Partners HealthCare, @PartnersNews, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, and Health Catalyst @HealthCatalyst have established a strategic collaboration aimed at fostering and accelerating the adoption of population health management (PHM) strategies and practices nationally to improve the quality of health care and lowering costs while meeting the needs of patients, providers and payors. The $30 million initiative will enable the development and testing of innovative PHM strategies at Partners and, in collaboration with Health Catalyst, facilitate the transfer of the knowledge generated to other health care providers. Read the full press release.
Engadget @Engadget is reporting that former Philips Healthcare CEO Deborah DiSanzo is the new General Manager of IBM’s Watson Health unit, @IBMWatson, which aims to provide the company’s cognitive computer system to health care professionals and patients. At IBM, DiSanzo leads more than 2,000 employees and is charged with scaling Watson Health globally and expanding IBM’s Watson Health Cloud initiative. The Watson Health Cloud attempts to collect large amounts of patient data and make it easier for doctors and companies to make health decisions.Read the full story.
3M @3MHISNews has announced that it is exploring strategic alternatives for its global Health Information Systems business. These alternatives, all of which are focused on building upon the business’ strong foundation, could include spinning-off, selling, or retaining and further investing in the business within 3M. “As part of our ongoing portfolio management process, 3M is exploring alternatives for our Health Information Systems business, a recognized industry leader in health care coding software, services, and analytics,” said Inge G. Thulin, 3M chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Through this process, we are focused on determining the best path to benefit 3M, its stakeholders, and this business.” Read the full press release.
Medullan @medullan, a digital healthcare consulting firm, announced a partnership with Altarum Institute to license the Altarum @Altarum Consumer Engagement (ACE) Measure. Per the agreement, Medullan will have full commercial use of the ACE survey toolset for deployment in client engagements and other commercial enterprises. The collaboration will help Medullan to assess the health engagement levels of individuals and populations through the ACE Measure tool. Read the full press release
Practice Fusion @PracticeFusion has announced it has surpassed its 600th signed partnership deal. Recent partnership deals include consumer health care technology company Theranos @theranos and RadNet @RadNet, an outpatient diagnostic imaging service provider. Practice Fusion providers will be able to access Theranos’ approach to lab testing, and will be able to connect with over 50 RadNet imaging centers in California and New York. Read the full press release.
Medsphere Systems Corporation @medsphereorg has introduced OpenVista NoteAssist, a new clinical documentation tool. NoteAssist streamlines the process of compiling patient data and incorporating it into various types of documentation such as progress notes and discharge summaries by remembering user preferences and text input between both user sessions and individual notes. Medsphere developed NoteAssist in collaboration with Silver Hill Hospital, a behavioral health hospital client in New Canaan, Connecticut, where application is currently live and in use. Read the full press release.
Surescripts @Surescripts has expanded the use of its electronic prior authorization service, Complete EPA, to 20 hospitals and health systems. More than 17,000 providers are now utilizing Epic’s electronic health record software (EHR) will have the ability to complete prior authorization requests within minutes, giving doctors the ability to deliver the most efficient and connected care possible and ensuring patients receive needed medications faster. With the addition of these health systems, CompleteEPA is now available to more than 415,000 doctors using 27 different EHR software solutions. Read the full press release.
Nextrials, Inc.@nextrials, a provider of clinical research software and services, has announced new features for its E2E electronic health record integration tool that that help further streamline clinical trials. Designed to mesh EHRs with Nextrials’ electronic data capture platform Prism, the E2E tool now offers clear visual cues to indicate the data origination point and generates graphical indicators when data is out of sync between the two repositories. This functionality enables researches to save time and maintain data quality throughout a study. Read the full press release.