HEALTHCARE IT

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Launched in October of this year, Sushoo health information exchange has already proven its value to physicians.

SUSHOO: “It’s been a great communications tool,” said Dr. Rengena Chan-Ting, medical director of Care Level Management in Melbourne. Dr. Chan-Ting, the Network Medical Director of Care Level Management, visits Melbourne patients Alfred and Clara Yentzer.

“It’s been a great communications tool,” said Dr. Rengena Chan-Ting, medical director of Care Level Management in Melbourne.

Because Care Level Management specializes in home visits to medically frail patients, Chan-Ting already had at her disposal sophisticated electronic medical records capabilities that allows her to stay in touch with the Care Level team while on the field.

Sushoo, however, takes connectivity a step further.

“It’s made it easier for us to share patient information with primary care physicians,” said Chan-Ting.  “Before it was more of a one-way street.”

The eclectic sounding Sushoo is the brainchild of Melbourne entrepreneur Naveen Venkatachalam, who developed the product with input from his wife, physician Dr. Geetha Priyanka.

Venkatachalam owns DoctorsPartner, a company that developed award-winning electronic medial records and medical practice management software.

Venkatachalam

“DoctorsPartner provided the seed for the idea,” said Venkatachalam.

Sushoo, the first independent health care exchange in the United States, arrives at a very opportune time.
Embedded deep in healthcare reform is healthcare waste. According to a report from Thomson Reuters, up yo $850 billion is the tab for waste in the United States healthcare system.

Reuters estimates that 18 percent of healthcare waste is due to administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork, both issues that Sushoo addresses by keeping all medical parties completely up-to-date on patient status.

“The idea is so innovative, because it minimizes redundancy and possible mistakes,” said Chan-Ting.
To combat duplication of services, the federal government has mandated medical practices to meet technology standards by 2011, rewarding those that do with higher reimbursements, while penalizing those that do not adopt specific EMR standards.

Dr. Priyanka

Because of these looming requirements, interest has been intense in Sushoo. Since Sushoo’s Oct. 2 launch, Venkatachalam and his Melbourne team have been busy customizing Sushoo to fit any type of medical location. “People love it,” said Venkatachalam.

One of the first to try Sushoo is Cathy Jones, medical secretary in the busy practice of Dr. Anthony Mazo-Mayorquin.

“It has made it very easy for us to go and pick whatever records I need (from another physician),” said Jones. “Before, we would have to call over and ask them to fax over the records.”

By providing an easy way to exchange records, Sushoo keeps all healthcare partners current on patients’ lab work, medications and diagnosis.  With paper records, primary care practices must either fax the information to a specialist or vice versa or wait for a patient to bring the hard copy at the next appointment, delaying care and often inconveniencing patients by forcing them  redo expensive medical tests.

“You also run the risk of wrong choice of treatment,” said Priyanka.

Using Sushoo, which is encrypted so only appropriate healthcare providers can access the information, allows access to all medical charts for all physicians working with a patient.

The United States lead the world in per capita spending on healthcare than any other OECD country, yet we are an unhealthy population fraught with obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Sushoo could be the part of the prescription.

Share Charts, Lab Results With a Click

The network’s most salient feature is its flexibility. As long as a practice has an EMR that can integrate with Sushoo, all physicians need do is click once to share charts, lab results and other clinical data. If a practice relies totally on paper records, it can still benefit from Sushoo through a gateway.

Venkatachalam designed the network to attract first-time users wary of investing large amounts of cash. “We’re using a simple design that is very inexpensive to use,” he said.

Before Sushoo’s inception, health information exchanges have been the domain of large multi-physician practices, but Sushoo levels the playing field so that all practices, no matter the size, can participate.

Practices that want to test run the network can participate at no cost. “We make it extremely easy,” said Venkatachalam.

For more information, log on to www.Sushoo.com or call 574-5245; 1-800-779-1723.

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