Patient Engagement is on the rise and more patients are requesting immediate access to not only their results, but are curious to see their images. Southern Nevada consists of multiple Outpatient Radiology centers that are competitive to each other with roughly 4 different Health Information Systems (HIS). Patients are part of this broken system that puts them in the middle of the competitors and the lack of true continuity of care. The patient is confused on if they need results, images, or both and may be forced to reschedule if they do not bring comparison films. Even worse, they may not be rescheduled, though wait in anxiety for results due to comparison images not available at the newest location they had their study performed. The desire to go fully electronic in Radiology cannot be met until solutions are implemented around image sharing. CDs and film printing are still too common, as the patient feels they need to have the images. The question of image-enabled patient portals are on the minds of many Health System Executives and if the investment is needed and what is their responsibility to provide this part of the medical record.
SDMI and OneDx have partnered to enable the patient portal for patient’s to have full access to review and share their images. The patient portal (offered through Experian Healthcare) will interact with the Physician portal. SDMI’s portal will meet the need of the patient to have all pertinent clinical information in one place. The focus of the interactive presentation during the conference will display the ease of use, patient feedback as well as future plans on how image access is only the beginning to empowering the patient. Though there will be other aspects of the patient portal, the main focus will be what the patient and other healthcare executives believe to be a positive or not outcome for patient empowerment around offering access to images.
