Interoperability

The 2020-2025 plan aligns with the 21st Century Cures Act's interoperability and patient access provisions.

Masimo, the maker of monitoring technologies and connectivity tools for hospitals, announced this week that it will acquire the connected care assets of NantHealth for $47.25 million in cash. WHY IT MATTERS NantHealth’s Connected Care suite – with tools such as DCX device connectivity, VCX patient vitals software, HBox connectivity hub and Shuttle interface cable – enables medical device interoperability for hospitals and health systems. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. Masimo officials say the deal will help it offer hospital customers improved continuum of care with its automation and noninvasive monitoring technologies. It notes that NantHealth's suite of connected care tech enables more streamlined collection and storage of medical device data, through a vendor-agnostic platform, into electronic health records and other clinical information systems. THE LARGER TREND For its part, NantHealth says the sale will enable the company to focus on innovating in areas such as precision medicine. "Our decision to sell the Connected Care business enables us to focus on accelerating growth for our NaviNet and Eviti SaaS solutions, our data and molecular analytics capabilities, and pursue other strategically aligned goals," said Patrick Soon-Shiong, NantHealth's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "We believe Masimo has the best connectivity solutions, and we are delighted to have found the right home for our Connected Care business and our committed team of employees. We are working with Masimo to ensure a smooth transition for our Connected Care customers." ON THE RECORD "One of the strategic priorities for Masimo is, through our Hospital Automation solutions, to reduce clinician cognitive overload and reduce errors of omission," added Joe Kiani, chairman and CEO of Masimo. "Through connectivity, predictive algorithms, and decision support, we hope to improve the continuum of great care. The connectivity assets we are acquiring are completely in line with our mission as they will help accelerate our internal growth initiatives in this area. Not only does Connected Care immediately increase our customer footprint but also provides us with products which complement our current portfolio." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.

Quorum Health achieved many financial milestones from a successful spinoff operation, and its integration of the athenahealth EHR across the org also helped get the Chronic Care Management program to 60,000 Medicare patients.

FHIR-based clinical data retrieval and an API to more easily share data will help payers, pharma and providers with forthcoming 21st Century Cures rules, the company says.

The new technology enabled Catalyst Health Network to achieve all of its care management goals and create a fully connected information highway, its president says.

Five top electronic health record systems experts offer healthcare C-suite executives and IT leaders some valuable best practices for getting the most out of their EHR investments.

Dr. Vincent McCauley, CMO and CMIO at Telstra Health, says data being made available at the point of care and in a timely fashion is becoming a reality with the ability to have an agreed data structure and content through FHIR.

Hyland Healthcare's vendor-neutral solutions address the problem of interoperability with existing or new systems, says Peter Weston, healthcare sales manager at Hyland.

Among the biggest obstacles to reimbursement are the lack of interoperability and patients not owning their data, says Rob Lieberthal, principal of health economics at MITRE.

A bug in its codebase could cause protected health information of some beneficiaries to be inadvertently shared with others, or with the wrong BB2.0 app, the agency says.