TOP STORY
Elizabeth Holmes has broken her silence, speaking with NBC’s Maria Shriver in an exclusive interview that aired Monday on the “Today” show. The embattled Theranos founder and CEO, no longer the “golden girl of Silicon Valley,” took responsibility for any shortfalls at her company. She also emphatically stated that her company would survive.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
“I feel devastated that we did not catch and fix these issues faster,” Holmes said about the problems CMS uncovered in an inspection of a Theranos lab. “I’ve stopped testing and taken the approach of saying let’s rebuild this entire The public laboratory from scratch so that we can ensure that it never happens again.” — Today.com
Watch the “Today” segment here:
In an interview on CNBC later in the day, Shriver said she believed what Holmes told her. A lot of the commenters sure did not, even before news broke late Monday that federal prosecutors were investigating Theranos for possible criminal violations. — CNBC
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
LIFE SCIENCES
Susan Schneider Williams, widow of Robin Williams, talks about how it was so difficult to know that the late comedian was suffering from Lewy body dementia. — Rare Disease Report
AstraZeneca might get hit with a series of lawsuits over side effects of its Nexium and Prilosec proton pump inhibitors. — PR Newswire
Japanese material and polymer chemistry company JSR Corp. has formed a new life sciences division, called JSR Life Sciences, based in Sunnyvale, California. — Business Wire
Sweden’s Recipharm will acquire the contract development and manufacturing operations of Kemwell Biopharma in the U.S., Sweden and India. The two separate transactions are worth a total of about $206 million. — in-Pharma Technologist
Daiichi Sankyo will set up a new U.S. headquarters office in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. — PR Newswire
Discovery Laboratories, Warrington, Pennsylvania, has changed its name to Windtree Therapeutics. — PR Newswire
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Walgreens has enlisted SSM Health to run 27 in-store clinics in the St. Louis metro area. — Business Wire
About four of every 100 ER visits deemed “nonurgent” still resulted in hospital admissions, according to a newly published study. — Reuters
Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care posted $462 million in operating income last year, down slightly from 2014’s record high of $503 million. — Milwaukee Business Journal
Not-for-profit Kaleida Health, Buffalo, New York, reported a surplus of $23.2 million on revenue of $1.4 billion for 2015. — Buffalo Business First
TECHNOLOGY
Proteus Digital Health has scored another $50 million in venture capital. — MobiHealthNews
Get ready for a new guidance on cybersecurity from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. — Government Health IT
Material that Medtronic developed for its cardiac leads has been inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame. — MassDevice
POLITICS
CMS has rescinded the controversial two-midnight rule’s cuts to inpatient reimbursement and will give hospitals a 0.6 percent payment increase in 2017 to offset reductions the last three years. — Modern Healthcare
Monday was tax day in the U.S. Last year, for the first time, more tax dollars were spent on health and healthcare than on defense, according to the National Priorities Project. — CNN Money
The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a 2017 spending bill that would give the VA $260 million to modernize its EHR, $180 million to make its claims processing system paperless and $1.17 billion for telemedicine. — Healthcare IT News
A LITTLE BIT EXTRA
A 50-year-old physician is trying out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. This is her 11th attempt. — PR Newswire
Photo: Flickr user Justin Snow
