Nowadays, there are significant opportunities to improve how healthcare organizations exchange protected healthcare information which is generallyaccepted to be essential for improving care coordination, and patient outcomes. By challenging the healthcare industries heavy reliance on persistent point to point data interfaces and combining new protocols and techniques MaxMD is leveraging secure push technology via non-persistent connections to significantly lower costs associated with how data has typically been exchanged.
MaxMDsuites of products are designed to leverage the Direct Protocol and the “Trust-in –Identity” policy infrastructure that supports sharing of protected health information to create lightweight, scalable and sustainable health information exchange. By leveraging the Direct Protocol, they can eliminate much of the overhead, and heavy reliance on persistent data interfaces commonly associated with other HIE approaches.
Brilliance behind MaxMD’s Approach
MaxMD’s tools can be incorporated into both legacy systems as well as new applications. Their smart rules engine, MaxNLP™, and MaxIntegration™ can leverage the Direct Protocol to deliver different data payloads to or from various end points. MaxAlerts™ is an intelligent direct messaging solution leveraging customizable rule sets and real-time delivery of clinical data. Each Admission, Discharge, or Transfer (ADT) event from a participating ACO or IDN or the provision of a transition of care for a designated patient population can trigger delivery of actionable alerts and patient records to the multiple care coordinators.
MaxAlerts™ moves interoperability beyond facilitating simple communication. The automated delivery of clinical data helps care coordinators manage medium to high-risk patients. Pushing data in real-time empowers proactive engagement with patients and helps minimize preventable readmissions. The flexible rules-based engine automates unique workflows and eases interoperability across the care ecosystem – delivering the right information to the right caregiver at the right time.
As the Direct Protocol is a secure “push” technology, with “secure push”, MaxMD can execute a “pull” or “query” transaction. The reverse is not true through; a pull cannot simulate a push. This further underscores the versatility of the Direct Protocol. So with that, they are excited about using the Direct Protocol to query an FHIR API to enable Query-Based Exchange to both “pull” or “push” data into an existing database without having to rely on persistent one to one data interfaces and their consequent costs of initiating and maintaining those interfaces.
Direct on Fire™ is a unique service that leverages two different technical protocols to increase interoperability and scale the exchange of electronic Protected Healthcare Information (ePHI) between disparate systems. Direct on Fire™ is designed to allow a user to send a query to a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) API to pull data from a data repository. To provide authentication and authorization of an HL7 request to an FHIR API, MaxMD developed an approach that leverages the trust-in-identity assured by a Direct Address-level Certificate. The company has demonstrated this technology to members of the DirectTrust Community and recently participated in the FHIR Connectathon in San Antonio Texas with one of their clients. Also, they have uploaded a short video on their company’s website showing how a patient could use their Direct Address to pull their own data from an EHR that has an FHIR API simply by sending a Direct Message.
MaxMD can interface with both newly developed technology applications, regardless of the platform just as easily as legacy systems. By incorporating many of the same tools found in a “HIE” minus the overhead and massive cost footprint of these structures.They can transform data while it is in motion and customize the delivery of information to specific end points. This approach will enable organizations to begin to lower costs associated with the persistent point to point data interfaces.
Furthermore, they use their tools to allow a message to trigger multiple messages of varying payloads based on a customized set of rules. Essentially, they offer lean HIE capabilities without the overhead of standard HIE approaches. MaxMD has a series of tools that can be invoked in different combinations to solve problems. They bundle these tools into other applications which are clearly a strategy, and can apply the tools to a particular client’s problem to solve a challenge.
Attributes of Success
In a few words “people and persistence” or “Grit.” MaxMD is a very productive team of talented engineers, sales and support staff with a very commercial orientation. A solution does not have to be a radically new technology.It should be technology that fits into the client’s infrastructure or workflow that addresses the problem ideally with a minimum of disruption. Grit is probably the best one word for them as they are good at iterating and evolving solutions. They stay with things constantly working towards a positive outcome. The DNA of their team necessarily has a passion for solving clients’ challenges and of course providing them with value by improving their operations without wholesale disruption to their current workflow.
“We reinforce the thought that every person talking to a client is part of the sales effort. Even if that is an engineer listening to a client’s technical challenge; and every sales person is part of engineering’s front line. I believe that clients have problems that can be solved if we listen to them. Having a flexible system infrastructure and a commitment to building scalable solutions that are easily implemented is how we grow our business,” assures Scott.