Rackspace Technology works with Arthrex

With a mission of improving a surgeon’s ability to treat their patients, Arthrex pioneered the field of arthroscopy and has developed more than 8,500 innovative products and procedures that advance minimally invasive orthopedic surgery worldwide. Most recently, the company developed a new line of endoscopic camera systems that supports thousands of physicians around the globe.

Arthrex worked with Rackspace Technology to reimagine and modernize the post-surgery experience by creating a digital communications portal built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The cloud solution provides surgeons customizable, post-operative templates that can be quickly populated with patient data and made available for patients to access on-demand through a secure, HIPAA-compliant interface. As part of the solution, Rackspace Technology leveraged the scalability of AWS and its highly secure infrastructure to upload and share comprehensive post-surgery reports, including image and video files accessed directly from Arthrex’s medical imaging technology in the operating room.

The cloud solution was built alongside a mobile app that Rackspace had previously created to download media and metadata from Arthrex’s medical imaging technology. Data was stored on-premises for research and in compliance with regulatory laws. Rackspace Technology then utilized Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service for MySQL (Amazon RDS for MySQL) to connect relevant data to the cloud where it can be shared with patients.

“There’s an entire continuum of care benefits from the cloud technology that has been implemented,” said Eric Butler, Sr. Director at Arthrex. “Post-operative calls and visits to the clinics have been dramatically reduced. Nurses and medical assistants don’t have to spend time answering redundant questions that were either not well understood or not well articulated the first time. For example, a surgeon using the solution measured a 68% decrease in calls from patients compared to three years ago.”

The on-demand personalized report helps patients fill communication gaps that used to require face-to-face meetings or phone consults with doctors which saves valuable medical time and resources. Arthrex’s Digital Surgeon Portal allows surgeons to record video messages, include links to relevant studies, and draw on an extensive library of medical imagery, as well as images taken during the surgery. While in the past, patients might lose this documentation and require a follow-up appointment for reassurance, now they have it in a digital format.

“Due to the highly secure Rackspace Technology solution a patient’s private information is safe, and healthcare providers can rest assured knowing they are maintaining compliance. Everything is designed to be HIPAA compliant in the service selection and the architecture,” said Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist at Rackspace Technology. “We’re leveraging both encryption in transit as well as at rest in Amazon S3. At the end of the day, this means no one has to worry about misplacing a photocopied medical report or accidentally transferring files from a thumb drive or email to an unauthorized device.”