Time is of the essence in the healthcare industry where physicians rely on medical images to help them diagnose and develop a plan of treatment for their patients. However, not every doctor has the technology on their side that can offer the quick glimpses into the inner workings of the human body. This is especially true in the rural areas where IT solutions are limited due to constrained resources, including budget. Rural hospital data definitely lack, but there is a company working to solve the problem for residents of Kansas.
Doctors once relied on film (and some still do) that would make its way down from the radiology
department and was placed on a backlit surface. Perhaps you’ve been in the industry long enough to recall such things? When CDs came into the mix, doctors could get rid of their backlit surface and view a variety of images, all of which could be burned onto one CD. While you probably thought this was great when it first came out, the process of buying the burning equipment, waiting in line to burn the CDs and dealing with the corrupted CDs that offered no images quickly showed the shortcomings of the process. Despite jumping into new technology, rural hospital data needs were still lacking.
In Kansas where a majority of the healthcare facilities are in rural areas, the Kansas Health Image Exchange has brought in a new way of viewing these images that no longer relies on burning CDs. Healthcare workers no longer have to stress about the private information on the CDs coming into the wrong hands, which results in a HIPAA violation and big fines.
The entity behind the Kansas Health Image Exchange (KHIE) is OffSite Image Management, Inc., a company that is breaking new ground for rural healthcare providers who need their medical imaging stored and accessed more efficiently. OffSite is actually a national leader in vendor-neutral archiving and image management.
At OffSite, the goal is to offer rural hospitals and clinics a simple and accessible image sharing system that won’t break the bank. OffSite is made up of people who learned their craft in rural settings, which is why the company has such an interest in helping the rural communities across Kansas.
Due to the lack of resources that many of these facilities face, OffSite does not require commitment contracts; hospitals and clinics only pay for what they use. Furthermore, OffSite’s solutions are leading the way in giving patients more control over their data.
Keeping with the theme that so many medical providers are accustomed to, OffSite named one of its solutions Virtual CD. Armed with the Virtual CD solution, healthcare providers can view medical images on any workstation, smartphone or tablet computer through a secure URL. The process is really quite easy, and OffSite personnel will be there personally to guide you and your team through the process. If you have any problem, OffSite’s professional staff will be on hand to bring a quick resolution to it. OffSite uses the power of cloud computing to deliver its solutions. Worried about the security of your medical images? You should feel reassured that OffSite partners with Level IV datacenters with disaster recovery processes and the most consistent track record regarding uptime and security.