Transition Time

Here it comes.

Your child is about to graduate high school and "become an adult". Maybe they are headed off to college or maybe they're planning on sitting things out under your roof for the time being while they figure out their next move.

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Regardless of their hopes and dreams and, unfortunately- regardless of their level of ambition, this is a time of transition for both you and your child. It's also a time of transition in your child's health care.

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When a young adult patient moves from the colorful and comfortable realm of the pediatrician's office into the white-walled, magazine-stacked waiting rooms of the primary care clinic, many records need to be transferred behind the scenes. Although charts can be e-mailed and vaccination records can be faxed (yes, sometimes they are still faxed!), imaging records are often left behind. Images may be antiquated or inaccessible to the patient who doesn't have the ability to open special DICOM files. That is where Jack Imaging comes in.

With Jack Imaging, the transition is simplified. Streamlining medical imaging into a free, patient-run account is easy. Cloud-based storage allows the patient access their own images whenever they want. Patients can allow their new primary care physician to access images and store any new images into their account to create a seamless record as dynamic as the patient themselves. NO calls or visits to old pediatrician's offices to pick up discs or referrals to hospital records. Just secure images at hand, whenever the patient wants them.

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What kind of troubles have you experienced when transitioning care to a new doctor? We want to know how we can help. Post below or e-mail us! 

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and join the #patientchat conversation, happening each Friday at 10am PST!  

View Medical Images Instantly With Jack Imaging's Web Viewer

Nephosity is excited to announce its latest release that allows instant viewing of medical images (e.g., CT, MRI, X-ray) in the web browser, with no plug-ins or installation required. 

1. Drag files from your CD and drop them onto the Jack Imaging web browser

Users can simply drag and drop a CD containing their medical images onto the Jack Imaging web browser and begin viewing medical images.

2. Begin viewing!

Jack Imaging Web Viewer's many features include:

• Easy drag and drop to view images
• A search function to quickly locate specific images
• Image manipulation through window and level, pan and zoom functions
• Annotation and cursor capabilities
• Collaboration sessions
• Anywhere, anytime access

Annotation tools can help you during appointments with your provider

Our new Jack Imaging web viewer (available at jackimaging.com/demo) helps patients, caretakers and providers overcome the all-too-common speed and compatibility issues associated with accessing medical images today. 

The percentage of imaging exams performed each year that are unnecessary - Wall Street Journal

When medical images are unavailable at the point of care (e.g., the CDs are lost, forgotten, or do not load), patients are often re-imaged. This redundant imaging incurs additional costs for both payers and patients and exposes patients to additional and otherwise unnecessary radiation. On the other hand, patients who store their medical imaging related data on Jack Imaging ensure that their data is available whenever they are needed. 

This latest release marks a step towards Nephosity's vision of a healthcare ecosystem where medical images are available at the point of care and across transitions of care.

Start viewing your images at: jackimaging.com/demo

Watch our demo video at: youtu.be/8ia87DUxB7M

Box and Nephosity Collaborate in the Cloud

Nephosity is excited to announce its latest partnership with online file sharing and cloud content management service, Box. 

Access and view DICOM files stored on Box by logging into your Box account and clicking 'access files on box'

As of October 10th 2013, users will now be able to view and share medical images stored on Box directly on the iPad. Watch our 1.5 min video guide demonstrating how to access DICOM files stored on Box using MobileCT:

Quick recap:

• Download and open the MobileCT app on your iPad
• Click on 'Image Documents', then 'From Box', then 'Access your files on box' , and log in to your Box account
• Navigate to the images on Box that you'd like to view, and click the chevron in the blue circle to download them
• Once they're downloaded, click a series in the 'Series' button in the upper left to view the newly downloaded images in the series
• Use MobileCT cursor and annotation tools to discuss downloaded images with your patient, other providers, or for your own reference

DICOM files like this CT of a patient's head can now be downloaded from Box and viewed via MobileCT

Happy Viewing Everyone!

- Nephosity Team

Download MobileCT, our FDA-cleared image viewer for the iPad to view or share your medical images on the go. View the full press release of the Box / Nephosity integration, here. 

Nephosity teams up with the CSC Benjamin Center in Tech Tools for Care Management

Earlier this month, Nephosity was kindly invited to teach a course on tech tools for care management - introducing cancer patients at the CSC Benjamin Center in Los Angeles to helpful (and free!) web or mobile based tools to help manage care.

