Analytics

Indiana University Health appointed Mark Lantzy to be its new chief information officer. Lantzy, who has built his health IT career in several leadership roles over 20 years, comes to IU after serving as chief operations officer and CIO for Gateway Health, a Pittsburgh-based managed care organization for Medicaid and Medicare members. Before Gateway, Lantzy held leadership positions for WellCare Health Plans, Aetna and Accenture. In his new role, Lantzy will have overall responsibility for information services – including strategic planning, operations and project delivery – for IU Health’s 16-hospital system, health plans and physicians network. "There is a rapidly growing technology sector in Indianapolis and the opportunity to bring innovation and new approaches to our health information technology capability is exciting," Lantzy said in a statement. Ryan Kitchell, IU executive vice president and chief administrative officer, called Lantzy "a dynamic and accomplished leader," who would help recruit top talent to IU’s 600-member IT team. Lantzy’s predecessor, Bill McConnell, led statewide IS integration projects, built IU Health’s data warehouse and decision support and analytics capabilities, stabilized IS infrastructure and systems performance, and worked to expand research systems capabilities with IU School of Medicine and associated institutes. McConnell plans to retire but will stay on the job at IU for several months to ease the transition.  Twitter: @HealthITNews

Eran Bellin, MD, of Montefiore Medical Center, discusses the tools and methods the organization implemented to track and use information for driving better population health outcomes.

HIMSS16 provided countless hours of must-see video content for Healthcare IT News, from fascinating interviews with thought leaders and speakers at the conference to in-depth panel discussions and show floor highlights throughout the week. We have compiled the top 5 videos to date for you to watch in case you missed them.

Rebecca Busch, CEO of Medical Business Associates and author of  Leveraging Data in Healthcare, describes how the expansion of the C-suite in healthcare helps to address the increasingly diverse needs of the business, including big data management.

