Is There Life Beyond Enterprise Grade?

The answer is yes. But I warn you the answer may result in Shock and Awe for your brain.

Are you ready?!

Nation Grade.

There I said it. It’s out there. There is no taking it back. The Genie is out of the bottle.

Take some time to soak it in and savor the greatness of it.

Nation Grade.

I said it again to make sure it registers with you in case you are still in Awe and/or Shock.

As your grey matter starts to recover such a mind blowing Buzzword, let me ease you into our conversation.

The definition of Nation Grade is simple at a high level and has many nuances at a bare metal level.

At the 50,000 foot level, a Nation Grade solution is when a country has chosen to use a solution for all or most of the nation. The nuances of why they chose that product for the nation are where the proof is in the pudding.

So how is Siren a Nation Grade solution? I’m glad you asked fine sir or lady.

At the high level, Siren is Nation Grade because England has secured Siren for use in over 60% of the ambulances in the country with negotiations underway to provide Siren for all of England. Based on our overwhelming success in England, we are having conversations in eight (8) other countries from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to provide Siren on a national level.

If you rely on a solution for your country, then security is a major concern. Security is synonymous with breathing at Medusa. We have plenty of Security 02 in the office. It is our lifeblood.

As validation of that security focus, a worldwide industry leader in Information Assurance has performed several audits and penetration tests on Siren over the last 4 years. After each review, they approved Siren to be secure enough to use in the national health care solution in England (Connecting for Health).

It is important to have a product proven to accommodate the regional configurations within a nation. In many countries the State, Province or Territory administers the health care system. This requires a Nation Grade product to support multiple languages, segment data per region/organization (let’s just use region to use less words) and allow each region to have their own configuration to meet their particular needs.

Medusa has a great record of accomplishment in localizing the product. Siren is in the field in UK English, US English, and Dutch. Localization of Siren in Portuguese is underway.

Siren has a very robust system for handling multiple organizations within the same deployment of Siren. This allows for significant economies of scale in supporting less working parts than if each organization had to build and maintain their own implementation of Siren.

The key of the Siren multi-org solution architecture is that the info from each organization has an organization ID associated with it. This applies to configuration info, patient data, user data, and protocols. This allows a country to restrict access to only users that have access to that organization data. This not only allows solid data security but also allows for the creation of super users that operate at a national level that can see all ePCR data for the entire country.

The Siren Data Analytics (D.A.) solution works in conjunction with this organization structure. D.A. allows authorized users to do in depth analysis of all facets of the Siren data set.

D.A. goes a step further, built on an industry standard Data Warehouse. Medusa designed the Siren Data Warehouse to increase performance and flexibility of reporting. Think of it as reporting on steroids… but legal!

The Siren Data Analytics package provides agencies with a set of reports, data cubes, data marts and dashboards to perform detailed analysis on their ePCR data. The package offers flexibility in using existing reports as they are, copying and modifying existing reports, or creating new reports.

A huge advantage of a Nation Grade product is it effectively integrates with other parts of the regional or national solution. Medusa has been leading the industry in this area. Any ePCR solution that is worth looking at has the basic integration with CAD and Billing solutions. Medusa has taken integration to the Nation Grade level.

In England, we have Siren integrated with the government’s SPINE system. The SPINE is the core database and data services solution that all the Health Care products will interact with to ensure one commonly accessible patient care record. Therefore, whether you are in the back of an ambulance, an ER/ED, or your General Practitioner you can access your entire health care record from the day you were born. As you can imagine the security around this solution has to be top notch, which is why the security audits mentioned earlier are so important.

In the US, President Obama is unveiling his vision for Health Care and it is very similar to the English model. Siren is a perfect fit as a Nation Grade solution for the US given our track record in England. In one of President Obama’s speeches, he made mention of the Regenstrief Institute in Indiana, which manages a patient record database for the entire state.

The Regenstrief Institute has a system in place for all of Indiana that is very similar to England’s. They are very proud of their accomplishment and they should be. Medusa is also proud to be part of that solution. We have worked with Regenstrief Institute and our EMS agency partners in Indiana (“Indy ePCR Project”) to build an interface into the Regenstrief database. This will improve the quality of patient care data, save lives and reduce costs.

Another project in Indiana (they have great initiatives there!) that Medusa launched in 2008 is our integration with ESSENCE bio-surveillance software. This allows EMS agencies in Indiana to send relevant ePCR data to the ESSENCE system so they have an early warning system for any bio issues such as SARS outbreaks, small pox, anthrax, etc. In most cases, regional and national health systems rely on very out of date information to respond to such bio issues. This initiative will help end that archaic practice.

Another project we are excited about is with MedicAlert in Canada. This project is in conjunction with MedicAlert, Canada Health Infoway (Infoway), and Emergency Health Services of Nova Scotia (EHS). With this solution, medics in the field will have access to patient’s detailed medical history housed in the MedicAlert database.

What really makes the integration Nation Grade is the MedicAlert database contains data for people from the East Coast to the West Coast of Canada. Any Canadian agency that uses Siren ePCR Suite can access valuable patient data for the more than 1 million Canadian citizens.
Oh yea… did I mention that every medic in Nova Scotia (over 800) uses Siren software? Did someone say Nation Grade?

I hope that you can see a pattern here. Medusa constantly works with our customers to increase the value of their entire EMS system: Not just charting.

When large national associations recognize your offering it is another subtle indication that your solution is Nation Grade.

For the prestigious BCS IT Industry Awards for 2008, Siren won the Mobile Technology Award in conjunction with CSC for the national implementation of Siren in England. You can see details on the Award here. It is the 4th one down on the page. We had few beverages at that awards ceremony!

So if you have an ePCR solution, ask them if they are Nation Grade. And if you are evaluating to purchase an ePCR solution, ask all the vendors if they are Nation Grade. Your teams and your patients will thank you for it because Nation Grade will save lives, provide solid data privacy and increase operational efficiency.

What are the Nation Grade questions to ask? Start with these:

1. To what countries do you currently provide a National solution?

2. Can I have a copy of your 3rd party security audit for your ePCR solution?

3. What national association awards have you won?

4. How do you handle segmenting data for multiple organizations in your solution?

5. What languages have you deployed your product in?

6. Can you give us case studies on external health care systems you have integrated with such as bio-surveillance, regional patient databases or hospital systems?

7. How can I efficiently aggregate all the data in my system from all organizations to make informed decisions about patient care and operations?

If the vendor tries to change the subject, looks down at their shoes in silence, or tells you to look behind you in alarm so they can run away, you may want to give Medusa a call. :)

posted by Dan MacDonald of Medusa Medical Technologies  # 4:50 PM 0 Comments

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