The Biggest Year Yet for Digital Health M&A

UPCOMING ABL TECHNOLOGY
ROUND TABLES

• 1/03 - Orange County Round Table
• 1/04 - Monrovia Round Table
• 1/11 - West Los Angeles Round Table

• 8 Emerging Tech Trends You Can Expect to See in 2019
• Rise of IoT, Robotics Created 80K+ New IT Jobs in 2018
• AI Skills Reign Supreme in the Fastest-Growing Jobs of the Year
• Online Shopping to Hit $124 Billion for Holidays
• Digital Readiness Named Top Risk Concern for Businesses in 2019
• The "Biggest, Baddest," Billion-Dollar Tech Deals in 2018
• 2018 Tech Trends That Will Matter a Decade from Now
• Searches for Cloud Computing Roles Increased 108% in Last 3 Years
• Possible Cryptocurrency Turnaround: New Bitcoin Initiatives + Ohio's Move
• Marriott Hacking Exposes Data of Up to 500 Million Guests
• Dreamscape Launches First VR Venue at Westfield Century City
• Verizon Plans Samsung 5G Phone with Qualcomm Modem for First Half of 2019
• Meanwhile, Apple Will Wait Until at Least 2020 to Release a 5G iPhone
• Qualcomm's Also Setting Up $100 Million Fund to Invest in AI Startups
• Tech Leaders Dominate Best CEOs in America List

ARTICLES

TECH MEMBER NEWS

Cornerstone OnDemand is helping to train the next generation of leaders at ArcBest, a leading logistics company for supply chain solutions. Since its founding in 1923, ArcBest has experienced very low employee turnover and, in recent years, with a significant number of managers approaching retirement age, ArcBest is leveraging Cornerstone's suites for learning and performance to quickly upskill hundreds of new leaders. Meanwhile, Cornerstone reports that over 50% of today's students will join the workforce in a position that has yet to be created, and CEO Adam Miller recently discussed with CheddarLIVE how Cornerstone OnDemand works to train prospective employees for these challenges. And, Adam talked with Yahoo! Finance about how his company is training talent for big names like Hulu and Gap. (Adam Miller, West Los Angeles)

Jason Ciment, CEO of Get Visible, is offering to share his company's new search engine ranking tool so that you can see how well your team is doing at ranking your website. Get Visible's tool generates a list of the top 100 websites that rank in Google for a search phrase, and if you email Jason a search phrase, he'll get you a report of who's ranking. "Give the file to your SEO team and ask them to look at any sites that are beating you to figure out why," Jason suggests. "Would you like a tool like this to run on your own? Let me know." (Jason Ciment, West Los Angeles)

The Crisis of Good Intentions, a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by William McGurn quotes from a recent Orange County Register article written by Chapman University's Marshall Toplansky and Joel Kotkin. In it, they write that "California is creating a feudalized society characterized by the ultra-rich, a diminishing middle class and a large, rising segment of the population that is in or near poverty." And, they note that California now has the highest overall poverty rate in the nation, and suffers from a level of inequality "closer to that of Central American banana republics." McGurn believes much of this is the result of California's green agenda, although that was not Toplansky's and Kotkin's thesis. (Marshall Toplansky, Orange County)

A recent article - What the AI Jobs of the Future will Look Like - published by Dell Technologies, features Joe Rogers, CEO of WorkDone, who says that the main misconception that artificial intelligence will take away jobs is based on the reality that 'jobs of the future' is an abstract concept, while current roles - the ones morphing - provide a paycheck. Although the future is exciting, it's also unknown. Cognizant of the fact that his startup will disrupt jobs, Joe has built job creation into his business model. "WorkDone has been created as a public benefit corporation with a percentage of revenue dedicated to helping workers displaced by AI get to their next thing," he reported. "That might be retraining or something else completely." (Joe Rogers, West Los Angeles)

Alvaka Networks will present a live webinar - Software Patching: The First and Most Important Step in Securing Your System - on several dates in December 2018 and January 2019, including Dec. 21 and 28. The webinar will run from 10-11 a.m. each time. Says Alvaka: "The majority of security threats you face today; viruses, worms, spyware and other malware utilize some unchecked vulnerability in your software to compromise your system. Patches fix the 'holes' in the code. A recent study found 98.8% of breaches can be stopped by good patching practices." (Oli Thordarson, Orange County Healthcare)

