DICOM Grid, the cloud-based medical image management suite vendor, announced today that its name has been changed to Ambra Health. The company has also secured an additional $6 million in funding from the venture firm, Canaan Partners.

The company decided to change its name because it’s no longer just a DICOM exchange business that offers the standard for X-ray, CT and MR exams. They now offer a cloud-based platform that allows hospitals to transfer, share, view and store DICOM images, HR7 feeds, pictures for dermatology and videos.

In the past, patient information would either be faxed to another facility or the patient would be given a CD, but most of the time, that information wouldn’t be shared at all. Even if the patient brought the CD, the facility oftentimes wouldn’t be able to read it or wouldn’t be willing to introduce it into their own systems.
“[The patient] would often go and have the exact same exam done in one place and then done again in another because no one really expected to be able to receive the information,” Morris Panner, CEO of Ambra Health, told HCB News.

Non-DICOM imaging and other large data sets of medical information are emerging at the same time that health care networks are expanding. What happens to a patient outside of the hospital is just as important as what happens to them inside of it.

More than 750 health care providers from large health systems including Mayo Clinic, Stanford Children’s Health and Memorial Hermann, as well as radiology practices and subspecialty practices share images using the Ambra Health network today. That equates to over 750,000 user logins per month from across 50 countries around the world.

Some facilities think that most of what they are going to do is confined to just their facility, so they are fine with a less interoperable approach right now. However, that group is rapidly shrinking and what was done in the past is changing very quickly, said Panner.

Companies like GE Healthcare and Nuance offer some aspects of what Ambra offers, but Ambra is unique in that it provides a suite of services for the cloud, according to Planner.

Ambra launched Think RADical, which is an advisory series of online and in-person events to drive innovation in the medical imaging field. The first event will be on September 29 in New York City at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Physicians from New York Presbyterian, Weill Cornell, Mount Sinai Health System, University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Radiology Society of North America and the Advisory Board Company will be speaking. The main topics of discussion will be the future of radiology, commercializing innovation in health care and interoperability across health networks.

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