Novartis announced today that is has entered into an agreement to acquire AveXis, Inc., a clinical stage gene therapy company for $8.7 billion in cash. AveXis lead product candidate, AVXS-101, has potential to be first-ever one-time gene replacement therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a disease which results in early death or lifelong disability with considerable healthcare costs. It is estimated that one out of every 6,000-10,000 children born is affected by some form of SMA.The US Food
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Rankin County Hospital District Launches Cerner Millennium EHR
Rankin County Hospital District (RCHD) has implemented an integrated electronic health record (EHR) with Cerner, a global leader in health care technology, to support improved patient and clinician experiences. The Cerner Millennium EHR provides the hospital with sophisticated health care technology that will support RCHD doctors, nurses and staff as they work to streamline operations and improve patient care. RCHD’s new EHR is deployed through the Cerner CommunityWorks model that leverages
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Ferring Acquires Microbiome Platform Rebiotix
Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a research-driven, specialty biopharmaceutical group has acquired Rebiotix Inc., a late-stage clinical microbiome company focused on harnessing the power of the human microbiome to transform the treatment of challenging diseases. This acquisition brings together two innovative healthcare companies that share a common commitment to exploring and understanding the human microbiome to develop new solutions for patients. Rebiotix’s RBX2660 is a non-antibiotic treatment in
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Paperless Productivity Acquires WiseCLAIM to Expand Presence in Healthcare Claims Automation Market
Paperless Productivity, a workflow automation consultancy and systems integrator, has announced its acquisition of the WiseCLAIM platform from WiseTREND. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. WiseCLAIM was developed in response to the continued prevalence of paper CMS claims forms among healthcare payers, Third Party Administrators (TPAs), and billing services. By automating data extraction from CMS/HCFA/UB forms, it has become an integral tool for mid-market and large firms in
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Vida Health Appoints Randy Forman as Chief Commercial Officer
Vida Health, a digital therapeutic platform that helps employees overcome chronic physical and behavioral health conditions announced the hire of Randy Forman, formerly of Livongo Health, as their Chief Commercial Officer. He joins after serving as the Head of Strategic Accounts for Livongo Health, working with large employers, consultants, providers, Pharmacy Benefits Managers, and health plans around the country. During his tenure at Livongo, Randy helped build its sales organization and
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Chilmark Report Reveals Adoption Challenges for Patient Relationship Management Solutions
Enterprise healthcare organizations (HCOs) striving to improve patient engagement increasingly turn to solutions that can be described as patient relationship management (PRM) – but, as the latest report from Chilmark Research describes in detail, it’s much more than a rebranding of customer relationship management (CRM) for healthcare.The Market Scan Report, Patient Relationship Management: Higher Stakes Than CRM, describes why HCOs are interested in solutions that promise more targeted patient
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5 Healthcare Organizations Launch Healthcare Blockchain Pilot Program
Five leading health care organizations – Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and UnitedHealthcare, announced that they are launching a healthcare blockchain pilot program applying blockchain technology to improve data quality and reduce administrative costs associated with changes to health care provider demographic data, a critical, complex and difficult issue facing organizations across the health care system.The companies will explore how the technology could
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Illinois Rural Community Care Organization to Implement Cerner HealtheIntent
Illinois Rural Community Care Organization (IRCCO) has selected Cerner, a global leader in health care technology, to implement Cerner HealtheIntent, its big data and insights platform for population health management, across its accountable care organization (ACO) to coordinate care for Medicare patients throughout the state of Illinois.Clinicians at IRCCO will have actionable health data at their fingertips to support improved patient care and coordination. Cerner HealtheIntent analyzes
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Western Maryland Health Taps Artifact Health to Streamline Physician Query Process
Western Maryland Health System has selected Artifact Health, a mobile platform that streamlines the physician query process to make it fast and easy for physicians to answer queries that improve the quality of patient records, ensure full reimbursement for services, and increase collaboration between clinical documentation improvement (CDI) and coding staff.With the implementation of Artifact Health’s mobile query platform, WMHS physicians can respond to a query compliantly in under a minute
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Pitt Launches Innovation Center for Advanced Surgical Technologies
The University of Pittsburgh opened a unique high-tech research, training and innovation center yesterday for industry partners focused on advancing surgical techniques.Called Pittsburgh CREATES, or Collaborative Research Education and Technology Enhancement in Surgery, the center will work directly with companies to address their challenges and advance minimally invasive approaches to surgery across disciplines. Leveraging its ties to both the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC, Pittsburgh
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