is supported with Nuance’s virtual assistant
capability and is expected to be widely available in 2021.
– Lyft is continuing to expand rideshare for
non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) through a first of market direct
integration with Epic, the largest electronic health record (EHR) in the U.S.
– This will have an immediate impact on hospital operations and patients, with currently committed customers including Tampa General and Ochsner Health.
Today, ridesharing leader Lyft announced an integration with EHR provider Epic to enable
health system staff to schedule a Lyft ride for a patient directly from that
patient’s record. Lyft worked directly with Epic to create the Lyft for Epic integration
with Lyft Concierge directly into Epic that will make it
easier for healthcare staff to order a Lyft ride on behalf of a patient.
How Lyft for Epic Works
Staff can send reliable rides directly from a patient’s
profile in the EHR —
simplifying their day-to-day tasks, saving time, and allowing them to focus on
what matters most: the patients. And patients can easily get to their
appointments and back home after the visit without needing an app.
– Simplify sending rides: Nurses, case managers, and
other healthcare workers are already familiar with Epic — adding notes to
patient files, scheduling appointments, and discharging patients. By accessing
Lyft directly from the EHR, staff can schedule rides by directly accessing Lyft
from a patient’s record, rather than needing to sign into a separate tool.
Patient and appointment information will also pre-populate in the ride request
form, reducing friction in the booking process.
– Improve appointment adherence: Arranging a Lyft ride when booking appointment results in fewer missed appointments. Our data shows that Lyft can help providers reduce no-show rates by up to 27 percent.
– Increase operational efficiency: Arranging a Lyft
ride at the time of patient discharge can lead to shorter waiting times, less
crowded waiting rooms, and improved patient throughput.
– Measure patient outcomes: Most health systems have
not collected data on the impact of their transportation programs. With Lyft
for Epic, we’re also working towards giving health systems the ability to generate
reports that make it easier to measure the impact of rideshare on health system
spend and population health outcomes — potentially even tracking patient
segments to proactively identify patients that would benefit from a Lyft ride.
Lyft Continues Significant Investment in Healthcare
Today, Lyft partners with 9 out of the top 10 health systems
in the U.S, representing thousands of hospitals and clinics across the country.
The Lyft for Epic integration will give these organizations even more resources
to ensure transportation is never a barrier to care. Many health systems in the
U.S. use Epic, nearly 30 percent of which already partner with Lyft for their
non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) programs. Several of our existing
health system partners — including Ochsner Health and Tampa General —
have already committed to using the integration.
“Access to reliable transportation is a common barrier to seeking healthcare, especially for our most vulnerable patients,” said David Carmouche, MD, Senior Vice President, Community Care at Ochsner Health. “By teaming up to integrate Lyft into Epic – our established health record system – Ochsner is providing a solution that makes it easier for patients to seek out high quality care when they need it and without unnecessary delays due to a lack of transportation.”
– New Jersey Urology (NJU) becomes the first urology-only group to launch a urologic-centric Epic electronic health record (EHR).
– NJU is the largest urology practice providing complete
urologic care and comprehensive individualized treatment at more than 60
convenient locations, including six state-of-the-art Cancer Treatment Centers.
New Jersey Urology (“NJU”), the leading urology service provider in New Jersey, and Urology Management Associates (“UMA”), NJU’s administrative practice management, today announced the launch of its urologic-centric Epicelectronic health record (EHR). The launch marks NJU as the first urology-only group to launch Epic.
NJU is the largest urology practice in the United States providing
complete urologic care and comprehensive individualized treatment at more than
60 convenient locations, including six state-of-the-art Cancer Treatment
Centers.
“NJU will now have a toolset designed to treat urological conditions and meet the unique needs of their patients,” said Leela Vaughn, Epic Vice President. “As the first large, independent urology group to install Epic on its own, NJU is creating a new option for other independent urology practices to get Epic and benefit from NJU’s expertise.”
Why It Matters
As one of the key drivers of becoming a more patient-centric organization, NJU is also using Epic’s patient-facing app, MyChart. Patients can use MyChart to connect with their care team, view their health record, update their demographic and clinical information, request prescription refills , and more. This will vastly improve patient accessibility, increasing patient engagement, and satisfaction.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this offers patients a safer, simplified, and much more streamlined contactless check-in process. The integrated enterprise EHR system pulls together data from NJU’s four legacy systems into one single, merged view within NJU’s 60+ practices across New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“We selected Epic because it allows NJU to perform under one integrated platform. It supports seamless workflows, efficient coordination, and built-in analytics to improve operational efficiencies,” said Derek Grimes, CIO of NJU. “We began our Epic project back in June 2019, and this launch represents a significant milestone. In partnership with Epic, this initiative is a testament to our amazing NJU Epic team consisting of IT, clinicians, physician champions and Epic Super Users across the entire organization. Epic will revolutionize and transform the daily interactions within our practices, facilitate better patient care, and vastly improve patient outcomes.”
– The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced
its first go-live of the VA Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM)
program – launching the new Centralized Scheduling Solution (CSS) at the VA
Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus, OH to make medical visits more
efficient for care providers and Veterans.
– CSS streamlines patient scheduling by coordinating clinician availability and resources in a single system, allowing VA schedulers to identify and secure any resources needed in real-time as they make appointments, and enables Veterans to schedule and cancel their appointments online, making it easier to manage their medical appointments.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) launched a new
appointment scheduling tool Aug. 21 at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System to
make medical visits more efficient for care providers and Veterans. The launch
marks the VA’s first go-live of the VA
Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program.
A critical component of VA’s Electronic Health Record
Modernization (EHRM) effort, the Centralized Scheduling Solution (CSS) will be
implemented at all VA health facilities to expedite patient-care coordination
throughout the department.
VA’s current scheduling solutions require VA staff to log in to multiple software applications to coordinate calendars, clinicians, rooms, and equipment. This process requires time-intensive manual data entry and workarounds to finalize appointments. CSS streamlines patient scheduling by coordinating clinician availability and resources in a single system, allowing VA schedulers to identify and secure any resources needed in real-time as they make appointments, and enables Veterans to schedule and cancel their appointments online, making it easier to manage their medical appointments.
