“In many respects, an EMR [electronic medical record] system is only as good as the information in it,” says David Cheng, president and CEO of Accenx Technologies, which focuses on hospital-to-physician information exchange solutions. “Too much information remains in isolated silos rather than being shared. Too much data has to be re-entered or re-created instead of being exchanged.”
The Accenx Exchange is a health information exchange (HIE) services platform that brings the medical records in any given community much closer together by actually extending the reach out to the physician practices, hospitals and other healthcare organizations. It allows public or private HIEs to immediately establish a technology and service platform for sharing clinical results, orders and other patient information among providers using virtually any EMR system - or no EMR at all. The Accenx platform can also host applications including EMRs and deploy them in a remotely managed environment. Once deployed, these applications are “connected”. To encourage participation and allow for incremental growth, non-EMR practices can use the Accenx Web-based application to view clinical results and orders statuses or auto-print the information. It is truly a platform with a focus on delivering value added services to its participants.
The firm's roots are in healthcare system integration. It was founded in 1997 as a healthcare integration consulting firm, in fact, and still offers a wide range of integration services. Supported by the largest dedicated group of integration specialists in the healthcare IT industry, a 50-person team, Accenx can be highly responsive.
Accenx takes the software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach, fully managing the service for rapid deployment and providing physician outreach services to facilitate adoption. “We can go from contract signature to a live, connected private HIE in less than a month,” says Cheng.
The underlying pay-as-you-go business model, which requires very little upfront cost, has become very attractive in today's economic climate. In the last three months, the number of sites participating in HIEs through Accenx has almost doubled. “With all the momentum from ARRA [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act],” says Cheng, “our speed of deployment and low upfront investment is a great advantage.”
Sidebar
Accenx Technologies, Inc.
6 Jenner, Suite 260, Irvine, California 92618, 1-888-4ACCENX, http://www.accenx.com
Healthcare Informatics 2009 September;26(9):13
