Industry Insight

Barret, Bowen Among New Sequoia Project Board Members

The Sequoia Project, a nonprofit and trusted advocate for nationwide health IT interoperability, recently announced this year’s board of directors and board-elected officers. Additionally, the company introduced the new Stakeholder Engagement Workgroup and launched two new Information Blocking Compliance Task Groups.

The Sequoia Project welcomes new board members Willarda Edwards, MD, of the American Medical Association, and Josh Mast of Cerner. The board of directors elected new officers, including the following:

• chairman: Michael Hodgkins, MD, retired, of the American Medical Association;
• vice chairman: David Horrocks of the New York eHealth Collaborative;
• secretary: Lee Barrett, executive director and CEO of Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission;
• treasurer: Rita Bowen of MRO; and
• immediate past chair and physician representative: Steven Lane, MD, of Sutter Health.

The incoming board and new members, as well as the workgroup and taskforce members, bring fresh perspectives and guidance to The Sequoia Project’s work on the nation’s most pressing health IT interoperability challenges. These include information blocking compliance, pandemic responses, and data usability. The highly experienced directors and taskforce members will help The Sequoia Project achieve its strategic objectives and advance the health IT domain.

“New board members, Edwards and Mast, have experiences and views that will be invaluable for The Sequoia Project in the upcoming years as we continue to advance nationwide interoperability and health IT initiatives,” says Mariann Yeager, CEO of The Sequoia Project. “I also want to congratulate continuing members of the board of directors, whose leadership and expertise have been vital to us across all of our efforts.”

Recently, The Sequoia Project expanded its Interoperability Matters initiative, a public-private cooperative solving discrete health information exchange, to include additional topic areas as identified by its membership and board of directors. Two new task groups, the Definition of Electronic Health Information (EHI) Task Group and the Good Practices for Compliance and to Meet Customer and Patient Needs Task Group, were added to the existing Information Blocking Compliance Workgroup. These news task groups will further address a range of nationwide interoperability and health IT challenges facing the industry.

The Definition of EHI Task Group will build upon the work started by AHIMA, HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association, and AMIA to better understand the scope of EHI that must be included in a response to a request under information blocking.

The Good Practices Task Group will focus on identifying and compiling the best practices for various types of actors under information blocking to help guide compliance and implementation of the regulations.

Current members of the Information Blocking Compliance Workgroup will be participating in these task groups and contributing to the production of task group deliverables.

The newly convened Stakeholder Engagement Workgroup will identify, prioritize, and recommend strategies for involving various stakeholder types in The Sequoia Project’s interoperability work, both within and beyond current membership.

“The Sequoia Project has been doing critical work behind the scenes to advance interoperability for the public good and better health outcomes for a decade,” says Barrett, cochair of the Interoperability Matters Leadership Counsel. “The workgroup’s mission is to engage stakeholders who benefit from interoperability but haven’t historically embraced it. The next 10 years of health IT will be shaped by dramatically increased participation of clinicians, consumers, health plans, public health agencies, and others who have a vested interest in actively shaping interoperability solutions.”

You can find more information on the Interoperability Matters initiative and its workgroups at sequoiaproject.org/interoperability-matters.

A complete list of the board of directors and more information on The Sequoia Project governance can be found on The Sequoia Project website at sequoiaproject.org/about-us/board-of-directors.

— Source: The Sequoia Project

Fathom Secures Investment From Vituity’s Inflect Health

Fathom, a leader in AI medical coding automation, announced it received a strategic investment from Inflect Health, the innovation hub of Vituity, one of the largest physician-led provider groups in the United States. Fathom will use the investment to drive innovation and the performance of its industry-leading platform to improve the speed and accuracy of medical coding.

“The Inflect Health team is on the forefront of health care innovation and transformation, and their approach to the revenue cycle is no different,” says Andrew Lockhart, Fathom CEO. “Their investment is strong validation of Fathom’s technology and demonstrates confidence in our ability to deliver reliable and accurate coding at unparalleled automation rates as we positively impact health organizations’ operations and revenues.”

In addition to capital from the innovation hub, Fathom will leverage Vituity’s expertise in the revenue cycle as it refines the Fathom platform to alleviate staffing challenges, reduce denials, and mitigate audit risk. Fathom is the only medical coding platform that can fully and accurately automate over 90% of emergency department encounters.

“We seek investment partners who bring revolutionary technology that critically impacts health care,” says Inflect Health’s President Andrew Smith. “Fathom, with its ground-breaking automation and commitment to continuous innovation, is a company we believe has the power to revolutionize RCM [revenue cycle management] for health systems and practices.”

— Source: Fathom

Adam Arlan Named to JTS Health Partners’ Senior Advisory Team

JTS Health Partners (JTS) is pleased to announce the addition of Adam Arlan as a senior advisor. Arlan has more than 30 years of health care experience, offering solutions to providers in the areas of health IT, advisory services, and capital equipment.

Arlan has served in a variety of roles focused on health IT strategic plans, service and consulting models, asset acquisition strategies, and performance improvement. He has extensive experience working with hospitals, integrated delivery networks, health IT vendors, original equipment manufacturers, and group purchasing organizations. Arlan has held various leadership roles focused on the development of partnerships with leading health systems in the United States.

“Having worked with Adam in the past, I am delighted to have him join JTS as a senior advisor. Adam brings [multiple] decades of health care experience to this role, as well as serves as an expert in our space. He will be an invaluable part of our team,” says Thomas Stewart Jr, president and cofounder of JTS Health Partners.

Arlan's senior health care leadership roles have included regional vice president for Siemens (formerly Shared Medical Systems and now Cerner) health IT customers in the Northwest Region, USA national director for Strategic Services Group, and vice president for Siemens' USA Strategic Corporate Accounts. He worked closely with hospital executives to help drive strategic health IT initiatives and performance improvement initiatives across their health systems.

— Source: JTS Health Partners