Authored by Bill Anderson, Chairman and CEO at MEDHOST. The content and opinions in this post are those of the third-party author and AWS is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this post. 

MEDHOST has been providing enterprise information technology systems to full-service community hospitals for more than 35 years. In addition to offering a robust solution at an affordable price, our longevity may be attributed to our commitment to supplying customers with the most practicable technology available.

MEDHOST’s multi-tenant cloud-based EHR solution migration with AWS benefits our customers everywhere, specifically those in rural and community settings and in connection with improved patient wellness. This blog will give readers a snapshot of our journey during these years of collaboration with AWS and what our future looks like.

MEDHOST’s Journey with AWS

We started working with AWS over seven years ago. Our initial cloud product was a new multi-tenant patient portal to meet requirements of the initial stages of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Meaningful Use program. This quickly expanded into a three-prong approach: MEDHOST committed to developing new products in the cloud; expanding and enhancing clinical modules with an industry-leading interface architected for an eventual “lift and shift” to the cloud; and developing common cloud-based services across our product lines.

Our strategy was not only designed to provide customers with the best products possible, but it also recognized that technology markets follow a predictable path to maturity and price declines. MEDHOST needed a cloud services partner that could provide the scale necessary for the long-term. AWS provides an array of tools to support our efforts, which we are able to utilize for foundational components as well as in continued innovation.

Current Initiatives

Digital transformation in the healthcare industry has been accelerated by the COVID pandemic, consumer technology awareness, physicians’ technology adoption, cloud availability, and network expansion in rural areas. MEDHOST is working on several digital transformation efforts to help address physician burnout, operational optimization by artificial intelligence (AI), remote monitoring for touchless care, analytical solutions for making informed decisions within hospital setup, reduction of onboarding time with cloud-based solutions, and efficient/low-cost solutions by adopting to open standard platform.

MEDHOST is especially focused on providing industry-leading technology to the rural market at an affordable cost. MEDHOST conducts Advisory Group sessions that include MEDHOST subject matter experts and solution users from our customer organizations, including rural health. These sessions help MEDHOST understand user workflow journey, which helps in the digital transformation process. One initiative to come out of this is an ambient listening EHR solution that provides more time for the physician to spend with a patient, rather than spending time on the keyboard. The ambient listening EHR solution uses Amazon Transcribe and Amazon Comprehend to help decrease physician keyboard time and focus on quality time with patient care.

The healthcare industry is challenged with providing patient healthcare data through API for meeting 21st Century Cures Act requirements. MEDHOST has chosen FHIR Works on AWS, an open source software toolkit, to provide cloud based multi-tenant scalable solution. Hospital IT systems face extreme difficulty in managing this solution on data center. By having a cloud-based solution, it takes away the operational challenges and also enables hospital IT systems to expand the solution based on future need. MEDHOST combines its healthcare domain knowledge with the deep technology skills of AWS by actively contributing to the AWS open source serverless multi-tenant FHIR server. FHIR API interface truly enables the patient to own their own data and consume it in real time. This not only helps the patient directly, but also expands the provider’s ability to adopt fast changing technologies for mobile applications. MEDHOST strongly believes that FHIR API will accelerate interoperability within healthcare systems.

Looking Forward with AWS

Innovation is a core component of MEDHOST values. We host a yearly MEDHOST Hackathon event, innovation labs with AWS, and continued experiments that keep our focus on bringing quick solutions to our customers. Having multi-tenant cloud-based solutions will help us experiment more, and spend more time on technology advancements like machine learning, analytical solutions, telehealth, ambient listening EHR, mobile friendly applications, and voice-based consumer applications through Amazon Alexa. The continued innovation and healthcare-specific services of AWS help us keep our innovation going at MEDHOST.

To learn more about MEDHOST, please reach out to us at inquiries@medhost.com or call 1.800.383.6278.

Join us at the AWS HCLS Virtual Symposium on May 27, 2021 for a technical session on expanding access to care in rural America with MEDHOST EHR on AWS. Register now.