It seems like every year there's new technology available for PACS and imaging groups. From new medical equipment to advanced software promising to enhance a practice's capabilities, it can be difficult to know what will serve your practice best in the years to come.
And while it's never been more important to invest in new technology to improve the quality of patient care, it's also never been more stressful. During these uncertain times, healthcare practices are being especially cautious about their investments. They want to ensure the solution or service they purchase has a strong return on investment, will enhance their workflows and is flexible enough to meet their changing needs.
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a tried-and-tested solution that can help imaging centers streamline their processes and improve patient care. Let's explore more about how iPaaS is improving this healthcare specialty.
What is iPaaS?
While the name may already give it a way, iPaaS is a platform that connects disjointed systems to create a unified solution. HubSpot elaborated that it's a cloud-based system that integrates various applications, systems and technologies either within the cloud or on-premise. It effectively knocks down the most common roadblocks to connecting important systems by allowing organizations in a variety of industries to outsource integration to a vendor who excels at it.
Data silos are a problem for most businesses, but nowhere are they more detrimental than in healthcare. Practices rely on the seamless movement of patient data between facilities to efficiently make diagnoses, create a plan of care and avoid duplicate procedures. Patients also need their information to be readily available as they visit different specialists in their network.
While integration is important for healthcare facilities across the board, it's especially essential for imaging centers and PACS systems that must frequently share medical images. They required a secure, fast and high-quality way to share X-Rays, ultrasounds, CTs and other images specialists and healthcare providers need to diagnose and treat their patients. iPaaS can enable the seamless connection for data sharing they need.
Benefits of iPaaS for imaging centers
Integrating disparate systems is just the beginning of how iPaaS can benefit imaging centers.
Here are a few more unique advantages of integration Platform as a Service for radiology:
Streamlining processes
Imaging groups and PACS systems can sometimes handle hundreds of important medical images a day. On top of completing these images, they are also continuously receiving orders and sending results to referral partners. With all of this happening simultaneously, it's important for the center to send the correct information out and not misplace anything. However, when practices rely on manual processes to upload and relay information, the chances of making a mistake are higher.
Integrating these processes makes it easy to securely and accurately share images that are an important part of a patient's medical history.
Orchestrating internal workflows
Writing for BizTech Magazine, Doug Bonderud explained that business processes don't exist in isolation. The same is true for imaging centers. While the process of taking a medical image usually begins with receiving an order, it then needs to be connected to a patient's medical history and be shared with other specialists. iPaaS helps orchestrate these workflows so they work harmoniously across multiple environments instead of simply coexisting.
Cost efficiencies
It can be frustrating and costly for a radiology practice to integrate their systems on their own. With iPaaS, they don't need to hire expensive developers to create custom codes for their workflows. Most iPaaS vendors offer a monthly or yearly subscription for their services. This requires less upfront capital and the chance for practice to regularly reassess their needs and determine if the subscription fits their budget.
Scalability
Conditions at imaging centers change periodically. Sometimes there will be an abundance of clients and work to do, and other times not so much. Radiologists need an integration system that is flexible enough to accommodate these changes in workflows. iPaaS is designed to be a scalable solution that can be added to or reduced depending on a practice's current needs or future outlook.
Enhancing decision making
iPaaS helps fill the data gaps regarding lab results that exist in most EMR platforms. With all the patient information available at their fingertips, radiologists are able to make faster, better decisions regarding their care. Improved decision-making at the top cascades benefits down all the way to the patient. Their care process is streamlined and there's no more waiting on one provider to hand off their medical image to the next to make a swift and accurate diagnosis.
Tangible: Your partner for integration
When you decide that iPaaS is the best solution for your imaging center or healthcare practice, Tangible Solutions has the expertise and software to help.
We have seen first hand how iPaaS provides practices with a comprehensive data set necessary to improve patient care and make more informed decisions. The secure yet streamlined sharing of data empowers medical providers to achieve better patient outcomes, leading to a whole host of additional benefits such as higher satisfaction and monetary gains.
Integration Platform as a Service is the foundation that supports a successful imaging center or PACS system. Remember, even if you have the best medical imaging equipment and applications, they can be defeated with bad or mismanaged data. With an experienced partner like Tangible Solutions by your side, the roadblocks to data integration are diminished.
iPaaS from Tangible is a highly scalable and flexible solution healthcare practices across various specialties trust to integrate their data. Our integrated services were created as a hub-and-spoke system, so you only pay for the services your practice needs. You can also choose how much, or how little, support you need from our experts on your journey to seamless data sharing.
As your imaging center or network grows and experiences the ebbs and flows of business, you can trust that iPaaS will be scaled to your needs and your internal systems will experience minimal downtime.
Contact the team at Tangible Solutions today to know more about our integration Platform as a Service solution.
