By MICHELLE RONAN NOTEBOOM

Epic’s Faulkner Shares Charitable Foundation Plans

In an interview with Modern Healthcare, Epic founder/CEO Judith Faulkner reveals that she will leave much of her wealth to a specially created charitable foundation that will operate and fund not-for-profit organizations in healthcare and other areas. The 71-year-old Faulkner says that almost all her shares of Epic stock will go to the foundation upon her death, or sooner if she chooses.

The plan is also designed to keep Epic private. “My stock will go to the foundation,” Faulkner said. “The foundation will control the stock. This plan is designed to preserve the company as a private company forever.”

Faulkner, who has an estimated worth of $2.8 billion, says she never wanted the money personally or for her family and wonders, “What would you want with all that money? It doesn’t seem right and I can’t tell you why.”

What’s not to like about Faulkner’s values or her plan?

Lawmaker Drafts Interoperability Standards Bill

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) has drafted legislation that would establish a 12-member congressionally-appointed advisory commitment to develop an EHR interoperability standard for certification. The advisory committee would replace the Health IT Policy and HIT Standards Committees and would be composed of providers, EHR developers, and other stakeholders. EHR vendors would have to meet the new standard by 2018 to gain certification and avoid penalties.

I’ve not read the draft bill so it’s difficult to provide much commentary. However, I might need some convincing that a congressionally-appointed board is going to be more effective than the committees that are being replaced. Rather than starting from scratch, why not leverage the existing brain trust on the current committees since they have undoubtedly already developed a few best practices for creating certification standards?

Apple Expects ResearchKit to “Revolutionize Medical Studies”

Apple announces ResearchKit, an open source software framework for medical and health research that will gather clinical data from iPhone apps. Apple believes that ResearchKit will make it easier for researchers to recruit participants for large-scale studies.

In a recent THCB post, medical researcher Philip Jones shares this thoughts on the offering and why it may not yet be ready for prime time.

Show Me the Money

• South Nassau Communities Hospital will integrate its existing Allscripts Sunrise EHR with the Allscripts iPro Anesthesia solution from iProcedures.
• DaVita HealthCare Partners selects Cureatr’s mobile care coordination technology for secure messaging and care transition notifications.
• Chesapeake Regional Medical Center will migrate to Epic over the next two years with implementation and support assistance from Good Help Connections, a Bon Secours Health System subsidiary.
• Dallas-based Cornerstone Health Group selects M*Modal’s for transcription services and clinical documentation technology for its 19 hospitals.
• Puerto Rico’s Migrant Health Center, which includes 330 FQHCs and PCMHs, will implement eClinicalWorks EHR for its eight locations.
• The State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services selects Cerner Millennium PowerChart and revenue cycle suite for three psychiatric hospitals.

Wheeling and Dealing

• Cerner will utilize Validic’s digital health platform to integrate patient-generated clinical, fitness, wellness, and nutritional data into Cerner’s HealtheLife personal health portal.
• Health Catalyst raises $70 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at more than $500 million. Existing investor Norwest Venture Partners led the round.
• Healthfinch raises $2.4 million in new financing.
• Conversa Health, developers of a patient relationship management platform, closes a $2.5 million seed round with a group of unnamed angel investors.
• Kareo acquires DoctorBase, developers of a practice marketing and patient communications solution.
• Data analytics software developer HealthMyne raises $4.5 million in Series A financing led by Venture Investors and 4490 Ventures.

New Blood

• The Indiana HIE appoints John P. Kansky president/CEO. Kansky has served in the role in an interim capacity since June, 2014.
• Recondo Technology names Alician Hanson (MedAssets) as SVP of business development; Jamie Oakes (Adreima) as RVP of sales; and, Kevin Kenny (Allscripts) as VP of strategic sales/East.
• Computer Task Group (CTG) names Cliff Bleustein, MD president/CEO, filling the post left vacant after the death last fall of James. R. Boldt. Bleustein most recently served as CMO for Dell Services and previously was a director at PwC’s health industry advisory practice.
• CHIME names AMDIS Chair William Bria, MD EVP of medical informatics and patient safety as part of a management services agreement between the two organizations.
• Dana Alexander, who most recently worked for Caradigm, joins Divurgent as VP of clinical transformation.

Etcetera

UPMC, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh form an alliance to leverage data analytics to create new healthcare innovations.