• California: Sutter Health has named Kevin Manemann as its new COO, starting Sept. 15. Manemann replaces former COO Mark Sevco, who left the role in March to become CEO of Allegheny Health Network. Formerly, Manemann served as EVP and chief integration officer at City of Hope, a $6 billion cancer care system. He also previously held several leadership roles at Providence St. Joseph Health, the third-largest nonprofit health system in the country. As COO, Manemann will work closely with the system's chief physician executive to lead clinical and nonclinical operations, including plans for ambulatory growth. According to Healthcare Dive, Sutter has filled several executive positions over the last few months, including a new CFO role in May, a new chief scientific officer and CNO in January, and a new SVP of population health in December. (Pifer, Healthcare Dive, 7/23)
• New York: Researchers at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian have created a new AI tool that can identify patients at risk of undiagnosed structural heart disease. The tool, called EchoNext, was trained on over 1.2 million electrocardiogram and echocardiogram pairs from 230,000 patients. When validating the tool, the researchers found that it identified structural heart problems in 3,200 electrocardiograms with 77% accuracy, higher than 13 cardiologists analyzing the same data, who had 64% accuracy. Currently, the researchers have published their findings in Nature and are testing the tool in a clinical trial across eight EDs. In the future, "[w]e hope that there will be a new generation of AI-augmented biomarkers that can help clinicians make decisions, much in the same way we use current laboratory results when someone comes in with symptoms like shortness of breath to determine the most appropriate next steps," said Pierre Elias, medical director for AI at NewYork-Presbyterian and an assistant professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Columbia University, who helped develop EchoNext. (Gregerson, Becker's Hospital Review, 7/23)
• Tennessee: Community Health Systems (CHS) agreed to sell some of its ambulatory outreach assets in 13 states to Labcorp for $195 million. Through the deal, Labcorp will acquire some of CHS' assets and assume the leases related to the ambulatory outreach laboratory services, which include patient service centers and in-office phlebotomy sites. According to CHS and Labcorp, they are working to ensure a smooth transition of services for patients, clinicians, and hospital partners. "We are excited about this transaction with Labcorp, which allows us to focus on our core services and improve the overall patient experience, aligning with our unwavering commitment to providing high-quality, accessible healthcare to our communities," said Kevin Stockton, CHS' EVP of operations and development. "Labcorp's scale and investment in technology supports its ability to efficiently deliver outreach laboratory services to patients and healthcare consumers." The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year, pending completion of any closing conditions and regulatory approvals. (Condon, Becker's Hospital Review, 7/23)

Learn about the potential of AI in cardiovascular care to predict, detect, and diagnose CV disease and how to improve quality and reduce costs.