HIMSS: Ambra Health Deepens Patient Access to Imaging with New Portal

Today from HIMSS18 (Booth #8324), Ambra Health, makers of the leading cloud-based, medical image management suite, announced the launch of embedded integrations with drchrono and Modernizing Medicine as the latest Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) platforms to have image-enabled medical records powered by Ambra. They join leading EHR platforms Epic and athenahealth, which are already integrated with Ambra medical image management solutions. Also unveiled were new patient portal capabilities that give healthcare providers the ability to allow patients to access medical imaging online, in a secure manner that eliminates reliance on outdated CDs or DVDs.
 
Electronic Health Records capture the medical history of an individual, yet many EHR systems only display text-based radiology reports, and not actual diagnostic images—half the picture is, literally, missing. From a patient perspective, 80 percent of healthcare consumers expressed interest in receiving access to both the diagnostic imaging and a radiology report after tests, according to a study conducted by Ambra Health. And for providers faced with increased regulatory mandates to maintain comprehensive patient records within the EHR system, there are significant benefits in productivity and delivery of better patient care if diagnostic imaging is deeply embedded into administrative workflow.
 
“We have been able to save time and increase efficiency tremendously when importing outside images thanks to integrating Ambra into our Epic EHR workflow and image management operations,” said Dr. Christoph Wald, chair of radiology at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. “The Ambra integration has also been a key component in our ongoing efforts to reduce our risk of patient misidentification errors.”
 
drchrono and Modernizing Medicine’s EMA for orthopedics are among the latest EHR platforms to integrate with Ambra medical imaging solutions, providing more streamlined access to view and order imaging directly from links within the patient record.
 
drchrono provides a technology platform and medical billing service that streamlines the administration and delivery of care for healthcare providers. With Ambra Health’s integration, physicians have one click access to patient records and imaging, all in one place. With a single click, physicians can launch the Ambra FDA 510(k) cleared medical image viewer directly from the drchrono EHR patient jacket. Together, the two provide end-to-end cloud-based software that seamlessly integrates scheduling, clinical workflow, patient engagement, records, patient imaging, and medical billing.
 
Ambra Health is also seamlessly interfaced with Modernizing Medicine’s EMA, the specialty-specific EHR system in the modmed Orthopedics suite that also includes Practice Management, Analytics and more. Built by practicing orthopedic surgeons, EMA intuitively adapts to the unique style of the physician, remembers preferences, and aids clinical collaboration to streamline the provider’s entire process. And now with Ambra, imaging can be accessed directly from within the patient record as well, virtually eliminating CDs and upgrading medical imaging processes with better interoperability, archiving, and accessibility.
 
“Providers and software vendors alike are tackling interoperability and medical record access with a new sense of urgency. Patient medical records are complex documents and medical imaging is a particularly critical piece of the puzzle,” said Morris Panner, CEO of Ambra Health. “The cloud has been a key technological innovation for the storage of large imaging sets and easy access for patients and providers alike.”
 
Ambra also launched a new capability that allows providers to offer patients direct access to their medical imaging through a secure, HIPAA-compliant, online portal. Patients who have had imaging done at a facility that has deployed the new Ambra Patient Portal would automatically receive an alert once their medical imaging studies are available. Patients can then securely log-in to their profile online to access their current results or any prior medical imaging studies they had done. The imaging can be viewed, downloaded and shared directly from the portal, allowing patients to self-serve should they wish to procure a second opinion and saving administrative staff from having to rely on CDs or DVDs when making imaging available to patients.
 
Ambra Health is at the forefront of the transformation of medical imaging through cloud technology. The company was recently recognized by KLAS Researchas the top medical image exchange vendor for the fourth year in a row, and named Startup-of-the-year in the SIIA Company CODiE Awards. Today, more than 1,500 healthcare organizations use Ambra Health for best-in-class image exchange and cloud VNA. Ambra’s network is growing at a rapid pace of two new provider gateways per day, resulting in more than three billion images now managed through the platform.