Becker's Hospital Review

80 CIO / HEALTH IT EHR vendor to settle illegal kickback scheme for nearly $4M By Jackie Drees C areCloud, a Miami-based EHR and practice management soware pro- vider, has agreed to pay $3.8 million to settle allegations that it paid illegal kick- backs to drum up sales of its EHR products, the U.S. Department of Justice said April 30. e Justice Department claimed that Care- Cloud violated the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute through its marketing referral program, dubbed the Champions Program. Between Jan. 1, 2012, and March 31, 2017, CareCloud allegedly offered its ex- isting clients cash equivalent credits and cash bonuses to recommend the vendor's EHR products to potential clients. Clients who participated in the Champi- ons Program signed written agreements that prevented them from providing neg- ative information about CareCloud's EHR products to prospective clients, the Justice Department alleged. e U.S. claimed that CareCloud's payments to participants violated the federal Anti-Kick- back Statute and that the EHR vendor violat- ed the False Claims Act, since the kickbacks resulted in false claims submitted by Care- Cloud for federal incentive payments under CMS' Meaningful Use Programs and the Merit-based Payment System. "Product functionality, reliability, and safety should drive a medical soware company's success, not illegal kickbacks paid to pro- mote its products," Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Juan Antonio Gonzalez said in the news release. "ere is simply no place for kickbacks in our country's healthcare system. Companies who ignore this will be held accountable." n Cell phone and smartwatch magnets can interfere with medical devices, FDA says By Jackie Drees T he FDA issued a warning May 13 that certain cell phones and smart watches with high-field strength magnets may cause implanted medical devices to shut off when in close proximity. The FDA recommended that patients keep any con- sumer devices that create magnetic interference at least six inches from implanted medical devices, particularly cardiac defibrillators. When near high strength magnets, devices with mag- netic safe mode could stop working or change how the device works; for example, a cardiac defibrillator may be unable to detect tachycardia events or may turn on asyn- chronous mode in a pacemaker. When the device stops working, a patient may become dizzy, lose conscious- ness and could even die, the agency said. To avoid any interferences between cell phones, smart watches and heart devices, the FDA recommends keep- ing them at least six inches away from any implant- ed medical devices. The agency said it has conducted its own testing on some products to confirm previous research about the device risks. The FDA said the risk of an adverse event to patients is low and it is not aware of any events associated with this issue. n Johns Hopkins launches pandemic data initiative By Katie Adams J ohns Hopkins University launched a pandemic data initiative to address the lack of a consistent real-time health data infrastructure, the Baltimore-based university announced May 17. Throughout the pandemic, the university's Coronavirus Re- source Center has served as a resource for healthcare pro- fessionals and public health officials to better understand how COVID-19 is affecting communities as it tracks positivi- ty rates, new cases and other trends. However, the resource center's researchers, as well as data scientists worldwide, have struggled to effectively and ac- curately compile COVID-19 data, as it is often inconsistent, incomplete and lagging. Johns Hopkins' new data initiative will establish a standardized system to collect, confirm, re- port and share data in near-real time so that countries can be better equipped to deploy rapid, unified responses to the next public health crisis. The university said it hopes the new data infrastructure will allow rapid communication between researchers so federal, state and local governments can make data- informed decisions. The initiative seeks to address data inconsistencies among the states and federal government agencies, demonstrate how challenges in data collection and reporting hindered the nation's COVID-19 responses and provide solutions through a regular forum that will explore uniform approach- es to pandemic data management. n

• Cover