Compliance & Legal

BluePrint's visualization software coalesces security program data from disparate sources into a central "source of truth" founded on the company's workflow automation and rules engine.

Allscripts has agreed to pay $145 million to resolve potential civil and criminal liability in connection to a Department of Justice investigation into the business practices of Practice Fusion, a company it acquired in 2018, the EHR technology company said in its second quarter earnings report yesterday. Practice Fusion, an ambulatory electronic health record vendor, was being investigated for its ONC certification and compliance with HIPAA and federal anti-kickback laws, prior to being acquired by Allscripts. In March, Practice Fusion received a grand jury subpoena in connection with a related criminal investigation, according to Allscripts  in its Q1 report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. WHY IT MATTERS Despite reporting strong second quarter bookings increases of 31% over the previous year, Allscripts had a second quarter net loss of $150 million, compared to income of $65 million in the second quarter of 2018, according to the earnings report.  THE LARGER TREND Allscripts bought Practice Fusion based in San Francisco for $100 million in cash in 2018, after acquiring McKesson’s health IT business a year earlier.  Practice Fusion’s cloud-based electronic health record for small and independent physician practices gave Allscripts a larger footprint in outpatient setting. ON THE RECORD "Our strong bookings performance continued in the second quarter with success in both our Provider and Veradigm businesses," said Paul M. Black, CEO of Allscripts. "Our 2019 bookings outlook has been raised, as we anticipate strong performance in the second half of this year. This is the result of our deliberate investments, along with the value we deliver to clients through our comprehensive and industry-leading solutions." Twitter: @SusanJMorse Email the writer: susan.morse@himssmedia.com  

The new service from the standards development group will help healthcare clients optimize risk assessments, spot and fix compliance gaps, and manage third-party assurance needs, the standards group says.

The technology could help healthcare organizations build a more comprehensive and secure protected health information inventory within Kubernetes workloads on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure.

BlueKeep? Dridex? A state of emergency in Louisiana? Healthcare security pros find themselves living in interesting times. But with new threats emerging each day – and old ones, like phishing, not going away – some tried and true lessons are still useful.

Transparency with fair data usage is being explored in Finland, while the country's general outlook is that data should be shared and used to improve services where possible, says Jaana Sinipuro, project director at Sitra.

Companies have upped their games in recent years, bolstering their technical infrastructure and jumping through regulatory hoops to prove they have the wherewithal to handle PHI. Providers have taken notice, and are embracing the cloud in big ways.

Sault Tribe Health Division also uses its specialized IT system to manage digital incident reporting and credentialing management.