Rhapsody has been a healthcare focused interoperability platform since the very beginning, and as a company, we aim to never lose sight of the ultimate goal: bettering patient care.
At the HIMSS interoperability showcase this week, we get a chance to tell Rhapsody’s role in the interoperability story through the lens of a patient experience.
The patient’s care touches multiple vendor applications, but rather than focus on individual product functionality, the showcase highlights how all of the systems seamlessly communicate through published standards. Rhapsody generally plays a behind the scenes role in the patient story, but the Interoperability Showcase brings Rhapsody to the front—showing how vital it is to the patient experience.
In the Telehealth and Acute Care use case, Rhapsody facilitates the exchange of data from a stand-alone Emergency Department to a tertiary acute care facility after the patient, Charlie, is refereed by a cardiologist for direct admission to the Intensive Care Unit. This data exchange is essential in keeping providers at both places of care informed and to provide efficient services. As the standalone Emergency Department has a ‘homegrown’ electronic medical record system, the Rhapsody functionality enables this system to communicate with external systems and healthcare organizations using IHE profiles. As well as act as the interoperability foundation within the facility.
Technology is at the core of s seamless patient experience—from Charlie’s first at-home video consult to his discharge to home care—the showcase focuses on how the seven vendor’s applications impact the quality of care he receives. By following the fluidity of patient information through each of the programs, the use case acutely demonstrates the essential role that interoperability plays in Charlie’s outcome. It also reveals how a lapse in inter-application communication can easily result in gaps in the care continuum, and perhaps even, an adverse outcome. The use case also highlights how patients use emerging video technology to get real time physician feedback from the comfort of their homes and, in this case, identify a cardiac event in the early stages.
The Interoperability Showcase is a rare opportunity to witness how industry-leading health IT organizations can work together to help providers improve patient care.
