Becker's Hospital Review

44 CIO / HEALTH IT Cerner shakes up C-suite as 2 execs depart By Jackie Drees C erner's executive vice president and chief client and services officer, John Peterzalek, and its chief legal officer, Randy Sims, have le the Kansas City, Mo.- based EHR company, according to a Jan. 15 announcement from CEO Brent Shafer shared with Becker's. Mr. Peterzalek on Jan. 14 agreed to depart from Cerner and all of his responsibilities were reassigned to Travis Dalton, who was promoted to executive vice president and chief client and services officer on Jan. 15. Mr. Dalton joined Cerner in 2001 and oversees the company's government services division, which includes leading its multi-billion dollar EHR implementa- tion project for the Department of Veter- ans Affairs and Department of Defense. In a report filed Jan. 15 with the U.S. Secu- rities and Exchange Commission, Cerner said that "Mr. Peterzalek's departure is not the result of any dispute or disagreement with Cerner, its board of directors, or its management, or any matter relating to Cerner's operations, policies or practices." Mr. Peterzalek remained as an executive senior advisor until he officially departed from Cerner Feb. 27, just a little over one year aer assuming the chief client services officer position. He was named chief client and services officer on Feb. 18, 2020, aer serving as Cerner's executive vice president and chief client officer. Mr. Sims, who had led Cerner's legal de- partment since 1997, was replaced by the Cerner Senior Vice President of Cloud Strategies Dan Devers. In his previous role, Mr. Devers led Cerner's collaboration with Amazon Web Services and cloud modern- ization. He joined the EHR company in 2002 as a corporate counsel and legal exec- utive and later rejoined in 2012, filling lead- ership roles including general counsel and chief intellectual property officer. "I thank both John and Randy for their many years of service with Cerner," Mr. Shafer said in a Jan. 15 note to employees. "I've appreciated their counsel and leader- ship and wish them the very best in their next chapters." n 'This discovery is a little disturbing': Centura Health data reports missed 2,500 COVID-19 hospitalizations By Jackie Drees C entennial, Colo.-based Centura Health failed to report almost 2,500 COVID-19 hospitalizations dating back to April 2020 because of a sys- tem coding issue, according to a Jan. 8 report in The Journal. Five details: 1. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed on Jan. 5 that Centura failed to report 2,450 COVID-19 hospitalizations, most of which happened during October, November and December while cases spiked in the state. 2. Durango, Colo., Mayor Dean Brookie expressed his concern to the pub- lication: "It's disturbing the lack of reporting was during a critical period of time," he said. "I want to trust our healthcare providers, but this discovery is a little disturbing." 3. The Colorado health department said that the missed reporting was the re- sult of "a quality control system established by local public health agencies and the state." The system revealed that some of Centura's hospitalizations weren't making it into the COVID Patient Hospitalization Surveillance because of cer- tain hospital coding issues, which have since been fixed. 4. The missing data reports account for almost 13 percent of the state's 19,000 hospitalizations as of Jan. 8. 5. A Centura Health spokesperson called the coding issue an "oversight" and said once the system learned of the issue, it quickly resolved it. n Excellus BCBS pays $5.1M to settle data breach affecting millions By Morgan Haefner E xcellus BlueCross BlueShield agreed to pay the Office for Civil Rights $5.1 million to settle potential HIPAA violations related to a data breach, HHS said Jan. 15. In September 2015, Excellus filed a breach report that said cyberattackers gained access to its IT systems. The breach began in December 2013 and end- ed in May 2015, Excellus said. More than 9.3 million people were affected by the breach, according to HHS. The hackers installed malware into Excellus' IT system, which led to the disclo- sure of people's Social Security numbers, bank account information and clini- cal treatment information, among other personal data. An investigation from the OCR found Excellus may have violated HIPAA by failing to conduct a risk analysis and IT system review. In addition to the settlement, the insurer also agreed to implement a corrective action plan, which includes two years of monitoring. n

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