Health IT, Hospitals, Startups

Box adds medical image sharing business MedXT to modernize care coordination

Cloud computing storage business, Box, has acquired a medical imaging company focused on teleradiology called […]

Cloud computing storage business, Box, has acquired a medical imaging company focused on teleradiology called MedXT, according to a blog entry on Box’s website penned by CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie. It fits into its strategy of providing cloud support to different industries, particularly healthcare.

MedXT co-founders Reshma Khilnani and Cody Ebberson will join Box to help integrate their medical image sharing technology with the Box platform and build new content for the healthcare industry.

MedXT, which graduated from Y Combinator, wants to overcome the challenge of interoperability in the radiology field. In an interview with MedCity News over the summer, MedXT CEO Ebberson observed that providers struggle with exchanging X-rays, CT scans and ultrasound images efficiently, partly due to the high cost of connecting systems. The technology to transmit these images also lags behind other sectors. DVDs are used to save images, a process which can make them needlessly cumbersome to deliver, and reports providing a diagnosis or observations about the images tend to be faxed.

MedXT overcomes those challenges through its software-as-a-service that provides shareable previews of DICOM files in the cloud and also supports annotations. It also uses a multilingual interface. Payment depends on how much radiology practices use it. It’s currently used in 300 facilities in 25 states and 11 countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, Russia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Among Box’s customers are Stanford Health Care, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Mount Sinai Health System, St. Joseph Health and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Healthcare is one of three sectors that have been launched as part of Box for Industries to accelerate technology advancement and improve workflow across several different business sectors.

Missy Krasner, the managing director for healthcare and life sciences at Box, told MedCity News in a phone interview that healthcare and life sciences are the largest sector in its business. Hospitals represent the fastest growing part of its business. One reason is that medical images and health records stored there makes it easier to share that information with other physicians and to avoid duplicating tests.

On the question of other services Box wants to adopt for healthcare, Krasner said it is looking at dictation storage, patient portals and electronic medical records. Longer term, it;s interested in longterm care and palliative care.

Touching on the start of its relationship with MedXT, Box works with accelerators such as Y Combinator and gets their startup companies interested in using Box for storage. MedXT was one of those companies. “MedXT became an incredible partner for us to work with.”

Among the other healthcare companies it partners with electronic health record and patient portal business Dr Chrono and hospital communication business TigerText

Update: This story has been updated with new information from an interview with Missy Krasner, Box managing director for healthcare and life sciences.

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