Call Sales: 704.719.2370Everyone knows, when it comes to healthcare, it’s all about results. Integration-as-a-Service (IaaS) gets those results to the right destination faster.
IaaS removes the barriers to healthcare data exchange through a structured process that simplifies interfacing. Whether the data is going from the physician to the emergency room or from the laboratory to the imaging center and back to the attending physician, IaaS serves as the vehicle that seamlessly transports electronic medical records to their proper places to ensure the ongoing continuity of care.
IaaS is particularly important in radiology. X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, mammography and MRI’s are critical in determining the next steps in care. But these results have to be interpreted on a real-time basis and in accordance with varying coding processes that can be time-consuming to perform on a piecemeal basis. Radiology interfacing through IaaS makes the receiving and transmission of orders, results and critical alerts efficient and hassle-free for healthcare providers. Tangible Solutions, Inc. makes this possible by using IaaS to facilitate the real-time exchange of data.
Aris Radiology and others reap the benefits of IaaS
Launched in 2007 in Hudson, Ohio – Aris specializes in radiology services and partners with over 300 healthcare facilities around the country in 34 states. Aris provides professional support to those facilities that need it- whether on-site or remote – with all 250-plus of them board-certified and fellowship trained.
Aris Radiology CIO Shannon Shirk knows what it takes to provide healthcare facilities with the capabilities and competencies needed to perform time-sensitive radiological services. Facilities and medical centers often have full-time radiologists on-site, but patients today want those who specialize in specific types of care. Aris Radiology makes this possible, boasting a roster of radiologists in a wide range of modalities, including interventional, doppler ultrasound and vascular studies.
“As in everything, we like to have specialists,” Shirk explained. “If you’re bringing in your 6-year-old daughter to the hospital with a broken leg from a soccer game, you don’t want just a radiologist, you want a pediatric radiologist. We have specialists who are available 24/7.”
Hub-and-spoke: Lower cost and Maximum service
With so many facilities requiring radiological services, and orders coming in fast and furious, coordination can be a bit of a juggling act. Through the hub-and-spoke delivery model, Tangible has made fielding these requests and orders simpler.
“The way we use Tangible is that as we’re creating this nationwide network of specialist radiologists, Tangible is the hub for us to receive orders and be able to put secure, HIPAA-compliant results back into the system,” Shirk said.
“What we are doing in radiology today has never been done before,” Shirk noted. “What we did was we create the Amazon of the PACS world in radiology services to serve all these clients. Tangible is a big part of that because they’re handling all of our HL7 communication through their cloud-based solution called Happe.”
What is Happe?
What Shirk is referring to is Tangible’s sophisticated cloud-based translation engine that serves healthcare facilities nationwide. Pronounced as it sounds, Happe (Happy) was designed with physician practices and Healthcare facilities of all sizes in mind, enabling healthcare organizations to obtain and transmit data that is HIPAA compliant.
Tangible, Shirk stated, is steering his operation using IaaS. “What I’ve asked Tangible to do is to own the entire piece of the HL7,” Shirk said. “Previously, I would have had to create 300 separate connections to all the different clients to communicate with them. I would have to create multiple interfaces along with multiple VPN tunnels. Now I create a single interface to Tangible’s hub. Tangible does all the transmitting back to all the hospitals via their hub.”
Transforming Information into each Facilities’ Preference
He added that since each medical office needs its own format for the HL7 standard, Tangible transforms the information to the format that aligns with the facility that is receiving the data. This creates more opportunities for Aris to serve the needs of a host of healthcare facilities above and beyond the hospital – in short, wherever radiology services are required.
Additionally, Tangible is streamlining the IT process so they process and interpret the orders quickly thanks to their having the dedicated IT resources that small medical offices may not.
“Tangible puts the resources in place to get this all done quickly,” Shirk said.
And that timeliness is indispensable for radiologists who have precious seconds to fulfill orders, interpret them and sent back to the departments so patients can get the care they need right away. For example, Tangible has helped Aris deliver a stroke turnaround time of nine minutes.
Speed is everything for healthcare facilities to accomplish their objectives, which primarily is the health and well-being of their patients. Let us enhance the functionality of your facility by serving as your integration partners. Call or email us to find out more.
