HI-IQ® FROM CONEXSYS – A HIPAA CASE STUDY

Connectria – supporting HIPAA compliance through managed hosting.

HI-IQ is a software platform designed to be the centerpiece tool for managing interventional radiology workflow. ConexSys licenses HI-IQ to hospitals to improve departmental patient workflow, outcomes and inventory management. ConexSys has partnered with Connectria to oer HI-IQ as a hosted solution, providing ConexSys and its customers a low risk, cost ecient application. Discover how Connectria Hosting and ConexSys have teamed up to deliver a reliable and secure hosting solution in support of HIPAA compliance.

About HI-IQ

ConexSys has developed HI-IQ as a software platform for managing interventional radiology (IR) workflow. It enables IR departments within hospitals of all sizes to streamline patient scheduling and tracking, as well as proactively managing their QA process and inventory.

Developed in accordance with the original goals of the HI-IQ project, defined by the Society of Interventional Radiology in 1993, and the culmination of IR best practices, HI-IQ is widely adopted among many hospitals.

The HI-IQ system captures and reports on comprehensive patient, procedural, and inventory data. It facilitates compliance with quality improvement initiatives, encourages billing accuracy, maximizes resource utilization and eciency analysis, and enables “just-in-time” inventory management.

Designed with flexibility in mind, HI-IQ can be configured to meet the needs of any given institution.

Today, HI-IQ is used by hundreds of hospitals throughout the world, ranging from large multi-campus academic institutions to small community hospitals.

HIPAA Challenges

As a Business Associate of its hospital customers, ConexSys must protect and secure patient information according to HIPAA regulations. And since its HI-IQ solution manages a variety of data, including information such as patient identifiers, allergies, preexisting conditions, diagnoses, and costs, among others, ConexSys must ensure the integrity of PHI (Protected Health Information).

As ConexSys developed HI-IQ for a hosted platform, they required the hosting provider to be accountable to the same guidelines and standards as those they upheld.

A search for the right hosting partner revealed that few companies are capable of understanding and addressing HIPAA compliance. Additionally, the hosting partner would be required to support Citrix, the delivery method of choice for HI-IQ, a characteristic not common among many HIPAA hosting providers.

As a software provider, ConexSys prefers to focus upon developing, marketing, delivering and supporting HI-IQ and not maintaining a HIPAA compliant IT infrastructure. The right hosted solution would provide them this opportunity.

Similar to ConexSys, IR departments face common challenges; namely, a desire and preference to concentrate upon delivering quality healthcare, not managing an IT system and HIPAA regulations. To the extent that ConexSys and its hosting partner may alleviate these concerns, an IR department is more apt to adopt the solution. Other reasons for choosing a hosted HI-IQ solution include:

• No capital investment required…only an affordable, fixed monthly operating cost is needed.
• Departmental self-reliance…do not need the support of the hospital’s IT department.
• HIPAA support is inherent in the solution…facilitates compliance.
• Have access to the latest technologies…can quickly scale as needed.
• Relieves the IR department of maintaining systems, including backups and restores.
• Have ability to access system anywhere…only an internet connection is needed.

Choosing Connectria

Following a six month search, ConexSys chose Connectria Hosting. ConexSys recognized Connectria’s strong foundation of HIPAA knowledge, services and experience. With solid HIPAA customer references, Connectria had clearly done this before. ConexSys realized they would have the support that they needed and they wouldn’t be left on their own to figure things out.

And unlike other hosting providers whose SAS 70 claims may be limited to sales order or other processes, Connectria’s SAS 70 certification is directly related to its actual hosting services or hosting infrastructure.

According to Emily DeMerchant, ConexSys Director, “Connectria’s experience and support made us feel comfortable. We didn’t feel like we would be ‘an experiment’ with them. They had the right combination of security compliance, hardware and support. Once we moved to implementation, it only took about a week to deploy the solution.”

“Connectria’s solution has freed us of the demands involved with maintaining IT systems and infrastructure,” noted Emily DeMerchant. “We now spend more time on HI-IQ development. No longer do we have to worry whether we’ll have the IT resources to acquire additional customers. With Connectria, we now scale on demand.There’s definitely been a return on investment in choosing Connectria’s HIPAA hosting solution.”

To learn more about Connectria and our HIPAA hosting solutions, please visit us at:
http://www.connectria.com/solutions/hipaa.php

To learn about our Citrix Hosting solutions, please visit:
http://www.connectria.com/technologies/citrix_hosting.php


To learn more about HI-IQ, please visit:
http://www.HI-IQ.com



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