By Kurt Woock
The offices of Hartsdale Imaging, Hartsdale, NY, lie in a three-story building covered in cobblestone, just north of New York City. Inside, five radiologists perform an array of imaging services, including MRI, CT, digital x-ray, and ultrasound. Until this year, the routine after each imaging exam—preparing the report and faxing it to the referring physician—had been unchanged since years ago when reports were mailed. This year, everything changed.
MedicsConnect is a document delivery system that connects radiologists to referring physicians. Transcribed reports flow directly into referring physicians’ EHR systems. MedicsConnect operates under a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) and converts completed reports into EHR-readable HL7 format.
The change has been significant. “In the olden days, you would need to mail the report down to referring doctors,” Casoria said. “That had an impact on patient care. We then went to faxes, which was great; we could fax out reports within hours of us signing off on the reports. And that certainly helped patient care. With MedicsConnect, it was one step better—it goes directly to the referring doctor, directly into the patient’s folder in the EMR.” MedicsConnect works in the background—Casoria said staff members just see a single line where they enter information about the referring physician. “Especially for smaller offices that don’t have an IT staff, it’s easy,” he added. “With many other programs, you need IT expertise.”
New technology is often explained in terms of the benefits provided to the people who acquire it. But in the case of MedicsConnect, the most palpable benefits are felt by referring physicians. “It’s been a tremendous boost for them,” Casoria said. “They can treat patients without being in the office to look at faxes.” Faxes also often require office personnel to receive and process them. Implementing MedicsConnect means those people, who traditionally have helped process incoming and outgoing reports, are free to do other work.
Making processes simpler for referring physicians can be good for business, Casoria said. “You’re always looking for ways to make it easier for them. If you save a secretary time, they are going to remember that.” Casoria said the program hasn’t changed how many patients they can see in a day, but with its ease of use, it does have the potential to change the referring pattern of the referring physician. “They are looking for ways to make their lives easier and more efficient. They want radiology offices that are easy to deal with.”
MedicsConnect is still a new system. The team at Hartsdale helped ADS develop the system when testing the software in early 2013. As the software continues to develop, Casoria hopes additional features will make the solution even more valuable: “It currently uses a unidirectional interface—we send HIPAA-secured results to physicians. Now, they are developing a bidirectional interface, where referring physicians have access to our systems. They will be able to send orders to us instead of faxing or giving patients a script.” A bidirectional interface could increase efficiency on the front end of exams, just as the unidirectional interface increases efficiency after the exam is complete.
Casoria said the solution would be ideal for practices large, medium, and small. “To not have this is silly,” he added.
