ISI STORY

ISI was formed as a result of a real-life experience by the founders, William C Sykes and Dr. Samuel E Smith.

In the spring of 2017 Bill’s wife was on a ski trip in Colorado with friends and one night accidentally fell down stairs while staying at a lodge. The fall resulted in a life-threatening break in her cervical spine near the base of the neck.

As she was rushed to an ER at nearby Vail Valley Medical Center, Bill was called and told to, “get out there quick.” Bill had not made this trip with his wife.

Images (MRI, CT Scans, X-ray’s, and others) of her spine and neck were taken at the ER in Vail. The injuries were so serious she had to be ambulanced through a snowstorm to a larger trauma center in Denver for emergency care.

By the time Bill arrived in Denver, Dot had been admitted to Denver Health’s ICU. The injuries were so serious she was triaged and observed around the clock owing to the super critical nature of her injuries. Fracture of C1 & C2, a concussion, broken scapula, and compound fracture of her right hand.

There she was placed under the care of Dr. Samuel E. Smith, a cervical spine specialist. It had been decided that rather than perform the needed surgery in Denver, requiring an extended convalescence period, she would be stabilized and sent back home for surgery. Dr. Smith then consulted with Dr. Jason M. Highsmith, a neurosurgeon in Charleston, SC regarding here follow-up care.

Both doctors became frustrated because neither the original images from the emergency hospital in Vail, nor the image history from Denver Health were available for concurrent review by the two doctors.

After two weeks at Denver Health she was stable enough to fly. Because neither side could review prior history or “time of accident” images, and the further complication of HIPPA laws at the time, they could not agree on a care plan.

Bill was tasked with getting images from Vail and Denver Health for Dr. Highsmith. The process of rounding up these images took multiple days, was costly and frustrating for all parties. The effort to collect and send the images involved the loss of significant precious time and effort. Had the images and medical records been available in the Cloud before traveling from Colorado, the pain of waiting and the confusion between the doctors would have been avoided.

Bill finally had all of the images from the three locations. With the multiple images on multiple CDs Bill was tasked to overnight his wife’s images to Dr. Highsmith in Charleston. All of this activity was necessary due to the fact that the IT systems at Denver Health and the Charleston Medical Center could not talk to one another, much less transfer images.