Habersham Medical Center announced today that it’s offering a new service to make it easier for patients to collect, store, and share their medical images and reports. The hospital is now working with PocketHealth – a digital diagnostic image-sharing platform that serves as a kind of Dropbox for health scans.
“Until now, when medical imaging and reports were shared it required our patients to make unnecessary trips to the site,” says Habersham Medical Center President and CEO Tyler Williams.
Now, instead of having to go to the hospital to pick up a CD-ROM, patients may request their images be uploaded to an encrypted server. For a one-time $5 fee, the hospital will upload all existing scans. If patients choose to add new scans in the future, additional fees will apply. Patients who want to manage their scans on an ongoing basis may enroll in PocketHealth’s $49 annual subscription plan.
The hospital covers any physician transfer fees.
The service also includes a Report Reader tool that breaks down and defines complex medical terms to help patients understand them.
“We are very excited to make the healthcare experience much easier than it has been for patients at Habersham Medical Center, and in implementing PocketHealth at our hospital, we are equipping patients to be participants in their own medical journey,” says Williams.
HMC is the first hospital in Georgia to adopt the PocketHealth platform.
According to the company, physicians and other healthcare professionals who share and receive diagnostic images with Habersham will be able to work within the medical center’s existing infrastructure and won’t need additional software or account setup. They will be able to view patient imaging instantly in full diagnostic quality or import those images into their local picture archiving and communication system (PACS) for diagnosis.
“Diagnostic Imaging is essential to understanding a treatment course or for soliciting second opinions and can often be the spark for a long-term care journey,” says PocketHealth co-founder and CEO Rishi Nayyar.
The new service stands to benefit tens of thousands of patients: Habersham Medical Center, serves over 80,000 residents across Northeast Georgia and conducts approximately 125,000 imaging exams each year.