The HIMSS16 show floor was a busy place last week as thousands packed booths from technology and services vendors to get caught up on the newest systems for managing healthcare providers. But the big show also played host to big announcements from exhibitioners choosing to use the attention that comes with HIMSS16 to debut new products. The list below includes dozens of product announcements that we covered at the show: IBM Watson adds Tiatros patient-centered social network to system The University of California San Francisco was the first to leverage the physician-driven network is using Tiatros to address the behavioral health needs of young veterans. Epic and Tableau deal links analytics to electronic health records The EHR vendor and analytics company sign an agreement to facilitate greater clinical insights for caregivers within the records system. HealthPort, IOD, Care Communications, ECS merge into new company CIOX Health The four vendors, who announced the news at HIMSS16, seek to create a single access point for patient information. Oracle debuts the next generation healthcare analytics suite at HIMSS16 Oracle Healthcare Foundation provides organizations with a consistent and complete view of their clinical, financial and genomics data across an enterprise. Inova Health creates new health plan, population health strategy Partnership with Aetna and purchase of Medicaid group gets new plan closer to million-member goal. Accenture study: Patients more engaged, willing to share data with doctors Report also shows 85 percent of doctors said that using wearables can help patients become more involved. Xerox launches population health platform The new software combines analytics, patient outreach, telehealth and administrative tools to help providers adjust to new reimbursement reality with a 'lifecycle' approach to value-based care. Transcend Insights unveils population health, patient engagement, mHealth apps Humana subsidiary says the three apps use the HealthLogix technology platform to tackle population health, patient engagement and mobile health. IBM Watson launches SleepHealth app to explore connection between health and sleep It will be the first ResearchKit study to run on Watson Health Cloud Surescripts activates National Record Locator Service, includes data on 140 million patients Platform is designed to give providers a way to see a more complete view of a patient’s health history. West Healthcare launches communication system to aid patient engagement, pop health West TEC Pathways delivers the so-called "last mile" of patient communication, aligning that communication with clinical guidelines and care plans. Medisafe launches provider link to mobile health app for consumers Medisafe Providers enables physicians, care teams and pharmacists to track their patients’ medication adherence between visits. MDLIVE to integrate with Office 365 and Skype for Business The telemedicine tech vendor is betting the ubiquitous Microsoft systems will enable a more robust, secure and scalable collaboration platform. MITRE shares an open source FHIR testing tool At the Federal Health IT Solutions Pavilion, a solution to FHIR "ambiguities." WellDoc collaborates with Johnson & Johnson's LifeScan on mobile tech for diabetes In addition to the collaboration, Johnson & Johnson Innovation has participated in WellDoc’s Series B financing round that has raised $29.5 million. Modernizing Medicine highlights new surgery center suite, imminent practice management tools  The company is also showing enhancements it made to its ASC suite since acquiring gMed in late 2015, CEO Dan Cane said. Intermountain to deploy clinical variation management software from Ayasdi The prominent Utah health system believes the software can quickly boost the insights it can gain from its mountain of health data, helping with value-based care. TigerText partners with Salesforce, Box, adds program for startups The secure healthcare communications tech vendor says the partnerships will enable streamlined communication across the continuum of care. Signet Accel debuts Avec database-agnostic data integration platform The healthcare software company is targeting interoperability, unveiling the commercial federated data integration platform at HIMSS16. Translational Software launches genetic-oriented medication alerting system The vendor of clinical decision support and precision medicine technology is working with First Databank on the new gene-based drug-drug interaction capability. Citra Health acquires care management services vendor SironaHealth The purchase is the next step in Citra’s ongoing plan to extend its population health systems in the value-based healthcare market, the company said. ExtraHop announces new healthcare analytics product The technology delivers stream analytics designed to unlock insights into the relationship between IT performance and clinical workflows, the vendor said. ClearDATA releases cloud-based HIPAA compliance dashboard The ClearDATA Active Compliance and Security Monitoring Dashboard is designed to safeguard electronic health data and provider reputations. Talix partners with NextGen, Allscripts and Capstone on coding The three vendors will offer Talix’s Coding InSight as part of their suites to help providers better manage patient risk and optimize risk-based reimbursements. Doc Halo debuts Pronto, mobile enterprise-wide scheduling and messaging system Caregivers using Pronto can access up-to-the-minute schedules, find and message on-call providers, activate critical-care teams, and enable care coordination. American HealthTech and Medtelligent partner for senior care technology The Assisted Living Solution is designed to help providers navigate the tech challenges of caring for seniors who move across the spectrum of care. par8o expands relationship with WellHealth Quality Care accountable care network The referral management tech vendor will use its platform to enable a patient-centered medical home model for 17,000 members of the Nevada Teachers Health Trust. Experian merges healthcare brands under Experian Health name Experian Health is the new brand for what were 11 businesses that serve the healthcare field. DataMotion and etherFAX partner for new fax-to-direct system The combined technology enables healthcare professionals to send and receive fax documents and other protected health information securely using the Direct Messaging standard. TCI, ONYX Healthcare and CliniLinc launch 8-inch medical tablet TCI’s Rounds software is pre-loaded onto the new, lightweight medical tablet from ONYX Healthcare, enabling hospitals to upload patient discharge data in real time. DataMotion debuts enhanced patient collaboration platform New to the platform are major enhancements in patient consent, identity validation and authentication, workflow integration, and mobile case management. Seal Shield debuts UVC LED-based mobile device sanitizer at HIMSS16 ElectroClave is an enterprise mobile device management system that uses low-power UVC LED to disinfect tablets and smartphones while charging, syncing and managing them. ELLKAY bulks up its interoperability offerings, rolls out new tech Direct Project enhancement and new analytics technology highlight four product announcements. Aventura partners with HealthCast for single sign-on technology The partnership will help providers using Aventura’s Sympatica clinical desktop platform to more quickly access electronic health records systems. Commvault unveils new clinical data sharing technology Through integration with vendor Laitek, the Commvault Clinical Archive can address data management on both the clinical and business sides of healthcare in a single platform. CPSI debuts new EHR financing program for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities Through financial management services, the nTrust program eliminates upfront EHR costs. UnitedHealthcare, Qualcomm collaborate on wellness mobile app powered by wearables The goal is to help UnitedHealthcare plan participants enrolled in high-deductible health plans improve their health and save money by encouraging daily walking. ZeOmega launches value-based care performance management system The new offering can help healthcare organizations measure clinical and financial performance across multiple value-based care contracts. Microsoft eyes patient engagement, emerging care scenarios for HIMSS16 Software giant is working to tie together Skype, Windows, Office, Surface Hub and Band to better connect doctors with patients.  American Well unveils software development kit, Uber-like switchboard  Telehealth specialist showed off its SDK for portals and apps as well as multi-way videoconferencing.  SAP gets in the patient engagement game The vendor unwrapped Patient Engage to enable technology vendors and independent software vendors to build apps for specific use cases.  Twitter: @HenryPowderly 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.

