Breaking down the barriers to information sharing is critical for optimal patient care. Physicians need all relevant data when making decisions, and that ability is compromised when data is silo’d in different systems. Many radiology practices create HL7 connections to bridge disparate systems and get data flowing.
HL7 is more efficient than faxing—where hours are lost to order follow-up on the phone—but when a practice services hundreds of referring physicians, the sheer volume quickly reveals the limitations of building HL7 connections.
East Valley Diagnostic Imaging (EVDI) faced this exact challenge. A thriving practice—with seven clinical sites and 44 radiologists—in Mesa, Arizona, EVDI knew that there had to be a better way.
70%
Percentage of faxed orders that require follow-up by call center personnel
200
Calls per day that call center personnel cannot work, because they are clarifying a faxed order
70%
Percentage of faxed orders that require follow-up by call center personnel
200
Calls per day that call center personnel cannot work, because they are clarifying a faxed order
Faxing: Tapping Into Technology
The EVDI team knew that technology was the key to the problem and had established HL7 connections with referring physician offices. HL7 connections allow the referrer to send orders directly and securely to EVDI. “The number of connections we were servicing were growing at an alarming rate,” said Valerie Sowers, EVDI’s Director of Clinical Operations. “Alarming because they cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 to build and maintain each connection.”
Jodi Shaffer, Director of Business Operations at EVDI, said, “The population is aging, which means that orders are increasing. While increased volume is certainly a positive, we have to deliver high-quality service in a cost-effective way. It was a constant challenge to increase HL7 connections fast enough to maintain operations.”
“While HL7 connections were an improvement over faxing, the delays involved in connecting to referring physicians were a source of concern from a customer service standpoint,” said George Smit, IT Applications Manager at EVDI. “We had 20 to 30 HL7 connections at once, at a cost of about $300,000 and growing. Of course, every time one of our referrers made a change to their system, we had to spend multiple hours of I.T. time to ensure that the interface was still valid. That’s more cost. Something had to change.”
Convinced that technology held the answer, the EVDI team looked for the best way to leverage I.T. tools to gain the efficiencies they needed. There had to be a way to improve physician access to results without the complexity, cost, and delays of building interfaces.
EVDI Goals
- Reduce the resources required to create / maintain HL7 interfaces so that efficiency stays high for referring physicians and staff.
- Eliminate the need to create more interfaces with multiple RIS or EMRs.
- Create a system that can flex to accommodate volume –during work hours and after hours.
- Reduce IT manpower needs (FTE cost $80K–$100,000+/person).
- Resolve other workflow issues to gain cost-efficiency.
What is ScriptSender?
ScriptSender creates direct, secure, cost-effective communication solutions for healthcare organizations. Using a simple print command, referrers can transmit any document, from any application, to another medical provider—orders, prescriptions, clinical notes, lab results, anything. It is one-click integration. Providers and their referring physicians can bypass faxing, CD burning, and complex VPN or HL7 configurations.