SAN FRANCISCO, CA, February 16, 2010 – Medweb announced today that the company has donated two PACS servers to the University of Miami/Project Medishare 240-bed hospital on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince airport and a third PACS server for use in the U.S. Navy’s field hospital in Haiti. The equipment will enable clinicians in Haiti to transmit patient radiological images for remote reading and expert consultation. Images from the University’s Haiti hospital will be sent to the University of Miami Hospital, while the USNS Comfort, which already uses Medweb’s deployable PACS, will electronically receive images of transferred patients from the Navy’s temporary field hospital.
“The University of Miami contacted us for assistance, knowing that Medweb has a strong history of philanthropy throughout the developing world,” says Kim Guevara, Corporate Philanthropy Officer at Medweb. “We immediately made the commitment to the University to provide servers for transmitting radiology images and within days had them configured and ready to ship to Haiti.”
Medweb’s PACS will provide imaging infrastructure for the 240-bed hospital, a four-tent compound with four operating rooms, dialysis and X-ray machines, telemedicine capabilities and sleeping accommodations. It opened 10 days after the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake January 12 destroyed much of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation and left its capital city, Port-au-Prince, without a functioning medical center. As humanitarian efforts focus on the estimated 300,000 or more injured people, medical staff in Haiti will utilize Medweb’s advanced teleradiology capabilities to obtain expert advice on patients’ injuries and treatment without delay, including determining which critically-injured patients should be flown to South Florida for more advanced care.
Initially, Medweb’s PACS will be used in Haiti to transmit ultrasound and digital X-ray patient images. According to the University of Miami news reports, a recent grant by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund will be used to procure additional imaging equipment for the 240-bed hospital, including a 64-slice CT scanner, digital X-ray systems, and angiographic and fluoroscopic equipment. Medweb’s PACS/teleradiology technology is compatible with any DICOM device and could be used to transmit images from these systems as well.
The Navy, which already uses Medweb PACS on several of its ships, will receive an additional Medweb PACS server for use in its temporary field hospital to send images of critically-injured patients to the Medweb PACS on the USNS Comfort, the U.S. Navy’s medical treatment facility currently stationed off the Haitian coast.
“In addition to transmitting radiographic images, our technology can track patients as well, which is quickly becoming an obstacle to continued follow-up care in Haiti,” says Pete Killcommons, CEO, Medweb. “Our servers are, quite literally, battle tested – with reliability and durability that make Medweb PACS the perfect solution for a field hospital such as the University of Miami’s compound in Haiti. Our commitment to helping the citizens of Haiti include a matching grant for employees who donate to the American Red Cross or other authorized agency providing humanitarian relief to Haitians.”
