Bill Siwicki

LAS VEGAS – TCI Software Inc., CliniLinc Inc. and ONYX Healthcare USA Inc. announced on Thursday at HIMSS16 a strategic alliance through which TCI’s Rounds software will be pre-loaded into CliniLinc’s software suite and integrated on ONYX’s new 8-inch slim medical tablet. The vendors are highlighting the new alliance at the ONYX Healthcare HIMSS16 exhibit hall booth (#7805). The combined tablet and software technology, dubbed Mobile Telecare Assistant, will begin shipping in April. Coded ONYX-MD81, it is a pocket-sized, Windows 10-ready tablet equipped with a high-definition, multi-touch, 8-inch display with lightweight design to help improve workflow efficiency, ONYX said. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] "ONYX-MD81 is designed to eliminate for nurses and physicians the burden of carrying a heavy-duty laptop or pushing a mobile workstation-on-wheels with overweight batteries during patient rounding shifts," says John Chuang, president of ONYX Healthcare. The ONYX-MD81 integrated with the CliniLinc software suite enables mobile health and computerized physician order entry processes, the vendors said. The CliniLinc suite is an interdisciplinary clinical system that provides one-touch access on a single screen to multiple disparate EHRs, PACS, ECGs and more, and gives sharing and extended control to consulting physicians or case managers during telemedicine consultations, CliniLinc said. The addition of TCI’s Rounds to the CliniLinc suite also enables the ONYX-MD81 tablet to conduct real-time uploads of patient interview/discharge data to a hospital’s database, potentially saving hospitals costs associated with manual data entry time and reducing errors from manual patient record entry, the vendors said. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS – Citra Health Solutions, a Great Point Partners LLC company that markets population health products, has acquired SironaHealth, a clinical care management services vendor. Citra purchased SironaHealth as the next step in an ongoing plan to extend its integrated population health systems in the value-based healthcare market, the company said. SironaHealth is accredited by the URAC and NCQA and has a history in clinical care coordination and case management. SironaHealth will do business as a Citra Health Solutions company and will continue to maintain an operational center in Portland, Maine. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] “By managing the health of populations, including disease management, care management and wellness, Sirona will fit into Citra’s holistic approach to drive increased member engagement, reduce health care costs and improve the quality of care,” said Howard Buff, CEO and founder of Citra Health Solutions. “The integrated healthcare model will provide a service- and technology-enabled platform that supports a multitude of payment models and risk arrangements for providers.” Citra systems handle areas including 24/7 care coordination, point-of-need engagement, readmission reduction, ER diversion, star-rating improvement, bundled payment administration and chronic care management. Citra’s acquisition of SironaHealth further increases its clinical capabilities to meet the needs of the market and strengthens the portfolio of systems to meet the needs of patients, providers and payers, Citra said. “Our mission has been to guarantee satisfaction through compassionate and competent care with a relentless focus on quality improvement, and that will not change,” said Jeff Forbes, CEO of SironaHealth. “What will change is the fact that with these augmented resources, we will have the ability to offer our customers more than ever before.” Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS – Healthcare communication technology vendor etherFAX LLC and secure messaging systems company DataMotion have announced at HIMSS16 a partnership to deliver secure messaging and document delivery solutions for the healthcare industry. The companies have integrated etherFAX with DataMotion Direct to enable healthcare professionals to send and receive fax documents and other protected health information securely, ensuring privacy and compliance using the Direct Messaging standard. The vendors are demonstrating the new technology at the 2016 Annual HIMSS Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, etherFAX in booth #12247 and DataMotion in booth #12144. Technology from etherFAX enables secure transmission of unstructured data between fax servers, devices, electronic health records systems and health care information exchanges, with end-to-end encryption. Unstructured data such as medical notes, authorizations, protected health information and color documents can be transmitted at high speeds. DataMotion Direct, part of the DataMotion platform, enables healthcare providers to send and receive protected health information with other Direct address holders to comply with HIPAA, enhance health information exchange, meet meaningful use requirements and enhance care coordination communications, the vendor said. Based on the national encryption standard for securely exchanging clinical healthcare data via the Internet, DataMotion Direct enables secure messaging for healthcare providers, patients, business associates and clinical systems, the vendor added. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] The new combined technology expands the connected reach of Direct Messaging to the large number of providers reliant on fax technology for exchanging patient information with other care providers and facilities, the vendors said. “Fax remains a mainstay technology in healthcare, partly as a holdover from the era of paper-based medical records and partly due to HIPAA regulations preventing unsecure electronic communication like e-mail,” DataMotion chief technology officer Bob Janacek said. “Direct messaging overcomes HIPAA risks and other interoperability issues that have held back electronic communication in healthcare. Its adoption has accelerated with more than 40 million Direct messages sent in 2015. Integrating Direct messaging with fax will increase the adoption of Direct and we expect to see more integration into clinical workflows and EHRs as a result.” Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS – Secure, personalized clinical desktop technology vendor Aventura announced Wednesday at HIMSS16 that it is partnering with HealthCast to bring HealthCast’s single sign-on technology to Aventura’s clinical desktop offering. The combination enables basic level desktop perimeter security and two-factor authentication with the ability to leverage single sign-on and contextual patient awareness for interoperability at the point of care, Aventura said. Aventura’s so-called “situational awareness” platform, Sympatica, uses ambient knowledge of who a user is, her location and the patient in her care to authenticate and provide access to an electronic health records system. HealthCast’s SSO Connectors will be integrated into the Sympatica platform to deliver fast and secure access to an organization’s EHR and multiple clinical applications, the vendors announced. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] “Our partnership with HealthCast includes a growing library of more than 325 SSO connectors,” said John Gobron, CEO of Aventura. “By pre-integrating with Sympatica, customers will have optionality in their security strategy, including the ability to leverage SSO without the complexity and costs commonly associated with other access solutions.” Aventura and HealthCast are exhibiting at the 2016 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition, Aventura in booth #1324 and HealthCast in booth #6054. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS – Infection control technology vendor Seal Shield LLC has introduced at HIMSS16 its new ElectroClave UV-C Sanitizer and Mobile Device Management System. The vendor is demonstrating the technology in the HIMSS exhibit hall in booth #368. The ElectroClave is an enterprise mobile device management system that uses low-power UVC LED technology to disinfect hard-to-clean devices such as tablet computers and smartphones while charging, syncing and managing the devices via a custom RFID backbone. Each sanitizer can manage up to 12 devices at a time. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] Tablet computers and smartphones can harbor harmful bacteria and viruses. A study published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology warns that 20 percent to 30 percent of viruses can be readily transferred from a fingertip to a glass surface, like that on a mobile device touchscreen. Today, hospitals use autoclaves to sterilize a wide variety of instruments. But numerous devices such as tablets, smartphones and other electronics cannot withstand the high heat of these sterilization systems, Seal Shield explained. The ElectroClave bridges the gap for IT professionals and infection control practitioners, using high-efficacy UV-C LED technology that has the advantages of low power and low heat, Seal Shield said. The vendor's Smart Clean technology enables what the company describes as "failsafe disinfection," adjusting UV exposure to bulb life and environmental conditions. These features allow electronic devices to be charged and synced while they disinfect, the vendor explained. The ElectroClave combines HEPA filtration and positive pressure with UVC LED technology to provide the most efficient means of combating cross-contamination bacteria, viruses and fungi on hard-to-clean devices, Seal Shield added. Built-in spectroscopic analyzers measure the change on the mobile device surface in order to ensure a clean and safe device for every user, the vendor said. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS – TigerText Inc., a secure healthcare communications technology vendor, has announced at HIMSS16 partnerships with Salesforce and Box to launch care collaboration systems. The partnerships will enable streamlined communication across the continuum of care to decrease care delivery costs while improving outcomes, said TigerText, which is highlighting the new partnerships at its HIMSS16 exhibit hall booth (#425). TigerText is using its developer platform, dubbed TigerConnect, to enable the partnership integrations; the vendor also is expanding the suite of tools in Tiger Connect to inspire more healthcare developers to boost patient-centric care, the vendor said. “Healthcare is hungry for better communication tools that are embedded into existing workflows,” said Itamar Kandel, president of TigerText. “With TigerConnect, our partners can harness the power of secure messaging to address this need without the hassle, cost and delay of building it themselves.” [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] Salesforce Health Cloud customers soon will be able to embed the TigerText messaging service in their Health Cloud portals, enabling clinical staff to conduct HIPAA-compliant conversations for streamlined care coordination. And through a new integration with Box’s DICOM viewer, both TigerText and Box hospital users can share and collaborate on DICOM images via the TigerText mobile interface. On another front, in an effort to support innovative companies, TigerText has launched TigerConnect for Startups. The launch partners for this new initiative include Medisafe, WinguMD and AccountedCare. With more than 2.6 million users, Medisafe’s cloud-synced mHealth platform helps patients stay on top of their medications. Medisafe is collaborating with TigerConnect to research doctor utilization of patient-generated data to inform adherence, the vendors said. Also, working with TigerConnect, WinguMD, an enterprise mobile photography system, enables secure collaboration on visual findings for an entire care team. And AccountedCare’s PoC software, a mobile platform for value-based care providers, uses TigerConnect to deliver real-time notifications, tracking and reporting across the post-acute care continuum to help manage costs and quality for accountable care organizations. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

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