Medical Image Exchange Enables Faster Diagnosis, Improved Outcomes and More

eHealth Global Technologies, Inc. (eHGT) and OptumInsight will deploy an innovative medical image exchange service for HEALTHeLINK, a Regional Health Information Organization serving eight counties of western New York, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls. This partnership will enable faster diagnosis and treatment, improved outcomes, reduced radiation exposure and health care cost reductions.

Powered by OptumInsight’s, Axolotl® Image Exchange, the new service enables rapid, secure access to diagnostic quality radiology and cardiology images that support clinical decisions made by providers that participate in HEALTHeLINK. The ability to access images with a single click, within the context of each patient’s community-wide medical record and without disrupting the caregiver’s workflow will support efforts to enhance patient care.

“We are excited to offer our healthcare providers and their patients so many new opportunities to enhance care, improve efficiency and lower cost. We expect the implementation of this service to lead to a reduction of unnecessary imaging exams, thus minimizing patient radiation exposure and reducing the cost of care. Immediate access to images, when and where they are needed, will also allow our physicians to provide faster diagnosis and treatment, with tighter care coordination and improved outcomes. Finally, the burden of reproducing, transporting, and attempting to view physical storage media such as CDs will be lifted from patients and caregivers alike, allowing them to focus on much more important priorities such as recovery and wellness,” stated Dan Porreca, HEALTHeLINK’s executive director.

“Many benefits that have never been realized before will now be enjoyed, all ensuring a higher standard of efficiency and quality of care. The Axolotl Image Exchange offers notable advantages over other more conventional methods of sharing images. Thanks to our hybrid-federated architecture, most images are available in full diagnostic quality in seconds; rather than minutes, hours or even days. Since this service “image enables” HIEs, there is no need to establish a separate, costly mechanism to ensure patient privacy and security, as the same rules that govern the exchange at large also apply to imaging. Images are made available within the context of the entire patient record, not as a part of a separate system. And finally, physicians can view their patient’s images in a single web-enabled viewing environment regardless of how many different PACS technologies and imaging provider locations they may have originated at,” stated Gary Larson, COO and General Manager, HIE Services, from eHGT.

For more information about Axolotl Image Exchange, click here.