Health IT Business News – December 2021

Collaboration News

DrFirst and CHIME Foundation to Collaborate on Industry Thought Leadership and Interoperability
Healthcare pioneer DrFirst (@DrFirst) announced that it has expanded its membership in the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Foundation with an enhanced strategic advisory collaboration. The two organizations are working together to help CHIME’s members envision innovative technology solutions that transform healthcare for patients and frontline care providers.

Cynerio’s Healthcare IoT Cybersecurity Solution Now Available in AWS Marketplace
‍Cynerio (@cynerio), a provider of healthcare IoT cybersecurity and asset management, announced that its solutions for connected medical device, enterprise IoT (Internet of Things) and OT (Operational Technology) systems are now available in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with listings from independent software vendors that make it easy to find, test, buy and deploy software that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

CVS Health and Microsoft announce new strategic alliance to reimagine personalized care and accelerate digital transformation
CVS Health (@cvshealth) and Microsoft Corp. (@MSFTnews) announced a new strategic alliance focused on developing innovative solutions to help consumers improve their health, while empowering over 300,000 CVS Health employees – including frontline workers – with tools to better serve more than 100 million people.

UC Davis Health and AWS announce first Cloud Innovation Center at an academic medical center
UC Davis Health, a nationally renowned academic medical center that serves 33 counties in Northern California covering a 65,000-square-mile area north to the Oregon border and east to Nevada, announced the launch of the world’s first Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) based at an academic medical center in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (@awscloud).

4medica and Smile CDR Partner to Improve Healthcare Data Quality
4medica® (@4medica), a company in healthcare data quality and patient matching technology, and Smile CDR, a health data and integration platform, are partnering to improve patient outcomes by improving the quality of health data available to providers and payers.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment Extends Partnership with Motient to Support Interfacility Patient Transfers for all Kansas Hospitals and Correctional Facilities
Motient (@Motient_io), a pioneer in patient movement solutions, has extended its partnership with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and Kansas Department of Emergency Management (KDEM) to facilitate and track emergent interfacility transfers. All Kansas hospitals, along with the addition of state correctional facilities, will continue to be able to use Motient’s Mission Control solution to arrange appropriate patient transportation, source destination facilities, and analyze data to improve the patient transfer process.

Financial News

Avodah Closes $7 Million Seed Round to Scale Digital Healthcare Platform with AI Capabilities
Avodah (@AvodahMed), a transformative SaaS company powering human-centered integrated artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, announced closing $7 million in seed funding to advance AvodahMed’s digital healthcare platform. Launched by Avodah in 2020, AvodahMed connects medical providers and patients through bidirectional remote administration, patient monitoring, and care management functions that include near real-time vitals and language translation.

Availity Rebrands Provider Product Suite, Making Room for a New Service that Expands Access to Payers
Availity (@availity), a healthcare network serving health plans and providers, announced a rebrand of their suite of provider products, that includes a forthcoming mid-level product that expands providers’ access to more payers nationwide.

RosettaHealth Achieves Electronic Health Record Exchange and Interoperability Milestones in 2021
RosettaHealth (@rosettahealth), an innovative and secure, big health data interoperability platform, announced that it achieved significant growth, new implementation milestones and new accreditations in 2021.

BDO USA, LLP Expands Management Advisory Services in Healthcare with the Addition of Culbert Healthcare Solutions, Inc.
BDO USA, LLP, a national accounting and advisory firm, announced the addition of 90 professionals from Culbert Healthcare Solutions, Inc., a Massachusetts-based management consulting firm that advises hospitals, academic medical centers and large physician group practices. This combination will further strengthen and expand BDO USA’s management advisory capabilities, specifically in the healthcare industry.

Vim Accelerates Growth with Opening of New Offices in New York City and Tel Aviv
Vim (@getvim), a technology company building digital infrastructure for U.S. healthcare, recently opened a new office in Midtown Manhattan and in Nahalat Yitzhak, an up and coming neighborhood in Tel Aviv, to accommodate their rapidly growing workforce. These new offices double the existing footprint of Vim and add to a growing remote workforce based throughout the U.S.

Suki Announces $55 Million Series C Funding Round
Suki, a company in voice artificial intelligence (AI) technology for health care, announced that it has closed a Series C funding round of $55 million, led by March Capital, with additional support from Philips Ventures, and all previous investors including Venrock, Flare Capital, Breyer Capital, and inHealth Ventures.

Product News

Intelerad Unveils New Cloud-Native Disaster Recovery Solution
Intelerad Medical Systems™ (@intelerad), a company in medical image management solutions, announced the launch of its latest solution, Intelerad Cloud DR (disaster recovery). Designed to provide secure, isolated and immutable copies of all medical images with unlimited capacity services, Cloud DR mitigates the risks against natural disasters, human error, technological failure or cybersecurity breaches amongst hospitals, healthcare systems and radiology practice groups.

