Virginia Hospital Center

RICHMOND, Va.--( BUSINESS WIRE )--VHC Health – Virginia Hospital Center and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia have renewed an agreement that provides medical services in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to Anthem members. " We value our partnership with Anthem and are excited to continue to provide care to Anthem members in Northern Virginia," said Brenda Babbitt, System Associate Vice President for VHC Health. The new agreement applies to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield members enrolled in employer-based, Health Insurance Exchange, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage plans. “ We are pleased to have reached an agreement that continues to make quality healthcare accessible for our members in Northern Virginia,” said Monica Schmude, president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia. “ We look forward to continuing our collaborative relationship with VHC Health as we work together to support members of the Commonwealth.” About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia Anthem Health Plans of Virginia, Inc. trades as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia, and its service area is all of Virginia except for the City of Fairfax, the Town of Vienna, and the area east of State Route 123. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and its affiliate HealthKeepers, Inc. are independent licensees of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Elevance Health. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Additional information about Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia is available at www.anthem.com . Also, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/anthemBCBS and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AnthemBlueCrossBlueShield . VHC Health About VHC Health™: VHC Health provides exceptional medical services as our region’s community health system. Virginia Hospital Center was designated a 2021 Top Teaching Hospital by The Leapfrog Group. In 2022, the Hospital was selected for an 11th consecutive Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award™ and a 21st consecutive ‘A’ grade from The Leapfrog Group. Virginia Hospital Center is a 453-bed not-for-profit teaching facility and designated as a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. VHC Health is a proud member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network – a national network of independent healthcare organizations.

With the Veris Cancer Care Platform, cancer care teams at the New Jersey Cancer Care, PA can now review patients' physiologic and clinical data in real time and deliver personalized care. WHY IT MATTERS Today, NJCC and Veris Health, a subsidiary of New York-based PAVmed Digital Health, announced that the cloud-based clinician portal was successfully integrated into the oncology practice's information technology systems. The partners say that patients also began reporting symptoms and general health and quality of life information to their cancer care team through the Veris patient smartphone app. In addition, the app allows caregivers and families to follow the patient's journey. "We successfully onboarded our initial group of patients from whom we collected baseline readings prior to sending them home for remote monitoring," said Denise Johnstone, NJCC's executive director. More patients are scheduled for enrollment this week, she said. With the integration, the NJCC can bill for remote patient monitoring (RPM) services on a monthly basis, according to the digital health company. THE LARGER TREND Precision medicine approaches to cancer care require the management of high volumes of varied and granular data, but it's a priority for provider investments . Chief information officers told Healthcare IT News last year that they believe the future of healthcare – including precision oncology – integrates remote patient monitoring and hospital-at-home technologies to improve both patient care and address the high costs of healthcare. "Cancer care and chronic disease management are burdensome to patients, communities and health systems. Concentrating resources to prevent these conditions will benefit us all," said Matt Hocks, chief operating officer at Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health. "We will be investing in hospital-at-home and remote patient monitoring features in-depth, along with other patient engagement functions, to empower our population and maintain low-touch care to minimize costs," Mike Mistretta, vice president and CIO at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, added. The government is also investing in precision oncology. In August, the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, granted $23 million to develop telehealth oncology technologies that can reduce in-person visits, improve patient experiences and support clinicians in their work. ON THE RECORD "New Jersey Cancer Care is thrilled to have officially launched Veris CCP across our practice as it allows us to leverage a groundbreaking RPM tool that will further augment the level of personal care that we demand, and our patients deserve," Stone said in the announcement. "Early reports of our platform already having a real impact on clinical care are very gratifying," added Dr. Lishan Aklog, PAVmed's chairman and CEO and executive chairman of Veris. Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News. Email: afox@himss.org Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.

Medical software company Cerner must head to trial for a jury to decide whether its software contained design defects that caused brain damage to a 25-year-old who was undergoing surgery to remove his gallbladder. In a 2-1 decision, the Fourth Circuit said that the lower court, the Eastern District of Virginia, erred when it sided with Cerner and did not find the software company at fault. “On the record before us, a jury reasonably could conclude that Cerner’s software contained two design defects that did not comply with industry standards or satisfy reasonable consumer expectations,” Senior Circuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan stated in the opinion published Tuesday in a decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Cerner, based in Arlington, Virgina, develops and sells a software system that hospital staff use to enter medical orders for patient care. The case started when the patient, Michael Taylor’s grandmother Ruby Lowe, filed a lawsuit against Cerner in 2019. In seeking $50 million in damages, she alleged that there were two design defects in Cerner’s software and that the company failed to warn users of those defects. Those alleged defects were described in the opinion as having affected the doctor’s orders. The doctor’s orders were supposed to show that pulse oximetry should start immediately after the surgery but instead showed to start pulse oximetry at 10:00 a.m. the day after Taylor’s surgery. According to the opinion, when the doctor — Alexandria Booth — performed surgery on Taylor at Virginia Hospital Center, she put in an order for him to receive continuous pulse oximetry to measure the oxygen levels in his blood. A pulse oximeter will send an alarm to alert hospital staff when a patient’s oxygen drops below a certain level so the staff can wake the patient. However, Taylor’s oxygen levels were not monitored overnight and he suffered from hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen to his brain, causing damage. As a result, Taylor can no longer walk, bathe, or use the bathroom by himself. “The parties do not dispute that if Taylor’s oxygen level had been monitored continuously, his resulting hypoxia and brain damage would not have occurred,” according to the opinion. The question is who is at fault. And the Court of Appeals believes it’s possible to point the finger at Cerner. In his dissent, Judge James Harvie Wilkinson wrote that because Taylor’s grandmother already reached a settlement with the hospital where the procedure was performed — Virginia Hospital Center — and with the doctor’s employer, the case seems to be about money only. “There is one reason, and one reason only, that the manufacturer is a defendant in this suit. It has a deep pocket,” Wilkinson wrote. He said that Lowe has failed to show that Cerner’s software was a probable cause for the brain damage Taylor suffered. He says that hospital staff are to blame for the tragedy that occurred. Lawyers for Lowe and for Cerner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.