With today’s COVID-19 challenges, our hospitals are working hard to protect lives. What better time to have a month of celebration? 

National Hospital Week May 10-16, 2020

National Hospital Week is May 10-16, 2020 and it recognizes hospitals for their services. It’s a time when the country, together as one, celebrates the hope and healing that our hospitals provide for us.

Hospitals play such an important role in our communities. Now, more than ever, we are so proud of them. This week, let’s make sure our hospital staffs feel the love. Think of unique ways, even during this pandemic, to show our support to hospital workers. 

For example, in this video Staten Islanders show appreciation to hospital staff. 

Another example is this video that shows New Yorkers cheering for medical professionals. Positive moments like these shine a bright light during this dark time.

We can show our appreciation to hospital staff by using #MyHospital on social media. Download this template and highlight something special about your hospital. Join us in showing our hospitals how much we appreciate them. You can share how your hospital has helped you or write well wishes to healthcare workers. Remember to share on social media with the hashtag #MyHospital. 

National Nurses Week May 6-12, 2020

Nurses care for patients, advocate for patients, and provide hope for patients. They do all this and make it look easy. Not just anyone can do what they do. It takes a special, strong, smart, and caring person to fill the shoes of a nurse. 

During this pandemic, nurses are making personal sacrifices for the health of others. National Nurses Week allows us to recognize them and show our overwhelming gratitude. Here are some special dates during National Nurses Week.

May 6 – National Nurses Day

May 8 – National Student Nurse Day

May 12 – International Nurses Day                                                               

National Nurses Month – May 1-31, 2020

There is so much to celebrate about these healthcare heroes that National Nurses Week is now the entire month of May. Each week of May has its own theme.

Week 1 – Self Care

This week focuses on mindful self-recognition, including emotional and physical well-being. Challenge yourself to engage in healthier activities. 

Week 2 – Recognition

Make a point to raise the visibility of the important work nurses do. Honor the nurses in your community. Nominate a nurse for the DAISY Award that honors extraordinary nurses.

Week 3 – Professional Development

Nurses can focus on how to excel and lead in their nursing careers and inspire others to do the same. 

Week 4 – Community Engagement

Help promote nurses’ invaluable contributions by engaging with your community. Consider using these hashtags. #nationalnursesweek, #nationalnursesday, #nationalstudentnurseday, #internationalnursesday

During May, join us in honoring our healthcare workers. Epiphany Healthcare understands the important role that healthcare workers play in healthcare systems. We want to take this opportunity to thank them for their service. Our goal is to use our technology and services to improve patient care, as nurses around the world do every day. Thank you for your selfless service, healthcare workers.

 

At this time of world-wide crisis, Epiphany Healthcare is thinking about our customers, the hospitals of the world. The healthcare workers of our hospitals have shown up and continue to save lives with selfless sacrifice.

To give you an idea of how much healthcare workers are thought of, Google has even recognized a surge in searches such as “how to thank healthcare workers,” “how to help medical workers,” “how can I help hospitals,” and “flatten the curve.” To recognize this global surge in searches to help healthcare workers, Google created a “Thank You” video for them. With so many differences among countries around the world, Google does a good job of capturing the united spirit of the world’s unwavering appreciation for our healthcare workers. 

Watch Google Thank You Video Here.

Epiphany Healthcare has responded to the calls for action on our part to help our hospitals and the heroes in them fight COVID-19. To help reduce the spread of this virus and not overrun our hospitals, all of our employees are working from home and all business travel is suspended during this outbreak. You can read more about our complete response to COVID-19 here. During this critical time, Epiphany will also be helping customers expand their Epiphany Cardio Server ECG Management System to support any remote COVID-19 sites immediately and free of charge. We are here for our customers and we can’t say it enough. Thank you!

You can enhance the safety of these extraordinary healthcare workers so that they may continue to care for our loved ones by donating PPE here https://getusppe.org.

While you are fighting to save lives, we are offering to help.

