In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
Elevator Pitch
As healthcare organizations continue to face challenges from new regulatory requirements, high-performance applications, rising data growth and the need for 24/7 data availability, they need smarter, faster and more efficient storage technology. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage solution allows healthcare providers to virtualize their storage devices and address these pressing IT challenges — all centrally managed on one platform, delivering unified services across any storage system at a fraction of the cost.
About Statement
DataCore is a leader in software-defined storage. The company’s storage virtualization and Virtual SAN solutions empower organizations to seamlessly manage and scale their data storage architectures, allowing for continuous availability of data at a fraction of the cost of solutions offered by legacy storage hardware vendors. In use at more than 10,000 customer sites around the world, DataCore’s adaptive and self-learning and healing technology takes the pain out of manual processes and helps deliver on the promise of the new software-defined data center through its hardware agnostic architecture.
Services and Products Offered
DataCore’s SANsymphony-V10 Software-defined Storage platform maximizes the availability, performance and utilization of storage resources. It pools, replicates and accelerates all types of storage, including DAS, SAN and cloud. Extensive automation and monitoring under centralized management simplifies provisioning, data protection, performance acceleration and load balancing.
DataCore Virtual SAN software transforms direct attached storage (both flash and magnetic) across a cluster of 2 to 64 server nodes into a converged storage environment. It can also utilize storage capacity from a central SAN and cloud storage. The software works with all the major hypervisors including VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Linux KVM and Citrix XenServer. The latest release doubles the scale of nodes from 32 to 64 enabling large scale hyper-converged configurations to support up to 64 petabytes and over 100 million IOPs, making the DataCore Virtual SAN one of the most powerful and scalable hyper-converged solutions available on the market today.
Problems Solved
IT departments are under increasing pressure to deliver more storage capacity, better resiliency and faster performance, all while managing costs. DataCore’s Software-defined Storage solutions address these challenges by delivering significant performance improvements, better utilization of storage devices and improved data availability.
Quality of care has long been a primary factor in choosing a healthcare provider, but convenience and communication are also becoming key considerations for patients. Still, many physicians do not appear to be offering the digital engagement services that can meet those demands.
According to a new nationwide survey conducted by TechnologyAdvice Research, a majority of patients (60.8 percent) said digital services like online appointment scheduling and online bill pay are either “important” or “somewhat important” when choosing a physician. However, when asked what services their current physician provides, less than one-third of patients indicated they have access to either online bill pay, online appointment scheduling, or the ability to view test results and diagnoses online, which are the top three services that patients report wanting the most.
In addition, 68.6 percent of respondents said it was either “somewhat important” or “very important” that a physician follow up with them, yet only 30 percent of respondents reported receiving a follow-up that wasn’t related to bill pay
“Primary care physicians are reporting some of the highest rates of EHR adoption to comply with government regulations and to receive incentives from Meaningful Use, but a significantly lower number of patients claim to have access to these patient portal services,” said TechnologyAdvice Managing Editor Cameron Graham, who authored the survey. “The issue here may not be implementation of digital services, but instead a lack of patient awareness. If physicians are offering these in-demand digital services, a more proactive approach to promoting them is needed and could create an advantage in attracting and retaining patients.”
IDC Health Insights new report that describes the distinctive offerings and capabilities from six fraud, waste and abuse (FWA) services providers and the market they compete in. The new study, IDC Marketscape: US Healthcare Payer Fraud, Waste and Abuse Services 2015 Vendor Assessment,” (Document #HI253636) examines in detail the FWA consulting and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. Vendors evaluated in this report include: Emdeon, IBM, McKesson, Optum, SCIO and Xerox.
Priority for investment in payer fraud, waste and abuse solutions is rising quickly on payer executive agendas because of the accelerated rate of evolution of the payer marketplace in the wake of government-mandated reform. Investment in U.S. healthcare payer FWA solutions (software and services) is rising rapidly in 2014–2015. While already present in over 50% of payers, in the next few years, such solutions will become ubiquitous among payers of all types and sizes in both the commercial and government sectors in some form. In the next three to five years, many payers will continue to enhance their overall FWA defensive capabilities by investing in oftentimes complementary solutions from multiple vendors.
