Health Image Exchange Success: A Story from Idaho.

Healthcare quality in Idaho is getting a facelift due to the state’s health data exchange (IHDE). The new exchange, which includes a health image exchange, has improved the coordination of healthcare across the state, giving providers more accurate information on a speedier scale.

Through a secure browser, Idaho healthcare professionals gain access to health image exchange information and other medical data. Idaho’s approach is unique in that they are the first to provide images in their exchange.

IHDE is supported by eHealth Technologies, which has a component specifically for image exchanges. eHealth’s solution supports a “life-saving workflow” that allows pre-reporting access to images as well as the added enhancement of transferring DICOM images between PACS.

The IHDE was built so that physicians don’t have to wait on CDs in the mail for their images. No more waiting on faxes or dialing a dozen phone numbers either. Rather, physicians only need to access the secure browser and view the lab reports, images, radiology and any other report or notes – and they’re available the second they’re uploaded.

The IHDE is a welcomed change in an industry that sees costs upwards of $220 billion annually. Diagnostic imaging is as expensive as it is useful to the doctors and patients that rely on them for excellent care. But in some cases, the exams are repeats of expensive exams they’ve already had, and it’s due to poor communication. IHDE is seeing these communication gaps fall by the wayside as the technology makes communication a breeze. In return, patients are seeing fewer bills and better, faster care.

Another perk to the communication aspect of the IHDE is that teams of medical practitioners are now able to conference about various cases. Instead of traveling from one healthcare facility to another, which in some cases would mean travel across the state, doctors, specialists and technicians are signing in to the secure browser and communicating from their own facilities.

Medical specialists are also unhindered by large image sizes. In previous technologies, especially using CDs, the discs would fill up quickly. Some CDs weren’t formatted correctly and couldn’t be used while others were simply lost. These are non-issues with the health image exchange technology being used by Idaho healthcare professionals.

Idaho officials are also seeing an improvement in privacy issues due to the image exchange. The solution has built in protections against privacy and personal health information breaches that weren’t possible with the old system. A tracking system allows hospital compliance officers the ability to find out easily and quickly when a hospital staff member that shouldn’t be viewing the file opens a file. Penalties for unauthorized viewing are well publicized throughout healthcare facilities, many times including termination.

The steps being taken in Idaho are similar to what OffSite Image Management, Inc. has realized for years. OffSite’s Honeycomb health information exchange is a DICOM exchange for radiological data across various vendor platforms. The patented Honeycomb platform is one of the most robust forms of health image exchange on the market today.