HL7 is Important in Today’s EHR Arena
Guess who’s driving innovation in the healthcare industry today? If you think it’s the hardware providers, software
providers, geneticists or pharmacists, you’re making good guesses, but you’re wrong. Physicians are driving innovation by following one simple ethic – improving patient care. Helping to accomplish this are offsite providers of medical imaging services, including storage and access capabilities for medical imaging and HL7 data.
There are a number of ways physicians can improve patient care, not the least of which is by improving bedside manner, which means more engagement and interaction, empathy, listening skills and the ability to know when you’re on the verge of over-diagnosis, over-treatment and over-testing. However, on a more technical note, many physicians are finding out how valuable their focus on image management can be.
Patients today are an informed bunch. They expect some feedback and quick action as they get involved in their healthcare. Various regulations are helping to promote this involvement, particularly with Meaningful Use requirements that get radiology reports electronically into the hands of patients within 24 hours of an examination. The same services that offer this quick access to medical images can also be used to archive and access HL7 data.
Innovation is part of the healthcare process. Physicians are increasingly becoming innovative in efforts to improve patient care, reduce re-admittance rates and communicate more freely with other providers. For example, as more patients seek quality care from a wide array of providers, the sharing of medical images has become paramount to success. Therefore, medical IT departments are seeking out solutions that allow for the free flow of information from department to department and from provider to provider.
Unfortunately, the average physician feels overwhelmed by electronic health record requirements. Some of them feel like they’re not getting information on their patients because of the lack of notes available in the EHR. This doesn’t have to be the case. When using the right vendor, physicians get access to everything they need, including HL7 data.
Some physicians are looking at technological partnerships to help them get over the bump. Instead of fighting change they should be embracing it, especially when it comes to offsite image data storage. Some vendors are making it easier for them by establishing a health image exchange, which serves to address many needs in the medical community today. The best of these exchanges use vendor neutral archiving, which takes out the roadblocks normally associated with image sharing.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., is a company that seeks to take the pain out of archiving and accessing medical images and HL7 data. Our goal is to give our clients the ability to do their jobs better while also saving them money. We’ve gotten so good at it that we offer money-saving guarantees. Contact us today and find out how we can connect you to solutions that will offer excellent returns.