lifeIMAGE Awarded Grant to Bring Medical Image Sharing to the Massachusetts HIE
Newton, Mass. – June 20, 2013 – lifeIMAGE has been awarded a grant to bring medical image sharing to the Massachusetts Health Information Highway (HIway), the Commonwealth’s Health Information Exchange (HIE). The grant, awarded by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and its Massachusetts eHealth Institute, will fund a project designed by lifeIMAGE, Boston Children’s Hospital and Atrius Health to demonstrate that communication of imaging exams over the Mass HIway during trauma patient transfers will improve patient care and reduce the need for duplicate exams.
The HIway is a secure statewide network that facilitates the transmission of healthcare data and health information among providers, hospitals and other healthcare entities. When fully developed, the HIway will provide a mechanism for the Commonwealth’s entire health care community—residents, providers, public health officials and others—to have appropriate access to health information.
“Being a Massachusetts based company makes this grant very meaningful for us in a whole different dimension,” said Hamid Tabatabaie, founder and CEO of lifeIMAGE. “This is where we live, and where we have lots of family, friends, colleagues and customers. The prospect of playing a direct role in the quality of care they receive and provide is very gratifying. With this grant, we hope to light up the way and demonstrate the viability of a simple approach to allow physicians access to patients’ imaging history, no matter where the images were captured in the first place. Just a few years ago this would have been technically unimaginable, but now it is matter of good planning and deliberate action. We are thrilled to be a disruptive element in the overall equation.”
The grant program solicited projects that would make existing processes more efficient and cost effective, and also improve patient care. This project qualified, based on its potential to improve care for trauma patients by making imaging data available in a timely manner and reducing unnecessary repeat exams.
“The participation of health care organizations throughout Massachusetts is key to the success of the Mass HIway and realizing the goals of health care reform,” said Laurance Stuntz, Director of the Massachusetts eHealth Institute at MassTech. “These projects will help take steps toward improving care and addressing costs through health technology.”
Boston Children's Hospital has been a lifeIMAGE customer since 2010, and has already had success using the company’s ReferralBox product to improve trauma care. For the grant project, lifeIMAGE services will be configured to connect to the HIway via the Participant Directory to allow image sharing over that network, in addition to the lifeIMAGE network.
About lifeIMAGE
lifeIMAGE provides a broad set of solutions for universal e-sharing of diagnostic imaging information. These products securely connect hospitals, radiology groups and physicians to their patients everywhere and are currently deployed at many of the nation’s leading healthcare institutions and academic medical centers. The goal of the lifeIMAGE platform is to help avoid duplicate exams and eliminate unnecessary patient exposure to excessive radiation. Learn more at http://www.lifeimage.com.
About the Mass HIway
The Massachusetts Health Information Highway (Mass HIway) is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) and the Massachusetts eHealth Institute to deploy a secure statewide health information exchange. The Mass HIway enables the electronic movement of health related information among diverse organizations, such as doctors’ offices, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, skilled nursing facilities and health plans. Learn more at #MassHIWay.
About the Massachusetts eHealth Institute
The Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is the state's entity for health care innovation, technology, and competitiveness and is responsible for advancing the dissemination of health information technology throughout Massachusetts, including the deployment of electronic health records systems in all health care provider settings and connecting them through the statewide health information exchange. For more information, please visit mehi.masstech.org and follow @MassEHealth.