Nov 24, 2025 Current Resources

Monday Morning Update 11/24/25

November 23, 2025 News No Comments

Top News

GE HealthCare will acquire medical imaging company Intelerad for $2.3 billion in cash.

London-based private equity firm Hg Capital, whose healthcare portfolio also includes HHAeXchange and Rhapsody, acquired intelerad in 2020 for a reported $500 million. It then made several acquisitions and increased the company’s revenue by 3.5 times.

Reader Comments

From Former HIMSS Manager: “Re: HIMSS. Hal Wolf held a five-minute call to announce layoffs, ended with ‘be well,’ and hung up. The entire membership team was eliminated. Factors were that HIMSS has missed financial targets for years, doesn’t have much to show from selling the annual conference to Informa, and has experienced constant executive turnover. I can confirm that Hal hired Deloitte to restructure and push analytics. Coincidentally, we were recently ranked among the lowest by the Global Digital Health Partnership. HIStalk, please investigate and share what is happening. Your reporting is one of the few independent voices.” Unverified, except to note that HIMSS indeed didn’t perform well in the September 2025 report that the reader cites. I received an unsigned response to my inquiries from HIMSS, which I greatly appreciate even though I don’t know who sent it from their generic press email address. They (someone) said, and I quote:

The number of team members impacted was much less than stated. HIMSS is making changes based on the evolving needs of our 125,000+ members, including the growing demand for our thought leadership and expertise in the areas of analytics solutions, professional development, and media offerings. In response to those needs, we have made thoughtful adjustments to our organization, including the redesign or elimination of certain roles. These decisions were made with the utmost care and respect for the talented colleagues who have contributed to the HIMSS mission.
HIMSS does not provide public comment on internal financial matters.
HIMSS follows the IRS process and timing for completing and submitting HIMSS 990 forms. We will continue to abide by IRS policy for public disclosure as more recent 990s are completed and filed.

The response confirms that HIMSS hasn’t filed recent 990 forms, but doesn’t say why. It also confirms the reader’s report that analytics will be a focus, although it doesn’t say what kind. HIMSS sold the data portion of the provider analytics business of HIMSS Analytics to Definitive Healthcare in early 2019 while keeping the Adoption Model part of the business.

From Former HIMSS Employee: “Re: HIMSS. I left voluntarily a while back. Here’s what I learned from several people who were terminated this week.” This reader entrusted me with their identity, so I can confirm that this came from a former employee.

Deloitte advised on layoffs and reorganizations, resulting in the termination of 40 staff members last week.
Middle management is gone across analytics, media, marketing, engagement, and membership.
Marketing and HIMSS Media were significantly downsized.
Engagement strategies and membership teams were eliminated.
The 2025 goal was to increase membership, and that was accomplished. Now the membership team has been eliminated. Corporate membership went down after Informa bought the conference since it sells booth space directly to vendors, which was previously available as HIMSS corporate membership perk.
HIMSS seems interested in trying to become a consulting firm since it is charging for previously free consulting for the maturity models they sell.
A meeting with chapter leaders on Monday confirmed that the focus will be on content, professional development, and the HIMSS Analytics maturity models, advisory services, and validations.

From Sepulchre: “Re: survey. You did a weekly survey in 2019 about which services such as KLAS and Black Book provider decision-makers use when making a buying decision. It’s budget time for 2026 and I’m looking for input on planned investments.” I will run that as next week’s poll.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents haven’t experienced a provider’s AI chatbot, and three-fourths of those who have say it wasn’t useful.

New poll to your right or here: Who is most responsible for Done’s online Adderall prescribing misconduct? I acknowledge the easy out that an “all of the above” option would offer, but think harder.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Drug maker Eli Lilly becomes the first healthcare company to be valued at $1 trillion, buoyed by sales of its blockbuster weight loss drug that it sells as Zepbound and Mounjaro. That injection is expected to be the top-selling drug of 2025 as it constantly erodes the market share of Novo Nordisk’s less-effective Ozempic and Wegovy. Lilly is working on an oral version of its products and is testing another possibly better GLP-1. A $10,000 investment in LLY shares when current CEO Dave Ricks took over in early 2017 would be worth $144,000 today.

