Tag: technology

The transformation of healthcare is creating many benefits for both patients and clinicians, including:

Delivering quicker access to patient data
Removing physical barriers to care and communication
Empowering patients to take a more active role in their health

Enhanced technology leads to the necessity for more expertise and new capabilities; for clinicians and IT teams it can feel like there is always another escalated strategy to implement, another manufacturing update, a new portable device or application to connect, another system to learn, and even more integrations to ensure.

“The largest challenge the healthcare industry faces when it comes to adopting new technology is the initial error rate. Generally, new technological products require iteration before they’re sufficiently reliable. This iterative process can be painful, potentially resulting in inaccurate predictions and inappropriate recommendations.” (Forbes Technology Council)

As new applications, digital tools, and Health Information Systems are innovated, disparate network structures and piecemeal solutions take a toll on user experiences and operational processes.

Think of the slow, frustrating rise of the Electronic Health Record and the difficulties of interoperability that have had massive impacts on data sharing capabilities and patient and clinician experiences. Innovation is key, but how can administrations and IT professionals ensure they are filling in gaps as technology advances throughout healthcare?

While standardization is strategized and best practices become more widely understood and utilized, technical support resources have become one of the top gauges for reliable usage and adoption.

Two of the main focuses in effective Health Information Technology are to ensure:

Correct Usage: Clinicians are able to input and access all data accurately and timely, capturing patient records and reporting visit information.

Proper Data Flow: Data is managed seamlessly through interconnected systems — transferred and stored securely in the right systems in the right format.

Proper IT support is a major factor in achieving these goals. With access to reliable support from an experienced team:

Clinicians are onboarded to technology and receive the proper training to feel confident in all features and tools. Any technical issues or questions are addressed in a helpful and timely manner by the support team.

Systems are built to meet the unique interoperability requirements of the organization. All needed upgrades and incoming system integrations are securely developed and addressed by the support team.

When the daily stress of a clinician’s workflow is exacerbated by a potential bug or an error, do they know who to call? Do they have access to resources to fix the problem promptly? How much will it affect their daily productivity? What impact will it have on the quality of patient care they can provide? Or is that error something that would have been prevented with proper maintenance and upgrades?

A professional, helpful support team alleviates these burdens and helps clinicians meet innovation with confidence.

As Dr. Porter said in his success story, “medicine is changing all the time.” In order to adapt, It’s the responsibility of the healthcare organization to ensure that they are partnering with reliable organizations that provide technology support.

To learn how we partner with customers to provide expert IT support from implementation to beyond, request a demo.

Video Captions:

“In healthcare’s complex ultrasound environment, providing quality care requires efficient technology that communicates effectively.

But there are many disparate workflows to navigate and connect for accurate ultrasound documentation and diagnosis.

To make the most of your investments, and to bridge the gap between departments, existing technology, and unstructured data, you need:

Reporting customized for your specialty
To seamlessly integrate with your environment
And reliably exchange data and images

So your team can remain focused on patient care.

With ultrasound reporting and image management solutions from AS Software, you can:

Access ultrasound images and reports anywhere, anytime;
Reduce the time it takes to make confident decisions, faster, with fewer clicks
Deliver the information that referring physicians need in an easy to read, standardized format
And increase reimbursements while ensuring billing accuracy

Empower your healthcare team and accelerate diagnostic imaging workflows with AS Software.”

Watch on Vimeo

To learn more about Ultrasound Image and Report Technology suited for you, get a demo.

As medical imaging has advanced, a variety of electronic systems and their various technology-based components, such as image archiving systems, ultrasound machines, ultrasound reporting systems and billing systems, have evolved within ultrasound network architectures.

Each of these components communicate through a variety of interfaces, typically created by different vendor companies with limited collaboration, who focus on their individual components rather than seamless network connectivity.

“Because this customization requires institutional willingness and resources, most ultrasound networks do not seamlessly provide the clinical information necessary to improve clinical care efficiency and quality.” (SMFM)

To help facilitate better collaboration, clinicians, maternal-fetal medicine sub-specialists and network vendors, including AS Software, were brought together by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Clinical Informatics Committee to establish best practices and a better understanding of obstetrical ultrasound network architectures, now published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in a special statement.

Here is a summary of the best practices collaboratively provided for seamless prenatal ultrasound network connectivity:

1. Use a generalized approach to order design for more clinical flexibility

There are unique challenges to order design for prenatal ultrasounds due to the frequent need for mid-study adjustments in obstetrics.

The two most common approaches are to use multiple individual procedure-based orders, or to use a few generalized orders with embedded procedural options.

While each approach to order design has its limitations and may depend on unique workflows, the ideal approach is typically a generalized one. In this approach, a handful of high-level orders with procedural specificity selected within the body of each order are used. A conditional request can also be embedded based on the study results, and even extend to consultative services.

This will give greater clinical flexibility, so clinicians can adjust as needed without requiring new orders.

2. Establish a straightforward data standard to improve communication

Although there have been standards for formats of communication, like HL7 and DICOM, the content and clinical format of obstetrical data hasn’t had a standard for how it’s transmitted across systems.

Depending on the individual vendors and design of each component, there are many variations of how data transfer and format is customized through interfaces — leading to varying capacities and complicated translations of each data point that make it difficult for practitioners to effectively leverage data.

By standardizing ultrasound data transfer and improving consistency, clinicians will have increased analytical capabilities and access to discrete obstetrical data, and communication will be improved between vendors. This straightforward integration is also less costly for IT professionals.

3. Optimize billing with search functionality and integrations

ICD-10-CM and CPT are the standards for coding in ultrasound workflows, but clinics vary on how they send this information and some use paper order sets.

All requested procedures, associated diagnoses, and indications are best sent via HL7 order entry message to an ultrasound reporting system (URS). The URS should have search functionality for CPT and ICD-10-CM codes, and automatically populate necessary sections of study reports.

All billing and coding systems should also seamlessly integrate with health information systems; and study procedure and diagnosis codes should automatically populate for final review.

As imaging technology continues to advance, so will the technology-based components supporting it. These best practices will help both providers and vendors ensure their network and its interfaces are structured effectively for better communication and more standardized data transfers, relieving burdens placed on healthcare systems.

To read more about best practices for ultrasound network connectivity, read the entire special statement in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology or download a PDF on the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine site.

To help better understand your organization’s electronic systems and how they could communicate more effectively, schedule a consultation here.

Tag: technology

As new applications, digital tools, and Health Information Systems are innovated, disparate network structures and piecemeal solutions take a toll on user experiences and operational processes.

Proper IT support is a major factor in achieving these goals. With access to reliable support from an experienced team:

A professional, helpful support team alleviates these burdens and helps clinicians meet innovation with confidence.

Add powerful automation to your workflow

Add powerful automation to your workflow