Becker's Hospital Review

38 CIO / HEALTH IT Massachusetts General Hospital might store patient data on blockchain through new partnership By Julie Spitzer M assachusetts General Hospital in Boston partnered with Ko- rean blockchain startup MediBloc to explore using the block- chain to store and share patient health information, accord- ing to CoinDesk. Blockchain describes a permanent and shared ledger of online transactions or exchanges that, unlike a traditional database that is centrally located and maintained by one party, is shared among a network of users. Under its agreement with MediBloc, MGH aims to "explore poten- tials of blockchain technology to provide secure solutions for health information exchange, integrate healthcare AI applications into the day-to-day clinical workflow, and support [a] data sharing and label- ing platform for machine learning model development," Synho Do, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Medical Imaging and Computation, a joint venture of MGH and Boston-based Harvard Medical School, told CoinDesk. MediBloc is developing a blockchain network for storing and shar- ing patient data as well as a tool to convert hospital data into a universal format. In this way, blockchain could help remove barriers to interoperability. The startup, co-founded by two physicians, has gained notoriety in South Korea, having been tapped for two government-funded proj- ects and eight medical institutions. n Former Cerner president Zane Burke heads to wearables company By Julie Spitzer L ivongo Health, a wearables company aimed at chronic disease management, tapped former president of Cerner Zane Burke as its CEO, according to Crain's Chicago Business. Mr. Burke will take over the day-to-day operations of the company from current CEO Glen Tullman. Mr. Tullman will remain executive chairman of Livongo. In September, Mr. Burke announced he would step down from his role at Cerner, which re-sold Livongo products like its cellular-enabled glu- cometer. When asked why he decided to transition to Livongo, Mr. Burke told Crain's, "I'd taken [the job at Cerner] as far as I could. … I've known Glen since we competed with each other" when Mr. Tullman was CEO of medical-records software vendor Allscripts. Livongo Health hopes to soon go public, and Mr. Burke could help it get there. He helped grow Cerner from a $150 million startup with 1,000 employees into a $5 billion public company with more than 28,000 workers. n 64% of execs worry about losing their jobs throughout a new EHR rollout By Julie Spitzer M ore than half of healthcare executives — 64 percent — expressed concern about the fu- ture of their employment during an EHR implementation or replacement, according to a sev- en yearslong survey commissioned by Black Book. Here are eight survey insights: 1. Most large health system providers (93 percent) re- ported few regrets over their EHR vendor selection. 2. However, 88 percent of respondents from mod- est-sized regional health systems were dissatisfied with their EHR selection, citing hidden costs, un- expected consultant fees, interrupted revenue cy- cles, consumer frustration, time-extended rollouts, physician and clinical burnout, system downtime, reliability issues, and mismatches in vendor-client cultures. 3. Seventy-six percent of community hospital re- spondents said they doubted the supposed benefits of switching EHR systems for brand recognition, instead noting value propositions such as increased functionality, usability and interoperability. 4. Ninety-five percent of "financially threatened" hos- pitals in the fourth quarter of 2018 said they regret changing EHR systems, according to Black Book. 5. Ninety percent of hospitals systems with more than 500 beds reported they've consistently been over bud- get each year since an EHR replacement, oen due to consultant costs, post-implementation support, EHR-related staffing and optimization initiatives. 6. e majority of respondents — 71 percent — agreed that interoperability and patient data ex- change functionality had declined aer implement- ing a replacement EHR. 7. Very few respondents at the manager level or higher — 5 percent — claimed they or their peers were fired or asked to resign due to EHR replace- ment costs or productivity changes. 8. Twenty-two percent of respondents said their organizations issued intermittent or permanent staff layoffs due to implementation delays, cost overruns, underestimated budgets or unavailable trained personnel. n

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