Few medical providers can say that they’ve had zero radiology image transmission problems in their history, especially their recent history as they prepare for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. However, one provider in Louisiana recently shared its success story with a new service that involves cloud-based image services.
The IT staff at Hood Memorial Hospital, located in Amite City, LA, knew
they needed to take proactive action to stay compliant with the Stage 2 regulations, which involves image transmission issues among others. The result of not being prepared could mean a significant loss in Medicare reimbursements, which could have lead to the facility closing its doors for good.
Around two years ago, Hood Memorial began to move away from paper records completely. They wanted to get the jump on Health Information Exchange (HIE) demands, which meant they needed to develop an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system. While undergoing this task, they also decided to upgrade to fiber optics, which significantly boosted Internet speed. The hospital made another significantly wise decision to get involved with the state’s health information exchange, which has a focus on sharing patient data across the state.
As they underwent these tasks, they realized that their way of dealing with radiology images on compact discs was not in step with the other technological changes they were making. The problem they have long encountered with the CD burning is that the people reading them often don’t have the right software, which makes the CD unreadable. This method of image transmission relied on either handing the CD to the patient so they can hand it off to their specialist or doctor, or by putting a stamp on it and sending it off through the postal service.
Hood Memorial partnered with OffSite Image Management, Inc., to take advantage of OffSite’s Virtual CD solution. So many healthcare providers are familiar with the CD burning technology that the very name itself – Virtual CD – sounds like something they can easily grasp. Virtual CD uses the power of the cloud to make image transition a quick and easy, not to mention cost effective, way to share patient images. The vendor neutral archiving architecture that OffSite uses ensures that any authorized medical professional who needs to view the image transmission will have access to it, regardless of what hardware or software they happen to be running.
For Hood Memorial, the switch to Virtual CD was a welcomed and appropriate step in the right direction. They have received more than 4,000 patient exams through OffSite’s cloud solution and have used Virtual CD for more than 40 patients and counting. Most of these patients had multiple exams.
Hood Memorial is a rural facility. OffSite, whose founders are made up of professionals who came up in the radiology departments of rural practices, know what it means to have limited resources. They also know that the patients in the rural communities need the same quality care as those in the urban centers. With this in mind, OffSite has created solutions that are tailor made for the rural provider.