You've sold your product to a health system. Now what?

Redox partners with companies in all stages of growth, and we recognize that everyone’s integration journey begins at a different place. This article details what to expect after you’ve closed a sale and are preparing to go live.

Previously, we gave you some background on the healthcare space and discussed what’s required when preparing to sell your product to health systems. Here, we’ll go through the next steps of the process: working with health systems and kicking off your integration project.

Working with health systems

You’ve found the holy grail: a successful sale to your health system. Before kicking off your project, there are a few more steps that typically occur:

1. Contracting

Everyone wants to get paid and everyone else wants a deal. Before kicking off your project, you’ll need to go through the contracting process with the health system. For some organizations, this is quick and easy; others can take several weeks to months. Be prepared for this and ask about their approval and contracting process during the sales cycle so that there are no surprises down the road.

2. Security review

Security in health IT is a hot button issue and is critical in making health systems feel comfortable sharing data with you. Many health systems have a security process that’s required after approval and before system access can be granted. In the event that they do, expect to receive a security questionnaire that you and Redox will fill out together to validate that you meet the expected security requirements of the health system.

3. Kicking off your project

Once you’ve done all that, it’s finally time to kick off your project! As a part of our Implementation Package, we’ll provide you with the materials and tools needed for a successful kickoff and implementation. Our team is here to be the liaisons between you and the health system, taking the fear out of integration by translating data and managing every step of your integration throughout the project.

4. What does an implementation look like?

Kickoff marks the start of the project, and your Redox implementation lead will be responsible for guiding you and the health system through it (check out a sample project plan here). The first step is establishing connectivity with the health system through either a secure VPN connection, proxy, or certificate exchange depending on which data models you’re using. Next, a member from the health system interface team will point the interface to Redox and send us test messages. Based on these, Redox will complete configurations designed to translate the data to meet your application’s need. While we’re working on connectivity, you can finalize your endpoint setup to Redox and complete your connection testing with the engine. Once we’re receiving the expected information from the health system, we’ll be ready to start integrated testing between them and your application. We’ll use that testing to validate the Redox configuration and ensure you’re receiving everything that you expect to from the health system. After that, it’s time to go-live.

5. Going live

There are two stages to going live—the first is a soft (or technical) go-live and usually lasts 1-3 days. This means that we’re exchanging production level data between your application and the health system, but users aren’t interacting with the data yet. The goal of this is a final check on the integration to validate that what we saw in testing does match what production messages will look like. Once you and the health system are satisfied with the messages, it’s time for users to start seeing the magic of your integration.

During the go-live period, Redox is available to provide support and validate that the information flow is correct. After a successful go-live, it’s on to the next project!

Still looking for more information? Check out this blog on Gauss Surgical, one of our very first customers, detailing the five lessons learned during their integration, What to Expect When You’re Expecting…to Integrate with a Health System. If you still want more, watch our Working with Health Systems webinar to hear from a Redox expert on the intricacies of selling to and working with health systems. As with everything, if you have any questions, please reach out. We’re here (and happy) to help.

Working with Redox

Redox is your integration partner, and we care passionately about improving interoperability in healthcare. We also recognize that everyone has different needs, and so we offer a variety of packages to help you utilize our services in whichever way fits you best.

Regardless of what package you choose, there are a few things we do with all of our customers: first, we want to talk to you! Schedule a call with our team so we can learn more about what you do and how Redox can help.

If you like to explore, sign up for a free developer account and kick the tires on what it looks like to connect to Redox.

There are are a few things we’ll want to know about you, so be prepared to discuss the following in your first call with Redox:

An elevator story about your product
An overview of your past integration experiences
High-level partnership goals
An overview of the types of health systems and EHRs you’re targeting
Types of information you’ll need to receive and send

In order to maximize the value of our first call, we recommend that you be prepared with the following:

A product demo and workflow highlighting key integration points
A list of the data that needs to be exchanged
Initial thoughts on the data models that meet your needs
High level timelines for when you expect to talk with your next (or first!) health system
Must-have vs. nice-to-have/phase 2 integration capabilities

Overview of Redox

Redox is the modern API for healthcare, enabling cloud applications to integrate and synch with health system EHRs. We believe healthcare needs innovation, and that enabling easier access to data sharing is a key part of improving patient care. We work with application vendors from all over the world who have identified areas needing improvement and have built truly amazing solutions that address real-life problems. Together, we can deliver technology which augments the functionality of EHRs and expands both the scope and quality of healthcare.