Integration

Cisco and Karos Health unveil information-sharing technology

QUEBEC CITY – Karos Health and Cisco are jointly introducing the Cisco Medical Data Exchange Solution (MDES) into the North American market to provide healthcare professionals from multiple institutions with access to patient data from previously disconnected information systems using incompatible formats and disparate medical terminology.

The companies made the announcement at the eHealth conference held here in early June.

The Cisco MDES provides the collaborative tools necessary to improve cross-facility communication and patient care. MDES utilizes the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) technical frameworks to establish a standards-based approach to interoperability and data exchange.

MDES addresses two key challenges: formulating a common patient reference, and being able to share and access patient records across disparate systems. In addition, the solution conforms to the IHE security framework to support authorized access and to deny unauthorized access to records. The MDES’s interoperability capabilities also reduce costs by eliminating costly manual transport and proprietary data exchanges and interfaces.

As a member of Cisco’s AXP Developer Partner and Cisco Technology Developer Programs, Karos Health works with Cisco to customize and deploy the MDES solution. With the MDES platform, the complexity of medical data integration is greatly simplified, providing a high level of security and simplifying deployment for healthcare entities with multiple hospitals, distributed clinics and labs, and remote practices.

“With the Cisco MDES, clinical information exchanges can be gradually deployed. For example, the process can start with two hospitals, then encompass their referral base and ancillary services, then expand to a whole regional health authority and, potentially, to a national grid of connected health providers and patients,” said Rick Stroobosscher, president of Karos Health. “Clinical information exchange grids are the stepping stone to electronic health records (EHRs), providing their users with all information generated along multi-provider patient care pathways.”

“The Cisco network architecture makes MDES a hardened resilient platform, which can be deployed as a set of appliances and centrally configured and monitored,” said Brantz Myers, director, Healthcare Business Development for Cisco Canada. “With MDES, the network becomes the healthcare platform for collaborating, decreasing costs and risks, and simplifying IT management.”

At the eHealth conference, MDES was at the core of the e-Health Interoperability Showcase, a multivendor demonstration where disparate clinical systems exchanged health information according to a set of typical clinical scenarios while adhering to industry standards.

In addressing the evolution of healthcare delivery, one of the principal challenges is the seamless exchange of medical data across multiple health organizations. Healthcare enterprises and regional authorities are growing quickly and looking to improve their productivity and the quality of patient care. They also face tremendous challenges in connecting their IT and legacy clinical systems in order to share disparate medical data across health organizations

“Healthcare information will be the cornerstone to our moving forward with longitudinal health records, and this solution provides a solid platform to move the information in a safe and highly secure manner,” said Mark Farrow, chief information officer and assistant vice president, Information and Communication Technologies, Hamilton Health Sciences Centre.

For more about the Cisco Medical Data Exchange Solution: http://cisco.com/web/strategy/healthcare/all_medical-grade.html.

Cisco is a worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco Canada Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has offices across Canada dedicated to customer support, sales and service. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com/canada/

About Karos Health
Karos Health develops solutions that improve patient care. Karos’software solutions support the exchange of health information across enterprises and communities, fostering collaboration between healthcare vendors, providers, and patients. With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare integration field, the Karos team advocates for the patient, leveraging existing systems and cultivating relationships with healthcare vendors to ensure the digital exchange of clinical information. For more information about Karos Health, visit www.karoshealth.com.