The enterprise health system, a conglomeration of top providers, business administrators, and a force of other employees all focused on maximizing patient care. These organizations are oftentimes beacons of efficiency … or are they?
In a Utopian society, the enterprise health system would run seamlessly on one cohesive platform, but the reality is – most don’t. The lack of centralized data catalyzes production of disparate systems. On the contrary, cloud-based systems have the ability to act as a central data hub, thus eliminating the aforementioned disparate systems.
With the human body, we are controlled by a single brain capable of executing all necessary functions where all parts can fluidly communicate. An enterprise health system should function the same way using the cloud.
There are a few ways this happens:
Advanced cloud-based software with flexible APIs, like Ambra’s, are capable of integrating with upstream and downstream systems. Currently, many organizations implement a VPN in high-volume image sharing scenarios. A VPN is difficult to install and configure across institutions and firewalls, and operates on a hub-and-spoke model requiring that images be manually uploaded into the system’s PACS. Even within the walls of an organization, facilities frequently lack image-enablement of their EHR, prohibiting the unification of patient records. With a cloud solution, like Ambra Health, patient imaging can be integrated directly into the patient jacket of leading EHR systems like Epic and athenahealth providing a holistic patient record. Orders involving imaging can be placed, processed, viewed, and completed from within the EMR or EHR.
Enterprise health systems utilize hundreds of doctors across numerous locations. For this reason, a diagnostic viewer powered by the cloud is necessary to enable these doctors to view studies anywhere, anytime. Using Ambra’s browser-based mobile-friendly viewer, physicians can access patient images from any PC, Mac, or tablet, perform measurements, make annotations, compare images, and more. With only internet connectivity, any physician with the correct login can access and read patient images.
Enterprise health systems need a solution that scales along with them and that is always there when they need it. The cloud offers flexible storage solutions and disaster recovery. Imagine a scenario without the cloud, where data is stored onsite. Disaster strikes, power to the data facility goes down, and physicians at the hospital can no longer access their images. With cloud storage, those images are safely stored off-site alongside a backup, so these images are always available, rain or shine.
Cloud technology has crept into almost every industry. It has enabled mankind to achieve previously unattainable levels of efficiency. With this technology at our fingertips, it’s paramount to capitalize on everything it can offer.
Jonathan received his BA in Economics from the the University of Virginia. He enables healthcare providers to manage and store data in the cloud as a Sales Development Representative at Ambra Health. He loves ‘dad jokes’ and interesting science facts (preferably about space). When he’s not craving a chocolate malt milkshake, he’s pondering advantageous business decisions or daydreaming about traveling the world. His favorite greeting is a wave so if you see him waving, it’s not at the person behind you, but at you … so wave back.
