This Week’s Health IT Business News
The electronic trading glitch that hit Wall Street this week leads business news. Just after the opening bell on Wednesday the prices of dozens of stocks began to gyrate up and down. The swings were soon traced to a software glitch at a New Jersey brokerage firm called Knight Capital. The market quickly re-righted though the New York Times reported the firm lost $440 million over the glitch. Federal investigators are still trying to piece together exactly what happened. Listen to Jim Zarroli’s NPR report about the glitch and the aftermath.
GovHealthIT reported this week that Prior Knowledge, a startup firm that seeks to enable entrepreneurs to access and analyze data sets, announced it is teaming up with Practice Fusion’s Research Division on a pilot program to tap predictive analytics to spot and interpret health trends. By deploying Veritable, its predictive database, Prior Knowledge officials hope the pilot will uncover new health trends.
In health information exchange news it was announced Massachusetts has received $16.9 million from CMS to fund its HIE. The state is the first to receive funding for HIE purposes. The Massachusetts HIE , its software provider Orion Health, and other partners, Berkshire Health, athenahealth, and the New England Health Exchange Network, expect to launch phase one of a three phase program sometime before October 15.
InformationWeek has reported that Walgreens has begun tests on a mobile scheduling app. In a pilot program that will be closely watched by healthcare providers, Walgreens’ Take Care Health Systems is letting consumers use their smartphones to schedule appointments at its retail clinics in Denver and Chicago. To use the new scheduling service, patients must first download the free iTriage app for iPhones and Android devices.
In merger and acquisition news this week the New York Times reported Roper Industries will acquire Sunquest Information Systems for $1.4 Billion. The Times says the acquisition comes amid increasing consolidation in the medical diagnostics industry.
Speaking of acquisitions, InformationWeek this week posted an article on How To Survive A Merger: 6 Tips For IT Corporate mergers and acquisitions. The six suggestions give IT leaders sound advice for managing both new and old team members through the process of an acquisition.
As reported by a number of news sources, contract announcements this week include :
- Purdue Regional Extension Center in Indiana has selected SA Ignite’s meaningful use reporting software to help health care providers attest to meaningful use requirements
- Mercy Catholic Health Care System with 31 hospitals and more than 200 will deploy Humedica MinedShare’s clinical intelligence system
- Duke University Health System in North Carolina has selected Health Language’s health care terminology management technology to support transition to ICD-10 code sets
- Franciscan Alliance, a network of 13 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois, has selected Merge Healthcare’s EHR image-enabling technology
- Inland Empire Health Plan in California has selected ForaCare’s chronic disease management and telehealth systems
- Alpha II, a healthcare coding, compliance and reimbursement company, announced its contract with iMed Software to generate evaluation and management (E&M) codes from information obtained from EHRs