VANCOUVER – (April 2, 2016) – Today, at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting, HI-IQ launches an exhibit demonstrating how its best-of-breed system, designed for and by interventional radiologists, is a critical component in the hospital information systems ecosystem.
With the proliferation of information systems used in today’s hospital environment coupled with the national focus and incentives to collect electronic healthcare data (i.e. Meaningful Use, PQRS, ACO’s, etc.), a common misconception exists that IR’s have adequate quality improvement data at their fingertips. As an increasing number of interventional radiology departments are realizing, the options available for tracking this data are lacking.
“Today, all of our prospective customers use electronic medical records systems (EMR’s or EHR’s), radiology information systems (RIS) and probably four or five other systems as well. Yet, they all come to us asking how we can help them collect quality, cost and outcomes data in their IR practices,” says HI-IQ’s Clinical Software Design Director, Kevin Lauzon, R.T.(R)(CT), CIIP. Kevin went on to say, “There’s a real gap between what these enterprise, one-size-fits-all systems can do, and what’s actually needed to keep an IR department running smoothly and using data for continuous improvement. This is where HI-IQ excels.”
HI-IQ’s most recent incarnation, HI-IQ IRIS, a fully redesigned, browser-based, enterprise-ready application, includes expanded interface capabilities, helping to ensure that whatever data is captured in enterprise systems is automatically populated into a patient’s HI-IQ record. This saves time and ensures accuracy. HI-IQ’s role is not to replace enterprise systems, it is to fill the gaps left by these systems in a way that’s only possible with a system designed by and for interventional radiologists.
A very recent integration example highlights how HI-IQ can operate in conjunction with a dictation system. Recognizing overlaps and synergies between the data captured in the radiology report and data documented for Quality Assurance within its software, HI-IQ has leveraged Nuance’s specifications to build an interface to Nuance’s PowerScribe® 360. Utilizing the SIR Annual Meeting as a platform to educate interventional radiology professionals, on Sunday at 4:30 pm HI-IQ will be hosting a live demonstration of this bi-directional interface that cross-populates quality data between HI-IQ and PowerScribe® 360. The companies began working together as an outgrowth of the SIR’s and SIR Foundation’s recent initiative to develop and publish structured reports. This integration will support data submission to the National IR Quality Registry that is in development by the SIR Foundation and the American College of Radiology (ACR).
Quality extends far beyond clinical and outcomes data, and another aspect of improving IR quality will be discussed on Monday at 2:30 pm at the Annual Meeting. “Using HI-IQ as a Process Improvement Tool” will be delivered by Haraldur Bjarnason, MD, FSIR, Professor of Radiology, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Bjarnason will detail how the Mayo Clinic uses HI-IQ data to plan staffing, study room utilization and make patient scheduling improvements. These critical aspects of IR process efficiency are absent from enterprise systems, but easily captured and tracked in HI-IQ.
For those who have recognized gaps in the features and functionalities of one-size-fits-all software systems, HI-IQ offers a welcome best-of-breed solution designed to meet the unique and constantly evolving needs for quality data documentation and analysis.
