You have may have already read about the big CommonWell project with the consortium of big EMR players and what they are working on I’m sure is right along this line as well with using APIs and a cloud platform to connect any type of electronic medical record system.  Again they have more involved of course as far as putting together as they have existing business client imageout there and do can’t upset their apple cart and rightly so as I would do the same in their positions.  Internally as an example too with Kaiser Permanente, they have done some work internally to develop their own Clarity Server configurations that aligns with their Epic Medical Records System, so using a Clarity server as a tool is not brand new out of the box by any means and here with Zoeticx it’s doing a job being “middleware”. 

Not too long ago there was some kind of an update on Forbes I think it was with the journalists previewing a little bit of what their efforts were as Commonwell and I remember reading it was something to the effect of “they put something in the software to enable all EHRs to communicate”.  Well that may be just the very same direction at what we have  here with Zoeticx.   Here’s a couple prior posts I created not too long ago when the product was introduced. 

Zoeticx Patient Clarity Server -HIE For Next Generation of Healthcare Applications -Agnostic To Current EMR Deployments, Works With Any Electronic Medical Records System From the Cloud With A Common User Interface
Another Answer To Interoperability With Medical Records - Middleware From Zoeticx With Common User Interface, I Knew That Idea Would Not Die:)

For years there’s been discussion on using APIs  in healthcare, and time has arrived but again it’s new technology and Zoeticx has been in the works for a couple years now to give you a timeline on development time and for that matter look how long CommonWell has been working at it too.  I read this article at Politico and about fell off my chair though.  First off it really makes a case for Congress to restore the Office of Technology Assessment as if they had that research available they wouldn’t be having this conversation about EHRs communicating.  I have been screaming about this for 3 years when we live in such complex times, you would think Congress would put this in place to help them so they could be productive and understand the fast evolving technologies we have. 

Bill To Restore Office of Technology Assessment Was Defeated Again This Year As Congress Chooses to Remain In the Dark With Technology At A Time When Private Industry Is Doing Just the Opposite - “The Grays” Live On…

From Politico article…

“The Appropriations Committee asked for a “detailed report” on the extent of information blocking, including an estimate on the number of vendors or eligible hospitals or providers who block information, and how to combat it. It also demanded the Healthimage IT Policy Committee submit a report on the barriers to interoperability.

An ONC representative would not comment. The agency is in charge of managing the EHR incentive program that CMS has funded with about $25 billion in incentive payments since 2011.”


It’s kind of what I call a very goofy and political battle going on out there with many EHRs building this perceptual nightmare for the general public to stamp out smaller medical record vendors.  I’ve seen a bunch of those articles out there even to the point to where someone blogged and and just really went off the wall about “those bad interoperable EHRs”.  There’s very few “bad” EMRs out there if you will as companies work hard at their programming and nobody wants to lose market share by all means.  I found it rather humorous actually, but I look at things differently anyway than someone who’s never written code and consumer should listen to folks like as we tell you what’s going on and it might be boring and not as interesting as a news article, I can agree with that.  The video below shows an example on how a nurse at the hospital would communicate on an Ipad with a doctor who is not at the hospital, just one example of a consultation demo. 

From a recent press release:

“The API resides within Zoeticx’s powerful Patient-Clarity server, utilizing Zoeticx Gateway technology designed specificallyimage to seamlessly read and write to any EMR system. The server drives the collaborative “smart” hub for Zoeticx’s own suite of Care applications--CareIntelligence, CareSynergy, CareHistory and CareCompliance, developed with the Patient-Clarity server. 

“We recently introduced a Healthcare Open Architecture to bring long awaited EMR connectivity to medical professionals.  Now Zoeticx has opened its API so EMR developers worldwide can build apps once and deploy them anywhere, helping the medical industry bridge the gap between medical data and improved patient care,” said Thanh Tran, Co-Founder and CEO of Zoeticx.  “We look forward to working with third-parties and making it easy for world class apps to be launched for the betterment of medical patients across the globe.”   

Application developers can develop on any platform and license the PC server from Zoeticx.These products are engineered using the latest mobile, cloud, and SOA technology.”


Of course Zoeticx likes to partner with EMR vendors by all means as everyone wins here.  Again I mention that somewhat political battle and the perceptions being painted right now on and EMR witch hunt if you will that seems counter productive to me, but that’s how marketing works out there today in political battles. Again Congress would be ahead of the game at times if they had that Office of Technology Assessment as they could digest and report items like this so they don’t get snowed.  We have had enough of that with the “Sebelius Syndrome” at HHS since 2009 and even though she’s gone, there’s a lot of other folks, i.e. even the SEC that has that syndrome. 