Memorial Sloan Kettering reports a $62 million loss on $1.2 billion in Q3 operating revenue, which a spokesperson attributes to the budgeted cost of implementing Epic. The hospital spent $169 million on the project in the year’s first three quarters. It began the implementation in 2022 and went live in February 2025.

People

Vermont Health Information Exchange, VITL, hires Randy Farmer, MS, MEd (Delaware Health Information Network) as president and CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Penn Medicine authors describe the organization’s self-developed tool that automates integrating data from inbound faxes into the EHR. They report that it has saved significant staff time and improved staff satisfaction since its rollout in 2002.

AMA profiles and interviews Elise Boventer, MD, MPH, medical informatics strategist for Northwell Health. Her comments cover the need for physician informaticists, the importance of female representation in the field, and the value of mentorship. She finishes up with an insightful comment about AI:

It’s been surprising how often I’ll see an idea or an algorithm, either from industry or research, where there clearly wasn’t much thought about how to integrate it into the workflow or the impact it has on physicians. For example, if there is a new generative AI tool that summarizes data, I’d ask: How many pages long is the output that the physicians are now expected to read? When in the care process are they expected to read it and what is the liability if something is missed? And how does reading the output change management?

A Navina study finds that using ambient AI alone to generate clinical documentation for chronic disease management performs poorly compared to approaches that integrate patient-clinician conversations with the patient’s medical history.

Findhelp launches a solution that allows states, payers, and providers to manage new work requirements for Medicaid eligibility within a single workflow.

A study of 26 cancer clinics finds that 88% believe that team-based supportive care model will improve care, versus 25% who favor a technology-first model.

A meta-analysis concludes that most smart watches perform well at detecting atrial fibrillation, with sensitivity and specificity in the 96-99% range, but Google’s Fitbit performed poorly at 66% and 79%. The top performer was Amazfit, model unspecified, with 99% on both. The $65 Amazfit Bip 6 watch provides fitness tracking, AI coaching, 14-day battery life, GPS navigation, and real-time monitoring of heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, and stress. Amazfit is owned by China-based health technology Zepp Health. Thanks to Paulius Mui, MD for mentioning the article on LinkedIn.

Government and Politics

Vohra Wound Physicians Management will pay $45 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that it billed Medicare for unnecessary surgeries, overtreated patients to increase procedure volume, and submitted claims for non-billable services. Federal investigators say the company pushed physicians to perform debridement at as many visits as possible, then altered its EHR to automatically bill Medicare for higher-paying surgical excisions and generate false supporting documentation. The settlement also requires an independent review of its EHR. Founder Ameet Vohra, MD said recently that the company has 300 physicians and 50 nurse practitioners serving 3,000 skilled nursing facilities.

The VA will implement ambient AI in all of its medical centers in 2026 following a 10-VAMC pilot that started last month. The pilot project vendors are Knowtex and Abridge.

Cancer registries that receive funding from the CDC or the National Cancer Institute will be required by a White House directive to record patient sex only as male, female, or unknown.

Other

A Tucson woman who was scheduled to have her tongue and larynx removed because of mouth cancer uses AI to preserve her commonly used phrases for use after she permanently loses her voice. She recorded “Happy birthday,” “I’m proud of you,” and a string of essential curse words. She also recorded a dozen children’s books for future grandchildren. She types messages into the free, open source text-to-speech app Whisper, which speaks them aloud using her AI-generated voice. When insurance refused to cover the $3,000 cost, she said through the app, “Apparently, having a voice is not considered a medical necessity.” Her daughter summarizes, “She got her sass back. When we heard her AI voice, we all cried, my sister, my dad, and I. It’s crazy similar.”

Sponsor Updates

Vyne Medical offers a new guide titled “Machine Learning vs. RPA in Healthcare: Finding the Right Automation for Intelligent Data Processing.”
Praia Health releases a new case study titled “Platform Results: 3 Years of Impact at Providence.”
SmarterDx publishes a new white paper titled “Metrics that matter for AI in RCM.”
TrustCommerce, a Sphere company, collaborates with Complete Clinic Software to bring clinics a smarter, more seamless way to manage payments.
Waystar offers a new e-book titled “The ROI of AI in healthcare payments: Which metrics matter?”

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