Zus Health

So today we’re chatting about Zus and how it’s used at your company. Before we jump into that, could you give a brief overview of the company and your role there?

I was the head of product at a virtual interdisciplinary, chronic specialty care company.

What drove the need for a solution like Zus?

As an interdisciplinary company, working across specialties, we had to capture a lot of very specific questions for incoming patients during the intake process. This led to two problems. First, the intake flow was very burdensome and tedious: we didn’t want to drown the patients in intake forms, but collecting this information was necessary to provide the best care. And second, often, many patients couldn’t recollect their previous treatment or medication history, even from one or two years prior. And having that relevant history was really important for us to guide our development of effective care plans.

What criteria did you use to evaluate Zus and its competitors?

The main factors we considered were the price point and compatibility with our EHR, which is Healthie. The fact that Zus directly integrated with Healthie was a big needle mover for us. After that we looked at how quickly we would be able to access data after submitting a patient data request. And finally, more importantly than quality of data, we needed breadth of coverage: we needed a service that could provide meaningful history for as many of our patients as possible.

Comparing data coverage was mostly a matter of looking at the list of health systems each provider listed in their data network, and manually checking each one to get a sense for how much overlap they had with our patient population. There’s not really a great way for any of these companies to do a test run to be able to gauge coverage, unfortunately.

What other vendors did you look at, and how did they compare?

To be honest, we primarily focused on Zus from the start just because we knew they integrated directly with Healthie. Zus was the first product we tested, and we were so happy with our experience there that we didn’t end up looking further. It was quick to set up and we were immediately very happy with the output.

Did you compare pricing models? How did you calculate the potential benefit of going with an interoperability provider?

We conducted an internal ROI analysis where we compared the cost of the product with the expense of not using it. We didn’t have a perfect quantitative model, but we were trying to think through the consequences and expenses if we were unable to pull in past patient data. Patients often bounce across different health systems, each with their own communication preferences, and they often aren’t responsive when we request data. As a result, we may not have all the relevant patient data and may end up telling them to try something they’ve already tried in the past. The simplest way to think about it was in terms of how much time we saved, and what the overall impact was on patient experience and retention. Ultimately, Zus’s pricing model made it an easy decision.

What was the sales process like?

It was very smooth. The team was very responsive and supportive. Onboarding was slowed down a little bit because at the time they were building out their direct integration with Healthie, so we pushed back our own timeline because we wanted to start with everything prebuilt and fully polished; we didn’t want to manage two platforms. So it wasn’t as fast as it would be today, but it was very smooth otherwise.

What was the onboarding, implementation, and setup process like?

It was extremely easy. Zus worked very closely with us to make sure the Healthie integration was properly set up. It was pretty hands off on our side.

What was the process like to share data back into the ecosystem?

Honestly, when we started, there wasn’t a requirement to send information back. Maybe it’s because we were a very small customer, but we didn’t need to set anything up like that.

What are your use cases for Zus?

We use it to pull a patient’s condition, encounter history, and medication history, all of which are extremely relevant in creating personalized care plans. It’s especially important for patients who have gone through extensive treatment and can’t necessarily recall all the details themselves. We don’t want to drown them in questions or tedious intake forms to cover every element of their history.

Zus can provide a really comprehensive history, the entire patient journey. It includes hospitalization history, allergies, ICD codes, CPT codes, etc. Our clinical team was really excited about having all that information.

Did you have to handle a lot of duplicate or extraneous data?

In most cases, the data wasn’t so comprehensive that it was overly time consuming to skim through. There were certainly instances where there was more information than was relevant to us, and there wasn’t a good way to filter it. But the minor inconvenience of having excess information was still far more preferable than not having the data we needed.

Did you build any transforms, rules, or filters to better summarize the data?

At the time we were using it, no.

How did you interact with the Zus UI?

We didn’t directly, and that’s something we were excited about. We wanted to minimize the number of platforms we were using and be able to request and view data and patient charts from within Healthie itself. That was a huge plus for us and it’s all we ever used.

How does the Healthie integration work?

We did integrate several products with Healthie, and out of all of them the Zus integration seemed the most seamless, easy to set up and interpret, and reliable. It’s probably the best I’ve seen from any integration. The presentation is seamless with the rest of Healthie’s layout, which made it very easy for our clinicians to adopt.

Healthie’s charts are divided into several sections like medications, conditions, and labs. Zus’s information is integrated into a separate box underneath each of these sections. For instance, the medication section lists the medications a patient has been prescribed and records of their medication history with us. Underneath that is a separate box titled “Historical Medications,” which lists the patient’s history imported from Zus. It’s separate from our records but easily viewable together, and still uses Healthie’s branding and style. Honestly, if someone used Healthie without knowing about the Zus integration, and they saw all this information, they would probably think it’s just a very comprehensive patient profile.

To request information for a patient, a small sidebar pops out where you can fill in the request. It’s really smooth and seamlessly integrated in a way that I loved.

What strengths or weaknesses does Zus have?

Zus’s data coverage is excellent. However, it’s not clear when you make a data request how much data you will receive. We pay for each request, and in some instances we would request and then receive a thorough record, which has a significant positive impact on the quality of the patient care plan we can create. But in other cases we would get next to nothing, and it’s not clear beforehand what you’re going to get. I know that’s just a limitation of their data coverage, and I’m sure it’s something they’re constantly working on. But it can be a bit discouraging sometimes. Being able to have a little more control over what data we receive or how it is presented within Healthie would have been great. But for the most part, the way they organize the data within Healthie’s UI is very clean and intuitive.

Did you have any reliability issues or bugs?

I can only speak to the integration with Healthie but I never had any issue with it. It was very consistent and reliable.

Did you build on top of the Zus API or other integrations?

No, we just integrated with Healthie.

How were your interactions with the account management and support teams?

They were super responsive. If I emailed them, I would typically get a response on the same day, from both their account management and product teams. They were also very courteous and understood our exact needs. I never felt like they were disconnected from our specific use case or business needs. It was really top notch.

Do you feel like you made the correct assessment in going with Zus?

Definitely, yes. Zus is certainly the first product I would go to for data interoperability on Healthie, without a doubt. If I weren’t using Healthie, I would have done a more exhaustive search for competitors. But given the great experience we have had and the pricing, I would be very surprised if we didn’t choose it again over alternatives. It helped us provide better quality care and saved us time.

Do you have any recommendations for the team at Zus?

The visibility aspect is the first thing that comes to mind: knowing, even at a high level, how much information you’ll receive back when you request data for a patient. Right now it feels like gambling: sometimes you’re excited by what you get back, and sometimes you’re not. Other than that, continuing to expand data coverage should be a priority. And with more coverage, the data visibility aspect becomes less of an issue.

I really believe in a future where you’re able to pull in data seamlessly and use it to provide better care, rather than waiting on a fax from another health system. And I think Zus is moving in the right direction.

Do you have any advice for buyers who are evaluating different pieces of interoperability software?

I do wholeheartedly recommend Zus for many cases; it was very useful for us because we were interdisciplinary and we had so much information we needed to capture to inform our care plans, and I think it would still be useful in more basic therapy situations, because you still want to avoid redundant care.

You do need to think about how you’re going to use the data you collect. It’s not just about getting more information on the patient, but also how this information can shape your care plan and inform your clinical team’s operations cycle, ensuring they’re actually applying the data. If you’re willing to make that extra step in terms of personalizing care, Zus is a great tool to have.