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Case Study
Bluegrass Orthopaedics COVID-19 Crisis Response
An orthopaedics practice in the United States implements a cloud-based solution to enable patients and their clinicians to use X-rays and other images for telehealth visits.
Customer Profile:
- Perform more than 60,000 exams annually
- Network consists of 14 doctors and nine PAs
- Facilities are dispersed throughout Kentucky
- Average of 300 patient visits per day
Situation
Bluegrass Orthopaedics (BGO) needed a telemedicine solution to maximize resources and keep patient care thriving from a distance due to COVID-19. In order to adhere to safety mandates and protect patients and staff with nearly 300 daily appointments, they needed a way to stop exchanging discs and begin receiving images digitally to avoid in-person contact altogether. BGO has four offices throughout the Bluegrass region, and two satellite clinics in southern Kentucky that perform more than 60,000 exams annually. BGO had never implemented an image exchange solution but was introduced to cloud sharing when they became part of our sharing network for a large neighboring health system that wanted to remove their VPN connection. With COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, BGO decided to upgrade so they could provide patients a way to securely get their images to BGO physicians.
Value
BGO’s physicians needed a telemedicine platform to use for new patients that provided them the ability to look at X-rays and other images during the electronic visit. With Change Healthcare Stratus Imaging Share their patients were able to more securely upload images to BGO from their website.
Solution
Change Healthcare offered physicians at Bluegrass Orthopaedics a safe alternative to transferring physical media, such as CDs, to more securely access their patients’ medical images. Our enterprise imaging solutions provided remote access from any web-enabled device and simple image upload capabilities, even if the user didn’t have an account. All done without putting anyone at risk with faceto- face interactions.
Our cloud-based imaging capabilities power a suite of applications that expedite access and interpretation of medical images and makes healthcare easier for everyone—physicians, technicians, administrators, and patients.
Bluegrass Orthopaedics chose our platform to remain agile and patient centric with simple workflows that would allow for continued care. The web-based guest exam uploader feature was easily added to the BGO website. One simple button click allows patients or referring physicians to upload images directly to PATIENT CENTRIC 120 discs ingested daily on average at BGO that patients previously brought in from referring facilities. Now they can be ingested from the comfort of a patient’s home. SECURE HIPAA is a major concern when handling unsecure CDs. Change Healthcare Stratus Imaging Share is more secure and the HIPAA log tracks every exam interaction. VIRTUAL CARE The Change Healthcare Guest Uploader doesn’t require a User to have an account. It is a simple, easy-to-use link on our client’s website. STREAMLINED Setup automated workflows, active directory, system integrations, a sharing network, and more with a designated account manager. Change Healthcare Stratus Imaging Share and those images automatically push to BGO’s PACS. Their clinicians have a more efficient imaging workflow, have maintained access to images without physical media, and the practice can maintain flexibility during COVID-19 and in the future.
Bluegrass Orthopaedics had a goal of a one-week implementation timeline, from contract signing to go-live in order to serve patients quickly. Our IT team can install an edge server that sits on your organization’s firewall or spin up a virtual machine all in under an hour.
Results
The immediate feedback has been outstanding. According to Andrew Carlson, Director of Business Development, Bluegrass Orthopaedics, “BGO desired an efficient method for our physicians to receive images from our patients without the handling of discs, and more importantly for our new patient telemedicine visits. There are often times when new patients have X-rays and MRIs prior to coming to our office, and with the image uploader on our website, this allows our physicians to examine these images during the telemedicine visit. This saves the patient time, and keeps them healthy at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. BGO is truly thankful to partner with Change Healthcare to assist with our workflow and ultimately help our patients receive the care they need.”
One simple button click allows patients or referring physicians to upload images directly to Change Healthcare Stratus Imaging Share.
