Faxing still a reality in the EMR era.

Even though the movement of health data is becoming more digitized and shared electronically, one of the main distribution channels for lab results is still the classic faxsimile.  The reality for many labs is that this is how most lab results are communicated to referring physicians.  Conversations with pathology labs around the country reveal issues with faxing reports,…

Enemies & Friends

We discussed “partnering with your competition” in a post a few months ago and thought it made sense to follow up on the topic after moving further down this path ourselves.  We (Pathagility) serve pathology laboratories and their healthcare partners (referring physicians, hospitals, etc.) with our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.  A lot is going on in this market.  As our…

When you’ve outgrown FileMaker Pro

FileMaker Pro is an easy to use, flexible database tool that is quite popular in the pathology laboratory world.  Many database applications (laboratory information systems or LIS) for this market have been developed due to cost factors and ease of deployment especially if the lab has limited IT resources.  FileMaker Pro will continue to be popular for sometime with smaller volume…

Simplicity of HL7

Came across this post and video about how HL7 works on Twitter by @HL7 and really enjoyed the simplicity of it.  What’s interesting though is that HL7 doesn’t seem to be simple at all.  Please know I’m not saying HL7 isn’t a good thing, because standardization can add to progression.  Also, I’m a business guy and need to leave the details to…

Software Pricing Dialogue

Software pricing – what an interesting science!  So much goes into strategically positioning your software product, platform and/or service in the particular market you are in from a value perspective.  You start by positioning your software business model against competitors – traditional software model vs. SaaS for instance.  In our experience, there is still an educational process when many potential clients…

Are all healthcare SaaS platforms created equally?

We’ve already discussed the benefits of SaaS in healthcare especially those applications that provide opportunity for customization.  But are all SaaS platforms equal?  No…you guessed it… they certainly are not.  In choosing a SaaS platform in healthcare, there are several criteria that need to be examined.  The check list should including the following at a minimum: Redundancy –…

SaaS, Healthcare IT and Customization

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model has been in existence for many years and continues to successfully prove out its value proposition compared to traditional legacy software system models.  We published a post a few months ago on the total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits of SaaS. The healthcare industry was slower initially in its adoption of…

Can Healthcare IT vendors and providers roll up their sleeves to tackle the adoption challenge?

Challenges and questions still remain as we enter the new era of Healthcare IT.  The fit of practices and vendors depends largely on the willingness and commitment of all parties to roll up their collective sleeves to tackle obstacles identified and the one lying right around the corner.  Will your business’ growth be stunted by…

Is there such thing as a turn key solution in healthcare IT?

While it seems that most healthcare providers are hoping to get to the stage where health information systems (EMR/EHR, LIS, RIS, etc.) provide more workflow efficiency, extreme data security and flexible partner collaboration, the path to Utopia seems to be different in almost every case.  This is due to the fact that each provider is…