Brad Bostic on Improving Patient Care While Lowering Costs

hc1.com is a newly launched cloud-based service from Bostech designed to streamline the relationship between medical laboratories and health care providers. hc1.com combines comprehensive health care CRM, real-time dashboards and alerts, and secure messaging capabilities, all in a browser-based environment. The company believes that its new offering, with no up-front capital investment and no IT infrastructure to maintain, will disrupt the industry by appealing to a wide range of clients.

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In a nutshell, what does hc1 do and how will it change medicine?

hc1.com addresses the critical need for health care professionals, spanning multiple disciplines and entities, to effectively work together, allowing patients to receive better care at a lower cost. Better management of the relationships between these health care professionals is critical to addressing the current health care crisis. hc1.com optimizes the relationships between health care professionals resulting in improved care for patients while providing the leaders of health care organizations with real-time access to intelligence that continuously improves the quality of care. Our unique hc1.com solution that addresses these issues is called Healthcare Relationship Management.

One of the most critical relationships in health care exists between medical labs and health care providers, where 6.5 billion U.S. lab tests per year result in more than 70 percent of all diagnostic decisions. hc1.com optimizes this relationship by automatically logging key information related to the lab testing process, facilitating communication, and delivering key intelligence to the provider and lab in order to help improve the quality of care.

Since health care providers are the core client of laboratories, it is critical for the lab to deliver the service and intelligence required by the provider to succeed. The hc1.com Healthcare Relationship Management service -- a cloud-based solution that combines health care CRM, real-time dashboards and alerts, and secure communications -- arms labs with a real-time, 360-degree view of each client and the intelligence necessary to deliver a truly personalized experience to providers.

Historically, disparate data systems utilized by sales, client service, and operations within medical laboratories have made it nearly impossible to coordinate the actions of all departments in order to deliver a customized and consistent experience to each client. hc1.com converts data spread across multiple silos into dynamic intelligence that keeps all health care professionals and executives informed of the critical information they need, resulting in a higher quality of care at a reduced cost. At the same time, hc1.com improves the quality of health care by arming providers with time-sensitive information, like Critical Value Alerts. For example, a hospital using hc1.com can immediately identify hospital-acquired infections so that they can take the appropriate steps to control potential infections, preventing patient hardship and saving thousands of dollars in un-reimbursed care.

What are the advantages and challenges that come with your cloud-computing platform?

When implemented correctly, Cloud services are more secure than any other option available. Horror stories are reported in the news describing how a doctor's laptop was stolen, compromising the protected health information for thousands of patients. Additionally, natural disasters occasionally destroy hospital and lab data centers resulting in major losses. Utilizing the cloud to make data available on demand, rather than storing this sensitive data on laptop computers and servers located on premise (sometimes in the basement or down the hall in a closet) eliminates these major security risks. By leveraging the cloud with solutions like hc1.com, health care entities can avoid the significant up-front capital investments that typically accompany IT purchases and there is no IT infrastructure to maintain. That means health care professionals, executives, and staff members can focus their energy on delivering high quality patient care rather than managing servers, wiring, and other gear.

According to hc1′s white paper, "Unlocking a 360-Degree View of Your Customers," there are an astounding 6.1 billion lab tests per year and 215,000 CLIA certified labs. Can you discuss hc1′s market share and goals?

hc1.com is the first -- and only -- cloud-based solution that combines tailored health care CRM, real-time dashboards and alerts, and secure communications in order to specifically address the needs of health care. Our goal is to solve major issues within our health care system, like the prevention of hospital-acquired infections and diagnostic accuracy that prevents instances where an incorrect patient endures a radical, life altering surgical procedure. By monitoring massive volumes of lab data -- the hc1.com solution securely processes tens of millions of transactions every month -- and automatically notifying health care professionals of key issues, the service enables timely decisions and eliminates the communication disconnects that can otherwise occur.

Since launching in May 2011, hc1.com has seen exponential growth with both medical laboratories and health systems. hc1.com already counts organizations like know error, Alere, St. Vincent Health, and South Bend Medical Foundation as key clients who trust our solution to address critical challenges in improving their relationships with health care professionals and improving the quality of care.

Does hc1 currently have a direct interface with EHRs or a portal through which patients can access relevant information directly?

Labs subscribing to the hc1.com service can offer their ordering providers self-service access to an online portal, where they're able to seamlessly communicate with the lab to check the status of orders and results. Additionally, our portal capabilities extend well beyond orders and results by allowing providers to see important lab utilization information and intelligence to help identify trends and outliers so action can be taken to improve the quality of care.  Providers can also configure alerts so the appropriate people can be instantly notified of any issues and immediately take action.

Can you discuss any related features or upcoming medical technology products from hc1 or Bostech?

One of the great aspects of software-as-a-service solution is that gaining access to new functionality doesn't require downloading or installing anything. Our team pushes out enhancements every two weeks, making it possible to immediately benefit from new features. In addition to adding to our core service, we're excited about making hc1.com a configurable, extensible platform in which you can plug other capabilities into the service. That's coming in a few months, and we look forward to sharing more at that time.

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