• 5/01 - Orange County ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "How Change Healthcare Could Change Healthcare" - Featuring Sara Shanti, Partner at Sheppard Mullin


• 5/16 - Bay Area ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "Welcome Habitat Health: California's Newest PACE Program" - Featuring Simon Widdowson, Senior Director of Business Development for Kaiser Permanente


• 5/17 - Los Angeles ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "Praia Health: Bringing Digital Transformation to the Healthcare Marketplace" - Featuring Marcee Chmait, Head of Digital Partnerships & Business Development at Providence Digital Innovations Group


• Explore Membership in ABL's Executive Round Tables >>>

In Reduce the Risk of Ransomware & Other Cyber Attacks, Alvaka provides a valuable list of mitigations to reduce your risk, particularly in the era of massive cyberattacks directed at healthcare entities that touch the majority of Americans.
AND, in How Important Is Email Security for Small and Medium Businesses?, Alvaka discusses implementing effective security measures, including employee training, awareness, robust email filtering, secure gateways, regular software updates, patch management, endpoint protection, and backup and recovery planning. (LA)

Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG GmbH, which focuses on brachytherapy solutions for the treatment of prostate cancer as well as eye and brain tumors, has obtained the MDR certificate for its proprietary prostate seeds from DEKRA Certification B.V. as one of the first companies in its market. This milestone guarantees a high level of patient safety and the long-term availability of the seeds within the EU. The Medical Device Regulation is a European Union directive with the aim of improving the quality of medical devices and increasing patient safety. (LA)

Information and resources from GIDEON Informatics was used in the report Understanding the global water crisis - Reasons behind the Water Crisis and its Potential Health Outcomes, published by the European Journal of Development Studies, and in a book called Polyvagal Power in the Playroom. In the book, GIDEON data was utilized in a chapter entitled "Plagues, Pandemics, and the Polyvagal Theory in the Playroom," which discusses how play therapy helps us understand children's responses to stressful situations and restricted social interactions, such as during plagues and pandemics. (LA)

On the evening of May 16, NuSci Nutrition Science Foundation will present a Movie - "Code Blue" - and Dinner Night. "Code Blue" follows a passionate physician, Dr. Saray Stancic, as she reflects upon her journey from a multiple sclerosis diagnosis to wellness through her own adoption of lifestyle medicine. Dr. Stancic introduces viewers to expert physicians and scientists who are paving the way to make meaningful and necessary change in our healthcare environment, and empowers audiences to stand up and reclaim control of their health. The evening's event, to be held at Tanner Research in Duarte, will include a healthy buffet dinner and dessert. (LA)

Walmart will close all 51 of its doctor-staffed health clinics as part of an announcement that its Walmart Health initiative is shutting down. The clinics, in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas, had been open just a few years. Walmart also said it is winding down its virtual care option, although Walmart pharmacies and vision centers will not be affected. The announcement is a swift reversal for the retail giant. Just last month, Walmart said it hoped to expand the number of doctor-staffed clinics to 70 by the end of this year. But amid rising costs and competition, the company determined it could not financially justify the effort. (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/walmart-closing-health-clinics-walmart-health-division-why-rcna149968)
MEANWHILE, Optum's Exiting the Telehealth Business: The announcement that UnitedHealth, which owns Optum, was shutting down Optum Virtual Care came shortly after employees began sharing posts on social media about a massive workforce reduction. Optum launched the telehealth service in 2021. A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group's health services arm said Optum would continue to provide patients with a "robust network of providers for virtual urgent, primary and specialty care options." (https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/how-walmart-and-optum-exiting-telehealth-signals-major-shift-virtual-care-market)

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit driving a movement for patient safety, recently released its spring 2024 Hospital Safety Grades, assigning an A, B, C, D, or F to nearly 3,000 general hospitals on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, and infections. Nationally, patient experience - a set of measures using patient-reported perspectives on hospital care - indicates significant signs of improvement since the fall 2023 Safety Grades, and preventable health care-associated infections show a sustained drop after unprecedented rates during the height of the pandemic. Of the over 30 measures used to generate Hospital Safety Grades, The Leapfrog Group reports on five patient experience measures that have a direct impact on patient safety outcomes: Nurse and Doctor communication, Hospital staff responsiveness, Communication about medicines, and Discharge information. According to Modern Healthcare, a third of nonprofit hospitals received "A" safety grades from the Leapfrog Group, compared with 28% of for-profit and 17% of government-owned facilities. (https://www.leapfroggroup.org/news-events/new-hospital-safety-grades-find-significant-improvements-patient-experience-reports-and) (https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality-leapfrog-group-grades-spring-2024)

