Kno2, ImageTrend Enable Broad-based Interoperability for EMS

EMS agencies and hospitals streamline care coordination, improving patient safety and outcomes.

BOISE, Idaho, and LAKEVILLE, Minn. - October 16, 2019 – Kno2®, the company that provides interoperability as a service to everyone in healthcare, and ImageTrend, a company dedicated to connecting life’s most important data in the healthcare and emergency response community, are announcing their broad-based connectivity to Hospital Electronic Health Records (EHRs) leveraging investments already made in standards-based interoperability, streamlining care coordination, improving patient safety and outcomes.

There are very few transfers of care that are more high-risk than the hand-off of a critically injured or ill patient by emergency medical services (EMS) to a hospital team. During the intense few minutes of the transfer, important information is shared verbally followed up by a summary of the transport in a Patient Care Report (PCR) from the EMS team. The PCR is often delivered by hand, fax or made available through a web portal for later download. In rare cases, health systems have invested in expensive point to point interfaces with the local agencies to allow for real time delivery of critical patient information directly into the hospital’s EHR. Until now, true broad-based interoperability has never been realized in one of the most critical healthcare workflows.

With the introduction of Meaningful Use in 2008, Direct messaging was declared as the preferred method of delivery for referrals and transfers of care. As a result, EHR vendors integrated Direct messaging and the supporting tools that gave end users the ability to configure addresses, inboxes and alerts, allowing for workflow customization within the EHR to support the unique needs of each provider and use case.

With significant investments in certified EHRs made by over ninety percent of all US hospitals, interoperability partners Kno2 and ImageTrend have teamed up to expand and maximize these investments by streamlining EMS care coordination workflows leveraging the same interoperability protocols like the Direct Standard™. ImageTrend Elite™ and Health Information Hub™ (HIH) integrate to Kno2’s Interoperability as a Service™ allowing EMS agencies and hospital teams to realize many benefits including time critical access to ePCR data, improved reporting for the agency and the hospital, and removing costly and error-prone manual filing processes.

“Serving our clients and their mission to deliver optimal patient care is always our priority. Combining the strengths of ImageTrend's and Kno2's technologies is at the heart of achieving interoperability for EMS, hospitals and the health care continuum,” said Mike McBrady, president and CEO of ImageTrend. “We appreciate Kno2's collaboration in leveraging existing hospital technology to remove connectivity obstacles in healthcare.”

In the near future, ImageTrend will be expanding interoperability across hospitals and EMS to even more healthcare initiatives. Connecting the nation’s health networks, including exchanging data with providers live on Carequality and those connected through CommonWell Health Alliance, propels EMS in achieving near real-time communications with care teams. These initiatives forge the way for tracking readmissions, assistance in curbing the nation’s opioid epidemic and reducing costs of overall care by innovative, value-based care models such as community paramedicine.

“It’s our passion to drive fax out of every workflow in healthcare, especially those that carry the most dependency in ensuring information is quickly, accurately and completely shared between the providers involved,” said Kno2 CEO Jon Elwell. “Custom and expensive point to point interfaces are a thing of the past, and Kno2 is passionate about leveraging and maximizing the investment in interoperability and EHR technology made by providers across the country.” Elwell continues, “We are thrilled to have partners like ImageTrend who share in our vision for the future.”

Agencies, states and hospitals who want to understand their connection options for exchanging pre-hospital patient care reports and outcomes data should stop by the ImageTrend booth #831 at the EMS World Expo in New Orleans October 16th–18th or contact us.