The services component of payer FWA solutions is becoming more and more important, and it is now common for payer FWA software to be delivered to buyers “as a service.” Technology improvements in analytics and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution delivery have made it more feasible for vendors to provide rapidly scalable, outsourced services at decreasing costs with defensive capabilities that outstrip those available to all but the largest payers.
Because of these developments, payers are therefore seeking guidance on how to invest in the different types of service offerings available and how the major vendors compete with each other. This IDC Health Insights report uses the IDC MarketScape methodology to assess six vendors competing in the U.S. healthcare payer FWA services market. A detailed profile supports the evaluation of the offerings from each of the selected vendors. Each profile outlines a vendor’s offering components, evolution, strengths, and challenges.
In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Even as HIMSS Media has said that its employees will be making more of an effort this year to cover the trade show floor and its vendors and events, hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
Elevator Pitch
Founded in 2009, etherFAX offers a solution that extends existing fax server solutions to the cloud. By eliminating the need for costly network fax systems, such as fax boards and recurring telephony fees, etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all business-critical fax communications for healthcare organizations.
About Statement
etherFAX was established in 2009 and leverages talent with 30-plus years of experience designing and developing fax technology solutions. By eliminating the need for costly components such as fax boards, media gateways, and telephony infrastructure, etherFAX’s namesake technology, network and datacenter solutions leverage the Internet to manage business-critical fax communications.
As a hybrid fax solution, etherFAX eliminates the complexities and costs of provisioning SIP, T.38, PRI, T1, and other analog connections. By simply connecting on-premise fax server resources to etherFAX, all fax communications are securely delivered via the cloud. Say goodbye to expensive fax hardware, complex fault-tolerant designs, and costly disaster recovery solutions. etherFAX is the fax board in the cloud, capable of processing billions of faxes.
Market Opportunity
etherFAX serves the healthcare market by securely transmit electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), health information exchange data (HIEs) and unstructured patient data. etherFAX enables healthcare organizations and medical groups, insurance companies and billing operators to securely transport data and ensure compliance with government mandated regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Fully integrating with existing fax servers and applications such as EMR solutions and healthcare management systems, etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all healthcare-critical fax communications without capacity constraints.
Services and Products Offered
HIMSS 15 Focus:
o etherFAX – Extending existing fax server solutions to the cloud, etherFAX eliminates the need for costly network fax systems, such as fax boards and recurring telephony fees. etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all your business-critical fax communications.
o etherFAX SEN – Gives healthcare and enterprise organizations the capability to create their own private fax network to ensure secure data and document transmissions. Offering a simple and unique approach to document delivery, etherFAX SEN offers speed, performance and reliability without compromising security.
o etherFAX A2E – The etherFAX A2E device, manufactured by MultiTech, provides a plug-and-play device that enables organizations to extend their existing fax machines to the cloud.
Additional Services:
etherFAX DR – Provides immediate failover for all business-critical fax communications, ensuring uptime when existing telephony equipment fails, such as fax boards, PRI lines, servers and applications.
etherFAX Toolkit – Integrating fax capabilities within applications has never been easier with the etherFAX API. The solution provides the capability to fax-enable custom developed applications in addition to enterprise resource planning (ERP), document management systems, etc.
etherFAX Colocation Services – etherFAX provides highly-secure, protected, and climate-controlled colocation services that are capable of supporting the most complex business-critical IT environments.
According to a 2014 Identity Theft Resource Center Report, the healthcare industry has officially surpassed other major industries and now accounts for 42.3 percent of all data breaches recorded last year. As the number of patient medical records transitions to a digital sharing model, the potential cost of data breaches is now substantially higher than for those less regulated, like retail and public services. It’s clear that the industry is increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks; hackers are after vital patient information such as social security numbers and past medical records.
