Electronic Health Reporter

The Keystone Health Information Exchange (KeyHIE), a network of more than 350 healthcare facilities, announced that it recently launched an innovative new tool that allows physicians to share medical images and associated reports to enable better care coordination, provide important clinical context for diagnostic interpretations, and improve outcomes.

The leading-edge tool was developed by Life Image using SMART on FHIR — fast interoperability healthcare resources, an innovative common standard that addresses the complexity of healthcare data for the seamless on-demand exchange of information. The Life Image Instant Access apps contain a suite of functionality based on popular workflow improvements that are most often requested by doctors, patients and administrators to solve persistent problems. With the Viewer app functionality, clinicians can now instantaneously view diagnostic content in the KeyHIE web-based portal. The power of FHIR is its ability to integrate into web browsers and its simplicity in searching for specific data, which eliminates the need for cumbersome searches and numerous manual steps inside of an EHR.

Founded in 2005, KeyHIE is one of the oldest and largest health information exchanges in the United States. It serves more than 5.8 million patients over a large geographical area including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

“Current medical data is critical in delivering care. However, data access and exchange are extremely challenging given the data silos that prevent the frictionless flow of necessary information. This tool allows the integration of actionable data and clinically important information for diagnosis or treatment at the point of care,” said Joe Fisne, associate chief information officer of Geisinger.

From the KeyHIE provider portal, powered by Orion Health, doctors can call up a patient’s medical imaging directly through the Life Image Viewer app and examine it while reading the diagnostic report within their portal. There is no separate login or application to obtain in order to use this rich functionality. It is seamless within the physician workflow and interface.

“As a longtime partner of Geisinger, Life Image is thrilled to be able to continue innovating with the Geisinger-led KeyHIE to develop cutting-edge tools that use industry-leading interoperability standards,” said Matthew A. Michela, president and CEO of Life Image. “The integration of our Viewer app into the HIE brings a whole new level of seamless collaboration that harnesses the power of Life Image workflows and makes them available instantaneously in the portals and tools that our customers already use.”