PocketHealth Helps a Major U.S. Health System Put Its Patients First

The Challenge

Finding a cost-effective solution allowing patients to access and share their imaging results without taking valuable time away from staff.

When a regional hospital network of one of the largest healthcare providers in the U.S. wanted to simplify their imaging workflows and make it easier for their patients to access and understand their imaging results, they needed help.

​​The organization operates a network of hospitals that provide high-quality care to suburban communities. They have over 7,000 employees working toward providing patients with exceptional care and experiences.

With the majority of patients who need imaging arriving through the Emergency Department and more than 220,000 imaging studies done a year, it became vital to find a way to manage patient questions without taking valuable time away from staff. The health system was also looking to do away with the costly and time-consuming practice of using CDs to share this data with patients and other hospitals.

They needed a cost-effective, automated solution that would make workflows more efficient while working seamlessly with an already existing patient portal. Their primary focus was getting health data into the hands of patients and outside care providers without clerical involvement by staff.

The Solution

Adopting the PocketHealth for Patients and PocketHealth for Providers solutions, which support patient-driven image sharing and no network provider-to-provider sharing.

Implementing PocketHealth relieved many of the pain points prevalent throughout the organization’s network. Instead of patients travelling to the hospital to get their imaging results burned onto a CD, they can now access and share diagnostic-quality images immediately on their mobile phone or computer from anywhere in the world.

This has proven equally invaluable for overworked staff who no longer have to prepare CDs or coordinate with other hospitals and other care providers in the area to arrange for their delivery on behalf of patients. Staff now spend less time performing administrative tasks and more time providing world-class care.

PocketHealth provided the hospital network’s team with resources and tools to make implementation fast and easy. And having physicians on board from the start helped them get the buy-in needed for a seamless platform integration into their workflows.

PocketHealth provided further support by flying out an in-person team that helped educate patients and staff about the new platform. This included rolling out a range of educational marketing materials, such as posters and handouts.

The Results

Saving an estimated $130,000 in annual costs, while improving patient experience and staff efficiency thanks to less time spent on administrative imaging tasks, like retrieving priors or burning CDs.

The projected annual savings for the regional hospital network is estimated to be $130,000 and this number could grow significantly if additional facilities start to leverage the PocketHealth platform.

In the past, when a patient was transferred to another facility, their imaging had to make the trip with them. If that CD didn’t transfer with them, it could cost up to $600 to transport that to the gaining facility via a courier.

Now that the collaboration is bearing fruit, PocketHealth has been approved as a vendor for the entire health system, especially since they can link to the health system’s patient portal—and were one of the only vendors able to do so. Other locations are now exploring an integration between PocketHealth and their patient portal. Once fully implemented across the network, patients will be able to simply click on a link to gain access to all their imaging results without ever talking to a member of staff.

The organization is also working with other hospitals in the area that use legacy image exchange networks to install gateways that will allow their systems to communicate and seamlessly exchange imaging studies through PocketHealth.

Equally important may be the platform’s ongoing relationship with a well-connected senior systems architect who helped provide a best-case scenario for implementation. This led to a seamless transition with no hiccups along the way.

PocketHealth aims to improve and simplify image sharing for both providers and patients. The implementation at this major U.S. health system is delivering on that goal and PocketHealth is committed to expanding that impact over time.

Interested in learning more about how PocketHealth improves the image sharing process for providers and patients? Book a demo.