Canon and Nuance Finish Testing for Healthcare Interoperability Standards
Canon U.S.A. and Nuance announced today that the companies have completed interoperability testing of their technology, creating new capabilities for electronic health records (EHRs).
Nuance eCopy ShareScan v5, running on a Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE multifunctional printer (MFP), was demonstrated at the IHE North America Connectathon. The companies successfully executed scan workflows to generate Health Level Seven International (HL7) Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) messages that enable the standardized passing of patient records to content consumers, such as EHR systems, that are accessible online throughout the patient-care continuum.
The companies said that the initiative advances the healthcare industry goal of creating a complete patient health story by enriching EHRs with the use of paper-based, clinical document information, and facilitating the seamless exchange of healthcare information.
According to Nuance, of the 1.2 billion clinical documents produced in the United States each year, approximately 60 percent contain valuable information trapped in unstructured documents, such as clinical notes, that are unavailable for clinical use, quality measurement, and data mining. To address this issue, the Health Story Project was founded by a collaborative of healthcare vendors, providers, and associations to develop and promote data standards through HL7 that support the flow of information between unstructured documents and electronic medical records.
"For too many healthcare organizations, paper-based content still restricts information flow in patient care, and creates administrative inefficiencies and excess costs," said Sam Yoshida, vice president and general manager of Canon U.S.A., in a statement. "Canon has been steadfast in supporting standards, such as HL7 CDA, because they help healthcare organizations extend interoperability across all aspects of patient care to eliminate error-prone manual processes and increase information accessibility."
Nuance eCopy ShareScan is a document scanning and workflow solution for networked MFPs. The software enables healthcare organizations to automate paper-to-digital workflows, letting healthcare professionals scan paper documents securely using existing investments in network MFPs and scanners.
Canon provides a full line of devices and software solutions to streamline clinical workflows, improve forms processing, and help support the importing of patient information into EMR systems. The Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE systems provide one-touch integration workflows and high speed printing and scanning capabilities that help healthcare organizations retrieve quick access to critical patient information and lower workflow costs.