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Les Trachtman is the CEO of Purview, a company focused on disrupting the business of medical imaging. Prior to Purview, Les served as CEO of Force 3, Inc., a technology solutions and network security provider. Over the years, Les has also led other technology companies including Active Endpoints, e-OneHundred, Transcentive, and Metaserver. In his early career, Trachtman was responsible for creating the corporate development functions for both Progress Software (PRGS) and Hyperion Solutions, now part of Oracle. Les serves on the board of directors of The Metro Group and as the Entrepreneur in Residence at Union College. Les received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Union College and a JD and MBA from Emory University. He is currently authoring a book focused on helping founders and successors of entrepreneurial ventures.
Amid the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare institutions are seeing an opportunity to create formal remote second opinion (RSO) programs. Building and operating one can be complex, but some hospitals are already leading the way.
Suppose a specialist physician in California is corresponding with a patient in Texas who has an urgent illness. The physician wants to schedule an emergency appointment, but needs to review the patient's medical imaging studies to properly confirm and address the diagnosis. The patient could send a CD hard copy of their studies through the mail, but this is costly and wastes valuable time. The CD could also get lost in transit or arrive to the physician broken or unreadable.
If you work in health care, you need to protect the data in your picture archiving and communication system. It's critical to have good data backups because losing protected health information (PHI), including images, could be detrimental to your practice or hospital.
A full, consistent schedule is the bread and butter of any successful medical practice. Patients who miss their appointments, no-shows and last-minute cancellations can have a huge impact on your practice’s financial health.
Sharing medical images in a HIPAA-noncompliant fashion is a violation of patient privacy that can expose you to large fines and potentially criminal liability. But what exactly constitutes a HIPAA violation? In theory, the actions that constitute HIPAA violations are straightforward: sharing what's considered to be private health information (PHI) with someone who's not supposed to receive it.
But from this simple definition, HIPAA violations related to medical images in particular, can take many forms, including exposing a patient's medical images to a vendor who does not have a Business Associates Agreement (BAA), sharing images with a family member or spouse without the patient's written consent, losing a laptop computer or cell phone containing protected medical information, or even mailing a medical image to the wrong address.
This blog will present guidelines for remaining HIPAA compliant, sharing images, protecting patient privacy, and reducing your risk of violating HIPAA rules and regulations.
