Anthony Vecchione

AI is having a positive impact on the time a health system pharmacist is able to spend on clinical activities and patient interactions.  

Women's health group Axia Women's Health announced it has secured new multi-year agreements with Cigna Healthcare and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Axia connects women to a network of providers, including OB/GYN physicians, breast health centers, high-risk pregnancy centers, laboratories and fertility centers. The aim of the partnerships is to bolster Axia's commitment to improving access to an extensive set of women's health services. The renewed contracts guarantee patients will continue to get care from their Axia providers while reaping the benefits from the network's offerings, such as obstetrics and gynecology, maternal-fetal-medicine, fertility, behavioral health, in-house lab, mammography and in-office surgical procedures. Additionally, Horizon and Axia jointly provided input into Horizon's next-generation alternative payment model for specialty care launched in 2025.  The specialty payment program links physician reimbursement to quality metrics in maternal health, including C-section and postpartum visit rates, and preventive screenings such as breast and cervical cancer screenings.  "We are pleased to have reached fair and equitable agreements with Cigna Healthcare and Horizon and greatly appreciate their commitment to supporting continued growth and investment in integrated care for women," Thomas Dardarian, chief medical officer of Axia Women's Health, said in a statement. "These deals reflect the quality, outcomes and value we bring to their networks, and most importantly, ensure that our patients will continue to receive uninterrupted care." THE LARGER TREND In 2024, Axia Women's Health announced its expansion into Northeast Pennsylvania with the addition of NEPA GYN, which provides gynecologic and surgical care. The addition allowed Axia to establish its presence in the Mid-Atlantic region. Also last year, Axia Women's Health fertility partner Midwest Fertility Specialists expanded its services to Indianapolis on the Community Hospital's North campus serving patients of the Community Health Network.  The new location allowed Midwest Fertility Specialists, which offers a full range of fertility services, to increase its presence in the market.  In 2023, Cayaba Care, a holistic maternity support services program, partnered with Axia Women's Health to address health inequities and improve maternal health outcomes with a focus on Black and Brown communities. Through the partnership, select Axia patients gained access to the Cayable Care program, which provides pregnant people with in-home and virtual services.

The company's population health revenue more than doubled from the $715,000 garnered in 2023. Syra also reported a 45% increase in YOY revenue and a net loss of $3.8 million.  

The alliances will allow Teladoc Health’s care providers and coaches to view members’ eligibility and refer them to appropriate partner programs.  

Lavonia Thomas, nursing informatics officer at MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses how integrating frontline nurse feedback into digital transformation efforts is enhancing patient care.

Expectant parents in Arkansas will have access to state resources aimed at improving health literacy and adopting healthy habits.  

Samsung's digital health armamentarium includes smart TVs, tablets, phones, watches and rings. Cherry Drulis, Samsung’s director of healthcare mobile B2B, sat down with MobiHealthNews at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas to discuss the impact of Samsung's digital strategy on hospitals and health systems.   MobiHealthNews: How are your digital technology tools helping to make healthcare providers' jobs easier and improve patient care? Cherry Drulis: We look at workflows, leveraging our digital touchpoints along with applications to improve efficiency and eliminate the clunky workstations on wheels, eliminate PCs at point of care and leveraging our mobile devices and being able to interact with EHRs from a mobile device.  The power of our mobile devices is really impressive, not only from the clinical perspective, but we also put the patient at the center of care, leveraging our digital technology coupled with interactive patient care platforms that truly puts the patient in the center of care, allowing them to control their environment using our tablets.  We also integrate those digital touch points to our television and digital whiteboards, door signage and kiosks that improve overall efficiency.  What we talked about at HIMSS [conference] is how we are taking our smart themes that we use in the consumer side connecting to digital devices and taking that into the healthcare system, which allows us to truly connect digital devices into one central location for ease of use and maintenance.  With that concept, we are now not only able to create what we call a smart patient room; we are able to take that same technology and create it at the hospital level. We are leveraging sensors and digital devices to improve the overall experience from the time you pull up into our parking lot, having sensors to tell visitors and family members where to park with ease, what parking spots are open now, taking that connected journey into the hospital, allowing recognition when a patient walks into the lobby, self check-in and then navigating that patient to where they go to ease confusion and frustration.  Also, taking that to the level of ease of use. Let's say we have a clinician that is roaming mobile and needs to set up a conference room and needs to be able to tap into the system and understand exactly what rooms are open and schedule that room on the go. Even with a family member visiting a patient, the patient goes down to surgery and the family member is hungry. They can order food from the tablet or television and then go down and pick up their food. MHN: What type of technologies are your hospital customers asking for? What are they telling you they need in order to make things more efficient?  Drulis: We are showcasing a prototype on smart cart at HIMSS based on the feedback that we got from one of our large health systems, where they wanted to eliminate PCs and create a workplace for clinicians. One of the biggest requests we are getting is, how do we make our clinicians more efficient at the point of care?  MHN: What is on the horizon when it comes to the future of digital technology for healthcare? Drulis: Where we are seeing the future of care is really taking what we have from our consumer side, leveraging our devices in the home. We want to connect that patient journey so we can then take all the data we are collecting through our devices, couple that with AI and AI platforms that allow clinicians to then have their large language models go through all of that data and turn that data into what we are calling smart healthcare data so they can use that data to improve the overall wellbeing of individuals. So, it is really taking healthcare with a consumer commodity and connecting all of those digital devices and improving the overall health of individuals. 

The panelists highlighted digital health investments, innovation, interoperability and integration.  

At HIMSS25, Jon Moore of Clearwater Security and Compliance and Michael Gross at the Cleveland Clinic discussed how to stay ahead of emerging cybersecurity threats.  

Matt Cybulsky, healthcare leader for AI, go-to-market and design at Ionian Consulting, discussed how AI transforms the way we interact but how utilization of AI is under scrutiny.