Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Interoperabiltiy - Old Stray Dog Returns:)

I have to poke around at myself and make fun here and there and I do feel like an old stray dog as I've been a member here for 8 years and I'm not a doctor but rather a former EMR developer and I'm still here due to the conversations from years ago and this still a great group to have the opportunity to check in with once in a while. I try not to bug anyone unless I have something to say and today I do:)

I read through some of the comments here on Amazing Charts since the acquisition and so forth and I'm sure the Pri-Med acquisition was due to money. I have hard time even getting a hold of them now to solicit for advertising as I do run a small advertising section at my blog and not making a living at it by any means but light bulb went on a couple years ago to offer advertising:)

So the old stray duck came around to quack about something with interoperability and just wanted to make you folks aware of this platform as eventually interops will be at the platform level one day beyond EMRS to connect. Yes HL7 and the new FHIR when it get's built will be here to stay and that's what EMRs live for:) I have something different though to talk about and it's pretty hot and actually the CEO does actually have it for sale on the Allscripts store. That's doesn't mean to go over there and look at it but just added that for credibility.

It's a platform called Zoeticx that sits on top of any EMR and yes we are now talking APIs. The Commonwel group, which is lead by Cerner with their members, Greenway, Athena and a few others are working on one of these too. It's the big "secret" out there:) Well their big secret is much like the Zoeticx platform except it needs HL7 and FHIR and I read they have a working model.

Ok so it's bad enough we have the big guys in there and the Zoeticx platform already has an Epic API built too. Everytime I post about it my stats have Epic people all over it and last time the Commonwell folks felt a little threatened and reached out to me on Twitter. Ok here's the deal for those that understand data formats, it's JSON to JSON. The ONC has had a glimpse of it and there's more conversation to come.

Now the engineering, no HIE data base needed. It's like a phone, you connect, records are interoperable on a great IPAD UI from the two sources, when done, like a phone, hangs up. I guess the best way for me to describe it for most to understand is "interops on the fly". It took me a while to come up with that as nobody gets the JSON to JSON engineering as it's not been done before and second the way the connections are made, no data base in the middle to synch.

It's not a hobby developer, the CEO had a couple of his other project bought by Oracle when he worked for BEA software. Zoeticx Clarity server also has an open source API so more apps can be added to the initial 3 that come with it. I have talked about it to other EMR companies a bit too as this platform is EMR agnostic and as long at the API gate way is written, everybody's talking here, it has alerts and so on and speech recognition. It was originally funded by the NIH.

This is going to save millions as the typical installation would be at a hospital, no matter what EMR they have the platform sits on top and again the only expense is to the the API written. Legacy works here too so it could connect the DOD and VA too and couple of those have contacted me as well.

I know there's still some money around for some to upgrade EMRs but I'm not hearing that from manny and this is the solution to keep everyone from having to bbuy some big Epic or Cerner ambulatory system so they can communicate with the hospital.

I'll give you a couple links to take a look but again I'm trying to spread some education here. It's good for patients and privacy too as the records never physically leave your office as they are joined when live and needed and disconnected when done. You can have more than 2 and there's also the opportunity to build an app for home care, devices and more. Again, that would be a hospital expense and the big thing for small to medium size EMRS is to get the API done for the Gateway. It operates on IPads and iPhones and each device has to be registered with the system to have access, good for security there too.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/zoeticx-clarity-server-middleware-hie.html

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/zoeticxehr-agnostic-clarity-healthcare.html

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/practical-steps-with-addressing.html

Kaiser for example uses a Clarity Server to help juice up their Epic system with more robust reports and so on and Zoeticx is a Clarity Server system, but unlike Kaiser, you don't need that data base like they do. It is amazing every time I write about it I think the curiosity gets to Epics as again they can read about the fact that there's an API written. Existing HIEs can be used as a data source too if they stay in business, just saw one in North Carolina bite the dust last week so Zoeticx basically gets rid of the need for HIEs if all get the server or get their gateways set up.

It can do hospital to hospital, to MD off premise and so on.

Thanks for letting me add this and again I thought it might be of interest and so I'm passing along and if you come over to my blog, be aware of my privacy campaign over there too, it's depressing (grin). It's actually a good thing where I really dig in and tell you all about insurers buying up patient credit card data, the voice software insurers are using now at call centers, etc. It's about everyone spying on you with data and making billions. Walgreens makes over a billion a year just selling data. If you are brave just follow it along on the right hand side of the page under the ad section. I'm all over the FTC on that and a few Congressmen to get a law to require data sellers to buy a license so we know who they are:)

I do that ugly campaign on the side and it's mind boggling on what's going on there, it's a profit epidemic in the US.

Anwyay I hope you find the Zoeticx information interesting reading so you know there's other interops platforms out there other than those being built by the bit EMR Commonwell folks as they don't have a lock on it (grin).

Barbara Duck
The Medical Quack!

And my Mona Lisa Icon is still here:)

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

I wish I could make any sense of that, because I think there are some real gems there.
I was mostly struck by your comments about how this entire enterprise is about making billions off the unwitting patients and doctors.

I thought as much.

Fax gives us an "interoperable" platform. But it doesn't cost very much, and so couldn't be of much interest to the EMR moguls.

Probably my main fury at the EHR world as it has unfolded is that the ONE useful thing the government could have done in insisting on going electronic was to demand a common data standard. Now we are in the early days of word processing, with lots of different programs unable to read each other's documents, and other companies ready to make $$$ writing translator programs. At some point in the future, the "Microsoft Word" of the EHR will emerge, and everyone will adopt that standard or perish, but for now, we get the Tower of Babel.

Well just don't almost kill a software engineer in the hospital as this is what you get..lol. A little humor there but the real motivation for writing the platform. FYI you have the Commonwell group headed up by Cerner writing their platform with a bunch of the bigger EMRs and those guys want to make money at it of course.

Zoeticx is all written in open source software and much like Amazing Charts was or still is he wants to keep it affordable and make a living from selling and licensing the server but have the open API so people can write their own apps. You don't get that from the big guys at all. I hope that explains this a bit better and the EMR vendor just needs to have an API written to connect so anyone with their EMR that doesn't want to upgrade doesn't have too. The big guys all want you to think you need an epic or cerner ambulatory system so they can sell you more and this platform gets rid of that idea.

The expense would be on the part of the EMR vendor to write an API for users and they are writing code for all kinds of updates, etc. anyway.

On another topic I probably made no friends at the ONC today..they decided to lawyer up now and hire a former United Healthcare lawyer to be their head of privacy...oh yeah...what..you mean that health insurer that's a huge data seller? Yup that would be the one.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/onc-hires-new-privacy-head-california.html

There's a lot of links in that post too if you are interested including how Burwell at HHS already lawyered up with a Citibank lawyer she hired.

Thanks for the comments and I hope I explained it a bit better as not being yet another huge Health IT effort to get rich. Basically today if the DOD and VA wanted to get started and buy some of the Zoeticx servers, they could as legacy is ok.

Thanks Barb. It makes sense and how far out is this product/service for us day to day, in the trenches kind of people. I'd like it to share info from Hospital(EPIC) to me (AC).