One of the biggest healthcare industry challenges is the transformation from a volume-based system to a system focused on value. This evolution is industry-wide, affecting all healthcare systems. As a laboratory information system vendor, Indiana-based Orchard Software has become a pioneer in the industry by offering to clients solutions that ease this transition. The company does this by making sure clients understand where healthcare is headed and how value-based care will be used.
“For the laboratory, this can entail the need for tighter integration of systems, involvement in closing of specific care gaps, managing risk-based contracts, participation in population health initiatives, and tracking and shaping best test utilization,” says Rob Bush, Orchard’s leader and a visionary who is always looking to solve problems and find new ways that laboratory information can be more useful to benefit patient outcomes, laboratory professionals, and the healthcare industry. One such case was Orchard realizing the importance of managing the ever-rising number of point-of-care laboratory tests. This prompted Orchard to develop Orchard® Trellis™ as their point-of-care testing (POCT) management and integration solution to help laboratories as they become involved in the use of POCT results to improve patient outcomes.
One healthcare organization in Nebraska uses several different POCT devices, with testing performed by hundreds of end users from lab, nursing, and radiology. They now have fully integrated glucose POCT results thanks to Orchard. Before this functionality, they were taking a significant amount of time to manually type in thousands of glucose results. While POCT is one of Orchard’s current focuses, the company has grown substantially through the years. Orchard Software Corporation was founded in 1993 and since then, more than 1,500 healthcare facilities across the country have turned to Orchard Software, including all types and sizes of multi-site and multi-specialty clinics and physician office laboratories, hospitals, regional reference labs, fertility clinics, veterinary labs, university student health services, research laboratories, and public health organizations. Orchard now has more than 250 employees, and has developed hundreds of laboratory analyzer and host system interfaces.
Orchard’s systems utilize process automation; robust instrument, electronic medical record, and reference lab interfaces; rules-based technology; advanced system security; intuitive data analytics; extensive paperless quality control features; and much more to improve efficiency and increase laboratory productivity. Orchard’s applications provide flexible user-configurable rules that aid the laboratory by improving workflow efficiency and aiding in decision making throughout the total testing process. The rules engine within the application processes rules throughout the life of an order. If a predefined rule condition is discovered, the system is triggered to perform the associated action(s).
Orchard’s systems allow laboratories to standardize and streamline workflow across all phases of testing, from pre-analytical to post-analytical. Orchard’s extensive rules-based decision-support tools help labs standardize processes that increase efficiency. Through use of dynamic workflow statuses, real-time pending worklists, and user action and change logs, laboratories can improve their workflow and better prepare for regulatory inspections. Orchard’s audit trail, statuses, and sample tracking features provide laboratories tools to organize and track laboratory samples and specimens throughout all phases of the testing process and into storage. Orchard’s systems store data in discrete fields that support interoperability between information systems, including EHR integration and advanced data mining for correlation studies, analytics, regulatory measures, and quality assurance reporting.
Looking forward, Orchard will continue to focus on the laboratory and how an integrated LIS can benefit our healthcare system and the clients it serves. As Rob Bush explained when discussing the future, “We have many new and exciting products and deployments in the pipeline to be released in 2019 and 2020, and we look forward to introducing those to our clients and to the industry as a whole.”