Cerner is leveraging
innovation to ensure VA providers have the data and information needed to
improve health outcomes for Veterans. In preparation for CSS go-live, Cerner
successfully migrated and tested demographic information for 60,000 Veterans
who receive care at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System. CSS is a capability
that will be included in VA’s new electronic health record (EHR). Following the
CSS go-live in Columbus, VA will begin implementing the full EHR at
Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington this fall.
Why It Matters
This is a critical milestone in the project, bringing us one step closer to providing Service members and Veterans a lifetime of seamless care.
“VA has delivered an enhanced scheduling system that will benefit Veterans and health care providers,” said Acting VA Deputy Secretary Pamela Powers, who has oversight of VA’s EHRM program. “This is another successful launch of a major milestone in the EHRM effort and will optimize Veterans’ access to health care by improving appointment scheduling. CSS also provides an efficient and transparent method of identifying and eliminating double bookings, flagging canceled appointments and maximizing provider time spent with patients.”
– How the top US acute EHR vendors, namely Cerner, Epic, Allscripts, and MEDITECH (+85% share of US acute market in terms of revenues), have progressed on international expansion.
As highlighted below, there is a significant variance amongst the big four in terms of revenue and share of business outside the US. Cerner has by far the highest revenue at more than $650M in 2019, representing 12% of its business. Whilst MEDITECH has considerably lower revenue than Cerner, its international revenue is broadly similar to a share of its total revenue.
By contrast, Allscripts and MEDITECH each has international business that is comparable in terms of revenues, but as a share of overall revenues, international is much less important for Allscripts.
Allscripts’ international revenue was lower than Epic, Cerner, and Meditech in 2018, however, its growth in 2019 enabled it to overtake MEDITECH and become the third largest of the four vendors in 2019.
Cerner
Cerner’s international revenues fell marginally as a proportion of its total business in 2019 (11.5%, down from 11.9% in 2018), although revenues grew in absolute terms by 3%. This growth was aided by success in Europe, particularly in the UK and Nordics where it won new contracts. Cerner’s overall revenue suffered a 3% decline in 1H 2020 (versus 1H 2019). Despite the impact of COVID-19, its international business witnessed marginal revenue growth (+1%) and rose as a share of its overall business (11.9%) during this period.
Cerner received a significant boost to its international business in 2015 when it acquired Siemens’ EHR business. This provided it with a broad footprint of deployments in DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Benelux, France, Norway, and Spain. Since this acquisition, the challenge for Cerner had been to migrate the customer base to Millennium. However, this has not happened to date, particularly in Germany and Spain.
Tough market conditions, especially in Germany which already had a highly competitive acute EHR market, was another factor impacting the market growth. The above challenges faced by Cerner were key drivers behind the deal to sell parts of Cerner’s Healthcare IT portfolio in Germany and Spain to CompuGroup Medical (CGM). Cerner will continue to maintain a presence in Spain and German acute markets via its i.s.h.med solution (originally contracted to SAP/Siemens), which was not included in the CGM agreement. i.s.h.med has also provided Cerner a footprint in several other European, African, and Asian countries such as Russia and South Africa.
In other European countries where Cerner has a Millennium footprint it has had more success, and the additional product support and development costs have been less.
Cerner has a substantial UK presence, in part owing to its legacy relationship with BT and the subsequent contracts given out under the largely failed NPfIT program. These customers do use Millennium and the company has grown this business in recent years. To date, Cerner has an installed base of 26 trusts in the UK, up from 22 in 2019, and has had success upscaling these contracts to include products such as HealtheIntent. It has also grown the number of acute trusts served. For example, in 2018 it won contracts with The Countess of Chester Hospital National Health Service Foundation Trust, previously using MEDITECH, and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals. In 1Q 2020, Cerner was selected by two NHS Foundations Trusts (Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital and Royal Surrey) to implement a shared Millennium EHR system, which should support a more coordinated care approach between the two organizations.
Elsewhere in Europe, Cerner expanded its Nordic business recently with large contracts in Region Skäne and Västra Götalandsregionen (both in Sweden) during 2018 and 2019. Cerner was chosen as the preferred EMR supplier for Central Finland (four of 19 sote-areas) and will have the opportunity to expand the contract to other surrounding regions in the mid-long term. However, it lost its Norwegian footprint to Epic when it chose not to bid when the Helse Midt-Norge (Central region) contract was renewed in 2019.
The company has also seen success in the Middle East, particularly in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. However, growth has been more subdued over recent years. In the UAE, it has large contracts with the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) and Abu Dhabi department of health (HAAD). Whilst Cerner already has a significant footprint in Saudi, e.g. King Faisal Hospital, the country is still relatively untapped in terms of deployment of digital solutions and offers Cerner a good future growth opportunity.
In Asia Cerner has been successful in Australia, winning state/territory-wide EHR contracts in both Queensland and New South Wales (the only vendor to win two state/territory-wide contracts), and also had success in other states/territories where procurement is decentralized. Cerner was aiming to add a third centralized Australian contract to its customer base, namely ACT Health (Capital Territory), but was unsuccessful in a head-to-head with Epic, which was selected as the chosen partner in July 2020. Cerner aims to push its PHM solution (HealtheIntent) through its existing state-level contracts where it already has a presence with Millennium.
Most of Cerner’s non-US business in the Americas is in Canada where approximately 100 hospitals are estimated to be using its solution. Here it faces competition from the other leading US vendors such as MEDITECH, Epic, Allscripts, and also local vendor Telus.
In summary, Cerner has broadly made a success of its international business. It tops the market share table in several of its international geographies and it has done this while broadly maintaining the margins achieved with its US business. However, Cerner’s divestiture of the legacy Siemens business in Germany/Spain, and withdrawal from Norway (Central region), will reduce the size of its European business. Cerner also faces an increasing threat from EMEA competitor Dedalus, whose recent acquisitions of Agfa Health’s EHR and integrated care business, and DXC’s healthcare provider business (deal to close in March 2021), could impact Cerner’s position as acute EHR market leader in EMEA moving forwards.
