When the first shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 shots were ready in December 2020, so was Michael Dowling.

US healthcare leaders scrambled to be the first to inoculate frontline staff against the virus that had laid siege to hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities for months. But it was the Northwell Health president and CEO who ultimately secured that bragging right—and thrust New York’s largest healthcare system into the national spotlight.

“I just wanted to do it quickly because it’d give confidence to the staff and everybody else,” Dowling told Healthcare Brew.

But the Irish immigrant, known to be as competitive on the hurling pitch as he is in the boardroom, conceded that he had another motivation: “I like to be first in everything.”

Chasing perfection. That drive to be No. 1 has fueled Dowling’s journey from humble beginnings in Knockaderry, Ireland—a village roughly 25 miles southwest of Limerick and where he grew up poor and working on farms—to the corner office at Northwell’s headquarters in Long Island’s New Hyde Park.

His energy permeates the culture at the health system, which he helped build up into a $16.5 billion enterprise that employs more than 83,000 workers across 21 hospitals and almost 900 outpatient facilities—and he has plans to grow it another 50% in the coming years.

“You’re always chasing perfection, all the time,” the 73-year-old Northwell leader told more than 200 new employees when asked about the organization’s “unwritten rules” at an early March orientation. Dowling stressed later that he’s more concerned about his employees seeking that quality rather than actually achieving it—a leniency he doesn’t often seem to extend to himself.

Keep reading here.—SY

Ransomware incidents appear to be down, but don’t start singing “We are the champions” quite yet. Cybercriminals just might be switching to a tactic that’s a bit easier and doesn’t involve all that complicated encrypting, decrypting, and negotiating.

Attackers are seemingly moving to abandon ransomware altogether, according to a new report from the cybersecurity software company CrowdStrike. In 2022, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed a 20% increase in data theft and extortion campaigns that didn’t involve the multi-step encryption attack.

“Ransomware is complex. You have to manage cryptography, and file unlockers, and lockers, and negotiations. If you just steal the data and threaten to dispose of it, it’s a lot less work,” said Adam Meyers, senior VP of intelligence at the cybersecurity software company CrowdStrike.

Not itsy, nor bitsy. In February, cybersecurity services firm Mandiant reported a 15% reduction in ransomware-intrusion responses from 2021 to 2022. IT services firm AAG noted that ransomware attacks dropped 23% in 2022 compared to the previous year.

CrowdStrike saw a decline as well, citing a dip in cryptocurrency values and a breakup of major ransomware gangs, like the FBI’s halting of the Hive.

Plenty of 2022 attacks, however, involved data demands, with no ransomware in sight.

In early 2022, a group known as Slippy Spider targeted tech companies, including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Samsung, in a data-theft and extortion spree. The adversaries used their public Telegram channels to leak data like victim source code, employee credentials, and personally identifiable data.

In a data-extortion (and ransomware-less) attack, the stakes effectively shift from system  downtime to the regulatory impact of sensitive-data loss, said Meyers. Exposed hospital data potentially could violate HIPAA requirements. Compromised customer data could lead to a class-action lawsuit.

And with no ransomware, negotiations can move quickly.

Keep reading at IT Brew.—BH

CVS expects to finalize its $8 billion acquisition of Signify Health this week, the retail pharmacy giant said on Monday.

CVS beat out both Amazon and UnitedHealth Group to buy Signify, a value-based provider network. The company announced the deal last September, and executives said they expect it to close “on or around March 29.”

In a phone call following the deal announcement, Shawn Guertin, EVP and CFO at CVS, said the company anticipates that acquiring Signify will “generate attractive returns” for CVS.

The acquisition strengthens CVS’s goal of becoming a value-based healthcare company and could give it a leg up over rival Walgreens. Both companies have doubled down on value-based care in the last couple of years, making several multibillion dollar deals, such as Walgreens’s $5.2 billion VillageMD acquisition in 2021 and CVS’s $10.6 billion takeover of Oak Street Health.

“In our opinion, this brings CVS closer to their goal of managing more lives through value-based care relationships,” JP Morgan analysts Lisa Gill and Calvin Sternick wrote in a note. “With a network of virtual and in-person options, CVS has the opportunity to truly bend the cost curve in a value-based care environment, thus creating a win/win/win environment for the patient/payer/CVS.”

Creating a value-based care model gives pharmacy players like CVS an opportunity to expand in a mature industry, Michael Abrams, a managing partner at healthcare consulting firm Numerof and Associates, told Healthcare Brew.

CVS will now have access to Signify’s network of 10,000 providers located in all 50 states. Signify sends providers to patients’ homes to perform evaluations; create records of the patient’s clinical, social, and behavioral needs; and figure out a value-based care plan.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Men are 70% more likely to die within a year of their spouse dying, according to a new study. (Time)

Quote: “It’s a strategy that’s most likely to promote health equity.”—Matthew O’Brien, an associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who led research that concluded medical professionals should screen for diabetes based on age rather than weight (Stat News)

Read: A review system at insurer Cigna allows doctors “to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file.” (ProPublica)

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