With limited budgets and priorities often, and rightfully, placed on patient care, many healthcare organizations lack the resources to implement stronger security levels. Despite these constraints, with the right technology and best practices in place healthcare organizations can position themselves for success.
The costs associated with “damage control” for many healthcare providers is steep with the annual cap on fines for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and HITECH Act of 2009, up from a maximum of $25,000 per year to $1.5 million. And fines are only part of the financial burden. Investigation and legal efforts, business downtime and decreased credibility all drive up costs even further.
Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations are still facing challenges when it comes to effectively communicating and collaborating on security. In many of these healthcare organizations, there is a department for privacy and compliance and then a separate department for enterprise IT security. Functional groups are often siloed and share very little information with each other. This becomes a major issue in the event of a breach as neither side is able to understand the full spectrum of the threat without the others’ data.
The consequences of the gap between compliance and IT security becomes evident when dealing with insider threats. An individual’s actions may look legitimate, but when correlated against other activity, could indicate that malicious activity is occurring. A workstation that has always previously accessed clinical data or some other patient information doesn’t raise suspicion. But a subtle, steady increase in traffic, say of 5 percent or 10 percent, correlated with communication to an unauthorized or new IP address, likely indicates a breach. The same example could apply to an external threat with a malicious actor using social engineering methods to entice an unwitting user to download malware. Once inside the network, the malware can replicate the very same scenario. Either way, a breach has occurred. The IT security department may discover the situation, investigate and handle it and move on to the next task. But without visibility into this type of data, how would the compliance department learn about possible data leakage and take the necessary steps to investigate and report?
The Medical Memory’s mission is provide simple and convenient methods for video recording medical conversations and sharing them with patients and their families.
Elevator Pitch
The Medical Memory provides a simple and convenient method of recording medical conversations and distributing them to patients and their families.
Founder’s story
Dr. Randall Porter founded The Medical Memory to help his own patients better understand their condition and treatments. Dr. Porter recognized that his neurology patients did not comprehend the information imparted to them during appointments. Furthermore, Dr. Porter was frustrated with his inability to receive information regarding his own father’s cancer treatment in another state. Since its inception, the company’s vision has been to use video recording technologies to enhance patient understanding of their medical conditions and treatments and to share that information with family members and loved ones.
To achieve this The Medical Memory partners with doctor’s offices to make it simple for patients to request video recordings of their visits. A portable video camera is used to record discussions, imaging and demonstrations. Post visit, an email is sent to the patient with log in information to a page containing the videos. The patient simply logs in from any location with internet access to start reviewing what the doctor said. If desired, the patient can share the page with family and loved ones.
The Medical Memory is a simple and convenient method to keep patients and their loved ones informed of important medical discussions in many cases eliminating unnecessary follow-up appointments.
Marketing Strategy
The marketing strategy for The Medical Memory is a comprehensive local and national marketing and public relations campaign focusing on Dr. Porter’s personal experience with patients’ recall, the need for The Medical Memory and the benefit. The media focus is on editors, bloggers, and publications covering health, technology and startups.
In this new series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Even as HIMSS Media has said that its employees will be making more of an effort this year to cover the tradeshow floor and its vendors and events, hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
The Usability People
The Usability People provide user experience (UX) consultation and usability testing services to clients in the US and across the globe. We have helped “mom-and-pop” shops and Internet startups, healthcare software (EHR) vendors, enterprise organizations, universities and government agencies. We have more than 25 years of experience providing user experience consultation, usability testing and interface design services to businesses of all shapes and sizes. The Usability People have the experience, knowledge and passion for UX to help your website, mobile web or phone app delight users.
Elevator Pitch
We like to tell people that we are cognitive ergonomists. That is that we take and apply the theories of psychology, specifically cognitive psychology, to the design and development of more usable software systems. We do this by helping development organizations better understand their users, and their users thinking. We work with software developers to design and test their systems to better match the workflow and mental models of those use the software every day.
