HealthMark Acquires Purview to Expand Imaging Access
HealthMark Group has acquired Purview, a move aimed at streamlining digital access to medical imaging for patients and providers. The acquisition reflects a broader industry trend toward improving interoperability for complex data types like images. Informatics teams will need to ensure EHR systems can support seamless imaging exchange via FHIR APIs.
- The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) offers the board certification in Nursing Informatics (NI-BC™), which requires an active RN license, a BSN, two years of full-time RN practice, and specific practice hours in informatics. Your ICU experience can be framed as subject matter expertise when transitioning into informatics, providing a crucial clinical perspective on technology design and implementation. - The acquisition's focus on FHIR APIs is critical as federal rules from the ONC and CMS now mandate their use to prevent "information blocking" and ensure patients can access their health information from different providers and payers. This regulation, part of the 21st Century Cures Act, drives the need for informatics professionals who can manage and implement these interoperability standards. - For a nurse at an Epic-based hospital, optimizing EHR workflows is a key informatics task. Strategies include customizing nursing-specific dashboards, reducing documentation time by eliminating redundant flowsheet options, and creating specialty-specific templates. UCHealth, for example, saved nurses 18 minutes per 12-hour shift through an Epic optimization project. - Frontline nurses frequently report EHR usability issues that contribute to burnout, such as physician-centric design, excessive clicking, redundant data entry, and slow system response times. Understanding these frustrations is key to being an effective informaticist who can bridge the gap between clinical staff and IT. - AI-driven clinical decision support (CDS) is increasingly used in ICUs to analyze thousands of data points in real-time. These systems can help predict patient deterioration, manage ventilator settings, and flag potential complications like sepsis, directly leveraging the data-rich environment of critical care. - The HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard uses modern web technologies like RESTful APIs to allow different systems, including EHRs and mobile apps, to exchange data in a more flexible, real-time manner compared to older HL7 versions. This enables the seamless data sharing that the HealthMark-Purview acquisition aims to achieve for medical images. - To build technical skills for an informatics role, consider gaining proficiency in data management tools, familiarizing yourself with EHR platforms like Epic's "Playground" training environment, and joining professional organizations such as the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA) or HIMSS for networking and resources.
