Our mission at Protenus is to advance the science of healthcare by bringing together creative and skilled individuals who are passionate about the security, usability, and applicability of health data. As this information becomes more voluminous, comprehensive, and, as a consequence, more vulnerable, we are building scalable, insightful solutions that address critical issues preventing the efficient, safe, and effective delivery of patient care.
Protenus unequivocally supports racial, economic, and social justice, including an end to violence against Black Americans. We know that every Black life matters. We support the peaceful protests that have already led to local changes in some cities and states, with a specific focus on supporting racial equity and justice in Baltimore, where we founded our company in 2014. I’ve heard many reasons why companies should embrace diversity in the workforce, most of the reasons pointed toward better results. The best reason to embrace diversity, however, is that it's the right thing to do.
Through conversations with many of our customers, we have heard about the burdens compliance teams face as they try to do more with less. Hospitals nationwide are facing extraordinary challenges to their operating stability as they respond to COVID-19 in their communities; some staff are working longer hours to keep up with demands of patient care; in other cases, staff have been furloughed due to budget cuts and decreased patient admissions.
The Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP) launched in 2009 with a handful of physician offices; its health information exchange (HIE) is called CliniSync. Today, it covers nearly 90% of the state of Ohio and is one of the largest programs in the country. It includes 155 hospitals; more than 500 long-term and post-acute care facilities; 15,000 independent and hospital-employed physicians; and 60 connected EHRs. More than 16 million patients are now represented in CliniSync’s community master patient index.
Like hospital systems nationwide, Indiana University Health (IU Health), faces the challenge of better detecting the theft of controlled substances occurring within its organization, a problem usually referred to as drug diversion. As the largest and most comprehensive healthcare system in the state, with 17 hospitals and approximately 30,000 employees, it had a relatively robust diversion surveillance program, but different hospitals had different approaches. These ranged from minimal surveillance to regular reporting to basic analytics. In addition, there was no consensus on what an institution-wide program should look like and which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to use to measure the program’s success.
