What's New In Digital Health

Within your practice you likely have a wide variety of systems at your disposal, each performing their own specific task. Although each software (ideally) performs its job efficiently, how well do they work with one another to support your practice?

As you go about your daily workflow, it is likely you deal with a wide variety of systems (perhaps an EMR software, dermoscopy analytics tools, teledermoscopy software, total body photography, clinical decision support tools to name a few).

Naturally, all systems within a practice play an essential role. It is important that they are able to work together (via interoperability) while remaining accessible to allow for information to be transferred, understood and processed between systems. Unfortunately, this goal remains unachieved for many practices

The State Of Dermatology Practices
Currently, the dermoscopy and dermatology industry is experiencing a massive shift; new and exciting tools for artificial intelligence in dermatology, enhanced security, and cloud-based EMR software should mean that practices are more advanced, efficient and accessible than ever. 

However, many practices are stuck with outdated machinery that not only fails to keep up with the latest digital health innovations, but weighs down the rest of the practice as a consequence. An all-too common example is the following:

A dermatologist has a monthly skin imaging appointment with a patient with a family history of melanoma. The task should be simple: perform a skin check and compare the images to previous pictures to identify any changes.

However, the patient’s personal information and images are stored in different systems, taking time to pull up both profiles. Then, the dermoscope will only allow images to be uploaded manually to its proprietary software, at which point it cannot be transferred to another system without formatting issues. The doctor has to pull up both sets of images side by side and comb through them. Altogether, this process takes nearly 30 minutes and results in:

• Lost time: gathering, transferring and manually uploading information wasted valuable time that could have been dedicated to providing care to other patients in need
• Inaccessible data: key pieces of information stored in different systems accessible only within the clinic limits the quality of care and attention the doctor can provide
• Missed insights: manually analyzing photos within the clinic caused the doctor to oversee potentially suspicious changes to a mole.
  
  
  

The Importance Of A Centralized Workflow
By adopting interoperable and accessible intelligent dermatology solutions such as DermEngine, medical professionals are able to streamline their practices and utilize the systems to their full potential. Building off the case study above, the following solutions can be applied:

• Connected interface: gather related data from across all software to compile comprehensive profiles to get the most out of your systems
• Accessible software: cross-platform accessibility allows you to be available anytime, anywhere for the utmost convenience and flexibility for both you and your patients
• Supported insights: become actively supported by the very software that used to burden your practice to make valuable insights for optimized patient care

As digital health technologies (in dermoscopy) continue to evolve, new systems are being created to address the challenges that once plagued the dermatology industry. By providing interoperable cloud-based EMR solutions medical professionals are able to remain connected, accessible, and gain deep insights that are were previously impossible.

Conclusion
As dermatology standards continue to change, it is essential that practices evolve with these upgrades. With many new and innovative technologies are readily available, practices are presented with an excellent opportunity to extend their practice accessibility, enhance workflows, and centralize information for  the utmost convenience for optimized workflows and care outcomes.

-The MetaOptima Team

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