Laura Merrick: Medical Home Network wants to reinforce the centrality of the medical home

When you hear the phrase “medical home”, you might think of a nursing home, but actually, a medical home is a place where a patient can receive everything they need for primary care (such as behavioral health, community resources, etc.)

Laura Merrick, Operations Project Manager of Medical Home Network, shares how their work not only affects the primary care community, but also hospitals.

Here is a transcript from our conversation with Laura. You can watch the entire interview here.

Laura Merrick Interview

Hoala Greevy: Howzit, this is Hoala Greevy, Founder CEO of Paubox. We’re here at HIMSS18 in Las Vegas. I’m here with Laura Merrick and she’s with Medical Home Network. I just met her a few minutes ago, so let’s get started with another version of HIPAA Center. Laura, thanks for joining us.

Laura Merrick: Thank you for having me.

Hoala Greevy: Can you tell us more about the scope of your work at Medical Home Network?

Laura Merrick: Certainly, certainly. So Medical Home Network is a formal provider collaborative that was founded and funded in Chicago, Illinois. Our focus was improving healthcare delivery and innovation, focusing on reinforcing the centrality of the medical home.

So we began our work about 9 years ago, bringing providers together to share around a common vision to support the Medicaid patients that were so disparately separated across the southside of Chicago.

We had several opportunities along the way and one of those was that we formed a Medicaid ACO known as the MHN ACO.

So the Medical Home Network ACO, known as MHN ACO, supports 9 federally qualified health centers and 3 Hospital systems through an Innovative – through our Innovation and technology in healthcare delivery. We are connected with 25 hospitals around the county area and 180 unique medical homes to support the care for Medicaid recipients outside on the southside of Chicago.

Hoala Greevy: Medical home, is that a skilled nursing home? What exactly is that?

Laura Merrick: No, don’t let our name fool you. At the time, when we first started the work we were really focused on, reinforcing Primary Care – a term for a medical home is a term where a patient can receive everything that they need around primary care. That might be access to behavioral health or Community Resources, and it’s a place where they can not only seek the care that they need but also the help to get the care that they need by their care manager.

So the network that we created in the beginning of our work was really about bringing providers together both in that medical home setting to drive that primary care model. We were able to do that with not only the primary care community but also hospitals, and really drive communication and that was really key to really engaging and reaching patients.

Hoala Greevy: Healthcare is notorious for lack of. Definitely.

Laura Merrick: Right.

Hoala Greevy: So MHN has been around for 9 years if I heard you correctly. How long have you been with the company?

Laura Merrick: Since it was founded, I believe it was 2008. I was one of the second employees.

Hoala Greevy: Wow. So almost from the beginning.

Laura Merrick: Yes.

Hoala Greevy: Wow. So HIMSS18, what was your biggest takeaway from this year?

Laura Merrick: You know, I think for the work that we do, it’s validation that we’re on the right track: driving innovation across our area. That there are opportunities to share best practices with others that are doing the work that we’re doing across the nation, and that there is more that we can do around improving access to data, and ultimately the care for our patients.

Hoala Greevy: Laura, is HIMSS part of your annual conference schedule or is it your first time here?

Laura Merrick: It is my first time here.

Hoala Greevy: Oh wow. Well you picked the right location because last year it was Orlando, and I – this is more preferably for me. Closer and a bit more fun.

Laura Merrick: Yeah.

Hoala Greevy: Great, and last question – where do you see the future of your industry going?

Laura Merrick: I think it’s innovation, it’s healthcare innovation. And that is wrapped around not only technology but how we implement the technology and the meaning behind how we connect data to get access to care for these patients. So I really think it’s continued innovation to empower care management activities, to empower reaching beyond the healthcare ecosystem into the community, and to really think a little bit bigger about how we really provide care.

Hoala Greevy: Man, Laura, thanks for submitting time with us, we really appreciate it. Nice to meet you. Aloha!

Medical Home Network

Medical Home Network (MHN) is a not-for-profit collaborative that has fundamentally changed how care is delivered.

Their proven model of care unites provider communities and diverse healthcare entities around a common goal: to redesign healthcare delivery and transform the way care is managed at the practice level.

