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The cloud-based electronic health record vendor will be showing new features and functionalities that CEO Girish Navani says make the software smarter so it helps doctors.

Healthcare systems with well-functioning electronic health record (EHR) systems often find that smaller hospitals and clinics in their service area are in no such shape, hard-pressed to afford and operate a top-shelf EHR that would immensely improve care and enable them to mesh digitally with larger referral systems. But there’s a way around this disconnect for both the IT haves and have-nots, to their mutual benefit. Organizations with EHR technical and operational acumen are extending their capabilities out to community or rural facilities through a program called provisioning. For example, UnityPoint Health, from its base in Des Moines, has connected its Epic EHR system to 18 hospitals and 62 clinics, while Providence St. Joseph Health, based in Renton, Washington, has provisioned 13 hospitals and 37 physician practices to date. For organizations seeking to expand their reach, provisioning is giving critical access and other resource-limited care facilities a reason to affiliate, said Brian Moreau, director of UnityPoint’s Community Connect unit, which packages the health system’s Epic EHR and related services for resale to others. Moreau called it “a big part of our growth strategy” and cited “a direct connection” between its success and “the growth of our community network of rural hospitals.” Several rural hospitals became affiliates specifically because they wanted to participate in the Epic Community Connect program, he said. Enhanced expertise, technology A dedicated team was set up to reorient everything from implementation to workflow around the needs of critical access hospitals. This has brought not only the particulars of EHR operation but also the evidence-based practices, quality improvement initiatives and analytics of a large system to rural providers via applications and tools that would be unaffordable for the small facilities that Epic does not target. “Sharing of best practices and elevating quality is the vision,” Moreau said, a vision that includes opportunities to network with other hospitals and to benefit from the more than 600 IT staff in UnityPoint’s employ, all working to improve access to data on patients shared by multiple providers and strengthening population health efforts.  Providence, also an Epic EHR user, bills the costs of licenses, third-party applications, the work of analysts and other services as a “pass-through” to affiliates, at no markup, to further the program’s affordability for largely rural, outlying facilities, said Sherry Maughan, vice president of the Community Connect program. The Providence St. Joseph program, which is accredited by Epic, has grown over the past several years and includes a breadth of services such as account management, operational support for contracting, invoicing and purchase order management. Physicians at affiliated rural practices and hospitals see the same record and user interface as clinicians working within the Providence St. Joseph Health organization, which includes Swedish Medical Center and Providence St. Joseph Health locations in western Washington and Kadlec Regional Medical Center in southeastern Washington and neighboring states. It makes for a seamless experience whether a patient is at a rural clinic or seeing a specialist in a Providence facility, said Rob Watilo, chief strategy officer for Providence St. Joseph Health, Southeast Washington service area. Seamless, efficient access When bringing provisioned doctors and hospitals into the existing Epic EHR system, from a patient clinical information standpoint, “it’s like that patient in the outlying community was seeing one of our primary care physicians or specialists ― it’s that seamless as far as access to information,” said Watilo. If a patient has to leave the community for additional care, it’s a much cleaner referral ― all medication lists, history and clinical information from the smaller hospital’s EHR are a touch away instead of scattered in faxes and scanned documents, he said. The family doctor can see specifics of what was done and any changes in medical picture after the patient returns home. Small hospitals gain information access and efficiencies in clinical care they could not have managed on their own, said Katie Heldt, chief nursing executive of Greene County Medical Center, a UnityPoint affiliate in Jefferson, Iowa. “We are very fortunate as a rural facility to have Epic as our electronic medical record; it helps us to be able to share patient information in a protected way, a consistent way that everybody understands.” At a Des Moines facility or an urgent care center, a doctor can seek a Greene County patient’s record and “it’s all right there,” Heldt said. “It saves time, it saves money, it’s efficient and reduces variability.” Best practices and standardization through Community Connect have improved outcomes in quality, which has bolstered clinician acceptance. Physicians still have the ability “to use their knowledge and think on their feet, but it does provide some guidelines for patient care, and it’s truly appreciated.”

Now Azar gets a vote by the full Senate to put him atop the agency, which has not had a chief since Tom Price resigned in scandal in September.

The online marketplace includes devices, pharmaceuticals, capital equipment and supplies to help hospitals recover some expenses and reduce overall costs.

While circulating reports say DoD put its Cerner EHR replacement project on hold amid user complaints, the agency is in the middle of a planned 8-week assessment period at its four test sites.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appointed her to move the healthcare system forward through innovations and technologies that advance electronic access, exchange and use of health data.

Making Choices Michigan offers free advance directive services that Great Lakes Health Connect enables clinicians to access, and Community Manager Carol Robinson said doing so helps the organizations pursue the Triple Aim.

The JASON advisory group also outlined challenges and recommended several steps the government and industry should take to accelerate the use of AI.

The lawsuit aims to block the “illegal rollback” of Obama-era net neutrality rules and was filed the same day as Senate Dems present a resolution to overturn the repeal.

Total corporate funding for healthcare technology companies climbed to $8.2 billion (including debt and public market financing) in 2017 – a whopping 47 percent increase from the $5.6 billion raised in 2016, according to the latest report from Mercom Capital Group. It was a record-breaking year, with worldwide venture funding for digital health startups posting similarly impressive numbers: $7.2 billion raised across 778 deals, representing a 42 percent uptick from the previous banner year of $5.1 billion in 2016.  In a sign of continuing maturity as providers make more use of their growing troves of health data, analytics technology was the top funded category, according to the report, with the biggest focus area being artificial intelligence. [Also: Value-based care will reinvigorate EHRs, boost AI, advance home telehealth] “Artificial intelligence and data analytics companies had a breakout year with over a billion dollars raised," said Mercom CEO Raj Prabhu.  Other tech categories that saw substantial year-over-year growth were patient engagement, clinical decision support and telehealth. Analytics posted $1.1 billion in funding, followed by mobile health apps ($759 million), patient engagement ($708 million), telemedicine ($624 million), appointment booking ($516 million) and clinical decision support with ($514 million). Within the analytics category specifically, AI saw strong growth, with $419 million in funding. Together, AI and predictive analytics represented almost $500 million, according to Mercom. Interestingly, mobile health apps and wearable sensors saw steep declines in funding levels year-over-year, according to the report. That said, consumer-facing companies still outpaced provider-focused tools, according to the report, bring in in $4.2 billion over 514 deals in 2017, compared to $3 billion in 264 deals in 2017 (which was nonetheless nearly double the $1.6 billion raised in 185 deals in 2016). As for mergers and acquisitions, there were 203 deals struck in 2017, including 13 companies that participated in multiple transactions. Four of the mergers involved public companies;  Again, data analytics companies were involved in the most M&A transactions (21 of them), followed by practice management companies (19), mobile app developers (17) and telemedicine vendors. Among the biggest deals of the year: Optum’s $1.3 billion acquisition of the Advisory Board Company, McKesson’s purchase of CoverMyMeds for $1.1 billion, Konica Minolta’s acquisition of Ambry Genetics Corporation for $1 billion and Navicure’s acquisition of ZirMed for $750 million. Still, M&A "has been declining slightly over the last few years," said Prabhu. "Investors do not want to miss out on the sheer size and potential of this growing market, but the exit path for many companies remains elusive." .jumbotron{ background-image: url("http://www.healthcareitnews.com/sites/default/files/u2231/AIforjumbotron.jpg"); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } Future-proofing AI How AI is driving forward-looking healthcare orgs. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com