The Mississippi Division of Medicaid is being touted as the first Medicaid agency in the country to send and receive clinical data in real-time with a health system using an Epic electronic health record. The exchange, powered by data analytics company MedeAnalytics, was with the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in Jackson, the state's biggest Medicaid provider. "Giving doctors and nurses access to important information such as medications, diagnoses and allergies ensures that they can make the best care decisions for Medicaid patients," said John Showalter, MD, chief health information officer of UMMC, in a statement. [Also: Judy Faulkner says 'Good software is art'] MedeAnalytics first helped the Mississippi Division of Medicaid with the groundwork by creating an enterprise master patient index and single patient identifier in 2014. To do so, the company analyzed and de-duplicated records from 2.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries. The medical records had been collected over more than a decade. Today, the Medicaid division and UMMC can share Consolidated-Clinical Document Architecture patient summaries through UMMC's Epic EHR. MedeAnalytics expects it will receive about 3,500 clinical inquiries per day from UMMC. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] MedeAnalytics points to several benefits of real-time access, including emergency room care due to a more complete patient record, improved case management since Medicaid utilization and remaining benefits are able to be quickly accessed, and better care management since immunization records and alerts help ensure more up-to-date care. Twitter: @HealthITNews

Movement hopes the analytics access will encourage entrepreneurs to use health data to improve patient safety and reduce preventable deaths.

San Francisco start-up Tiatros, a doctor-driven, patient-centered social network, has joined the IBM Watson Ecosystem, the companies announced March 2 at HIMSS16. Tiatros was designed to allow physicians, with the consent of patients, to create a social network around the patient, including all doctors involved in their treatment and their family members. The first user of the platform was the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. UCSF hopes to leverage Watson to analyze personality insights for more personalized treatment, officials say. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] Currently, UCSF is using Tiatros to address the behavioral health needs of young veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq to keep all parties connected to the patient – whether family or multiple providers – in the loop. "The real measure of how a patient is doing is the story they tell, not the boxes they check; that tells part of the story, not the whole story," said Kim Norman, MD, psychiatry professor, UCSF. "I think the online treasure trove of data in clinical practice is in the unstructured data and the story it tells. "I feel Watson gives you the tool to really analyze and extract that data, patient by patient and aggregate that data to really understand populations," he added. Data is entered in increments of 2,000 words through an essay format or using the most recent text messages from a patient. With the addition of Watson, the platform can analyze the information to accurately assess the personality traits, human values and needs of a patient. For veterans, this means Watson can determine patients with pre-imposed personality traits to be the most resilient in preventing posttraumatic stress disorders and those more likely to respond to an intervention, Norman said. Furthermore, interventions can be modified to match the traits. Additionally, Watson analytics can provide themes and allow providers to measure how patients are doing based on their stories. Twitter: @JessiefDavis 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 — Technological innovation is used often in healthcare to improve patient outcomes, but when it comes to children, aggregating data at the individual and population level is critical, said Stephen Quirk, CEO of Youth Emergency Services and Shelter in Des Moines, Iowa, and Larry Seltzer, general manager and senior director of Netsmart, in a presentation at HIMSS16 on Wednesday. Quirk, no stranger to working with children with health and behavioral issues, said that Medicaid privatization prompted him to seek a partner to help modernize the provider’s electronic health records. In particular, he realized it wasn’t enough to diagnose and treat the immediate problem. Often, it was helpful to examine the circumstances of a child’s life — family dynamics, history of substance abuse, and other “social determinants” that can dictate how compliant a child is with his or her care plan. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] In short, YESS needed better continuity of care. “You need to reach out to your provider partners to reign all of the data into one place,” said Seltzer, whose company has been working closely with YESS. “You need to be aware of gaps in care — understanding all of that knowledge and placing it in the hands of a care coordinator or social worker to get more engaged.” The goal, he said, is to exchange data in consistent and meaningful ways; lab data, immunization data and other information should all be sent to or shared with inpatient mental health centers, substance use centers, hospitals, primary care practices and any other entities that may be involved in a patient’s care. Information technology, he said, can be an advocate for the best health decisions for a child. Data aggregation is key, and Seltzer maintained there’s a significant return on that investment. According to a YESS study, 93 percent of respondents reported they felt better about themselves and their care plan, and 88 percent of the children studied reported better overall functioning. On top of that, Seltzer said there are cost savings achieved by moving youths out of detention centers and hospitals and into the care of private nonprofits like YESS. Since implementation of the data aggregation model, he said there’s been an increase in high school graduations and test scores, and a reduction in substance abuse and thoughts of suicide. “Anyone who has access to those records is privileged to be able to see all that information,” said Quirk. Twitter: @JELagasse 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.

Michael Zaroukian, MD, PhD, talks about his unique connection to the Flint water crisis, how population health, analytics and EHR data played roles in its discovery, and what health IT should take away from one popular hypothesis of the incident.