From the desk of the President:

From the Desk of the President:

The majority of Epiphany Healthcare’s staff already works remotely. As of today, all employees will be working from home. Business travel is suspended during this outbreak. Many hospitals have notified us that vendors should not be entering their facilities.

Project implementation and customer support have always been provided remotely. Our clinical training staff will provide web-based training for our customers. We have extensive experience doing remote training. On-site retraining will be available, if requested, when travel normalizes. 

The sales team does the majority of their work remotely including web demonstrations and proposal reviews. Sales team members will not be scheduling on-site meetings. They can provide video conferencing when requested.

We will be social distancing, washing our hands frequently, using hand sanitizer, and working hard to keep our families safe. We live on conference calls and email. We will continue to communicate diligently and often. These travel restrictions will have a minimal impact on our organization; we will do our best to continue to support our customers and those interested in our products. All of us at Epiphany wish you the best during this difficult period.

Russ DeRemer

President  |  Epiphany Healthcare

Uintah Basin Medical Center is a non-profit community hospital, located in Roosevelt, Utah, that has been an Epiphany Healthcare customer for five years. Uintah Basin uses Epiphany’s Cardio Server to manage their ECG, stress, Holter, and PFT studies. Recently, they added to their system by implementing Cardio Server Mobile. We reached out to our contacts there and they had great feedback to share.

Before implementing Epiphany’s Cardio Server, Chance Hayes, Director of Respiratory Care, said “Our workflow was inefficient. There was lag-time, paper processes, and unnecessary trips to a file room. With our old method, there was up to a 2-week delay for results to be uploaded to our EMR”.

Since implementing Epiphany, the staff put the studies into Cardio Server and the studies are instantly available in the EMR. Printing on paper and digging through a filing cabinet are no longer necessary.

George Brown, Respiratory Therapist, exclaimed, “Working with Epiphany has been wonderful. Our ease of access has been great, and the interface is user-friendly.”

Chance and George both agreed that implementing Cardio Server Mobile has helped them carry out their hospital’s mission, which is: “Caring for our communities through access to compassionate, quality healthcare and investing in those we serve.” Chance added, “Five outreach clinics are getting nice, clean, diagnostic-quality images, allowing the staff at the clinics to know the status of their patients right away.”

Chance went on to say that Cardio Server Mobile allows them to provide better patient care. He gave this example, “Say someone shows up here at the hospital and just had an ECG in another location. That ECG can be pulled up right away instead of searching for that study; Cardio Server Mobile allows doctors to spend more time with patients.”

Both Chance and George echoed that they love their organization because they do the right thing for their patients and implementing Epiphany has been a big step in assisting them in that pursuit. By focusing on implementing technology and processes that help put the patient first, Uintah Basin Medical Center has been able to grow to the largest independent rural healthcare system in Utah. From emergency medical services, to women’s health, to home care services, UBMC works effortlessly for its communities through providing access to compassionate quality healthcare.

Epiphany’s Cardio Server has been a part of this growth of quality care. Cardio Server is a workflow solution with an intuitive user interface that is cost effective and backed by exceptional service. Healthcare organizations can use their existing devices since Cardio Server supports over 260 devices from over 80 vendors in 23 diagnostic modalities. Physician training can be accomplished in about 15 minutes. One EMR interface for all modalities can be leveraged by consolidating multiple test types into one integration. There is live support available 24/7/365 located in the United States. Healthcare organizations can reduce server requirements, storage, and IT costs with Epiphany Cloud Services. Epiphany Healthcare is proud to be a quality healthcare partner for Uintah Basin Medical Center.

Epiphany is proud to announce that GE CASE stress has been added to our compatibility list for modality worklists. With modality worklists, patient demographics and order information from the EMR can be securely transferred between Cardio Server and devices. The use of modality worklists improves workflow through the elimination of manual data entry, increasing efficiency and accuracy. Hospital staff saves time with demographic information and order lists automatically populating into their GE CASE stress device. 

