Based on its recent analysis of the surgical imaging integration market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Image Stream Medical with the 2014 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Enhancement. By providing comprehensive, easy to use and innovative solutions for hospitals’ operating room (OR) video integration needs, Image Stream simplifies hospitals’ vendor identification, evaluation, and implementation processes and ensures its customers see maximum benefit from their OR Integration system. This capability allows Image Stream to provide superior value to its customers and contributes to the company’s rapid growth in the field.

Image Stream’s vendor-neutral solutions enable them to be independent of other devices in the OR. This ensures a consistently high level of performance, regardless of the manufacturer the hospital chooses for endoscopy, surgical lights or surgical booms. This also permits hospitals to choose the vendors that best meet their needs and to change or add vendors as needed.

“Image Stream Medical’s hardware, software and services help hospitals optimize the performance of their OR’s by providing a solid infrastructure for surgical workflow, collaboration and learning,” said Frost & Sullivan Consultant Imran Khan. “Its robust integration platform for imaging and other information systems helps hospitals improve their overall care quality by improving teamwork and communication both intra-procedure and afterward, helping to reduce the incidence of medical errors caused by the utilization of disparate patient information systems.”

Image Stream Medical’s EasySuite® family of integrated solutions provides a workflow-aware control environment that addresses the routing, capturing, and storing of digital high-definition video generated during surgical procedures.

At the core of Image Stream Medical’s OR integration lies its server technology, including LiveStream®, VaultStream® and the Patient Interface Engine (PIE). LiveStream® provides secure, real-time streaming connectivity for users throughout the hospital system, while VaultStream® provides secure access to surgical video libraries to clinicians and others, and the PIE provides a seamless interface to hospital electronic health records (EHRs) and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS).

Image Stream’s solutions have proved invaluable to academic/teaching hospitals as well, as they facilitate effective learning of complex and innovative surgical techniques. For instance, Image Stream Medical’s LiveStream® Network provides real-time, secure video streaming of surgical procedures throughout the hospital and to other affiliates, thereby creating opportunities for greater collaboration among clinicians/surgeons.

In collaboration with the LiveStream® Network, the company has also established a Web portal that connects with hospitals’ IT networks to provide live video streaming of surgical techniques to other medical professionals. Additionally, in September 2013, Image Stream Medical announced the deployment of Quad HD Video Immersion Technology that it developed along with Education Management Solutions to support simulation-based surgical learning.

“Image Stream Medical offers robust surgical imaging integration solutions that are designed to address the needs of both the community and academic/teaching hospitals,” noted Kahn. “Though many IT vendors are targeting hospitals and other care-delivery organizations with their integration solutions, Image Stream offers the right depth and breadth of surgical imaging integration, which can significantly enhance customers’ OR capabilities and ROI.”

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. This award recognizes the company’s inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and, ultimately, customer base expansion.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.