FAQ

Equicare’s expert customer support team is committed to providing you with prompt, helpful service so you can remain focused on caring for your patients. Support services include technical assistance, troubleshooting, and application specific support to ensure your software is meeting your needs. Support hours are 6AM to 7PM PST Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. We provide same day responses during normal support hours, and next business day responses after hours.  Additionally, Equicare Health has several clinical staff who can help ensure that your navigation and survivorship programs get up and running. A workflow specialist can provide valuable input to your specific needs.

Equicare strives to make the installation process as smooth and painless as possible. Projects all begin with a kick-off meeting to set timelines and project objectives. The Equicare Project Manager will guide your team through the process and keep the project on track. The Equicare Workflow Specialist will work with your clinical staff to understand your current workflows and help transition those workflows for use with Equicare CS. Prior to go-live, an Applications Trainer will spend time with your team to help them get up and running with the system.

Software upgrades are provided to all customers with a current Software Support Agreement (SSA). Maintenance releases with defect fixes are typically delivered 4 to 6 times a year. Major releases every 6 to 9 months.

The Equicare Support team securely accesses your system by one of two methods:

• Bomgar – Bomgar is an industry leading remote connectivity solution. The Bomgar solution creates an encrypted connection between the Support Technician’s computer and the Equicare Server on your site. Only authorized Equicare support personnel can connect to the Bomgar system. For more information about Bomgar, please visit www.bamgar.com.
• Your VPN solution – Some customer prefer to allow access to the system via their own VPN solution. Equicare will work with your IT personnel to configure and use this system for connectivity if required.

Access by Equicare employees is directed by strict enforcement of our Customer System and Data Access Policy. That policy ensures that only employees with certification of HIPAA security awareness training and a clear criminal record check access customer data. In addition, the policy ensures Equicare follows not only HIPAA best practices but the customer’s security policies whenever required to access customer data in order to support that customer.

The Equicare web application security system uses role based access to grant permission to application functionality, and strictly enforces a user’s access to patient data through a combination of direct assignments (care team assignments) and role based assignments (workgroup membership of user and patient). The Equicare password policies for length, strength and expiration of passwords are configurable to implement your organization’s password policies. User passwords are encrypted using the industry standard SHA-512 algorithm with additional salting. Passwords are never stored or displayed as plain text.

Equicare does a number of things to make it as easy as possible for our customers to maintain information security.

The Equicare database is hosted in the customer’s network environment inside their own firewall to leverage all of the IT networking security already in place. Because we don’t host the solution you don’t lose control over the security of your information. Access to the Equicare database is limited to a small number of system accounts with complex and non-default passwords. Care providers and patients cannot access the database directly but have to access the data through the Equicare web application, limited to their access rights.

Every Equicare release is tested for web security vulnerabilities using the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), security project industry best practices, and an industry leading vulnerability testing tool. In addition, SANS and US CERT bulletins are monitored to identify and address any potential security vulnerabilities in the components used by Equicare.

Yes.  EQUICARE is compatible with the ADT, ORU, MDM, and SIU message types. These four HL7 message standards contain essential patient data which EQUICARE uses to help you manage patients and ensure their medical records are complete and up to date.

Equicare CS currently supports integration with Varian’s ARIA RO, MO, and CCS as well as Elekta’s MOSAIQ.

All that is needed is access to the internet and a web browser that is supported by Equicare (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, or Chrome). A pdf viewer like Adobe Reader is needed to view some items in Equicare such as medical notes.

Anyone with internet access and a compatible browser can log into the portal. The Equicare Patient Portal is best viewed on the latest version of Microsoft Edge as well as the current versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. We strive to make sure that the latest version of the browser is supported so that technical problems are minimized.

While the portal is designed for devices with large screens, it can be accessed from handheld devices. The web address (url) for the patient portal is included on the invitation letter given to the patient.

please see Equicare’s Privacy Policy located at Equicare Privacy Policy

No. Many browsers are free to download on the internet. It is a simple process to download a new web browser and start using it.  Current versions of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are available at the following links:
https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/

It is not necessary for you to change your browser. If your web browser is one that is not supported, some items may not be displayed as they were intended. However, the information displayed, like lab test results or appointment information, is still correct.