Allscripts
Allscripts’ international revenues witnessed a substantial rise in real terms (up by 34% versus 2018) and as a share of overall business in 2019. This was partly due to a strong performance in the UK with existing customer sales, and new contract wins in New Zealand, Qatar, Philippines, and Saudi Arabia. The impact of COVID-19 on Allscripts’ total revenues was comparatively significant (versus Cerner and MEDITECH), with declines of 9% and 6% respectively in 2Q 2020 and 1H 2020. It is estimated that these declines predominantly impacted North American revenues, whereas international revenues suffered to a lesser extent.
Canada had historically been its largest market outside the US accounting for just under a third of its non-US business, however, its share fell by six percentage points from 2018 to 23% in 2019, largely owing to the growth of its business in the UK and Australia, which are estimated to now be broadly similar in size to Canada.
In Canada, it is a top-five player, but lagging someway behind MEDITECH, Cerner, and Epic in terms of hospital installations. Allscripts continues to steadily grow its Canadian business with a focus on selling added functionality/upgrades to long-standing customers in three provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick). It aims to expand its Canadian coverage by securing the contract with Nova Scotia province in 2H 2020.
Success in EMEA was mainly driven by wins in the UK, which included two Sunrise clinical wrap contracts along with several added-value solutions for existing client systems. In May 2019, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust selected Allscripts to provide a clinical wrap around InterSystems’ PAS. This was rolled out to the entire Trusts’ inpatient wards in March 2020 and represented the fifth clinical wrap around another vendor’s PAS in the UK. In the UK it serves 18 acute trusts (only Cerner, DXC, and SystemC are estimated to serve more).
Much of the company’s UK footprint was built from its acquisition of Oasis Medical Solutions six years ago. However, it has slowly built on this foundation adding new acute trust customers and upgrading many from the legacy Oasis PAS solution to Sunrise and other Allscripts’ solutions such as dbMotion – although perhaps at a slower rate than hoped. Besides the UK and Italy (where it has one Sunrise contract) Allscripts does not have immediate plans for Sunrise expansion in mainland Europe. However, countries that are attempting to implement integrated data-sharing programs (e.g. France, Germany, and Italy), offer Allscripts potential markets for its dbMotion solution.
Allscripts also achieved growth in the Middle East, fuelled by a contract win in March 2020 with Qatar’s Alfardan Medical / Northwestern Medicine for Sunrise. Allscripts has been working on opportunities across Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait, with different strategies for each country. For example, Oman has a relatively low level of digital healthcare maturity and is being targeted with EMR solutions, whereas relatively mature health markets (e.g. UAE and Qatar) are being targeted with PHM/dbMotion.
Its entry into the Oceania market was also largely via acquisition (Core Medical Solutions in 2016). Core Medical Solutions was a leading player in the smaller hospital and private hospital markets in Australia. Allscripts has added to this legacy with a state-wide Sunrise EHR contract in South Australia (although deployment has not been without its challenges). Sunrise has been implemented in Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia Health and Medical Research Center, University of Adelaide, and the University of South Australia.
In 4Q 2019 Allscripts added South Australia’s largest regional hospital network, Mt Gambier, to its coverage. It also had success selling its Sunrise solution outside of this state-wide contract (e.g. Gippsland Health Alliance in Victoria in 2018) and in 2019 its footprint expanded into New Zealand.
In terms of its broader Asian strategy, the company recently split its Asian business into two sub-businesses, ASEAN and ANZ, indicating it sees opportunities beyond its existing Singapore footprint in South East Asia. This has been supported by 2019 wins in the Philippines. In less digitally mature countries, the BOSSNet EHR solution it obtained via the Core Medical Solutions acquisition offers a potential route to offering a more entry-level EHR solution compared to Sunrise.
At just 4.0% of revenues in 2019, international remains a relatively niche business for Allscripts. To some extent the company needs to decide where it wants to take this business. Relying on organic growth in the regions it currently serves is unlikely to move the dial far from this 4.0% figure over the next five years. A significant change is likely only via acquisition, something the company has not shied from in the past. However, should it focus on cementing its position in existing markets or expansion into new? Given it is not a top-two vendor in any of its current geographies outside the US, acquisition to cement its position in existing markets would make more sense than further expansion into new geographies.
Epic
Historically, there have been two major points of entry into new geography for EHR vendors; either through a partnership to gain expertise and ‘localize’ a solution or through the acquisition of a local vendor (as with Cerner and Allscripts earlier). Both have their challenges, with partnerships often being slow to progress and acquisition resulting in the long-term support, and in some instances a significant burden of a legacy solution (e.g. Cerner is still supporting several legacy Siemens EHR solutions nearly six years after announcing its acquisition plans and most of Allscripts’ UK customers are not using Sunrise).
Examples where vendors have taken on large regional projects without sufficient ‘localization’, have often resulted in projects not meeting expectations and negatively affecting both vendors and providers alike. To some extent, Epic has suffered from this with several of its non-US deployments, in particular in the UK (e.g. Cambridge University Hospitals in 2015) and more recently in Denmark (regional contracts in the Zealand region and Capital Region) and Finland (regional contract in the Apotti Region).
Epic has not made acquisitions to enter its international markets and in all these examples EHR implementations have not met expectations and have either had to be scaled back, delayed, or required a significant amount of remedial action. The main criticism is often not enough ‘localization’ before deployment. That said Epic has had success elsewhere internationally, with less controversy surrounding its deployments in DACH, Netherlands, Middle East, and Singapore. In Canada, it is estimated to be the market leader in terms of revenues and second only to MEDITECH in terms of hospital deployments.
Epic has increased its focus on international expansion in recent years with incremental increases in revenue. However, it needs to improve on implementation/execution or future opportunities may be limited. The fact it was the only vendor to hit the preselection criteria in Norway for the Helse Midt-Norge contract which it won in 1Q 2019 (replacing Cerner) suggests that progress has perhaps been made on this front.
Historically Epic has struggled to win any Australian state/territory-wide deployments where Cerner, Allscripts, and InterSystems have been successful. However, Epic strengthened its position by winning its first state contract in July 2020 – a $151m deal for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT Health). This was also significant due to it being the first time the Capital Territory had centralized contracting.