The Benjamin Center is an extremely warm and welcoming home to all individuals touched by cancer - offering free-of-charge services including educational classes, support groups, fun activities and more. Whether you are a patient, a caretaker or just supporting a loved one going through cancer, you will be welcomed with open arms at the CSC. It is truly a wonderful place.

CSC Benjamin Center located in West LA, CA

Our course on patient tech tools received an overwhelmingly positive response from the group, and it was an amazing experience to hear patient and caretaker stories regarding their frustrations with currently available "technologies". We were so grateful by the positive response from the group that we were inspired to share our materials with others who might find our content useful. 

All technology tools we've curated are free (or low-priced) web and mobile applications aimed at helping you - or your caretaker, or loved one - better manage your health as you battle illness.

The list includes tools to help you:
- locate lower cost prescription drugs at nearby pharmacies
- upload and share your medical images 
- manage your health records
- track your health bills
- and more

Find the full list, here, and let us know your experience with any of these in the comments below, as well as any additional apps we may be missing! We look forward to hearing your responses.

Finally, if you are in the Los Angeles area, look forward to future workshop panels on how to use health technology to better manage your and your loved ones' health. 

Thank you!

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month: Protect Your Child From Unnecessary Radiation Overexposure

Source: American Childhood Cancer Organization

In the U.S. each year, more than 13,000 children under age 19 are diagnosed with cancer and ~1 in 300 boys and ~1 in 333 girls will develop cancer before their 20th birthdays. 

Source: American Childhood Cancer Organization

In an effort to raise awareness for National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Nephosity would like to inform you about protecting your child from radiation overexposure by taking control of your child's medical records and, specifically, your child's medical images.

An estimated 10% to 20% of medical imaging performed today occurs as a result of duplicate imaging. 

"... Typically, patients receive copies of a medical image on a CD, which can easily be lost, damaged or even contain someone else's information. And because competing vendors sell incompatible equipment, one doctor sometimes can't view another's image on a CD without a long conversion process... As a result, scans and other images are often repeated, piling up healthcare costs and exposing patients to additional and potentially harmful doses of radiation ..."

- Wall Street Journal, April 2013

With 1 in 5 imaging procedures occurring as a result of lost or otherwise malfunctioning CDs, your child may be unnecessarily exposed to higher levels of radiation should they ever require medical imaging.

In addition, according to the National Cancer Institute, unique considerations must be taken regarding radiation exposure in children, given: 

- children are considerably more sensitive to radiation than adults
- children have a longer life expectancy than adults, resulting in a larger window of opportunity for expressing radiation damage
- children may receive a higher radiation dose than necessary if CT settings are not adjusted for their smaller body size 

"As a result, the risk for developing a radiation-related cancer can be several times higher for a young child compared with an adult exposed to an identical CT scan..."
- National Cancer Institute

While improvements in CT equipment over the last decade have allowed for better images at lower doses, multiple scans to an individual patient present a particular concern. In addition, the use of more than one scan during a single examination further increases radiation dose. In the vast majority of cases, a single scan should be sufficient during pediatric CT. 

To avoid risk of radiation overexposure, remove CDs from the equation and gain control over your child's images by uploading them to our secure, HIPAA-compliant cloud-based server. Uploading is completely free, and once you have uploaded your images, you will have the ability to view or share these images via your web browser, iPad or other mobile device:

Image Flow

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Protect yours and all children from unnecessary radiation exposure by gaining control of your medical images today. Request a free invitation, here, and begin uploading on JackImaging.com today.



For more information, visit the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging and the Society for Pediatric Radiology.

Sources: American Childhood Cancer Organization, National Cancer Institute

12 Ways the iPad Is Changing Healthcare: Making Med School Easier, Helping Diagnose Alzheimer's, and Improving Patient Engagement

http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/78144#slide3

At the end of last year, CIO published a report on 12 ways the iPad is changing healthcare. In addition to replacing the clipboard, making home health initiatives easier and making medical software more accessible, CIO credited the iPad with enabling greater patient engagement - something that Nephosity is proud to have been working on from the start.

MobileCT

MobileCT, Nephosity's FDA-cleared medical image viewer for the iPad, engages patients in a few ways:
- medical images stored in Nephosity's secured cloud can be pulled up on the iPad and viewed side-by-side by patient and provider, allowing for real-time discussion of the patient's condition
- built-in annotation and cursor tools are used to point out specifics of a patient's images for deeper understanding of the patient's condition
- Nephosity's secured, cloud-based server allows patients to access their own images anywhere, anytime, allowing patients to share their images with family/friends or to request a second-opinion separate from their original provider

The iPad is changing healthcare, and Nephosity is honored to play a part.

