One inevitable question that every person familiar with this rigorously growing epidemic must have is “How do these hacks take place?” Is it the hackers’ increasing sophistication or is it the organizational incompetence to stop the hackers from exploiting sensitive resources? In all fairness, there is no easy answer and no single entity can be given the complete blame. Having said that, the healthcare organizations should definitely be held responsible for not brushing up on their security and for not updating on their outdated data management systems. It’s believed that healthcare organizations traditionally don’t have the most rigorously developed systems in place simply because the data secusrity isn’t a top priority. This needs to change and patient data security needs to be made a top priority if we are to fight this ongoing epidemic. In this article, we will talk about some of the leading healthcare recording and management systems (and the companies providing them) that can be deployed by hospitals to better ensure the security and integrity of important data.
Epic
Epic systems is a private company based in Madison, Wisconsin. They hold the medical records of around 2.5 percent of patients worldwide and approximately 54 percent of the total patients in the United States. The company is considered the go-to healthcare software vendor and has won many awards and accolades in the recent years. Some of the leading hospitals and healthcare systems (including Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, Arlington-based Texas Health Resources, Mount Sinai Health System, UCLA Health in Los Angeles and the Duke University Health system in Raleigh, NC) use the trademark EHR system that was developed by Epic; a total of 70 percent of the HIMSS Analytics stage 7 healthcare organizations employ the EpicCare inpatient EHR system, which is Epic’s flagship. You can learn more about all the services and products that Epic offers here. Even though, Epic systems is not known for its reasonable prices, historically hospitals have not been worried about making the investment. The Duke University Health system was reported to have paid around 700 million dollars to Epic; on the other hand, Kaiser Permanente reportedly paid 4 billion dollars. Apart from the initial costs, companies have also had to pay tons of money to upgrade the deployed systems whenever the need arose. Despite this, Epic has been topping the KLAS research’s list of the best healthcare software services providers for the past six years. You can read more about Epic and what previous users have to say about it here.
Drchrono
Drchrono is another famous company that primarily offers a platform consisting of an IPad-based patient portal, electronic health record system, and a web-based medical billing and practice management system. People prefer drchrono simply because it provides a compact one-stop solution for all things healthcare. The platform provided by the company can automate all the day-to-day activities, such as patient check-ins, e-prescribing, documentation etc. They also allow hospitals and other organizations to buy and employ only those applications, functionalities, or technology that they deem useful to them. The patient check-in applications and the the patient personal health record (PHR) app are responsible for guiding the patients through the registration process; when they have to visit again, all they need to do is confirm the information this time with a single tap and be done with it. There are many interesting products available at drchrono. The M*Modal engine allows the hospital staff to “tap, speak, and document” all the patient-related data on to the default forms of the application and, of course, everything is customizable. Similarly, FreeDraw is an application that allows the administration to perform notation of X-rays, diagrams, or any other files. Additionally, the iPad’s cameras can also be employed to take pertinent pictures that can then be easily embedded in to the patient’s records. Like Epic, drchrono isn’t the cheapest solution out there (click here to see their pricing model), but it definitely has a lot to offer. Their support team can also be made available when necessary and they offer maintenance to all their customers throughout. Some of the high-profile clients that the company has had over the years are St. Louis Urgent Care, Direct Urgent Care, etc. You can visit this page to see some of the reviews and testimonials about the company.
Meditouch EHR
Meditouch EHR and patient portal by HealthFusion Inc. is another reliable name when it comes to healthcare software products. They also have a practice management and claims clearinghouse system called MediTouch PM. Their EHR portal is a complete software suite that provides web-based applications along with a super-aesthetic touchscreen UI. Their core functionalities include (but are not limited to) problem lists, medication management, electronic prescribing, order management, charting, allergy checks, document management, and lab tests. The system is highly customizable and can be configured to meet the specific needs of users. The EHR can be deployed as a standalone system or in conjunction with the practice management system that we talked about earlier. The system comes with ONC-ATCB certification. More information about the EHR can be seen here. Sprague Taveau, owner of the Central Texas Wound Healing Associates said about Meditouch, “I practice wound care and hypobaric medicine. Our practice has been using Meditouch (EHR) for about 7 months. I have 2 other physicians using it plus a nurse practitioner. We have really enjoyed the flexibility of the program particularly we have enjoyed our ability to make changes on the fly and to be able to save and record those changes. Implementation went really well… we went through a webinar presentation on what to do and how to do it and they demonstrated it to us all.” You can read more user reviews about the company here. Meditouch EHR supports the following operating systems: Windows 7, Windows XP, Mac OS, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Windows 8, Windows 10, UNIX, Web browser (OS agnostic), Windows Vista, Windows 2000, and IBM OS/400. As far as the pricing is concerned, Meditouch offers considerably cheaper solutions; to get a quote, you can visit their website.
AdvancedMD
AdvancedMD is based in Jordan, Utah, and is another credible company that we find worth mentioning here. They provide integrated cloud-based solutions to healthcare service providers. The products include EHR/EMR, patient relationship management, physician performance benchmarking, practice management/medical billing, and business analytics reporting engines. AdvancedMD is one of the bigger players, currently serving around 22,500 practitioners from 600 medical billing companies and 8,000 practices. You can get a quote or see the various packages that they have to offer here. They have customizable products that can be modified to cater to the needs of those from small-time practitioners to big hospitals. You can learn all there is to know about them or drop them a line by visiting their website.
Lab Sensor Solutions
Lab Sensor Solutions is one of the up-and-coming names in the healthcare automation industry. Founded in 2013, the company provides IoT sensors to the healthcare industry. They are garnering some fame in the market because their products have been able to increase patient security and safety while aiding their customers (the healthcare organizations) in meeting regulations, saving lives, and reducing costs. The “sensor as a service” solution implemented by the company can monitor perishable materials (pharmaceuticals, lab samples, etc.) and create alerts for the concerned staff before the materials get compromised, in real time. The company might be new to the scene but the team that’s working behind the scenes consists of people with decades of experience under their belt. A complete list of the services and products that the company has to offer can be viewed here.
Careskore
Careskore was founded in 2014, when its incredibly ambitious founders decided to come forward with a system that would enable healthcare organizations to improve results, bring about reductions in costs and, in the long run, focus on the entity that’s the most important; the patient. Their main product uses predictive analysis to manufacture solutions that perform the right actions at the right time (interventions if needed). Their platform is both web- and mobile-based and can be used to manage the patient populations in a much more systematic manner. By ensuring patient security and by streamlining the revenue for its own customer, Careskore proves to be a great solution! A few weeks ago, Careskore won a whopping 4.3 million dollars to add machine learning to preventive care; which speaks volumes about the places the company could be going in the next few years. Learn all about the company by visiting their website.
Picofemto
Last in our list, but definitely not the least, Picofemto is a New York City-based company that was started in 2011. The company focuses on assisting research professionals and doctors with their user-friendly, web-based platform that can analyze primary medical data in the raw form and produce important results. Their cloud based-flagship service goes by the name of CliniscanSM. The company strives to make the task of data analytics in the healthcare domain automated, which is something not done before. The company believes that technology is a doctor’s best friend and that they are on a mission to “revolutionize healthcare” and we won’t argue against them. You can learn more about the company by visiting their website.
Final Word
This article was an attempt to talk about the software applications (and companies) that we believe are the most dependable, but it by no means includes all the options available right now. Some healthcare organizations still make use of Microsoft Office and other obsolete software suites for data management purposes and honestly, that has to change. With the increasing number of healthcare data breaches, it’s high time that organizations realize that it’s time to spend on increasing infrastructural security.