This next video might be a little boring to the average reader but for those in Health IT it will be interesting for sure.  This shows some configurations and some simulated information on how the “alert” system functions with Zoeticx and screenshots of role users here and how it works.  The great thing here I forgot to mention is that you have the same “common user interface” at all sides.  There’s also noting to stop an app being built to where this information could be shared with a patient. 

Security is built in with using the Symantec Sealed Program.   A while back Nuance gave Zoeticx an App of the month award as well.  SureScripts has an open API as well – so does eClinicalWorks and it might not be too quick to build a solution like Zoeticx because it is not in their interest to solve the problem for their competitors?  That’s just a guess on my part and then imageagain we circle back around to the Commonwell Health Alliance as mentioned above who’s working on their solution too as you can can bet it’s using APIs as for the last couple of years there have been endless articles asking “when is healthcare going to begin using APIs”.  It has not been that simple in healthcare as other industries as there’s been a lot of work on standards, and I mean a lot not to mention time and money. 

The developer/CEO here spent a great deal of his life in the past at Borland (which if you have been around for while in IT you know that name) and BEA software building infrastructure solutions.  With Zoeticx Red Hat is a strategic partner as well as other established relationships with tools such as New Relic which is used by companies such as the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, NBC and more.  

Anyway with reading that somewhat “nonsense” article in Politco I thought maybe it was time for another post here.  It’s really interesting too as I have sent folks like so far on the other posts I have written to get some feed back and “nobody seems to understand this and then yet the next day I see an article asking “why is healthcare not using APIs”…very interesting and of course tells youimage that we have a disconnect here with what can be done today and just the fact that Health IT is becoming pretty complex out there.  Next up though with news, it’s going to be the consumer that needs more education (sorry had to include this satire as I see that out there all the time and Sebelius was so infamous for those talks herself when she is right up at the top of the list herself:)

I’m not picking on the journalists from Politico, but rather the lack of knowledge and an agency that can help Congress with this battle so they don’t get snowed.  We have enough Algo Duping out there today for sure with perceptions that are just flat out wrong and it’s hard to understand this side of the world for the consumer too, so why I create pages like the Killer Algorithms with videos at layman level to shed some light on some of this too.  Heck for that matter in addition to restoring the Office of Technology Assessment, Congress and their staff as well as the White House could spend some time over there too, it’s only there to help so why not let it rip and share some wealth of knowledge? 

So in closing here, check it out and let’s move interoperability off the war zone here and perhaps look at what an open infrastructure has to offer as this could easily work at the VA and DOD as well with each facility having a Clarity Server from Zoeticx and how long have we been waiting for that one?  Sometimes too though in the case of the VA and DOD, they may have spent money and I’m sure they have burial ground of sandbox software they have tested, but in this case waiting for the technology imagesuch as Zoeticx might be the best thing that has come along.  No matter what the decide to do with bidding and upgrading systems, Zoeticx has no problem with legacy systems and could sit on top of VistA today as well as the DOD ALTHA system.  ALTHA and VA  systems are not as bad what the news tells you, they work and with any software system, they need updates, so be careful on what you read. 

The White House even has a version of the DOD ALTHA as their medical records system.  So rather than fighting this battle at the EMR level it makes sense to me to stop wasting time here and move forward by all means. Now we have both Democrats and Republicans on this and this should be music to their ears if you will and again if they had that Office of Technology Assessment to help them too, well we might even be seeing this article in Politico as they would be miles ahead, and be doing the work and support that we want them to as consumers. 

There’s nothing but a bunch of wasted time going to come out of a battle on non inter operative medical records systems at this point and time to move forward and quit  wasting time.  Zoeticx was initially funded with a grant from the NIH.  Would it not be nice to start putting affordable solutions in place, and maybe get Congress to reinstate that Office of Technology Assessment at the same time:) BD

2 comments :

  1. You need a proofreader.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are absolutely correct, want to be my proofreader? I'm a small independent blogger who developed an early EMR and my readers know how much material I crank out quickly and I used some speech recognition as well. Again when I put all of this out for free and have other things to worry about such as eating, paying rent, it limits my time.

    Most of my readers know this and we have had this discussion so if you wan to work for free like I do to publish this blog let me know. That would be great! Again my background is different than most being a former code writing and an outside sales rep for over 25 years, and it's not too often you find both in one person, so again something have to give here and email if you want to be my "free" editor, can always use the help.

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