Life Image, based in Newton, Mass., has launched of its Patient Connect Portal. The platform gives patients control over their own medial images and data to help manage their health over the long term.

Most patient portals do not have the ability to collect, assemble, add and store complicated diagnostic images that are critical to treating chronic and complex conditions. For patients with conditions such as respiratory, oncological, neurological, and COVID-19-related conditions, as well as musculoskeletal illnesses, diagnostic images are especially important. With these conditions, imaging exams taken over time must be compared to be clinically useful for diagnosis, treatment, therapy evaluation, and postacute patient monitoring.

Life Image conducted a patient survey recently with 1,300 respondents that showed nearly 40% of patients are still required to physically travel to pick up CDs if they want access to their medical records and related imaging, and a surprising 23% are still given medical images on physical films. According to the survey, 66% of respondents have access to at least one portal connected to their provider’s HER; however, only 18% of respondents have been able to ever receive records of any type digitally (email, app or through a portal), which indicates that, while patients have access to portals, records and information are still not being effectively shared.

Patient Connect Portal is a user-friendly online digital application that allows patients to own and control their data and images, even when their care was received over time in a variety of locations. Patient Connect Portal also allows patients to easily share their data with specialists and care teams regardless of where they are located.

“Your doctors need complete medical records to give you the best possible care. Unfortunately, those records aren’t usually in one place or readily available when you need them most—such as times of emergency or when you are traveling between doctors for urgent diagnosis and treatment,” says Matthew A. Michela, president and CEO of Life Image. “Our hospital customers and their patients are telling us that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly heightened the awareness of the need for a solution that makes patient sharing of diagnostic images possible. They realize that care coordination is improved by digital access to medical imaging while it also reduces the potential of infection that comes from handling CDs. In response to this demand, Life Image built upon the foundation of our Mammosphere application and is now making Patient Connect Portal broadly available for all clinical conditions.”

For more than four years, Mammosphere by Life Image has been helping women digitally and securely collect, store, and share their breast images to enable better breast health and cancer treatment. Diagnosis of abnormal breast tissue relies on comparisons of prior mammograms over time as every woman has unique breast tissue.

For more information, visit Life Image.