January 6, 2017 — Nuance Communications Inc. announced in November that it enhanced its PowerShare Network capabilities in collaboration with Coordinated Care of Oklahoma (CCO) to make image awareness in health information exchanges (HIEs) now a reality. CCO is a leading health information network of hospitals, health systems and physicians in Oklahoma.
This evolution in HIE interoperability provides full access to and the seamless exchange of digital medical images and reports through the cloud plus real-time awareness of patient’s prior medical images at the point of care. Nuance PowerShare for HIE provides clinicians with intelligent access to consolidated patient imaging records across systems and facilities in a way that immediately becomes actionable. This delivers clinical and patient advantages, and adds sustainability and profitability where HIEs have struggled in the past.
“We went looking for data and image liquidity across our HIE and took a real world, nuts-and-bolts approach that we know will work, will be familiar to users and drive immediate value, said Brian Yeaman, M.D., chief administrative officer, CCO. “We looked to DICOM standards and the cloud as the most logical way forward. Since DICOM standards are the way all PACS [picture archiving and communication systems] currently handle images, it made sense to leverage it as a basis for this new evolution in HIE interoperability. To move images from one facility to the next, it's important to do more than just move pieces of the image, and Nuance PowerShare provided a solution that is awesome with full access to records through the cloud.”
The PowerShare Network for HIE will improve the provider experience with an easy approach to cross-regional HIE interoperability, which was difficult to achieve in the past. Connecting through PowerShare will enable a smarter, more proactive approach to patient matching between providers, where patient data is retrieved and aggregated before a physician has to even ask for it. This cloud-based approach eliminates high costs, duplication of image storage and searching for patient records that may be stored in disparate systems or sites.
CCO is deploying Nuance PowerShare for HIE to connect 10 facilities to start and will integrate this approach into an existing Cerner HIE environment. CCO is also driving a new and more profitable business model by delivering this value-added service to all of its members.
“We are focused on delivering value to our clients, our providers and to our members in terms of reimbursement and quality of services in a network. Nuance solved our problem because today we are able to exchange images across different PACS systems inside of one health system, as well as across multiple health systems, bringing that patient data including medical images and reports at the point of care,” added Yeaman.
Nuance PowerShare for HIE was demonstrated at the Radiological Society of North America Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting (RSNA16), Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 2016, in Chicago.
For more information: www.nuance.com
April 11, 2024 
