In this episode of the Interop Now at Vibe series on The Beat Podcast, host Sandy Vance sits down with Joe Graw, Chief Growth Officer at ImageTrend, for a fascinating and deeply personal conversation about the data gap that exists between the ambulance and the emergency department.
Joe has been at ImageTrend for nearly 25 years and brings both an engineer's precision and a genuine personal mission to a topic most health system leaders have never fully considered. With 70 million EMS encounters in ImageTrend's network annually and one in three ED patients arriving via EMS, the pre-hospital data source is too important to ignore.
From an automated patient-matching algorithm to transport-pattern analytics that signal demand shifts before hospitals feel them operationally, this episode makes a compelling case that EMS data is the earliest and most underutilized demand signal in all of healthcare.
In this episode, they talk about:
One in three patients arriving in the emergency department comes from EMS, making pre-hospital data one of the most important upstream data sources in healthcare
ImageTrend processes nearly 70 million EMS activations annually across its network
The NEMSIS standard is used by 100% of EMS and fire departments that treat patients, making it a universal foundation for pre-hospital interoperability
Most EMS to hospital data transfer still happens via PDFs, faxes, face sheets, or portal logins, none of which are usable at the point of care
ImageTrend's proprietary patient matching algorithm eliminates the need for deterministic fields like MRN numbers, removing a major workflow barrier for paramedics
EMS transport patterns are the earliest demand signal in healthcare, revealing referral leakage, access issues, and capacity problems before hospitals feel them operationally
Virginia-based health care organization Carilion Clinic is automating 20,000 EMS transports annually into their EHR using ImageTrend, with outcomes data flowing back to EMS agencies to close the quality loop
Health systems that treat EMS agencies as strategic data partners rather than just transport services are better positioned to keep care close to home
A Little About Joe:
Joe’s passion to learn and explore new ideas in the industry is about more than managing the growth of ImageTrend – it’s forward thinking. Engaging in many facets of ImageTrend is part of what drives Joe. He is dedicated to our community, clients, and their use of data to drive results, implement change, and drive improvement in their industries.