Find out how Nephosity can help you handle your medical images today: http://nephosity.com

Introduction to Nephosity

How did Nephosity start?

Nephosity began as a cloud-based medical image viewer for the iPad. From there, we saw the potential to address several other issues along the care continuum and started to build out from there. "Nephos" is Greek for "cloud," since we provide the solution for cloud-based medical imaging.

What is Nephosity’s mission?

We’re a small company trying to do big things. For now, we’re focused on the pain points inherent in medical imaging. Our first product, MobileCT Viewer, a medical image viewer for the iPad, addresses the medical image mobility and patient engagement issue.  Our second product, Jack Imaging, is a platform for medical image viewing, sharing and collaboration.  All you need is access to your medical images and and a HTML5 web browser.  We have also integrated MobileCT Viewer into the platform, so that you can interact with your medical images anywhere, anytime. 

How do Nephosity’s products help ‘fix’ medical imaging?

Here’s how medical images flow through the system today:

After receiving an order from your doctor to get an MRI, you prepare for and undergo a medical scan (CT, MRI, X-Ray, etc.). These images are transferred to a picture archiving communication system (PACS) which are then sent to image viewing and workstations or burned onto CDs in order to be transferred to other hospitals. A radiologist will read your images and send a text-only summary report to your doctor. 

As a patient, there are several things that should bother you about this flow: 

• information rarely flows directly to you
• you are dependent upon the imaging center and your provider to deliver your imaging information, and you may not be able to schedule another appointment until you have complete medical records
• your doctor receives a text-only summary report, meaning they may not have all the information you'd want to know
• images are transferred via CDs of which ~20% are unreadable due to software incompatibilities, forcing you to get re-imaged and re-exposed to scan radiation

Radiation levels vary by scan type:

• a chest x-ray exposes you to about 0.1 mSv, about the radiation dose people are exposed to naturally over ~10 days
• a mammogram exposes a woman to 0.4 mSv, about the radiation dose people are exposed to naturally over ~7 weeks
• a CT scan of the abdomen (belly) and pelvis exposes you to about 10 mSv and up to 20 mSv if the test is done with and without contrast
• results from a study conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) suggested that 1 in 270 women and 1 in 600 men undergoing CT heart scans at the age of 40 will develop cancer related to that CT scan

Providers also experience challenges, namely an inefficient workflow, given:

• image viewers do not talk to one another, creating a manual transfer process
• images are transferred via CDs of which ~20% are unreadable due to software incompatibilities, delaying appointments and wasting your time
• siloed PACS

What is a typical use case of your product?

For patients

Say you broke your ankle two years ago and though it’s healed, you’ve been feeling some residual pain recently. You tell your primary care doctor about it when you go for your annual visit and he suggests you follow-up with an orthopedic surgeon to ensure the break healed correctly. He advises you to bring the CD you received two years ago so you do not have to get re-imaged. Now, you either go home and a) find the CD, pop it into your computer and upload the images to JackImaging.com then send to providers, or b) realize you’ve lost the CD, get imaged and upload those images immediately to JackImaging.com so you can avoid re-imaging your ankle as well as the associated costs and radiation exposure.

For providers

With new patients, it may be challenging to get a hold of their previous medical records. To transfer their images, have your patient either bring in their imaging CDs or upload those images themselves on JackImaging.com, then sign on to view, share and collaborate with your patient and/or other providers.

What do you hope to achieve through wider adoption of cloud-based medical imaging?

A few things: use of Jack Imaging will eventually eliminate the need for CDs and thus the associated hassle of lost images, corrupt files, delayed appointments, re-imaging, and so on. In addition to the patient risk associated with re-imaging, duplicate imaging also financially burdens our healthcare system. If we can eliminate the need for duplicate imaging (by keeping better track of our images), we can save billions of dollars in healthcare.

How does Jack help the patient? The provider? The payer?

Jack empowers patients to take control of their medical situation. It enables providers to remotely review their cases and collaborate with other providers. It also allows for greater patient engagement, as physicians can review images alongside the patient in real-time. Jack Imaging finally provides the payer with generous cost savings as a result of reduction in duplicate imaging.