Automate the Transfer of Information

Are you facing clerical errors as a result of manual data entry? Eliminate manual data entry, reduce the chance of clerical errors, and ensure data integrity. Using modality worklists improves your workflow and allows you to give more attention to your patients. 

Save Time & Spend More Time with Patients

Is your staff spending valuable time entering demographic and order information into your devices? With Cardio Server you can query for a worklist and select the patient directly from the device. Modality worklists help your staff by allowing them to populate demographics with one click. It can also filter the patient orders specific to the department you are working in. 

GE CASE Stress Modality Worklist Process

1. Physician places an order for a stress test in the EMR
2. The EMR sends an HL7 order message to Cardio Server
3. The device queries Cardio Server for the worklist
4. Epiphany takes the HL7 order information and presents it to the stress device

If your hospital has been losing valuable time entering data into your GE CASE stress devices or facing clerical errors from the manual data entry, modality worklists may be worth learning more about. Contact us to discuss a workflow improvement plan with modality worklists.

As I write this memorandum, Epiphany Healthcare is the only vendor in our market niche with a cyber-security certification.  We are excited to be able to demonstrate our commitment to our own security and our customer’s security with this certification.

When selecting a security certification body, we evaluated three alternatives for cyber and physical security certifications:

ISO 27001; HITRUST; and SOC 2.  All three are remarkably similar. 

“Each certification has similar controls and requirements, with SOC and ISO being remarkably equal, and HITRUST intensifying the “How” [in how] requirements are met.”  https://apgarandassoc.com/certification-readiness/

Medical device companies, with a Class II or Class III FDA-registered devices, utilize ISO 13485 certification to meet Quality Management System (QMS) requirements.  Having familiarity with the ISO QMS certification process led us to select ISO 27001 for cyber and physical security certification.

 In adopting the ISO 27001 standard, a company must consider risk assessment and treatment options.  Epiphany chose to establish a low-risk tolerance, which was the most demanding standard.  We implemented all recommended controls in ISO 27001, including those for cloud, creating a total of more than 121 controls.  We also chose to apply these controls to all aspects of our business and products, including Epiphany Cloud Services.  The investment in this certification, including man-hours, staff training, and registrar expenses exceeded $300,000.  Over 1,000 pages of documentation were either modified or created to meet the certification requirements.

These controls include establishing clear guidelines for responding to security events and incidents, employee onboarding/off boarding, work-from-home evaluations, mobile device management, office security, penetration testing, secure software development, adding new security technologies to our enterprise, business continuity plans to recover from unplanned events (such as a hurricane, ice storm, loss of power, etc.), ransomware and malware strategies, and even what is required on our visitor sign-in sheets.

All of the clauses, controls, and a summary of the implementation of Epiphany Healthcare’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) framework is available upon request.

Russ DeRemer

CEO

Epiphany Healthcare

This February, in observance of American Heart Month, Epiphany Healthcare wants to encourage you to “defend your heart.” We want you to personally join the fight against heart disease by maintaining an active awareness of cardiovascular health and following the path to a heart-healthy life. So, how can you “defend your heart?” Here are some tips:

Start Arming Yourself with the Facts

Obtaining and maintaining awareness about heart disease helps keep you conscious of the importance of cardiovascular health. The heart disease facts below from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should get you thinking about just how serious the topic is.

• In America, heart disease, is the number one cause of death for both men and women.
• One out of every four deaths in America is from heart disease.. This comes out to about one death every 37 seconds. 
• Nearly half of all Americans have some form of heart disease.

Protect Yourself by Learning Your Heart’s Risks

Understanding the magnitude of the issue is important, but understanding alone it is not enough. Identifying the risks that apply to you personally is a crucial step towards achieving optimal cardiovascular well-being. There are three types of risk factors: major risk factors, modifiable risk factors, and contributing risk factors. Check the following list. According to the American Heart Association, if any of the following applies to you, are at increased risk for heart disease.

