Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1186182
29 CIO / HEALTH IT UPMC looks to transform shuttered hospital into IT hub By Jackie Drees U PMC presented a proposal to rezone its shuttered UPMC Mercy South Side hospital for nonmedi- cal purposes during an Oct. 22 meeting with the Pittsburgh Planning Commission, Pittsburgh Business Times reported. UPMC Mercy South Side Outpatient Center closed in 2018 after moving its services to other facilities in the Pitts- burgh-based UPMC network. The health system partnered with Oxford Development Company on the proposal to renovate the three-building hospital to house IT staff and operations. UPMC currently has around 200 IT employees working from the complex and plans to further consolidate its IT functions, according to the report. n Partners pours $80M into investment funds for digital tech, AI, life sciences By Andrea Park P artners HealthCare has created two new investment funds to support innovation in the realms of artificial intelligence, digital technology and pre-clinical life sci- ences, the Boston-based health system announced Oct. 21. The Artificial Intelligence and Digital Translation Fund boasts initial funding of $30 million over five years. It will be used to back Partners' active vendor companies in a "real-time lab" approach, in which the companies' new digital solutions will be tested and adapted in Partners' clinical operations. The second fund, which will receive $50 million over six years, is the Translational Innovation Fund. It will help Partners researchers and investigators advance potential therapeutics through the drug discovery pipeline to the pre-clinical development stage. "Too often, what could be game-changing research is stranded due to lack of financing between initial funding and longer-term venture investment," said Chris Coburn, Partners' chief innovation officer. "These funds will address these gaps and provide the resources to quickly advance technologies in some of the most promising areas of healthcare such as immune oncology, intelligent devices and remote care." n United Health Foundation funnels $1.1M into expanding access to digital health tech By Andrea Park T he United Health Foundation announced Oct. 17 a partnership with Atlanta-based Morehouse School of Medicine to research ways to improve accessibility and usability of digital health tools in underserved communities in the southeastern U.S. UnitedHealth Group's philanthropic arm will fund the part- nership with a three-year, $1.1 million grant. Researchers within the medical school's National Center for Primary Care will first conduct focus groups, interviews, surveys and data reviews to determine whether digital solutions such as EHRs, telehealth and wearables will actually address health disparities facing underserved communities in urban and rural Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. If digital technology is found to be an effective solution to healthcare challenges in the region, researchers will devel- op an action plan to improve those communities' access to the technology. Morehouse has previously received funding from the Unit- ed Health Foundation to help build IT systems and tech- nology for a local clinic. The medical school is also part of UnitedHealth Group's initiative to encourage students at historically black colleges and universities to pursue ca- reers in healthcare data analytics. n Allscripts, Northwell Health to build voice-enabled EHR By Jackie Drees N orthwell Health and Allscripts teamed up to devel- op and deploy a cloud-based, voice-enabled EHR across the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based health system. The EHR will leverage artificial intelligence and will be designed by Northwell clinicians, information technology professionals and administrators. "Coupling Allscripts' technology expertise with Northwell's clinical and operational strengths will enable us to create a dynamic, patient-facing tool that will arm clinicians with knowledge to provide exceptional care to our patients," said Michael Dowling, president and CEO at Northwell, according to a news release. While Allscripts and Northwell create the new system and roll out a pilot program, the health system will continue to use Allscripts' Sunrise EHR platform. Sunrise is current- ly used at 19 Northwell hospitals and at more than 750 Northwell outpatient practices in New York. Northwell has been using Allscripts' EHR since 2009. n