The patient portal is best viewed using Microsoft Edge as well as the current versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

Questionnaires are a quick and easy way to ask questions about your health. A member of your health care team may assign you a questionnaire to fill in on a regular basis or because of a specific health concern. Please fill the questionnaire out as soon as possible. Answer the questions as an honest reflection of how you are feeling. A member of your care team will look at the results and if necessary, take action based on your responses.

Your healthcare team will assign specific education articles that they feel are relevant to you. However, many other articles are available through the patient portal. Simply go to the Resources menu item and select “Education Library” to access a library of oncology specific articles.

Any member of your health care team can make education articles available to you on the patient portal. One brochure or book which covers everything about your type of cancer can be difficult to understand. With the patient portal, your doctor or nurse can assign specific articles when the information is important to you. Most often, your care team will try not to overwhelm you with a lot of information at one time. They will ensure that you receive information that you need prior to any procedure or treatment so you are prepared, physically and emotionally.

Yes, you can authorize family members or friends to view and interact with the patient portal using the “Authorized Representative” function.  This provides your personal contacts with their own unique login access, so you do not need to share your password with anyone.

Yes, there is a secure messaging function available in the patient portal that allows you to securely send and receive messages with your healthcare team.   The patient portal also has a ‘Contact Us’ and ‘Request an Appointment’ communication link. The ‘Contact Us’ link allows you to send a non-secure message to your health care team. The ‘Request an Appointment’ link allows you to communicate the need for an appointment or appointment change. When you use either of these communication links, a member of your health care team should contact you shortly to discuss the issue. Please note that the patient portal messaging should not be used in urgent situations. Please contact your doctor for urgent needs or call 911 in an emergency.

We all want the information on the patient portal to be 100% accurate so that it is a source of reliable information for you. If you think some information on the portal is not correct, speak to a member of your health care team the next time you are in the clinic. They will then take the steps to check the information and correct it, if necessary.

If there is no link between the patient portal and the computer system where the test results are entered, the results may not show up on the patient portal for you to view. For example, if a blood test is done at a lab which does not have a link to the computer system used by your hospital, the result may not become available through the patient portal. Also, your doctor may feel that some results are not meaningful to you or may be difficult to understand. These results will not become available through the portal. You can always discuss these tests at one of your appointments with your doctor.

The following types of information are available through the patient portal:

• the contact information for all the members of your health care team
• a complete list of past, present and future appointments
• a summary of all the treatments that you have received as well as other related health information
• education articles that provide information on cancer, treatment options and side effects of the treatments
• questionnaires which can be used to understand how you are feeling
• results of lab tests and other tests.
• secure messages sent from your care provider(s)

Lab tests and medical notes are often reviewed by your health care team first before becoming available on the patient portal. Your health care team may want to include a note to you about the results, or investigate the results further before they make them available to you. Some routine test results may become available to you as soon as they are entered into the hospital computer system. Your care team can let you know exactly when test results and other information will be available to you on the patient portal.

Yes, while we have an extensive library of questionnaires available to hospitals/clinics, clinicians can create their own customized questionnaires which they can use for their own patient population.

Yes, while there is an extensive articles of educational articles within EQUICARE, you can add your own educational content to the patient portal in a pdf format.

• Improved patient access to treatment details so they are better able to communicate with cancer care providers.
• Enhanced ability to recognize signs and symptoms to report to healthcare providers.
• Better appreciation of resources available to the patient.
• Increased patient sense of ownership and participation in the cancer follow-up process.

Beginning in 2012, organizations must implement a Survivorship Program to achieve / maintain ACOS CoC Accreditation. The intent for the standards is to ensure that cancer patients and family members have access to resources such as:

• patient navigation
• pyscho-social distress management
• survivorship care plans

Contact us to learn more about how Equicare can help you achieve accreditation.

• Improved patient access to treatment details so they are better able to communicate with cancer care providers.
• Enhanced ability to recognize signs and symptoms to report to healthcare providers.
• Better appreciation of resources available to the patient.
• Increased patient sense of ownership and participation in the cancer follow-up process.

A Navigation Program is about helping a patient through a healthcare system that is sometimes cumbersome without guidance and support. A Survivorship Program provides support for patients after a cancer diagnosis including education for side and late effects of treatments, assistance finding community resources, and a customized care plan that details the next steps living through and beyond cancer.

Yes.  EQUICARE works on an install basis, not a license basis. This means that as many people as needed can become users of the system. There is no licensing or cost associated with the number of users. Additionally, because ECS is web based, any computer can be used to access ECS. No dedicated computers are needed.