MEDITECH
At 12% of 2019 revenue, MEDITECH had the highest proportion of non-US sales of all the vendors analyzed in this insight. However, the overwhelming majority of this was from Canada, where it is estimated to be the market leader in terms of the number of hospital installations (although in terms of revenues it is smaller than Epic, Cerner, and Allscripts). Of approximately $60M in non-US sales in 2019, nearly $50M is estimated to have been from Canada. Non-US revenue share was down marginally from 13% in 2018 and in absolute revenues (-7%) due to a fall in Canadian revenues (-8%), whereas revenue from other international markets was marginally up (+1%).
In early 2018 MEDITECH announced the release of its cloud-based EHR, Expanse. MEDITECH has since been rolling out its cloud-based EHR to new customers and replacing its legacy hosted Magic solution for existing customers. This will ease some of the costs and time associated with implementing the solution, which should make it more competitive. In addition, the data hosted on the cloud will make it easier to drive interoperability through a Health Information Exchange, further increasing its attractiveness for provider networks.
Implementation delays caused by COVID-19 contributed toward MEDITECH’s total revenue declining by 3% in 2Q 2020 (versus 2Q 2019). However, a strong international performance in 1Q 2020 (estimated revenue up by c.25%) was driven by new Expanse installations in Canada (including Ontario Mental Health Hospital), leading to 1H 2020 revenues rising by almost 10% (versus 1H 2019).
Approximately 2% of MEDITECH’s business comes from outside North America, a trend that has remained relatively unchanged for several years. As with Epic, Cerner and Allscripts, a significant proportion of its non-American business is in other English-speaking countries, such as the UK/Ireland (22 customers in the UK and 3 in Ireland – mainly public/private sector hospitals), South Africa (24 hospitals) and Australia (72 private hospitals). In the UK it is a second-tier vendor providing EHR solutions to a small number of NHS trusts (low double-digit). Despite a concerted push into the UK, with the acquisition of Centennial (its UK distributor and system integrator) and the official formation of MEDITECH UK in 2018, the number of trusts served decreased with Cerner taking Chester NHS Trust from MEDITECH in 2018.
The company has had considerable success in Africa, selling solutions in 12 countries including Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. In September 2019, it partnered with Aga Khan University for a new 2020 deployment of Expanse in South African and Kenya, and subsequent deployment in Pakistan. Contracts in Kuwait and the UAE result in the whole MEA region accounting for a sizable share of its non-North American business.
MEDITECH’s international business mirrors its US business to some extent. It has one of the largest installed bases of hospitals worldwide, but predominantly small hospitals, and often in countries where spend per bed is low; it is also typically not upselling beyond core EHR, meaning that its international revenues, particularly when Canada is excluded, remain small.
Key Takeaways
In Signify Research’s latest global EHR analysis, it was estimated that the US accounted for nearly two-thirds of global EHR sales in 2019, so for these four vendors it must remain the key priority. However, the US is forecast to be one of the slowest growing EHR markets over the next five years as it approaches saturation, particularly for core-EHR products in the acute market. Further, the acute market in the US has now broadly consolidated around these four vendors meaning opportunities for gains in share through replacement is increasingly rare – the long tail has gone.
The geographic expansion offers a potential avenue to drive growth. However, it is not easy and there are plenty of pitfalls. Localizing solutions, acquiring local vendors, displacing local incumbents, aligning products to match government requirements and projects, and putting in place local implementation, project management, and support teams all require significant time and investment. Because of this, the global market remains highly fragmented and market share change is slow. However, for the big four discussed in this insight, ignoring the international opportunity will significantly limit long-term growth; so despite slow and sometimes painful progress, we expect it to remain a priority.
About Arun Gill, Senior Analyst at Signify View
Arun Gil is a Senior Market Analyst at Signify Research, a UK-based market research firm focusing on health IT, digital health, and medical imaging. Arun joined Signify Research in 2019 as part of the Digital Health team focusing on EHR/EMR, integrated care technology, and telehealth. He brings with him 10 years’ experience as a Senior Market Analyst covering the consumer tech and imaging industry with Futuresource Consulting and NetGrowth Consultants.
– Nuance advances conversational AI with Dragon Medical virtual
assistant for Hey Epic! virtual assistant in Epic Hyperspace.
– Building upon Nuance’s Dragon Medical solution already
used by more than 550,000 physicians, this integration with Hey Epic! enables
clinicians to conversationally navigate the EHR, search for information, place
orders, and seamlessly switch hands-free between voice assistant and dictation.
Nuance®
Communications, Inc., today announced the advancement of Nuance’s
virtual assistant technology for customers using the Epic electronic health record (EHR). Built
upon Nuance’s leading Dragon Medical solution already used by more than 550,000
physicians, Nuance’s virtual assistant integration with Hey Epic! enables
clinicians to conversationally navigate the EHR, search for information, place
orders, and seamlessly switch hands-free between voice assistant and dictation.
Why It Matters
Virtual assistant technology is viewed as essential to
enable clinicians to complete administrative and clinical tasks more
efficiently and easily during in-person and virtual visits – to improve both
physician and patient experiences before, during, and after each encounter.
The Nuance virtual assistant technology for Hey Epic! in Hyperspace is
available through Dragon Medical One, Nuance’s leading cloud-based solution for
clinical documentation.
To date, nearly 80,000 physicians and nurses using Epic have
licensed access to Nuance virtual assistant technology in Epic Haiku and Epic
Rover mobile apps to conversationally navigate the EHR more efficiently, while
conveniently retrieving information such as schedules, patient information,
laboratory results, medication lists and visit summaries.
“I have been using Nuance virtual assistant technology with Hey Epic! in the Haiku mobile application to quickly navigate the EHR, access and dictate clinical notes, and complete other tasks simply by using my voice. This saves time that can be dedicated to patients instead of searching through documentation. Now, having access to this technology in Hyperspace will further our ability to gain situational awareness and access to accurate, timely information that helps us treat the patient to the best of our ability in the moment,” said Dr. Patrick Guffey, CMIO, Children’s Hospital Colorado.
