– Healthcare Growth Partners’ (HGP) summary of Health IT/digital health mergers & acquisition (M&A) activity, and public company performance during the month of August 2020.
M&A is back and the velocity of the rebound has outpaced all expectations. The recovery quickly worked its way across the spectrum from large to small-cap, beginning with the larger cap NASDAQ rally of nearly 80% from lows in late March (only to soften in recent days), followed by multi-billion
Read More
FCC, HHS, and USDA Team Up for Rural Telehealth Initiative Task Force
What You Should Know:
- Agencies sign a memorandum of understanding to establish an interagency Rural Telehealth Initiative Task Force comprised of representatives from each agency to keep rural Americans connected to vital health services.
The Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), and U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) today announced that they have signed a Memorandum
of Understanding to work together on the Rural Telehealth
Read More
HHS Appoints Perryn Ashmore Acting CIO After Arrieta Resignation
On Friday, August 28, the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that Perryn Ashmore, currently
Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer, will begin serving as Acting Chief Information
Officer (CIO) following the resignation of Jose Arrieta. Arrieta served as CIO after
serving the department since 2019 and following more than 15 years in federal
service including chief technology officer of
the General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Acquisition
Read More
Bridge Connector Lands $25.5M to Expand Healthcare Integration Platform
What You Should Know:
- Bridge Connector raises $25.5 million in Series B funding to advance interoperability layer for healthcare organizations as demand for integrated health data intensifies during COVID-19 pandemic.
- The investment will support the growth of Destinations,
the company’s new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that connects
health data systems using use-case-based interoperability blueprints to speed
integrations with major vendors.
Bridge Connector,
a
Read More
HHS Announces Investments for STAR HIE Program to Support State and Local Public Health Agencies
What You Should Know:
- HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will award up to five 5 cooperative
agreements under the Strengthening
the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange
(STAR HIE) Program.
The U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity to expand and
accelerate innovative
Read More
Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the COVID-19 Era
Healthcare IT consultants’ work involving health records may expose them – and their provider and payer clients – to regulatory, legal, financial, and reputational risk. These risks are potentially higher in the COVID-19 era, with many of their employees working from home and accessing sensitive records and networks from remote locations. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there is a heightened risk of phishing, SMS phishing and other attacks using COVID-19 themes, and
Read More
HHS Taps Fenway Health as Pilot Site for Precision Medicine Project
What You Should Know:
- Fenway
Health has been selected as the pilot site to participate in the Advancing
Standards for Precision Medicine (ASPM) project.
- The ASPM project
is focused on how healthcare providers can systematically identify the
socio-economic factors that may impact the health of patients in order to
provide more individualized care that reflects patients’ needs.
Fenway Health, a
Boston, MA-based Federally Qualified Community Health Center (FQCHC)
Read More
HHS Awards Morehouse $40M to Combat COVID-19, Advance Health Equity in Minority Communities
Source: Morehouse School of Medicine
What You Should Know:
- Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) partners with the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on a three-year project to combat
COVID-19 and advance health equity in minority communities.
- The
initiative – the National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19
within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities – is a three-year project
designed to work with community-based organizations across the nation
Read More
What Therapists Need to Know about Telehealth Technology
Benjamin E. Caldwell, PsyD
Thousands of therapists who never intended to engage in telehealth are now doing exactly that – they are providing services to clients in lockdown using video-enabled platforms. While the technological landscape for psychotherapy is dramatically improved from even a few years ago, therapists rapidly transitioning to online services need to hold a few things in mind.
It’s not the same as in-person therapy
While online psychotherapy has been shown to be just
Read More
Evidation Health and HHS to Develop Predictive Algorithm for COVID-19 Detection
What You Should Know:
- HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is partnering with Evidation Health on research to develop a predictive algorithm for symptoms of COVID-19 by monitoring first responders to understand susceptibility to infection.
- The research will use de-indentifed data self-reported from survey participants and collected from wearable devices to track symptoms of COVID-19 in high-risk individuals.
- The goal is to better understand their
Read More
