Solutions Guide – PACS/ENTERPRISE IMAGING

I was recently asked what I thought was a simple question: “So, you’re in the medical space. Why is it that in 2015 — with all the abilities we have to access almost anything, anywhere, on any device — my doctors, local rehab clinic, and hospital cannot share my knee MRI with each other?”

It sounds like a simple question but, in fact, it has a complicated answer. The good news is that we are now (finally) in the Colonel Steve Austin (aka “Six Million Dollar Man”) era and have both the people and the technology to rebuild his knee and solve our imaging interoperability challenges. The answer, of course, lies in the effective use of both traditional imaging solutions like PACS systems, vendor-neutral archives (VNA), and “universal viewers.” So, how do we do it? Below is a top 10 list of concerns the imaging community should consider, as well as the vendors who support it.

1. Embrace, require, and adhere to international medical imaging standards. These standards were created by people who learned from their mistakes – learn from them and you’ll have clean data that is easy to manage.
2. Allow the customer to manage their data: Do-it-yourself tag morphing, routing, policy-based deletion, migration, and access rules reduce costs and empower the customer.
3. Lower the startup costs by enabling customers to decide when, what, and how much data to migrate. Start here and go forward. It’s time to provide a self-service way to get the legacy data when needed.
4. Patient mobility requires providers to collaborate – both within and across networks. Allow the customers to hook up or unhook new and old systems alike, and enable them to define how to access data, answer questions about the data, and format responses as needed without relying on vendor support.
5. Allow the customer to define individual data retention rules and easily handle mixed hardware architectures. Historically, we have been accustomed to recycling, and we know that tomorrow’s hardware will be faster and cheaper. It’s important to let the customer be involved in that decision process.
6. Rethink the one-size-fits-all approach. You need to be flexible in how your solutions are deployed. Sometimes the data is centralized, and other times it is spread across multiple systems. Allow the customer to determine which model works best.
7. Protect your data. Let the customer establish a true “active-active” solution with application-level replication between data centers or, if they are ready, use the cloud.
8. Track the right data. To manage your business processes, it’s imperative to be given accurate information on where your data is.
9. Lead with your solutions. Become a trusted advisor who leads and develops solutions that solve problems, save money, and easily interoperate with existing solutions technology.
10. Define a clear path. Look to the leaders in the industry to set a three- and five-year plan to lead your market. With a clear vision, embrace new ways of adopting innovative technology.

Any medical image, anywhere, anytime, should be viewable on any device. Both vendors and medical institutions need to work together, build trust and understanding, and adopt new strategies and technologies to thrive in a truly interoperable imaging market.

System Implementation Wins

Seattle Children’s Hospital chooses INFINITT PACS, VNA

Seattle Children’s Hospital has signed a 10-year partnership agreement with INFINITT North America for INFINITT to provide a centralized archiving solution for the 323-bed hospital and research center dedicated to pediatric and adolescent healthcare. The deal includes utilization of INFINITT’s latest PACS technology and INFINITT’s new healthcare platform, a next-generation vendor-neutral archive, to unify content across disparate PACS and all data formats. It provides open, standards-based storage and manages DICOM and non-DICOM data with intelligent Lifecycle Information Management.

Seattle Children’s Hospital delivers superior patient care and advances new treatments through pediatric research. They are also the pediatric and adolescent medical referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, and the primary teaching, clinical, and research site for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

“In addition to improved workflow and radiologist toolsets, we expect the INFINITT Healthcare Platform to greatly improve access to images and reports at Seattle Children’s, and beyond that to its extensive referral network,” says David Smarro, CEO, INFINITT North America. “With immediate access to patient information in a centralized archive, Seattle Children’s referring physicians should be able to make well-informed care decisions in a shortened time span – and consolidation of systems will simplify IT infrastructure and reduce costs.”