Cigna is collaborating with Annum Health to offer an innovative, digital health support solution to help people reduce alcohol consumption. Program participants will use a digital app and have a personal support team comprised of health coaches, physicians, and licensed therapists to help each individual meet their goals. Also, Cigna is adding Happify Health's Happify and Prevail Health's iPrevail evidence-based digital platforms to help customers build greater resilience, as well as cope with stress, anxiety, and depression. They will be available as part of the Cigna Total Behavioral Health program. And, Cigna has launched its new Cigna Healthy Pregnancy app to better connect individual customers to Cigna's suite of health benefits, including the Cigna Healthy Pregnancies, Healthy Babies maternity health engagement program. (Chris De Rosa, Orange County Healthcare)

Saint Anthony Hospital is implementing GeBBS Healthcare Solutions' Healthcare Information Management Compliance Audit & Coding Solutions. The acute care, community hospital, which serves residents of Chicago's west and southwest sides, selected GeBBS because of the depth of their coding and compliance audit expertise in addition to their robust processes and proprietary technology. (Nitin Thakor, Los Angeles Healthcare)

Kindred Rehabilitation Services (KRS), a division of Kindred Healthcare, announced that initial data from healthcare locations where RehabTracker is being utilized shows the application is improving outcomes for patients. RehabTracker is a mobile app developed by KRS, with which patients work with their therapy team to set personal goals and input them into the app; use their cell phones or tablets to see and track their progress in real time; share that progress with invited family and friends; and receive messages of support from loved ones. Patients at KRS-served locations using RehabTracker as of June 2018 have experienced increases in: Functional Independence Measure, discharge to community, and Program Evaluation Model score. (Adam Darvish, Los Angeles Healthcare)

MYnd Analytics has been awarded a subcontract to incorporate its Psychiatric EEG Evaluation Registry (PEER) report within a project to develop a suicide prevention toolkit for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. By combining artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, MYnd Analytics can analyze EEG data to recognize patterns, predict outcomes, and personalize medicine; multiple studies have shown a relationship between EEG findings, medication response, and suicidality. Meanwhile, the company's PEER was featured on CBS New York by medical correspondent Dr. Max Gomez. (George Carpenter, Orange County Healthcare)

In PPS Final Rule Increases HHA's Payments for 2019, Select Data reports that CMS has finalized a plan to launch a budget-neutral payment model for home health that utilizes 30-day periods of care and stops using the number of therapy visits to determine payment, according to Decision Health. The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) will launch "on or after" Jan. 1, 2020, according to the final rule. And, in CoP Interpretive Guidelines: Are You Compliant?, Select Data notes that the Home Health Agency Condition of participation (CoP) went into effect January 13, 2018, but that some agencies are still struggling with it. According to the CoP Interpretive Guidelines, to be compliant, home health agencies must have established standards of practice issued by a nationally recognized organization with expertise in the field. Organizations failing to meet these minimum standards when audited may be assessed a monetary fine or lose their Medicare certification. (Ed Buckley, Orange County Healthcare, & Ted Schulte, Los Angeles Healthcare)

VivaLNK has announced the availability of Vital Scout, the only reusable, wearable patch for the continuous monitoring of stress and recovery levels. Designed to be worn 24 hours a day over a period of two to three days at-a-time, Vital Scout offers a comprehensive picture of stress and recovery levels by analyzing the user's heart rhythm throughout waking and sleeping hours. Vital Scout uses medical grade electrocardiography sensors, and established heart rate variability algorithms to accurately measure the body's response to the physiological impacts of daily activities. (Jiang Li, Silicon Valley Healthcare)

INSIGHTS FROM ADAPTIVE
BUSINESS LEADERS

In Do You Speak Emoji?, recently published in the London Business Journal, Chris Dyer, CEO of PeopleG2, notes that those of us who communicate digitally do our best to type out our thoughts in a coherent and professional manner. But, text alone creates space between ourselves and our audience," Chris writes. "What's more, communication breakdown plays havoc with teamwork, individual productivity, and client relations. Adding emotional context - as pictures do - helps bridge the gap. Enter: the emoji." While companies generally don't tell people what to write, they can introduce a common contextual shorthand using emojis. To lend instant meaning to print messages, customize a menu of succinct (and cute!) images, Chris suggests. Let the whole team know what each one means and when to use it. Meanwhile, Chris was recently interviewed on the ShareRadio podcast. (Chris Dyer, Monrovia)

In Are you wasting money filing patents?, Dave shares some important points to consider when thinking of your patent strategy, such as that the true average cost of a single patent over the 20 years of its legal life is $56,000, when you consider all costs beyond the initial application process - and it multiplies quickly when your patent is published for comment or opposition or the examiner continues to deny claims. Sometimes, Dave continues, simply keeping the trade secret through non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements would be a better service to your idea than a patent - and that's just about free. Dave goes on to discuss the two requirements of a patent, how soon must you file a patent to be protected, provisional patents, and more. (Dave Berkus, Monrovia & West Los Angeles)

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