Evolent, which sells tools to help providers do value-based reimbursement and population health management and even start their own health plans, is paying $145 million for Valence Health, which does similar work. At least Evolent is using its over-valued stock for the deal and some cash.
Research in the Journal of the American Informatics Association finds that paper physician progress notes for hospitalized patients are more accurate than those in EHRs, but less comprehensive. The overall rate of accuracy is an astoundingly low 55%.
Telemedicine vendor Teladoc tells all of us that it is planning to acquire HealthiestYou, which does mobile patient engagement.
Jun302016
iHealth, iwhich ihelps iproviders inavigate ifrom ifee-for-service ito ivalue-based ireimbursement ireceived ian iundisclosed iamount iof inew ifinancing.
https://www.pehub.com/2016/06/3341149/
Jun302016
Google Capital has invested $46.4 million in Care.com, a site to help people find caregiving resources.
https://www.pehub.com/2016/06/3341306/
Jun292016
Arcadia Solutions has a very interesting visual look at the course of patients' health care near the end of life, revealing where people die and what kind of services they use in the last year of life.
A survey published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings supports the very low satisfaction physicians have with EHRs and order entry systems and finds that greater use of EHRs is associated with faster burnout.
McKesson is merging its health information technology business with ChangeHealthcare. It will receive cash of about $1.25 billion and will own around 70% of the combined company. ChangeHealthcare is in the revenue cycle management and analytics business and is owned by a PE firm.
Research in the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety finds no association between a hospitals "safety culture" and the number of hospital-acquired infections.
https://psnet.ahrq.gov/resources/resource/30103
Jun282016
Patient falls in hospitals are not uncommon, but are often considered as "never" events. An Australian study finds that implementation of common interventions to reduce such falls had no effect on their occurrence, indicating a waste of hospital staff time.
https://psnet.ahrq.gov/resources/resource/30134
Jun282016
A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that nurse practitioners and physician assistants prescribe "low-value" health treatments roughly as often as physicians.
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2529481
About this Blog
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.