Consensus Cloud Solutions Delivers First e-Signature Solution Secured by Blockchain
Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc. (@consensuscs), the developers of eFax®, a leading document transmission and data-exchange solution, announced the launch of its new standalone, e-signature product called jSign. The solution enables customers to send signature requests and then secure, and electronically sign documents through a tamper-free, online interface built on blockchain technology.

Contract News

Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia Partners with QliqSOFT to Modernize Digital Patient Communication for Community Members
The Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia (HHCGA) has selected QliqSOFT (@qliqSoft) as its strategic automated patient communications partner. QliqSOFT empowers patients to communicate directly and confidentially with healthcare providers through the use of multilingual, interactive chatbots and virtual visits to find the right help, navigating available healthcare services, and resources including patient education.

The Medical University of South Carolina and Notable Partner to Transform Patient and Family Experience Through Intelligent Automation
Notable (@notablehealth), an intelligent automation company for healthcare, announced an innovation partnership with The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC Health) to create a digital experience for patients throughout their care journey. MUSC Health will leverage the Notable platform to power a digital front door for every patient interaction, automating scheduling, registration, clinical intake workflows, and more.

Curebase’s Enhanced Telemedicine Feature Expands Patient Access to Edesa Biotech Derm Study
Curebase (@CurebaseDCT), a company committed to democratizing access to clinical studies, announced that a newly released telemedicine feature of its decentralized clinical trial (DCT) platform has expanded patient access for its client Edesa Biotech, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on inflammatory and immune-related diseases. The enhanced feature streamlines the virtual visit process for both study participants and clinical researchers.

Phoebe targets improved patient management with earlier sepsis recognition and intervention workflows with POC Advisor
Wolters Kluwer, Health (@Wolters_Kluwer) announced that Phoebe Putney Health System, a not-for-profit health system in southwest Georgia, has selected POC Advisor™ for earlier detection of sepsis and to support faster intervention at three hospital sites. With POC Advisor’s real-time, AI-supported natural language processing (NLP) to analyze patient data and free-text chart notes, patients with sepsis are identified and flagged to Phoebe’s clinical teams earlier when care can make the biggest impact on outcomes.

Caregility, Sterling Heritage, Ironbow and ThunderCat Technology Awarded TeleCare Companion IDIQ Contract by Veterans Affairs
Caregility Corporation (@caregility), in partnership with ThunderCat Technology, Sterling Heritage, and Iron Bow Healthcare, announces the companies have been awarded an IDIQ contract by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Program Contracting Activity Central (PCAC) for the TeleCare Companion Patient Observation Support and Services Program.

Sensyne Health and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Sign Strategic Research Agreement
Sensyne Health (@sensynehealth), the ethical Clinical AI company, announces that it has signed a five-year, non-exclusive Strategic Research Agreement with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The agreement will enable the ethical application of clinical AI research by analysing de- identified patient records in order to carry out research with the potential of providing new understanding and treatments for various diseases.

Ochsner Health Makes Finding the Right Provider Easier with Solutions from Kyruus
Kyruus (@kyruus), a company offering provider search and scheduling solutions for health systems, announced that Ochsner Health, the largest non-profit, academic health system in Louisiana, is utilizing the company’s provider data management and API solutions to offer consumers an enhanced online find-a-provider experience. Kyruus is helping the health system manage provider data more effectively and enable more precise patient-provider matching on its website and mobile apps.

Inovalon Announces Expanded Partnership With Walmart
Inovalon (@InovalonInc), a provider of cloud-based platforms empowering data-driven healthcare, announces an expansion of their partnership with Walmart Inc. This new multi-year agreement will provide the retailer access to Inovalon’s industry-leading Data Insights solution enabling an acceleration to a more patient-centric healthcare model through the application of large-scale analyses of aggregated, de-identified data.

Baptist Health introduces Bright.md to community to improve patient experience
For common medical conditions like ear infections, rashes, or the flu, patients in Kentucky and southern Indiana now have on-demand access to Bright.md’s (@BrightMD_Health) evidence-based care at their fingertips to help them get the quality care they trust from Baptist Health, 24/7.

Making the Cut, Milestones, Accolades, Awards and More

Sweetch Named to the 2021 CB Insights Digital Health 150 — List of Most Innovative Digital Health Startups
CB Insights named Sweetch, a digital therapeutics innovator and creator of the hyper-personalized engagement platform for chronic conditions, to its third annual Digital Health 150, which showcases the 150 most promising private digital health companies in the world. This year’s Digital Health 150 was unveiled live during CB Insights’ annual Future of Health event.