Greetings Tonic Fans!
Kind of like Vera Wang, The Simpsons, and Portland’s Salt & Straw ice cream, Tonic aims to be the industry standard in our field. In other words, we like to think of ourselves as the Diana Ross of patient data collection and payments (and if anyone doesn’t think she’s still an industry standard, we dare you to listen to this without tapping your foot).
It also wasn’t lost on us that it’s easier to be an industry standard when you closely partner with one too (thanks Apple!).
So we dedicate this latest round of software release notes to all the industry standards we admire — those companies and people that represent the highest level of craftsmanship and quality in their category. We hope the list below of all the cool new features we launched last quarter will create more perfect backflips than Simone Biles. Here we go yo….
1). Taking Surveys on the iPad Is Now Even More Awesome for Patients
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We are obsessed with a lot of things here at Tonic – such as Kansas City bbq and Downton Abbey (oops we said it) — but providing an amazing patient experience when filling out surveys and forms may play top fiddle. To this end, we’ve now added the ability to combine two or more surveys to be taken at the same time together whereby Tonic automatically filters and removes any redundant questions (for example: if both surveys ask for birthdate or gender, Tonic streamlines it down to one question even though the collected data can still be sent back to two different places). This may sound esoteric but it's a home run for patients who have to fill out lots of overlapping forms at the same time, such as during patient intake.
“Usability” and “healthcare IT” are two words that are not often used in the same sentence (nor is “Mike Krzyzewski” and “losing” but that’s a separate matter). So we here at Tonic have always been dedicated to setting the industry standard for ease of use among clinicians and staff. And now we’re at it again with some super sweet new enhancements for front office personnel, including the ability to filter a census list by provider in order to find patient info more easily, the ability to aggregate clinics when searching in order to find patients for multiple clinics or on multiple floors at the same time, and improved iPad troubleshooting to solve virtually any issue that may arise without lifting much more than a finger. Now you know why Tonic is as popular among staff as a Judy Blume novel in a middle school library!
Although we wish calculating the exact amount to collect from patients was as reliable and steady as a Saintsbury pinot noir (try it with the fish), unfortunately it can sometimes be unpredictable. For this reason, we’ve now added the ability to manually over-ride the suggested payment amount with any custom dollar figure. And all this can be done in real time right at the point of care! Moreover, in our aforementioned quest for perfection in the patient experience, we’ve also spruced up our emailed receipts to make them even more clear and compelling (though we haven’t yet figured out how to imbue them with hints of oak and strawberry).
4). Integrating Surveys into the EHR Is Now Even Faster:
Many folks think EHR integrations always pose a thicket of costly and time-consuming challenges that even the finest Valyrian steel might find difficult to cut through (and if you caught this industry standard reference, we welcome you to our Nerd Club). So in addition to the standard direct interfaces we’ve long used, we also built an all-new EHR integration platform that allows health systems to integrate Tonic with their health record in half the time. Gone are the days of needing a high-priced developer to make a change or configure an XML file, and then waiting for weeks to get it implemented. Now you can get your surveys up and running faster than a Lamborghini Veneno (nerd reference #2 in the same paragraph—good grief).
5). Fantastic New Online Clinical Studies Destination:
Tonic has long been known as the industry standard among large enterprise health systems and payers. But less well known is all our great work with Big Pharma too, where we’ve flown under the radar more than a Goat blouse in the workplace (can you say subtle elegance?). To this end, we've launched a new online patient destination where study participants can communicate their health and track their progress, and researchers can monitor study enrollment and engagement in real time. In short, this is a one-stop-data-collection-shop for all of a clinical researcher’s eCOA and ePRO needs. (See below for an example from our friends at Biogen, who are using this new functionality to set the industry standard for multiple sclerosis research.) Now that’s what we call being fashion forward!
Tonic has always had security as the bedrock of our platform, particularly as it relates to cloud computing. But we’ve blazed another new trail in the security world by now allowing our customers to have their own virtual private clouds. For the non-technical readers out there (hi Mom!), this means customers get their own dedicated servers rather than sharing a firewalled server with others (which is how most of the rest of the healthcare IT industry operates). The result is greater security and even higher performance. Think Fort Knox meets Flo Jo, which is why we’ve named this new capability “Fort Flo” (not true but it’s fun to give our exec team a heart attack).
We also launched a range of other powerful but less visible features this quarter as well, such as automated data deletion for use cases that don’t require data retention or pre-population and newly designed reports that are more graphically rich and easier for clinicians to read.
Stay tuned for our next release notes in a few months, where we will announce a bunch of groundbreaking new features. Or said another way, while you are hopefully frolicking at the beach or taking in a production of Hamilton this Summer – which will only cost you eight months salary – your dutiful Tonic elves will be in our magical workshop making our platform even more of an industry standard (and occasionally opining on the wondrous delights of an IPA from Alpine Beer Co.)
Thanks for reading this – and for all your ongoing support and enthusiasm for Tonic!
All the very best,
Your Devoted Tonic Development Team
P.S. Like what you see? Here are Tonic’s last four release notes in case you missed them — enjoy!
December Underdog Edition
Customer Appreciation Edition
It’s All About The Kids Edition
Poetry in Motion Edition