Major Risk Factors

Major risk factors significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. These factors include age, gender, and heredity. People who are 65 and older make up the majority that die of coronary heart disease and men have a greater risk. People with parents who have or had heart disease are also more likely to develop the disease. According to the American Heart Association, races with an increased risk are African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and some Asian Americans. Again, the three major risk factors are:

• Increasing Age
• Male Gender
• Heredity (including race)

Modifiable Risk Factors

Modifiable risk factors can be controlled through medication and/or lifestyle change. For example, people with diabetes and that are overweight can make the lifestyle change of eating better and getting regular exercise to reduce their risk. Modifiable risk factors include:       

• Tobacco smoke
• High blood cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Physical inactivity
• Obesity
• Diabetes

Contributing Risk Factors

Contributing risk factors are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease but the significance of their effect is undetermined. Contributing risk factors that are currently known are:

• Stress
• Alcohol
• Diet and nutrition 

Shield Yourself from the Modifiable and Contributing Risks

Understanding the scope of heart disease and knowing the risk factors that pertain to you are two essential steps towards cardiovascular health, but they are useless if they don’t lead you to action. Taking appropriate action against the modifiable and contributing risk factors above can reduce your risk of heart disease and potentially even reverse damage to the heart.

Epiphany Healthcare is an advocate for heart health; it’s our business. Take this knowledge and become heart healthy by making lifestyle changes that prevent heart disease. Share this blog with friends and family on how to prevent heart disease, and possible become a lifesaver.

Epiphany Healthcare announces that it has become the only vendor in the niche market of ECG management software with a cyber-security certification. Epiphany is officially ISO 27001 certified for all of its products and locations. To be ISO 27001 compliant means Epiphany meets the security standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).  

The goal of being ISO 27001 compliant is for companies to provide IT security management standards that ensure the protection of data. Risk management is a key component of ISO 27001, which holds companies accountable for their strengths and weaknesses.

Considering risk assessment and treatment options, Epiphany chose to establish a low-risk tolerance, which was the most demanding standard. Epiphany implemented all recommended controls in ISO 27001, including those for Epiphany Cloud Services, creating a total of more than 121 controls. Epiphany then applied these controls to all aspects of its business and products.

"This certification reinforces our commitment to protect our customers’ vital information and data,” says Epiphany Healthcare’s Product Manager of New Ventures, Eddie Hernandez.

Becoming ISO 27001 certified brings information security under management control with clear guidelines being met. Some of the guidelines established to increase IT security are for responding to security events, employee on-boarding/off boarding, mobile device management, office security, secure software development, ransomware and malware strategies, and more.

The investment in this certification, including man-hours, staff training, and registrar expenses exceeded $300,000. Over 1,000 pages of documentation were either modified or created to meet the certification requirements. The outcome was a new IT management system ensuring that Epiphany Healthcare focuses on protecting the confidentiality and integrity of its data.

Epiphany Healthcare has focused on becoming ISO 27001 compliant to reduce the risks associated with increasing security threats. By applying standards and best practices of information security, Epiphany has strengthened its processes to enable better safeguards. Being ISO 27001 compliant enables Epiphany Healthcare to be better prepared in preventing any potential security incidents.

About Cardio Server:

Epiphany’s Cardio Server is a cost-effective, web-based management system that receives, manages, and exports diagnostic test results to the electronic medical records. Cardio Server is vendor-neutral and communicates with over 260 devices from over 80 vendors. Cardio Server provides easier integration since it accepts data from 23 different modality types such as ECG, PFT, stress, Holter, patient monitoring, and more.

About Epiphany Healthcare:

With over 950 hospital customers worldwide, Epiphany Healthcare is committed to serving its customers’ needs through product innovation, the delivery of exceptional service, and an unwavering dedication to improving clinical workflow. Discover why Epiphany is the preferred provider when managing multi-vendor, multi-modality diagnostic test data. For more information, please visit http://www.epiphanyhealthdata.com, follow Epiphany on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EpiphanyHealthcare/) Twitter (@epiphhealth), or Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/company/epiphany-healthcare).