The Joint Commission announced it is launching a new Telehealth Accreditation Program for eligible hospitals, ambulatory and behavioral healthcare organizations, effective July 1, 2024, which will provide updated, streamlined standards to provide organizations offering telehealth services with the structures and processes necessary to help them deliver safe, high-quality care using a telehealth platform. (https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/news-and-multimedia/news/2024/04/the-joint-commission-launches-telehealth-accreditation/)

Biotech investors are making a big bet that similar computational methods to AI could revolutionize drug discovery. Recently, ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, an affiliate of Foresite Capital, announced that they incubated Xaira Therapeutics and funded the AI biotech with $1 billion. Other investors in the new company include F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures and SV Angel. Xaira's CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a former Stanford president and chief scientific officer at Genentech, says the company is ready to start developing drugs that were impossible to make without recent breakthroughs in AI. (https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/24/xaira-an-ai-drug-discovery-startup-launches-with-a-massive-1b-says-its-ready-to-start-developing-drugs/) MEANWHILE, OpenAI and Moderna have expanded their partnership to offer Moderna's employees access to ChatGPT Enterprise, a platform that allows customizable GPTs to be developed for a specific purpose, including creating GPTs by beginning a conversation with ChatGPT, then providing extra knowledge on a subject or giving it instructions. Within two months of adopting ChatGPT Enterprise, Moderna said it had 750 GPTs created across the company, every user had 120 conversations through the platform per week on average, and 40% of users created GPTs. (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/openai-expands-partnership-moderna-customizable-gpts)

Artificial intelligence is making it possible for companies to replace humans with Digital Twins who can participate in clinical trials. AI systems can take in data on a person's individual characteristics - such as their health profile - then predict how they would be affected by a disease. This AI content, sometimes referred to as a person's digital twin, is already being used for a variety of tasks. For instance, San Francisco-based Unlearn is using AI to generate digital twins of people based on their health data to predict how disease might progress over time for those individuals - aiming to make clinical trials more efficient and effective. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ai-generated-population-is-here-and-theyre-ready-to-work-16f8c764?mod=hp_minor_pos4)

Artificial intelligence hasn't been the job killer that some predicted, at least not so far. Census data released in March showed that 2.6% of employers reported cutting jobs between July and February in response to the introduction of generative AI - and 2.8% reported adding jobs because of it. But in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, generative AI is already changing how some people work. Large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and a host of industry- or task-specific software are slowly being embedded into more Americans' daily tasks. In some cases the tools are helping people do their jobs better and faster. In others they are making people do their jobs differently. For example: around 450 doctors at Mass General Brigham - almost 10% of the Massachusetts system's attending physicians - are experimenting with generative-AI programs that listen in on patient visits and update medical records. The programs typically generate notes in minutes, so the provider can review them when the visit is still fresh in their head. (https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-medicine-law-marketing-jobs-a1821672)

HHS has publicly shared its plan for promoting responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in automated and algorithmic systems by state, local, tribal, and territorial governments in the administration of public benefits. Recent advances in the availability of powerful AI in automated or algorithmic systems open up significant opportunities to enhance public benefits program administration to better meet the needs of recipients and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of those programs.
More Information: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/29/hhs-shares-plan-promoting-responsible-use-artificial-intelligence-automated-algorithmic-systems-state-local-tribal-territorial-governments-administration-public-benefits.html

HHS, through CMS, has issued three final rules:

- "Minimum Staffing Standards for Nursing Homes" establishes, for the first time, national minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes to improve the care that residents receive and support workers by ensuring that they have sufficient staff.

- "Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services" creates historic national standards that will allow people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program to better access care when they need it and also strengthens home and community-based services, which millions of older adults and people with disabilities rely upon to live in the community. This final rule will set minimum threshold standards for payments to the direct care workforce, create meaningful engagement with Medicaid consumers, and advance provider rate transparency.

- "Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality" will improve access to care, accountability and transparency for the more than 70% of Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries who are enrolled in a managed care plan. It will require a limit on how long enrollees have to wait for an appointment and allow people to compare plan performance based on quality and access to providers.