EHR leader Epic is planning a major internal consolidation that will affect thousands of Epic associates. According to a company-wide email sent to staff on 8/14, Epic will consolidate the End User Training, Implementation, Quality Assurance, and Technical Communications departments into the Application Services Division, effective immediately. The email did not imply that any jobs would be eliminated from the consolidation.
Obtained by News3Now, the email to affected works states, “There will be positions in this new division for all staff from these teams, and training will be provided to help with the transition as you take on new responsibilities,” the email read. “This change will provide opportunities to go beyond current boundaries and develop broader expertise. Your added expertise will help our customers.”
The announcement comes just days after the company announced its plans to allow workers to work from home through at least the end of 2020.
– Verisk launches its new EHR Triage Engine, a tool that
uses data from consumer-authorized electronic health records (EHRs) to help
life insurers fast-track many applications for coverage.
– The EHR Triage Engine bypasses manual workflows,
leveraging advanced predictive analytics and automation to digitally ingest and
analyze EHRs and the tool can evaluate 95,000 impairments in five minutes or
less.
Verisk, a data
analytics provider, announced today the launch of its new EHR
Triage Engine, a tool that uses data from consumer-authorized electronic health records
(EHRs) to help life insurers fast-track many applications for
coverage—potentially cutting decision time from weeks to minutes.
EHR Triage Engine Overview
The typical life underwriting process traps companies and
agents in slow, manual workflows—and subjects customers to intrusive physical
exams and lab work. The EHR Triage Engine bypasses manual workflows, leveraging
advanced predictive analytics and automation to digitally ingest and analyze
EHRs.
The tool can evaluate 95,000 impairments in five minutes or
less, so life insurers can qualify as much as 85 percent of applicants for
coverage with minimal or no underwriter review. With automated processing of
low-risk cases, carriers can provide a streamlined customer experience for the
vast majority of their applications and enable underwriters to focus their
energy on complex risks.
Research shows that it takes four weeks to underwrite the
average life policy, but half of all life insurance shoppers are more likely to
buy if they can forego the most intrusive and time-consuming element—a required
physical exam. The EHR Triage Engine helps respond to those customer
expectations, an effort supported by a team of Verisk experts in biostatistics,
data science, medical research, regulatory compliance, and data privacy.
Development Background
Verisk developed the EHR Triage Engine in collaboration with
SCOR, a global Tier 1 reinsurer. SCOR plans to integrate Verisk’s EHR Triage
Engine into SCOR Global Life’s Velogica underwriting system. The Verisk
solution can also be easily delivered via a stand-alone API or integrated into technology
from FAST, a Verisk business and leading provider of end-to-end software for
the life insurance and annuity markets.
“Many life insurers are looking to implement digital strategies to modernize and streamline their business for a competitive advantage,” said Maroun Mourad, president of global underwriting at Verisk. “Verisk is at the forefront of a revolution in analyzing structured digital health data for insurers that’s shared by their applicants, and is indispensable for automating real-time, low-, or no-touch decision making. This can help insurers deliver a quick purchase process for the vast majority of applicants who are relatively low risk.”
– Cerner and Xealth announce a collaboration to foster
tighter physician-patient relationships by giving patients easier access to
digital health tools.
– These assets will be prescribed directly within the physician’s EHR workflow to manage conditions including chronic diseases, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery preparation.
– Cerner and LRVHealth have together invested $6 million
in Xealth as part of this agreement, with Cerner and Xealth planning to jointly
develop digital health solutions that extend the value of the EHR.
– Already integrated into Epic, the integration puts
Xealth in the EHR of record for more than half of the U.S. hospital systems.
Xealth, a Seattle, WA-based company enabling digital
health at scale, and Cerner
Corporation, today announced a collaboration that will bring digital
health tools to clinicians and patients to improve the healthcare experience.
As part of this agreement, Cerner and Xealth plan to jointly develop digital health
solutions that extend the value of the electronic health record
(EHR). Already integrated into Epic, this integration puts Xealth in
the EHR of record for more than half of the U.S. hospital systems.
In addition, Cerner
and LRVHealth have together invested $6M in Xealth. Cerner joins Xealth
investors including Atrium Health, Cleveland Clinic, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Providence
Ventures and UPMC as well as McKesson, Novartis, Philips, and ResMed.
Xealth/Cerner EHR
Integration Details
At its core, the
relationship between Xealth and Cerner aims to give patients their own digital
data so they can be more engaged in their treatment plans. The Xealth platform
is designed to help clinicians easily integrate, prescribe and monitor digital health
tools for patients from one location in the EHR. Care teams will be able to
order solutions directly from the EHR to manage conditions including chronic
diseases, behavioral health, maternity care and surgery preparation. Incorporating Xealth into Cerner’s technology and patient portal
provides easier access to personal health information and gives care teams the
ability to monitor patient engagement with the tools and analyze the effects of
increased engagement on their healthcare and recovery.
The collaboration
between Cerner and Xealth will provide care teams and patients convenience and
help improve care accessibility. Better communications and engagement with key
members of their care team will create an experience that is connected across
settings before, during and after a care encounter.
Why It Matters
During the recent
surge of COVID-19 across the world, tools that automate patient education,
deliver virtual care, support telehealth and offer remote patient monitoring
have become even more prominent, creating new methods to inform care decisions
and keep care teams and patients connected.
“Today, we have the unique opportunity to improve people’s lives by allowing active participation in their own treatment plans,” said David Bradshaw, Senior Vice President, Consumer and Employer Solutions, Cerner. “Patients want greater access to their health information and are motivated to help care teams find the most appropriate road to recovery. Xealth and Cerner are making it easier and more convenient for patients and clinicians to accelerate healthcare in a more consumer-centric experience.”
Incorporating Xealth’s
digital health platform with clinician recommendations has been shown to
increase patient engagement rates as compared to a direct to consumer approach.
The company powers more than 30 digital health solutions, connecting patients
with educational content, remote patient monitoring, virtual care platforms,
e-commerce product recommendations and other services needed to improve health
outcomes.