Market Opportunity
EHR vendors that are seeking meaningful use Stage 2 certification are required to have a user-centered design process and to provide a report of a summative usability evaluation. We work with EHR vendors to help them understand their users, to design better software and provide the summative tests required for meaningful use Stage 2 certification.
Services and Products Offered
Safety-enhanced design (aka Usability) testing for meaningful use Stage 2 certification
User experience design, workflow, information architecture and wireframes for healthcare applications.
We conduct and report summative usability evaluations using the NISTIR 7742 Customized Common Industry Format Template for EHR usability testing suitable for presentation as the safety-enhanced design criteria portion of MU Stage 2 certification.
Problems Solved
Usability issues with EHRs and user-centered design consultation.
Value Proposition
Usability and user centered design typically has a 10 to 100 times return on investment. The savings typically are realized in reduced development costs, reduced training and documentation costs and reduced support costs. Usability in healthcare can also save a life.
PipelineRx is a telepharmacy company offering remote and SaaS pharmacy services to rural hospitals, as well as larger integrated delivery networks (IDNs). For smaller hospitals, PipelineRx offers 24/7 staffing during nights and weekends, verifying medication orders remotely to promote patient safety. The SaaS technology platform allows larger IDNs to essentially create their own telepharmacy, using one of their own pharmacists to staff additional locations.
CEO Brian Roberts has spent most of his career focused on healthcare services and staffing. Prior to co-founding PipelineRx, he was the president of Canopy Healthcare until it was acquired in late 2008. Canopy Healthcare was the leading allied healthcare staffing firm on the West Coast. Prior to Canopy Healthcare, Roberts was the EVP of business development at CHG Healthcare Services, a $600 million leader in diversified healthcare staffing which supplied physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals to hospitals nationwide.
Here, Roberts discusses his firm and its capabilities, technology developments he’s seeing, telemedicine challenges and trends we’ll see in the coming year.
Tell me more about yourself and what inspired you to found PipelineRx?
I spent the first half of my career as a venture capitalist investing in early stage healthcare services and healthcare IT companies. I spent the second half of my career building companies from the ground up as an entrepreneur. I love the operations and technologies that are critical for building a sustainable business model. After building two successful medical staffing companies, I figured out that we could “staff” hospitals using remote pharmacists that work from home. The labor arbitrage of enabling one pharmacist to work on multiple hospitals drove on average a three to one return for hospitals. This all was enabled by creating a technology that allowed interchange between PipelineRX and hospital pharmacy information systems and EHRs.
We now have an amazing management team bringing more than 100 years of experience in building pharmacy technology companies.
Tell me more about your desire to lead a telepharmacy company? Who uses this service? How is it growing and how has it changed?
Leading PipelineRx is exhilarating each and every day. Overcoming challenges are what makes it interesting and trying to apply cloud based technology to a service that must be completed (pharmacy verification services).
Hospitals of all sizes use the service. From the small side, critical access hospitals with 25 beds use the service for long stretches, say 6 p.m. to – 6 a.m. and 24 hours on the weekends. Our service allows them to save significant costs yet have world class medical coverage of their hospital. We can also fill in if an employee pharmacist calls in sick or if there is a big snow storm and the employee pharmacist can’t make it to work. We also work with larger hospitals and hospital systems that are looking to optimize their staffing levels. While pharmacies traditionally were staffed like a firehouse with ample coverage, PipelineRx allows the hospital to staff to the median levels and then use our staff for peak or overflow. It’s been an amazing journey to see hospital administrators and C-suite’s understand that we assist in moving traditional fixed costs to variable costs through our unique service.
As healthcare organizations continue to face challenges from new regulatory requirements, high-performance applications, rising data growth and the need for 24/7 data availability, they need smarter, faster and more efficient storage technology. DataCore’s SANsymphony-V Software-defined Storage solution allows healthcare providers to virtualize their storage devices and address these pressing IT challenges — all centrally managed on one platform, delivering unified services across any storage system at a fraction of the cost.
IDC Health Insights
The Usability People