More Information: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/22/biden-harris-administration-takes-historic-action-increase-access-quality-care-support-families-care-workers.html

Patients have a right to privacy when it comes to their medical information, even when they travel to another state for an abortion, IVF, birth control or other types of reproductive health care, federal officials have declared in a new rule. The final rule, called HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy, prohibits the disclosure of a patient's health information as it relates to reproductive health care, as well as strengthens privacy protections for that patient, their family and their doctors who are providing or facilitating the care. This means that the rule prevents medical records from being used against people for providing or receiving certain types of reproductive health care - even if a patient traveled to another state for that care. (https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/health/biden-administration-new-rule-reproductive-health-care-privacy/index.html)

HHS, through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, announced $46.8 million in notices of funding opportunities to promote youth mental health, grow the behavioral health workforce, improve access to culturally competent behavioral care across the country, and strengthen peer recovery and recovery support.
More Information: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/05/08/biden-harris-administration-announces-46-8-million-behavioral-health-funding-opportunities-advance-president-bidens-unity-agenda-may-mental-health-awareness-month.html

HHS, through CMS, finalized a rule that will expand access to health care for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. The rule ensures DACA recipients will no longer be excluded from eligibility to enroll in a Qualified Health Plan through the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Marketplace, or for coverage through a Basic Health Program. CMS estimates that this rule could lead to 100,000 previously uninsured DACA recipients enrolling in health coverage. (https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/05/03/hhs-finalizes-policies-increase-access-health-coverage-daca-recipients.html)

Amazon has debuted a new grocery delivery program for Prime members across the U.S., as well as a lower-cost option for people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, the official name for the food-stamp program. The cost of unlimited grocery delivery from Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh, and other local grocers and specialty retailers is $9.99 a month ($4.99 for SNAP recipients), for orders over $35. The new delivery service is available in more than 3,500 cities and towns across the nation, and includes features such as one-hour delivery windows. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-grocery-delivery-prime-snap/?mc_cid=862553a55d&mc_eid=12fad95525)

Oracle plans to move its world headquarters to Nashville, Tenn., to be amid a healthcare epicenter, according to co-founder and chair Larry Ellison. "It is the center of the industry we're most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry," Mr. Ellison told former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, MD, at an April 23 fireside chat at the Oracle Health Summit. "It's the center of our future." Oracle previously said it intended to build a $1.35 billion waterfront campus in the city, which is home to several of the largest health systems - including the largest, HCA Healthcare, which Dr. Frist's family founded - and healthcare companies in the U.S. (https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/oracle-moving-hq-to-nashville-to-be-near-healthcare-industry.html)

Doctors are rallying around an audacious goal: eliminating a cancer for the first time. Cervical cancer rates in the U.S. have dropped by more than half since the 1970s. Pap tests enable doctors to purge precancerous cells, and a vaccine approved in 2006 has protected a generation of women against Human PapillomaVirus, a sexually transmitted infection that causes more than 90% of cervical cancers. With this evidence that the disease is preventable, groups that have worked for decades to end polio and malaria are turning to cervical cancer, plotting to take cases down to null. WHO is urging countries to boost vaccination, screening and treatment. Doctors in the U.S. are working on a national plan. Now starts the last mile: targeting stubborn pockets of resistance and inadequate access to care that still result in deaths. (https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/cervical-cancer-rates-rising-hpv-vaccination-e57e37b3?mod=hp_lead_pos7)

A recent McKinsey & Company article explores the latest trends in consumer healthcare behavior, considers responses, and identifies steps leaders can take to define a consumer-led strategy. Excerpts from interviews with three senior advisers discuss Trend 1: Consumers are spending more on health and wellness but are not satisfied and want more innovation; Trend 2: Consumers trust the healthcare industry with their data, but organizations underuse it; and Trend 3: Consumers are actively shopping and making trade-offs. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/consumers-rule-driving-healthcare-growth-with-a-consumer-led-strategy)

Lift-assist 911 calls from assisted living and other senior homes have spiked by 30 percent nationwide in recent years to nearly 42,000 calls a year, an analysis of fire department emergency call data by The Washington Post has found. That's nearly three times faster than the increase in overall 911 call volume during the same 2019-2022 period, the data shows. The growth has infuriated first responders who say these kinds of calls - which involve someone who has fallen and is not injured but can't get up - unfairly burden taxpayers and occupy firefighters with non-emergencies that should be handled by staff at facilities that charge residents as much as $7,000 a month. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/05/03/assisted-living-homes-senior-falls-911/)

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