As provider organizations look for ways to manage an ever-increasing amount of data, cloud-based enterprise technologies are proving a valuable solution. Imaging services, in particular, with their large sources of data generation, can be a logical foray into the cloud for organizations seeking to make the journey.
Bronson Healthcare, a not-for-profit health system serving nine counties in southwest Michigan, embarked on its own cloud migration, with the goals of improving patient outcomes and reducing costs and technical complexity. It also had an aging on-premise data center, with imaging storage needs outpacing capacity.
“As we evaluated our long-term goal of reducing our data center footprint, the opportunity presented itself to reduce the complexity of our technical environment by adopting a cloud-based imaging archive,” says Ken Buechele, vice president, IT, Bronson Healthcare.
The new solution alleviates the recurring capital investments in new imaging storage platforms every several years. It also reduces the complexity of the organization’s data center environment by allowing it to transition the day-to-day work to the cloud vendor while providing faster and easier access of images to clinicians.
Moving to the cloud also aligned with Bronson Healthcare’s focus on cybersecurity. “Cloud vendors and their architectures are more ubiquitous and more readily restorable and, from that perspective, can make a big difference in responding to a ransomware or cybersecurity attack,” Buechele says.
Working with Change Healthcare, Bronson Healthcare implemented the cloud-based Stratus Imaging Archive in its radiology department in March 2021 and the Stratus Imaging Viewer in April.
Successful Implementation
Though specific metrics are still being reviewed, performance of the image archive and viewer has been effective. Physicians using the viewer daily—which number in the hundreds—report the tools allow them to access images faster compared with the on-premise imaging environment, according to Buechele.
Seamless integration with existing technologies has been another plus. The viewer integrates with the health system’s enterprise EHR and is accessible from mobile devices. “This has made it easier for our clinicians to respond to urgent patient care needs off hours,” Buechele says.
Once the cloud migration is fully complete, Bronson Healthcare’s IT staff will be able to focus more on initiatives that generate business value and less on work related to data storage life cycle efforts. “That includes transformational efforts in digital and consumer health,” Buechele says.
This is a common benefit for organizations making the cloud migration, according to Archie Mayani, chief product officer, Enterprise Imaging, Change Healthcare. “With a cloud-based solution, organizations can move beyond the basics of data storage management to really influence and grow the business,” she says.
Bronson Healthcare’s future plans include linking the imaging archive to its patient portal so patients can quickly access their images and more easily share them with providers. It also hopes to use its EHR’s interoperability functionality to make cloud-based images available to clinicians whose EHR isn’t compatible with Bronson’s, enhancing care coordination.
Making the Journey to Cloud
For organizations embarking on their own cloud-based enterprise imaging journeys, consider the following:
Involve clinicians from the get-go. Greg Mogel, MD, CMO, CareSelect, Change Healthcare, and a radiologist, knows firsthand how important transparency about new initiatives is to clinicians. “Early in the process, identify and engage key stakeholder clinicians in your organization, both from the ordering and the interpreting sides, to understand their workflows and how they’ll be impacted by a move to cloud,” he says. “Really invest in listening time.”
Understand short- and long-term IT goals. It’s important to understand these and the type of ROI the organization hopes to gain from a cloud-based enterprise imaging strategy, Mayani advises. She recommends healthcare executives talk to multiple cloud vendors to find one that fits their specific goals and can work with the organization’s existing technology systems. “The vendor needs to be a strategic partner,” Mayani says.
Start small while thinking big. When healthcare organizations are considering how enterprise imaging fits into their overall IT strategy, Buechele recommends starting with areas that will help deliver business value quickly, which can build momentum for further adoption. “Sometimes healthcare IT departments struggle with trying to solve the big problem all at once,” he says. “Where our organization had a lot of success was in strategically thinking, ‘We can take this small part of our enterprise imaging environment, move it to the cloud and solve near-term business problems, such as our ever-increasing storage needs, while at the same time modernizing those in a way that provides a better experience for our patients and clinicians in the long run.’”
For more information about enterprise imaging cloud-native strategy, please contact Archie Mayani, chief product officer, Enterprise Imaging, Change Healthcare, at archie.mayani@changehealthcare.com.