Digitalizing healthcare: Siemens Healthineers presents solutions for actionable insights

• Siemens Healthineers inviting stakeholders to join forces in the Digital Ecosystem with the goal to gain deeper insights through large-scale digitalization of healthcare
• Almost 2000 institutions from roughly 50 countries already part of the Digital Ecosystem
• Siemens Healthineers to present new partners who will further broaden the offerings within the Digital Ecosystem
• Cloud-based or locally installable applications to be available in dedicated store
• Siemens Healthineers eHealth solutions to transform data governance by putting the patient in control of his/her personal health data
• eHealth Solutions wearables integration set to make a significant contribution to patient care

Global trends such as demographic change and rapid population growth will mean lasting changes to the face of healthcare as we know it. Healthcare providers will have to contend with the challenges of ever-growing cost pressure, decreasing reimbursement rates and fewer specialist staff, all while meeting high patient expectations. The digitalization of the healthcare system can help - and the key here is data. Every day, vast amounts of it are generated, for example in the form of images, laboratory results, pathological findings and reports. At this year's HIMSS in Las Vegas in the United States, Siemens Healthineers will be showcasing specific examples of how healthcare providers can use such data to deliver value based care with better outcomes at lower costs.

To enable the use of health-related data, Siemens Healthineers has created an open and secured environment for the multitude of healthcare stakeholders, like payors, patients and providers across the world, who can use a range of applications from Siemens Healthineers and numerous other partners based on shared healthcare data. Within the Siemens Healthineers cloud different data sources can be integrated and processed supporting a large variety of application types. To date almost 2000 institutions from roughly 50 countries are already part of this Digital Ecosystem continuously feeding their data into this ecosystem and deriving insights based on innovative applications and services.

Network of innovative services and applications
"Ever since the introduction of our first cloud-based offerings we have by now build an environment in which users leverage the insights of close to 40 million clinical dose and utilization studies from operating imaging equipment," explains Alexander Lippert, Head of Digital Ecosystem at Siemens Healthineers. “We are confident to significantly grow our data lake in size and in diversity. Based on this we will generate unprecedented insights through our own offerings as well as through innovative digital health partners.”

The aim is to help healthcare providers with faster and easier access to innovative digital health services and applications. This is why Siemens Healthineers is not only providing proprietary solutions and applications itself, but is also inviting solutions, data and platform-partners to join the environment. At HIMSS 2018, Siemens Healthineers will be unveiling a number of new partners who are set to broaden the Digital Ecosystem further:

• Amra Medical²: International digital health company that is the first in the world to transform images from a rapid, 6-minute whole body MRI scan into precise, 3D-volumetric fat and muscle measurements, enabling outstanding accuracy and precision when assessing lean tissue changes, muscle fat infiltration, and overall metabolic status. www.amramedical.com
• Circle²: It develops cvi⁴², a cardiovascular post-processing software for the analysis of MRI and CT images, providing rapid analysis with unparalleled accuracy. www.circlecvi.com
• Combinostics²: Its cNeuro cMRI application turns MRI brain images into objective measurements of brain structures, supporting early diagnosis in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. www.cneuro.com
• Cranberry Peak²: Its ezCDS product is approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the Appropriate Use Criteria Program. It provides compliance with ease for PAMA/MACRA mandates, with a patent pending AI assistant serving as a clinical decision support mechanism. With multilingual voice and conversational interface, ezCDS helps physicians spend more time with patients, and less with computer screens, creating the user experience of the future in healthcare. www.cranberrypeak.com
• Precision Image Analysis²: PIA is a service provider of cloud-based, advanced medical image post-processing and analysis. PIA offers an opportunity to avoid training personnel, software and hardware capital costs and employ an on-demand post-processing expert. Completed analyses are returned and auto-appended to original patient studies on the client’s PACS for final diagnostic interpretation by the physician. www.piamedical.com
• XIFIN²: This is the first partner to offer solutions for the laboratory on the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem. Their flagship cloud-based Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) solution optimizes the laboratory’s financial performance by maximizing efficiency, improving cash collection, and delivering financially accurate and actionable business intelligence. XIFIN’s solutions will be sold in the US market. www.xifin.com

Digital Ecosystem Store
All digital offerings will be available through a special marketplace, the Digital Ecosystem Store. The store allows users to search for, request a quotation or trial and download offerings as part of specific subscription models. Offerings available in the store will cover cloud-based as well as locally installed deployments, like Syngo.via³ OpenApps. Syngo.via OpenApps can be ordered through the store and installed directly into the Syngo.via user interface at the click of a button, enabling them to be seamlessly integrated into day-to-day clinical operations. Next will be OpenApps for mobile C-arms.⁴ It will help to improve the workflow in the OR in the future. Already the new systems like for example Cios Spin⁵ will provide these functions. Without investing in additional hardware, users shall be able to select and download applications directly from the store. After downloading, the application will immediately be available on the mobile C-arm. The big advantage: Customers and patients benefit from an ever-expanding range of medical applications. The Digital Ecosystem from Siemens Healthineers is continuously developing and growing, opening up new options for healthcare providers across the globe to efficiently introduce digital health offerings into their institution.

Good healthcare calls for relevant patient information
Actionable insights for the individual patient are fundamentally depending on the availability of the complete electronic health record. Due to the distributed nature of a typical record it is clear that a non-proprietary, vendor neutral approach is called for to provide such information.

With eHealth⁶ Solutions from Siemens Healthineers, healthcare providers are able to create a comprehensive electronic health record for patients by accessing various sources – including patient-generated data – without having to replace centralized IT platforms or hindering existing processes, regardless of the physical location of data or the system it is stored in. Doctors and other medical professionals are thus able to access patients' complete health records. Very importantly, patients can log in to access their own data via a secure patient portal and at the same time to control who can see their data.

There is also a new way of collecting data that is already part of everyday life for many people – wearables. This technology could end up making a major contribution to healthcare by providing comprehensive information about a patient's health history – without having to rely on sporadic snapshots gained during medical appointments. Wherever eHealth Solutions from Siemens Healthineers are used by healthcare providers, patients may connect their wearable devices and view their complete health records thanks to the interoperability of the solution. Whenever patient-generated data is uploaded to an electronic health record, doctors can access the information, enabling a form of remote monitoring. The big advantage this offers is that it promotes patient self-management, which in turn could help to contribute to a reduction in relapses. It could also close the gap between home monitoring and physician appointments, as healthcare professionals can access the information and, if necessary, contact patients directly. This saves valuable time and ensures higher quality patient care.

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