Why Patients Call Instead of Using Your $2M Healthcare Portal . . .

Most Important Today

• ★ Ascend Learning Acquires Laudio to Accelerate Innovation in Frontline Healthcare Leadership — Healthcare IT News (10 Oct 2025). Ascend Learning acquired Laudio, a frontline leader solution that drives efficiency and engagement for health systems, expanding Ascend’s tech-enabled workforce management offerings and deepening support of the healthcare workforce.

  Why It Matters: Consolidation in workforce tech can streamline leader workflows and reduce burnout; assess HRIS/EHR integration, data governance, and model ROI via retention, premium labor reduction, and time saved per manager.

• ★ Graphnet and Luscii launch advanced remote monitoring platform — Tammy Lovell (10 Oct 2025). Graphnet and Luscii introduced an integrated platform that combines remote monitoring, population health, and shared care records to support virtual care at scale.

  Why It Matters: An RPM-plus-shared-record approach reduces fragmentation and boosts coordination; verify FHIR interfaces, device data provenance, alert routing into clinical workflows, and ICS-level data-sharing agreements to capture ROI from avoided admissions.

• ★ Why Patients Call Instead of Using Your $2M Healthcare Portal — Guest Author (10 Oct 2025). Op-ed argues that clunky authentication and identity management drive patients to call centers despite expensive portals, advocating modern, low-friction login (e.g., passwordless and risk-based MFA) to lift adoption.

  Why It Matters: Identity UX is a high-ROI lever: fewer calls, higher portal engagement, faster collections; balance security with usability via step-up MFA, align with HIPAA and 42 CFR Part 2, and track deflection and completion rates.

EHR Vendor Releases / Sales

• ★ Ascend Learning Acquires Laudio to Accelerate Innovation in Frontline Healthcare Leadership — Healthcare IT News (10 Oct 2025). The acquisition adds Laudio’s frontline leader engagement and efficiency tools to Ascend’s workforce management suite.

  Why It Matters: Expect tighter bundles across education, staffing, and leader enablement; plan for vendor consolidation impacts, integration timelines, and change management for nurse leader adoption.

• ★ Graphnet and Luscii launch advanced remote monitoring platform — Tammy Lovell (10 Oct 2025). New platform unifies RPM with population health and shared records for more connected virtual care.

  Why It Matters: Platform convergence can simplify procurement and support, but requires alignment on interoperability standards, consent models, and clinical governance to scale safely.

Hospital Implementations

No items today.

Other Healthcare Technology

• ★ Digital Health Unplugged: How lived experience is shaping mental health tech — Jordan Sollof (10 Oct 2025). On World Mental Health Day, this podcast spotlights bringing patient voices into the design of digital mental health technologies, with perspectives from advocates and regulators.

  Why It Matters: Co-design improves uptake and outcomes; embed patient advisory councils in selection and validation, and ensure vendors meet clinical safety and regulatory expectations.

• ★ The Pearl, the Pitch, and the Panels: A HLTH 2025 Preview — Colin Hung (10 Oct 2025). Preview features Mark Cuban on Cost Plus Drugs, payer–provider collaboration panels, and the HLTH startup pitch finale—key sessions to watch.

  Why It Matters: Use HLTH to vet partners around prior auth automation, payment integrity, and transparency; schedule diligence meetings and align scouting with your 2026 roadmap.

• ★ Drug Development with Certara – Life Sciences Today Podcast Episode 30 — Danny Lieberman (10 Oct 2025). Certara’s Rajesh Krishna discusses model-informed strategies across biologics, vaccines, and small molecules, and their implications for development efficiency.

  Why It Matters: For systems with research arms, align EHR/real‑world data capabilities to sponsor needs; tighten data governance, de‑identification, and synthetic control approaches to open new revenue channels.

Why It Matters — A Healthcare IT CIO’s Perspective

Today’s themes point to platform convergence and user experience as primary levers for value: workforce tools are consolidating, remote monitoring is merging with longitudinal records, and identity UX is the keystone of digital front doors. Near-term actions: assess workforce tech roadmaps post‑M&A, validate RPM-to-EHR integration and consent models, and launch an authentication modernization program with measurable call-deflection and completion-rate KPIs. Use HLTH 2025 to pressure-test your 2026 priorities around prior auth, payment integrity, and cost transparency while strengthening co-design practices in mental health and research data partnerships.