Medical Home Network provides the tools and processes to help care teams engage patients and help them become an accountable member of the team. By connecting providers and delivering real-time information, they enable coordinated care management, improve transitions of care, and promote timely follow-up.

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Is Microsoft Teams HIPAA Compliant?

We sometimes get asked by customers and prospects about Microsoft Teams and their ability to use it in a HIPAA compliant manner.

We know the HIPAA industry is vast so we can empathize with just how many people need to use cloud services in this sector.

In previous posts, we’ve covered the following cloud solutions and their capabilities for HIPAA compliance:

• Amazon CloudFront
• Apple iCloud
• Apple iMessage
• Box
• Citrix ShareFile
• Constant Contact
• DocuSign
• Dropbox
• FaceTime
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Google Drive
• Google Forms
• Google Hangouts
• Google Hangouts Chat
• Google Slides
• Google Voice
• GoToMeeting
• Heroku
• Intercom
• MailChimp
• Mandrill
• Office 365
• OneDrive
• PostageApp
• Postmark
• Return Path
• SendGrid
• SharePoint
• Slack
• Sonic
• SparkPost
• Uber Health
• WhatsApp
• WordPress
• Yammer
• Zoho
• Zoom

Today, we will determine if Microsoft Teams offers HIPAA compliant service or not.

SEE ALSO: HIPAA Breaches and Cloud Providers

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a cloud platform that combines workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments. First launched in 2017, Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s competitive rebuttal to Slack and Google Hangouts Chat.

Microsoft Teams and the Business Associate Agreement

We’ve previously talked about how a Business Associate Agreement is a written contract between a Covered Entity and a Business Associate. It is required by law for HIPAA compliance.

We checked Microsoft’s site and found a page called:

• Overview of security and compliance in Microsoft Teams

On it, Microsoft states:

[Microsoft] Teams is Tier C-compliant at launch. This includes the following standards: ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SSAE16 SOC 1 and SOC 2, HIPAA, and EU Model Clauses (EUMC).

To get more information on what Tier C-compliance means, we tracked down a doc in the Microsoft Download Center called:

• Compliance Framework for Industry Standards and Regulations for Office 365 and related Microsoft services

On page 2 of that doc, we can see that Tiers B and up include a Business Associate Agreement:

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At the top of page 3, we can also see that Microsoft Teams comes enabled by default in Tiers C & D:

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We can see then, that a BAA is included with a subscription to Microsoft Teams.

Does Microsoft Teams Offer HIPAA Compliant Service?

The Business Associate Agreement is a key component to HIPAA compliance between a covered entity and a business associate.

With some directed research, we were able determine that Microsoft is willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement that covers Microsoft Teams.

Conclusion: Microsoft Teams is HIPAA compliant.

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Ari Tulla: Why Digital Health Entrepreneurs Shouldn’t Use the Word “Pilot”

We recently sat down with Ari Tulla, CEO and Founder of BetterDoctor, at their office in San Francisco’s SOMA district.

Here is a transcript from why Ari thinks digital entrepreneurs should stop using the word “pilot”. You can watch the entire interview here.

Ari Tulla: Why Digital Health Entrepreneurs Shouldn’t Use the Word “Pilot”

Hoala Greevy: I understand that when it comes to healthcare and digital health startups, you don’t like the word “pilot”. Why is that and is there a better word for digital health entrepreneurs to focus in on?

Ari Tulla: I think this is specific for many of us who started healthcare companies in the B2C realm, going to consumers and trying to do something for them. And often many of them have been moving into B2B [or] B2E, working with the big enterprise companies.

In healthcare, the money is in three buckets: it’s in health plans, health insurance companies; it’s in the hospitals and the providers; and it is in the pharma.

Those are the ones that own 80% of the 3 trillion dollars today that we spend every year.

So you have to go there and shake those trees to make money. The money is not coming from the consumers because they don’t pay anything directly.

So you basically have to go to the big companies, and when you work with these big companies – we have experienced this a little bit and we have seen, and I have seen, many horror stories on the idea of “Hey, let’s do a pilot.”

Every big organization has an innovation team, and these innovation teams, they are there to work with the startups, with the new entrants and do small tests.