“In order for digital health to have lasting impact, it needs to show value and ease for both the care team and patient,” said Mike McSherry, CEO and Co-Founder of Xealth. “We strongly believe that technology should nurture deeper patient-provider relationships and facilitate information sharing across systems and the care settings. It is exciting work with Cerner to simplify meaningful digital health for its health partners.”
“Combining our expertise in developing interactive digital solutions that improve the patient experience with Cerner’s world-class platforms creates immense opportunity for our clients to better meet the needs of today’s highly connected healthcare consumer,” concluded McSherry.
– Cerner expands its AI collaboration with Nuance to
provide joint customers with more advanced natural language virtual assistant
technology to navigate electronic health records (EHRs) using just
their voice, giving clinicians more time to spend with patients and less time
with a computer.
– As part of the expanded collaboration, Nuance will
offer Cerner deeply embedded virtual assistant technology that
delivers sophisticated conversational dialogues and skills to automate
high-value clinical tasks inside Cerner Millennium, such as chart
search, navigation, intelligent computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and
scheduling.
Nuance®
Communications, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its
long-standing AI collaboration with Cerner
to include the integration of Nuance’s virtual assistant technology into
the Cerner Millennium® electronic health record
(EHR). Building upon the existing integration between Nuance’s Dragon®
Medical platform and Cerner Millennium, joint clients can utilize
Nuance’s advanced natural language virtual assistant technology to navigate the
EHR using just their voice, giving clinicians more time to spend with their
patients and less time with their computer.
COVID-19 Underscores Importance of Addressing Physician
Burnout
The expanded Nuance-Cerner relationship is driven by the healthcare industry’s need to mitigate what the World Medical Association is calling a “pandemic of physician burnout” with 51 percent of physicians reporting frequent or constant feelings of burnout. This is caused by a staggering administrative workload of electronic paperwork to document patient care and to meet requirements for insurance coverage, financial reimbursement, and medicolegal liability protection.
Research shows that more than 80 percent of physicians believe virtual assistants in health care can reduce the burden on care teams and improve the patient experience. Nuance’s virtual assistant technology helps physicians rapidly accomplish tasks and communicate more naturally while allowing them to use specialized medical terminology across a range of devices and applications with high accuracy.
Virtual Assistant Platform Integration Benefits
Nuance’s deeply embedded virtual assistant technology delivers sophisticated conversational dialogues and skills that automate high-value clinical tasks inside Cerner Millennium, such as chart search, navigation, intelligent computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and scheduling. Nuance technology’s high accuracy rates, rich set of voice-activated skills and ability to understand the user’s intent in context provides higher levels of workflow automation, and more efficient and complete documentation of patient care. Additionally, Nuance’s pre-built, HIPAA-compliant natural language understanding models and cloud platform will support Cerner to deploy the solution quickly and easily to joint clients.
“Together with Cerner, we’re bringing the next level of conversational AI directly to our joint clients with the goals of improving patient experiences, combating clinician burnout, and reducing costs,” said Joe Petro, CTO, Nuance. “Building on our Dragon Medical platform, already used by over 550,000 physicians in the U.S. alone, our new virtual assistant technology will help deliver solutions that automate time-consuming tasks, eliminate inefficiencies, and bring clinical intelligence and better decision-support to clinicians at the point of care.”
Availability
Select joint Cerner and Nuance clients can expect
to start deploying this integrated virtual assistant technology late this
year.
– According to a recent KLAS report, Allscripts and
eClinicalWorks EMRs are not a good fit for pediatric practices, while Greenway
Intergy is improving.
– PCC, athenahealth, and Office Practicum EMRs named best suited for pediatric offices.
Despite their unique needs, many ambulatory pediatric
offices are expected to “make do” with generalized EMR templates and charting.
From growth charts, to well-child visits, to immunization tracking, to registry
integration, pediatric offices often find their EMR doesn’t meet their
needs. KLAS’ latest report, “Pediatric
Ambulatory EMR 2020: Best EMR Performers in Pediatric Settings”
examines which EMR vendors best ensure pediatric provider success by providing
an outstanding EMR and tailored service. Note that this report is focused on
ambulatory-focused vendors, including pediatric-specific EMR vendors.
Allscripts and eClinicalWorks EMRs Not a Good Fit for
Pediatric Practices; Greenway Intergy Making Improvements
While Allscripts’ EMR is highly customizable and can be
tailored for use in pediatric settings, customers report that in order to make
the solution work for their needs, KLAS reports customers have to dedicate
large investments of time and resources (e.g., hire an IT team to run and
customize the EMR) for customization/optimizations. These investments are not
always communicated to pediatric practices during the sales process, leading to
mixed results and expectations around Allscripts’ pediatric functionality. In addition,
customers cited issues with Allscripts’ support is often subpar or nonexistent.
Although KLAS conducted a limited number of interviews with eClinicalWorks
customers, they cited a negative view of the EMR’s quality, saying it does not
meet the needs of pediatric practices and does not come with necessary
pediatric-specific content or workflows. Multiple respondents also complain
about bugs, crashes, and problematic upgrades that introduce new problems
without bringing substantive fixes. Historically, Greenway Health customers
have felt the solution falls short in aspects like ease of use and needed
functionality; however, a number of interviewed customers feel the vendor is
making more of an effort to listen to customers’ problems and deliver requested
pediatric-specific functionalities.
PCC, athenahealth, and Office Practicum EMRs Best Suited
for Pediatrics
KLAS reports PCC (one of two pediatric-specific vendors in
this report) stands out with the highest overall score and the most consistent
customer satisfaction. They have a proven history of and reputation for
supporting customers and delivering the pediatric-specific technology needed to
successfully run an ambulatory pediatric practice.
KLAS reported athenahealth’s EMR also performs well in
pediatric settings; more than 90% of pediatric customers are satisfied with the
solution and its pediatric specific functionality. Additionally, customers of
Office Practicum (the other pediatric-specific EMR vendor) are generally
satisfied with the functionality they receive and feel it helps make their
practices successful. Recent issues with nickel-and-diming and buggy updates
have caused some frustration for a number of interviewed customers.
