The healthcare industry has witnessed several IT advancements over the years. While storing and disseminating medical data has seen some progress, when it comes to patient-provider engagement it still remains a challenge.
Owing to the lack of interoperability, patients find it difficult to secure their medical data from various provider platforms to form a comprehensive medical record. This, in turn, results in the overutilization of tests and procedures, fragmented healthcare, and delay in treatment path.
For the past 30 years, Debra Griffin, Founder, PPX-TEC, LLC. has been on a mission to empower patients with complete control over their medical data and shift the dynamic on how these data sets are shared. In 1989, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, little did she know that she would have to fight not only against the disease, but also the whole medical system to obtain her own health records to determine what treatment is best. Her first-hand experience with the situation of not being able to access her health records and be able to share them with providers at the right time led her to think a way out.
Fast forward 20 years, Debra, also a two-time cancer survivor, comes up with the idea to build a platform facilitating equitable healthcare services at affordable costs.
PPX-TEC Paves the Way for Interoperability of Health Records
Incorporated in 2011, PPX-TEC, LLC has been in software research and development to create innovative technology solutions for data literacy and usability.
PPX was developed to address the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) needs by facilitating interoperability beyond silos to include all patients in the ownership, sharing and exchanging of their data for engagement and quality of life decision-making. Patients should share in the ownership of their comprehensive health and insurance data,” notes Debra Griffin.
PPX’s Mobile Application functions as a Bridge-application integrated into platforms and applications on users’ smart devices. PPX’s Share Menu provides multiple exchange options.
"In the mobile marketplace for healthcare, success means that a mobile application can deliver business and health value to its users. Usability means a product can be used by specific users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness and efficiency in a specified context of use," opines Dean Harrison, Co-founder and Technical Lead, PPX-TEC.
Interoperability provides open communication channels between everyone involved in the patient’s care. In healthcare, the space that defines success is far more complex. In order for an mHealth application to be seen as worthwhile, it must achieve at least one of the following tasks: improve patient outcomes and care coordination; ensure adequate privacy and security protections; engage patients and physicians, improve care efficiency, or reduce healthcare costs.
Comprehensive Patient-Provider Engagement in a Secured Environment with PPX-TEC
The 21st Century Cures Act mandates that patient/client’s health and insurance data be transferable among users and various provider types. The Act also provides for the elimination of vendors’ data blocking and making interoperability a Medicare condition of participation.
"Potential Vendor Partners view patients’ health data as solely their assets, yet these vendors don't know what the end of interoperability will look like to their businesses. But I project that better informed consumers will lead to cost reductions. The businesses that are adapting new innovations in healthcare quickly will become the business leaders of our future,” declares Debra Griffin.
Security and privacy are major concerns for healthcare organizations. However, in this smart device space, it’s important to be realistic about the balance [D1] for active and comprehensive patient-provider engagement.
"Transformation can be slow if these areas are not addressed realistically. Therefore, patients as consumers will need to understand security and privacy issues and be better informed to be healthier and more productive. A smart device app can give the consumer/patient the power to control access and maintain levels of privacy," states Dean Harrison.
PPX’s mobile application and its development strategies possess all of these core components. E-commerce in Health Information Technology is a struggling industry. There are many challenges and complaints regarding the storms of inefficiencies, fragmentation and silos. These challenges provide many opportunities for improvement with innovation.
"Current technology can support a much higher level of mHealth adoption than what healthcare is experiencing today. Mobile devices now are more accurate and aren’t lacking for computing capabilities. No health medical management application flows data as seamlessly as PPX," says Lonnie Robinson, Brand Consultant, PPX-TEC.
PPX Bridges the Gap between Patient and Healthcare Providers with a Cloud-ready, Mobile-friendly, Bluetooth Technology
Bluetooth PPX Mobile App means securing patient health data in a snAPP and in proximity during an appointment. PPX is Cloud-ready, can output data files via PDF, Numbers, HTML, XML, or CSV, and can transmit via Bluetooth, email, or print. PPX is fully scalable, ingests multiple large-structured datasets, and identifies and manages the relationships between disparate datasets. PPX is FHIR, HL7, NIST and HIPAA compliant in addition to having the extra security of a self-generating token and a PIN to access data.
The app can bypass data blocking when moving patient data over different systems. PPX can share info with insurance companies and social services entities, reducing fraud and the cost of healthcare.
In “Attitudes Willingness and Feasibility of PPX-Tec for exchanging electronic health data,” twenty-five beta testers downloaded and installed PPX-TEC software on their personal smartphone devices, completed a brief training the session, filled in personal profile information and completed at least one secure send/receive of profile information plus actual personal clinical data.
“Participants found PPX-TEC core features valuable, including scheduling appointments, accessing lab test results, storing and managing medical records as well as sending and receiving health data. PPX-TEC will advance EMR/EHR, insurances and other technology to the next milestone of effective patient-centric interoperability,” adds Debra Griffin. “We need more testing and user feedbacks on PPX’s integration into BlueButton 2.0. This can be achieved through the upcoming awareness campaigns for Medicare beneficiaries, helping them realize PPX’s value and function. This information can guide current and future development.”
The multiple benefits of increased efficiency, improved quality of care and reduced costs, have a great positive impact on patients, providers, social services entities and clinical scientists.
PPX-TEC: The Road Ahead
PPX has several integration projects moving forward. The company plans to pursue national and international adoption and scaling to alleviate some of the healthcare burdens created through fragmentation, rationing and excessive charges. It has some additional cutting-edge technology on the table that could be totally disruptive to data sharing and access. This will be achieved in collaboration with partners, government, or acquisition, or maybe a combination of entities.
“PPX’s Mobile Application adoptions promote a better standard of living your best life. At PPX we plan to stay focused on keeping our mobile enterprise development simple, compliant and innovative. Our main goal has been to deliver to consumers a Patient-Centric Interoperability Solution App,” adds Dean Harrison. I am confortable that we achieved this.
PPX-TEC: Meet the Founders and Key Members of the Leadership
Debra Griffin, Co-founder, has over 30 years of experience working in rural hospitals and other healthcare businesses. Debra has served on several healthcare-related and economic development boards on the state and national levels. Griffin's desire is to facilitate a simple path and open access to appropriate healthcare that is affordable for all.
Dean Harrison is Co-founder and Technical Lead at PPX-TEC, and Owner/developer at HSoft Consulting. Dean has over 30 years as a database designer, IT specialist, app developer and web programmer.
Lonnie Robinson is Brand Consultant, Graphic Designer and Fine Artist with PPX-TEC. Along with branding PPX-TEC, some of Lonnie’s recent projects include branding for the American Jazz Museum the City of Memphis, and the National Civil Rights Museum’s of MLK50 Commemoration and a Equity Member of PPX.
Conclusion
PPX has a unique capability for leveraging the read and write of data in platforms in a non- threatening manner. It functions as a bridge, paired to allow data flow to patients, clients, doctors and others from various vendors’ platforms in a send, receive and search method.
"Appropriate healthcare is the basic right of all and empowered patients have better health outcomes. Interoperability is a complex space with thousands of provider types, vendor types, government regulations and still many unknowns. The breadth of interoperability can and will be conquered when users show confidence and value in the exchange process. PPX can be that non-threatening solution for all parties," Debra Griffin signs off.