But very rarely those ideas and those early tests are leading into full implementations. So the “pilot”, it sounds like a doom interval from the beginning.

So you can do 100 pilots that might lead nothing in the end. So I try to just use the vocabulary and say, “Let’s go from pilot and talk about proof of concept.” If we already have something that works, let’s do a small implementation in some market. Let’s not do a pilot. Pilot means, “Let’s just do something little and try it, and it might not work.”

Hoala Greevy: Man, that’s a good takeaway. I’m sure people are going to want to hear about that.

BetterDoctor

BetterDoctor helps patients find the right doctors when they need them.

It starts with helping health plans, provider groups, health care systems and health start up companies get high quality data.

They build tools to bring trust, confidence, and transparency to the process of finding a doctor.

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Mississippi State Department of Health Suffers HIPAA Email Breach

On March 26, 2018, Mississippi State Department of Health submitted a HIPAA Email Breach to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Located in Jackson, MS, the Mississippi State Department of Health’s email breach affected 30799 individuals’ protected health information.

Mississippi State Department of Health is classified as a Healthcare Provider.

According to Mississippi State Department of Health press release:

Health information, including names, date of birth, Social Security number, or lab results, were released Jan. 25 to J Michael Consulting, a contractor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This could have resulted in an unauthorized disclosure, since the information was not meant to be shared,” MSDH officials said in a news release.

MSDH officials became aware Jan. 30 that an employee “unknowingly” emailed an Excel spreadsheet containing patients’ protected health information.

“Each person who mistakenly received the spreadsheet said they deleted all traces of the email from their inbox and did not share the email or what was in it. It is unlikely that the personal information was viewed by anyone,” MSDH officials added. “However, because this email was sent unprotected, there is a possibility that it was seen by someone who could misuse it. MSDH has taken steps to increase security and lessen any harm that could be caused to any individual patient.”

Officials ask that anyone who was treated at the Mississippi State Department of Health, or any of its clinics, in 2017 and is concerned about possible unauthorized disclosure of information contact Nicole Litton or Christin Williams at 601-576-7874.

The Mississippi State Department of Health will offer free credit monitoring protection for one year, for clients whose information was included in the spreadsheet.

HHS Wall of Shame

The HHS Wall of Shame is a website under the jurisdiction of HHS that lists all HIPAA breaches reported within the last 24 months. The Wall of Shame displays breaches that are currently under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights.

As part of section 13402(e)(4) of the HITECH Act, the HHS Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals.

HIPAA Breach Report

The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes breaches that affected 500 or more individuals as reported in the HHS Wall of Shame.

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Ari Tulla: The Mix Tape of Happiness

We recently sat down with Ari Tulla, CEO and Founder of BetterDoctor, at their office in San Francisco’s SOMA district.

Here is a transcript from Ari’s concept of the Mix Tape of Happiness. You can watch the entire interview here.

Ari Tulla: The Mix Tape of Happiness

Hoala Greevy: Can you share your concept of the “Mix Tape of Happiness”?

Ari Tulla: Yeah, this is good research from your part. So Mix Tape of Happiness is a fun thing that you get to do every now and then.

I used to work at Nokia for quite a while and I was helping the Nokia research center on finding new ideas how to use VR (virtual reality) and alternate reality.

We were working on a project that I think never saw the light of day so I can’t really talk about the details of that. But one big company, they start ten things, they kill nine of them. And some of those go pretty far before they get killed.

Anyway, we were working on a glass concept that was a little like Google Glass maybe – maybe ten years ago. One of the concepts that we came up with was Mix Tape of Happiness.

And the idea is that you basically have a frame on you where you have video rolling all the time, so you can 24/7 record video, like you can do with Google Glass basically. And then you store the video and we were also looking at can you incorporate simple brain wave tracking into the frame so you can look at the brain and understand simple brain waves.

There are six, seven different types of waves and you have to have a hat on if you want to get all of them, but in here you can find the simple things like in the case of happiness, excitement.

So we’re thinking about okay, we are recording 24/7, why not find when you are happy and excited and take that moment in your life and move that into the cloud and call it the Mix Tape of Happiness? Who wouldn’t want to go back in our life and when we feel sad or we are blue anyway, we can go look at the last year, the best moments of our life on a video, like you saw them yourself.