– Cerner announced a new offering, CommunityWorks
Foundations aimed at reducing costs and speeding up the implementation process
for Rural and Critical Access Hospitals.
– This much-needed offering caters to small rural healthcare providers, who often face challenges such as geographic isolation, workforce shortages, educational disparities, and diminishing resources that can make it harder to deliver high-quality care.
– Rural hospitals serve about 20% of all Americans, and
Cerner is committed to providing technology and services to help individuals in
all communities get access to quality comprehensive healthcare.
Cerner Corporation®,
today announced a new tailored cloud-based technology offering, CommunityWorks Foundations, created to help
Critical Access Hospitals across the U.S. reduce financial burdens. This new
technology, geared toward smaller and rural hospitals, offers a fixed-fee
payment structure with no up-front capital spend to help reduce costs and
lengthy implementation processes.
Rapid Cloud-based Deployment
CommunityWorks Foundations, a cloud-based
version of the Cerner Millennium® electronic health record
(EHR), is designed to expedite implementation with a six-month kick-off to
go-live timeline and will make it easier for small hospitals to better serve their
patients.
As with all hospitals deploying CommunityWorks, those using CommunityWorks Foundations will also leverage Cerner’s solutions and services designed to help improve clinical and business outcomes, the patient and provider experience and satisfaction while reducing physician burnout. CommunityWorks clients have seen success, with more than 70% of new clients beating baseline accounts receivable by 180 days post-implementation. These hospitals averaged a 5.5% improvement in this area.
Why It Matters
Healthcare providers in small communities often face challenges such as geographic isolation, workforce shortages, educational disparities, and diminishing resources that can make it harder to deliver high-quality care. The National Rural Health Association found COVID-19 has exacerbated these trends, with significant financial impact on these specialty hospitals – half of which were operating at a financial loss prior to the pandemic. Rural hospitals serve about 20% of all Americans, and Cerner is committed to providing technology and services to help individuals in all communities get access to quality comprehensive health care.
“Working with this segment of clients for more than a decade, we have evolved this cloud-based model to meet the various challenges community and rural health care organizations face,” said Mitchell Clark, president, CommunityWorks, Cerner. “CommunityWorks Foundations is the next evolution based on what we’ve learned from our more than 200 rural and critical access clients and the broader industry. It is built to help reduce financial barriers and better support communities that sometimes face challenges accessing the most innovative health care technology.”
Early Adoption
With the successful early adoption of CommunityWorks Foundations
at organizations like Macon
Community Hospital, Cerner continues to demonstrate value to clients.
Johnson County Hospital (JCH), an 18-bed Critical Access Hospital with two
clinics located in southeast Nebraska, recently signed for CommunityWorks Foundations.
Hospital leaders cite cost, ease of implementation and vendor support as top
drivers behind the switch to Cerner.
– Change
Healthcare’s SmartPay integration with Epic MyChart helps facilitate patient
payments both pre- and post-service, and connectivity with Hyperspace® creates
a “one-stop shop” experience that lets providers’ staff stay within Epic to
process point-of-service payments.
– Change Healthcare’s SmartPay Payment Integration for
MyChart and encrypted device integration is available in the Epic App Orchard.
Change
Healthcare announced the launch of its SmartPay
Payment Integration solution integrated with Epic
MyChart and encrypted device integration within Hyperspace. This latest
integration with Epic’s EHR
technology allows providers to offer their patients a wide range of payment
options––letting them easily pay their healthcare bills how and when they want,
with Change Healthcare providing phone and mail-in payment channels to give
providers a multi-channel payment solution.
Epic Integration Benefits for Providers and Patients
Using SmartPay Payment Integration, provider users won’t
have to leave their workflow in order to collect patient payments. Providers
also can take advantage of features including phone pay, consumer lockbox, patient
statements created with design thinking to boost patient engagement.
With SmartPay™ Payment Integration, patients can make
payments online from within the MyChart® clinical patient portal. Multiple
payment options are offered to accommodate patient needs and preferences,
including using debit, credit, HSA, and FSA cards, as well as setting up
payment plans.
Availability
Change Healthcare’s SmartPay Payment Integration for MyChart and encrypted device integration is available in the Epic App Orchard.
– Cerner and long-time client Banner Health announced
a new deal to implement a comprehensive suite of revenue cycle management
solutions as part of a long-standing strategic alignment to use health care
technology to drive population health improvement.
– The revenue cycle integration will take place across
Banner Health’s entire system, including 28 hospitals and clinics in six
states.
Banner Health and Cerner,
today announced it is expanding its
relationship to implement an end-to-end, comprehensive suite of revenue cycle
management (RCM) solutions, building on a multi-year, long-standing
strategic alignment using health care technology to drive population health
improvement. The revenue cycle integration is designed to streamline and
simplify the clinician and patient experience across Banner Health’s entire
system, including 28 hospitals and clinics in six states.
RCM Implementation
Approach
Banner Health will integrate Cerner’s registration, scheduling, patient billing, practice management solutions, and transaction services with its existing EHR on the Cerner Millenniumplatform. This integration between the revenue cycle and clinical systems will help connect a patient’s clinicals and financials to one single view across the health system ultimately streamlining billing operations and improving the overall patient experience. Cerner’s open platform also offers a way to more easily integrate third-party applications to help meet Banner Health’s specific needs.
Why It Matters
To successfully manage
business today, health systems need clinical, financial and operational data
that works together. Cerner’s clinically-drive revenue cycle solution uses a
common, single and integrated platform designed to help improve savings,
cost-effectiveness and build a healthier bottom line for health systems.
“After comprehensive planning and alignment between our two organizations, we are confident that teaming with Cerner to achieve a fully integrated revenue cycle platform will meet our business needs now and into the future,” said Dennis Laraway, CFO, Banner Health. “Building on our past successful collaborations with Cerner for mainly clinical applications, adoption of their revenue cycle management solution is now a critical next step to streamline both clinical and financial solutions for our patients across the entire Banner Health enterprise.”