According to Adam Kielski, Director, Enterprise Imaging, Seattle Children’s, 40 terabytes (TB) of radiology department data and 50 TB of cardiology department data will be migrated initially. Requirements for retention of image data are significantly greater at Seattle Children’s than in an adult-only medical facility – potentially, the organization could have 25 years’ worth of images for a single patient.

Solutions

Carestream’s Clinical Collaboration platform goes beyond the capabilities offered by a vendor-neutral archive. This new platform helps equip those responsible for managing, providing, receiving, and reimbursing care with the ability to share and manage clinical data in ways that can help reduce costs and improve service delivery. It employs Carestream’s intelligent VNA to archive and exchange dermatology, endoscopy, radiology, and cardiology files. This new platform also provides access to specialists, enabling tele-consultancy using a zero-footprint viewer that can be embedded into the EMR. Carestream’s MyVue portal empowers patients to access and share their own medical imaging data, while Vue Beyond provides real-time business intelligence for strategic decision making. Carestream

Merge Healthcare has launched a new business unit called iConnect Network Services to deliver interoperability services to healthcare enterprises seeking to reduce the labor and overhead costs associated with prior-authorization processes, improve physician engagement among provider communities, and boost referral success. The venture seeks to create a closed loop to efficiently manage orders for imaging, to automate the prior-authorization process, and to simplify the delivery of imaging results to the ordering physician. iConnect Network Services consists of three core offerings: iCNS Orders (for easy order placement and to reduce the volume of lost orders), iCNS Authorize (automates existing manual and costly prior-authorization processes for hospitals and imaging centers), and iCNS Results (to deliver imaging results to the ordering physician within his or her existing EHR). Merge Healthcare

Go beyond simple VNAs

Conserus is a new suite of vendor-neutral solutions for healthcare IT enterprise and diagnostic imaging that takes advantage of the promise of image-enabling the EHR. This suite includes flexible quality and communication workflows, enterprise worklists driven by clinical and business logic, an enterprise image repository, and a clinical data exchange. The solution is designed to help healthcare providers of all sizes and complexities go beyond simple VNAs and departmental systems by enabling interoperability between existing systems. McKesson

At RSNA 2015, Agfa HealthCare will demonstrate how its Enterprise Imaging platform offers an image and information management ecosystem that supports healthcare enterprises and caregivers in their efforts to increase productivity and enhance the value of care. The solution offers a flexible workflow engine, a blend of structured and voice recognition reporting, advanced image processing and integration of clinical information − all in one, modular sophisticated platform. It simplifies secure access to a single, comprehensive patient imaging record, empowers physicians to make informed decisions through multi-specialty collaboration, and addresses many different process workflows to help improve the delivery of patient care and streamline costs. Agfa HealthCare

Calgary Scientific’s ResolutionMD enterprise image viewer will now be integrated with the Apollo Enterprise Patient Multimedia Manager (Apollo EPMM) to extend Web and mobile image access. The integration is aimed at helping physicians make more informed decisions by enabling quick and secure access to medical images using desktop, Web, or mobile devices. Apollo EPMM is a single, secure interface for accessing patient multimedia across an enterprise. It gives healthcare providers a better way to view and manage their patient multimedia files and provides clinicians with a 360-degree view of their patients’ health. The ResolutionMD integration offers Apollo clients access to medical images, enabling healthcare providers to confidently perform clinical diagnoses and treatment decisions from Web and mobile devices using a solution that is  Class II FDA cleared. Calgary Scientific

Fujifilm’s new FDR D-EVO II detectors have been completely re-engineered, featuring advances in design and functionality that bring new levels of performance to radiographic imaging. The detectors are lightweight with a ruggedized magnesium alloy case and a sleek smooth shape that simplifies positioning under patients. Inside, the electronics have been redesigned to enhance dose efficiency and improve diagnostic image quality at ultra-low dose levels. D-EVO II is also the world’s first detector protected with a Fujifilm exclusive engineered antibacterial coating. The unit has an IPX-6 water resistance rating. Fujifilm