I think that would be a great thing to do.

Hoala Greevy: What’s that Netflix show? Black Mirror?

Ari Tulla: Yep.

Hoala Greevy: There’s an episode that’s very similar to that.

Ari Tulla: Yep. And that’s on my list, I mean it’s on my queue that I need to see.

Hoala Greevy: I’ll send you the link for it.

Ari Tulla: But anyone listening, this has never been done. I don’t think there really is a full-blown patent filed on this. Go on and do this, this is really I think a fun idea that can be done with the current tech. Ten years ago, it was harder.

Hoala Greevy: Yeah, wow.

BetterDoctor

BetterDoctor helps patients find the right doctors when they need them.

It starts with helping health plans, provider groups, health care systems and health start up companies get high quality data.

They build tools to bring trust, confidence, and transparency to the process of finding a doctor.

The post Ari Tulla: The Mix Tape of Happiness appeared first on Paubox.

Joe Montana: Jackson Square Ventures Book Club

The Score Takes Care of Itself: An Evening with Joe Montana

• The JSV Book Club hosted Bill Walsh’s treatise on leadership, The Score Takes Care of Itself.
• Joe Montana gave an insightful discussion on lessons we can all learn from the book.
• Matt Maiocco covered many detailed, fascinating aspects of Joe’s career.

I attended a Jackson Square Ventures Book Club event this afternoon. Hosted at their office, this evening’s guest was none other than Joe Montana, legendary quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers.

Matt Maiocco, who has covered the 49ers for 23 seasons, led the discussion and Q&A.

I learned the JSV Book Club motto is “Ancora imparo” (Yet I am still learning). It’s a phrase widely attributed to Michelangelo.

It was a distinct pleasure to attend the event. Mahalo to Jackson Square Ventures for hosting!

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Josh Breinlinger of Jackson Square Ventures introduced Joe Montana and Matt Maiocco

The Score Takes Care of Itself: An Evening with Joe Montana

Here are my takeaways from Joe Montana’s discussion on leadership, football, and competition:

• Joe’s older son works for him in the seed fund, Liquid 2 Ventures.
• “The closest thing I’ve seen to game day is cutting horses… It’s like being on the back of Barry Sanders.”
• Bill Walsh was gifted in his ability of organize and manage staff and players to get on the same page. He demanded everyone be on the same page, same team.
• “The worst thing you can do in the locker room is get mad.”
• Bill Walsh demanded perfection, especially from the quarterback.
• “By stepping backwards instead of forward, we actually moved forward.”
• Throw the ball 12 inches in front of the numbers, not six inches behind, not 24 inches in front.
• Bill Wallash did not have time limits on practice.
• Re: comebacks: “As a quarterback, you’re probably the reason you’re behind.”
• Re: The Catch: “We really had never thrown the ball to Dwight.” (up until that point)
• Beforehand however, Bill Walsh actually had Joe and Dwight practice that play. It was such an unlikely play, they jokingly thought Bill was going senile.
• Joe got knocked down, didn’t actually see The Catch.
• Equipment coach Chico Norton to Joe after The Catch: “Boy your buddy saved your ass this time.”
• “I always try to be myself, whether we’re winning or losing.”
• Bill Walsh had a great sense of humor.
• Tom Rothmam was like a coach on the field.
• Base plays: The simple plays you learn early in the season. These are the same plays you go back to all the time.
• Joe’s leadership style: Usually first on field and the last off. Preparation was most important thing.
• “With preparation came success.”
• “I think we were a lot more successful when we tried to help each other as opposed to pointing fingers.”
• Ronnie Lott and Joe were the leaders on the team.
• Joe remembers every big game like it was last Sunday.
• “I’m very, very competitive.”
• Joe re: being a 3rd round draft pick: “I was just happy to be in the NFL.”
• Joe grew up Western PA: His grit comes from his grueling athletics experiences in high school.
• Accuracy was very important to Walsh when it came to qualities of a quarterback. Footwork was key to that.
• Ronnie and Joe were the last two players to see Bill Walsh.
• “Hey, you owe me any money?” Bill’s last words/joke to Joe and Ronnie.