This
expansion is expected to better position Banner Health to flexibly adapt to new
payment structures, more quickly adjust to policy and compliance changes,
better coordinate single registration between acute and ambulatory services and
centralize single-source patient charting and reporting across multiple care
locations.
“The integrated approach housed within Cerner Millennium supports a more efficient and cost-effective approach for our providers and enhances the patient care experience as their health information easily follows them across the Banner Health continuum of care,” said Laraway.
– Allscripts and Microsoft sign a five-year partnership extension to support Allscripts’ cloud-based Sunrise electronic health record and drive co-innovation.
– The alliance will enable Allscripts to harness the power of Microsoft’s platform and tools, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams, and Power BI, creating a more seamless and highly productive user experience.
Today Allscripts and Microsoft Corp. announced the
extension of their long-standing strategic alliance to enable the expanded
development and delivery of cloud-based health IT solutions.
The five-year extension will support Allscripts’ cloud-based Sunrise electronic health record
(EHR), making Microsoft the cloud provider for the solution and opening up
co-innovation opportunities to help transform healthcare with smarter, more
scalable technology. The alliance will enable Allscripts to harness the power
of Microsoft’s platform and tools, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams
and Power BI, creating a more seamless and highly productive user experience.
Partnership Impact for Cloud-based Sunrise EHR
Sunrise is an integrated EHR that connects all aspects of
care, including acute, ambulatory, surgical, pharmacy, radiology and laboratory
services including an integrated revenue cycle and patient administration
system. Cloud-based Sunrise will offer many added benefits beyond the
on-premise version that will improve organizational effectiveness, solution
interoperability, clinician ease of use and an improved patient experience.
Client benefits include a subscription model delivering faster implementations
and lower annual upgrade costs, helping organizations leverage the software
without increasing burdens on their internal IT resources.
The cloud-based Sunrise solution will provide enhanced
security, scalability and flexibility, as well as the opportunity to add new
capabilities quickly as business needs and the cloud evolve. The cloud-based
solution will also include expanded analytics and insights functionality that
can quickly engage with the Internet of Things. Finally, the cloud-based
Sunrise solution will include a marketplace that enables healthcare apps and
third parties to easily integrate with a hospital EHR. Allscripts clients will
begin to see these updates by the end of 2020.
Why It Matters
“The COVID-19 pandemic will forever change how healthcare is
delivered, and provider organizations around the world must ensure they are
powered by innovative, interoperable, comprehensive and lower-cost IT solutions
that meet the demands of our new normal,” said Allscripts chief executive
officer Paul Black. “Healthcare delivery is no longer defined by location —
providers need to have the capability to reach patients where they are to truly
deliver the care they require. Cloud solutions, mobile options, telehealth
functionality — these are the foundational tools for not just the future of
healthcare, but the present. Collaborating with Microsoft, the leader in the
public cloud sector, we will efficiently deliver the tools caregivers need to
improve the clinical outcomes of their patients and operational performance of
their organizations.”
– Health Catalyst announces an agreement to acquire
clinical workflow optimization solution healthfinch using a mix of stock and
cash.
– As part of the acquisition, healthfinch will be a new
application suite category called EMR Embedded Insights and its refills, care
gaps closure, and visit planning applications will continue to be available in
their original configuration.
Health
Catalyst, Inc., a provider of data and analytics technology and services to
healthcare organizations, today announced that it has entered into a definitive
agreement to acquire healthfinch, Inc., a Madison,
Wisconsin-based company that provides a workflow integration engine delivering
insights and analytics into EMR workflows to
automate physicians’ ability to close patient care gaps in real-time. Health
Catalyst expects to fund the transaction using a mix of stock and cash.
Clinical Workflow Optimization
Founded in 2011, healthfinch has developed the healthcare
industry’s most trusted, most used clinical workflow optimization solution,
Charlie. Charlie’s unique combination of EMR-integrated technology and protocol
content streamlines key workflows such as prescription renewal processing,
visit planning, and care gap closure. With Charlie, health systems are able to
deliver a better, safer patient experience, while also achieving lower rates of
provider and staff burnout, increased care gap closure, improved quality
metrics, and significant time and cost savings for providers and clinical
staff.
Integration with Health
Catalyst Analytics Application Portfolio
The healthfinch acquisition, which will allow Health
Catalyst’s customers to enhance clinical workflows in the EMR, further
strengthens the Health Catalyst Population Health portfolio, which was
bolstered by the Able Health acquisition in February 2020 and Care
Management Suite launch earlier this month.
Within the Health Catalyst analytics application portfolio,
healthfinch will be a new application suite category called EMR Embedded
Insights and its refills, care gaps closure, and visit planning applications will
continue to be available in their original configuration. Additionally, the
healthfinch technology will augment workflows across Health Catalyst’s product
portfolio, with data and insights powered by Health Catalyst’s cloud-based Data
Operating System (DOS™), a healthcare-specific, open, flexible, and scalable
data platform that provides customers with a single comprehensive environment
to integrate and organize data.
healthfinch’s industry-leading capabilities are already in demand from Health Catalyst customers and prospects across multiple product areas including quality measures, care management, population health, patient safety, and others. Providing these capabilities will bring even greater value to Health Catalyst customers by making the critical insights and analytics from the DOS platform actionable within clinical workflows – providing more effective care for patients and saving time for both doctors and staff through automation so they can work at the top of their license.
“We are thrilled to benefit from healthfinch’s decades of collective experience gained from working with customers across the United States that are using a variety of different EMRs. And we also find deeply compelling the strong mission and cultural alignment with our respected healthfinch teammates. We are excited to have the healthfinch leadership team and their talented colleagues join Health Catalyst, and we are grateful for the tremendous insights, knowledge and perspectives they bring, which will accelerate the achievement of our mission to be the catalyst for massive, measurable, data-informed healthcare improvement,” said Health Catalyst CEO Dan Burton.
Burton added, “This acquisition highlights Health Catalyst’s ability to integrate and scale software applications on top of our DOS platform. The healthfinch technology will easily serve up actionable insights, derived from DOS and other Health Catalyst analytics applications into the EMR, at the point of care.”
