Ambra Health on a Quest to Make Imaging More Accessible With First iOS App

Ambra Health has launched its first iOS mobile app, which it says was designed with ease of viewing and accessibility in mind.

In a statement, Ambra Health said the “app offers healthcare providers an intuitive image viewing experience, fully optimized for mobile viewing.”

Ambra Health said the app supports all imaging types from any connected picture archiving and communication system (PACS), such as MRI, CT, PET, CR, US, and MG.

App to allow physicians remote access to images

The company said users of the app can “effortlessly view imaging from anywhere, scroll through a series, and utilize radiology tooling like zooming, pinching, and rotating all from the palm of their hand.”

“While not intended for diagnostic use, imaging can be securely shared directly from within the app to other physicians, administrators, and patients for enhanced communication and collaboration,” the company said.

One of the app’s top features is that it allows secure communication between physicians or between doctors and patients.

Todd Lempert, the Chief Executive Officer of Coast Radiology and Chief, Interventional Radiology and Diagnostic Neuroradiology, Mission Hospital, said the app allowed him to instantaneously view a patient’s prior images.

“The app is really intuitive and as easy as viewing images in my office. I’ve also gained the capability to share imaging with other providers in a secure manner from anywhere. I can provide context immediately without having to wait for the images to load on my computer or run back to the office,” he said.

Ambra Health CEO, Morris Panner, underscored the app’s intuitiveness, saying the platform offered a “quick and intuitive way for physicians to access medical images anytime, anywhere, and also enables providers to image enable patient and referring physician digital health apps.”

Digital health lagging behind tech developments

Panner said digital health was increasingly becoming a mobile first experience. At the top of Panner’s agenda is methods to make it easier for physicians to share data between providers, because this will lead to better outcomes, as more care teams increase their virtual abilities.

The startup is on a mission to digitize health care, with its chief marketing officer, Mini Peiris, saying “health care is still in the land of CDs and faxes.”

Four years ago, Ambra Health estimated that imaging was one of the fastest growing components of medical costs, saying this constituted between 7.5 and 10 percent of total healthcare expenditures. It pointed out that the costs of imaging were more than $100 billion per year, however, 10 percent of these exams were either duplicative or unnecessary.

“With a cloud-based solution, image sharing and storage becomes easier with less need for duplication,” Forbes reported.

The New York based Ambra Health, which was founded in 2004, is a medical data and image management cloud software company.

A profile of the startup says it “offers a cloud-based medical image management platform to improve imaging and collaborative care workflows. Its products and services include hospitals and health systems, medical groups and practices, radiology practices, and contract research organizations. The company specializes in orthopedic, neurosurgery, urgent care, cardiology, oncology, and women’s health aspects.”

Prior to September 2016, Ambra Health was known as DICOM Grid, Inc.

Ambra Health describes itself as a company that is at the “forefront of the transformation of medical imaging through cloud technology.”

Ambra Health is at the top of its class

Earlier this year, Ambra Health was voted as the top medical image exchange by KLAS Research in the 2018 Best in KLAS: Software and Services Report. The company has been recognized as the top of its class for four consecutive years.

At the time of the recognition, Panner said Ambra Health was “incredibly proud to be recognized by KLAS as the top medical image exchange provider for the fourth year in a row. It is an exceptional achievement given that the award was based on direct feedback from customers – a testament to the value our team, products and services are delivering to leading healthcare providers including Stanford Children’s Health, Weill Cornell, Atrius Health, Memorial Hermann, New England Baptist Hospital and more.”

Ambra Health’s system is used by the Mayo Clinic as well as radiology practices, subspecialty practices and clinical research organizations to improve imaging and collaborative care workflows.

The company said more than 1,500 healthcare organizations use Ambra Health for image exchange and cloud VNA and that its “network is growing at a rapid pace of two new provider gateways per day, resulting in more than 3 billion images now managed through the platform.”