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A packed house at Jackson Square Ventures

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Joe Montana highlight clips during the reception

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Josh Breinlinger and Ryan Williams: All-Star AdRoll alumni

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Pro tip: Joe Montana does not do selfies. Get someone else to take the pic.

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Selfie with my friend and sales advisor, Ryan Williams of Sales Collider

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My question for Joe Montana: “Do you see similarities between Ronnie Lott and Draymond Green?” (PC: Ryan Williams)

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Ari Tulla: Tips on Proper Strategy Execution

We recently sat down with Ari Tulla, CEO and Founder of BetterDoctor, at their office in San Francisco’s SOMA district.

Here is a transcript from Ari’s thoughts on proper execution. You can view the entire interview here.

Ari Tulla: Tips on Proper Strategy Execution

Hoala Greevy: Okay so another thing I keyed in on, was you being laser focused on execution. I’ve also heard you say that you agree with Peter Thiel in his book Zero to One, that competition is only in your mind.

Can you share some tips or things you’ve learned along the way about proper execution?

Ari Tulla: Going back to the fact that you know, when you’ve been doing this stuff and building things for last 20 years, you have done a lot of mistakes. The mistakes are the only things to learn from.

I think for me, it’s really easy to come with an idea. And anyone of us, you know we can go into the room and we can have a whiteboard and you know stickies, and we can come up with 25 ideas. But then the value of those ideas is limited without the good execution. And in the end, it’s all about can you get it to the market. Even if you get it to the market at the best quality, it might not still do anything because people don’t know about it.

It really is about putting together engineering, putting together marketing, putting together sales, as a one unit and trying to build something valuable. So often people think that you know, “my unit, the engineering, is the key.” Or the design is the key, or the marketing is the key, or whatever, or sales. But no, it’s really the holistic view on this.

As a CEO, I think you have to be able to help the company to understand and people to understand, that it’s not about you only or your department, it’s about working together. Those are, I think to me, the key points about execution. Not just about getting something done, but getting something done holistically so it has an impact in the marketplace. And then of course you know, the faster you go to market, the faster you see people’s feedback, the faster you can iterate and become better.

The whole idea about the Lean Startup I think is a very good idea. It might not apply to big companies or bigger companies but in the beginning, it’s a critical point. When it when it comes to Peter Thiel’s idea about on the Zero to One book, it’s not about you know, get fast into something, do something fast. Start on things that are hard and and that people haven’t solved before. Talking about you don’t want to focus on incremental innovation, incremental improvement only, but you want to focus a little bit at least, on the fundamental problems that are in the marketplace.

Today at DetterDoctor, I mean we work in very, very deep down in the healthcare bowels and we try to work on these fundamental problems like, “How do we get data moving better? How do we make data more accurate? How to make the system more transparent.” Those are fundamental things that are really difficult to solve that nobody has been able solve before.

Hoala Greevy: From the Silicon Valley tech CEOs that are successful that I’ve talked to or heard, there seem to be only two things in common: They make a lot of mistakes and they’re practically obsessed with execution. You’ve got em both man, so I really, that to me, that’s a success indicator.

Ari Tulla: I think the quick bite on this stuff is that, it’s with everything. Even if you are at home, you go home tired at 9 p.m. and you go to your kitchen and it’s dirty. If you look at it and you walk away, it’ll be dirty in the morning. If you’re go in and you take one plate, you put it in the dishwasher, you are on your way to doing something.

So the key is to start something quickly. Most people suck at it. They just don’t start. I mean people like, “let’s mull around this, think about it.” No let’s do something quickly and put something on the table, on the wall, on the paper, and then you know iterate.

That’s the key thing, always start doing something quickly and that will lead into improvement. Or, finding that you don’t want to do it in the medium term.

Hoala Greevy: 100% agreement, 100%.

BetterDoctor

BetterDoctor helps patients find the right doctors when they need them.

It starts with helping health plans, provider groups, health care systems and health start up companies get high quality data.

They build tools to bring trust, confidence, and transparency to the process of finding a doctor.

The post Ari Tulla: Tips on Proper Strategy Execution appeared first on Paubox.