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A battle is raging in imaging IT today. Once a profitable hunting ground for traditional picture archiving and communication system (PACS) firms, new market entrants from the content management, archiving and informatics market are looking to disrupt the status quo. Pushing “deconstruction,” “reconstruction” and “distributed” multi-vendor imaging IT models, they have grabbed the attention of healthcare providers.
The implementation of electronic health records (EHR) has created an expectation that all patient data, including images, should be available in one location. Today, reports describing images are not enough, as many referring physicians want to see the images, and many use them to help guide therapies. This has caused an increased demand to exchange medical images in the various departments of healthcare settings.
Organizations across the country — even globally — are taking a hard look at their imaging ecosystems and determining it is time for change. Most technology and clinical leaders have read, listened to and observed the imaging vendor narrative over the past few years while they focused primarily on deploying the electronic health records (HER). Now most feel comfortable enough — either internally or with the help of consultants — to tackle this next huge patient record initiative. Vendor neutral archives (VNA), viewers, workflow, analytics, integration and exchange are all under review as components of the enterprise imaging effort. The good news for those in this phase of discovery and analysis is that the pioneers are far enough down the path to prove that an enterprise approach can be incredibly successful and that there are organizational, clinical, technical and even financial benefits to adopting this model.
Enterprise imaging as a concept has been around for several years, but many organizations are just turning their full attention to it now, according to Jef Williams, managing partner at Paragon Consulting Partners. This is because other health information technology (IT) endeavors have taken precedence, including electronic medical records (EMRs) and Meaningful Use. Now, as enterprise imaging comes to the forefront, Williams and other speakers at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association for Medical Imaging Management (AHRA) discussed the importance of having an enterprise imaging strategy and how to implement it.
The trend toward consolidation in the healthcare industry continues to climb, with U.S. hospital mergers and acquisitions at their highest since 1999.
How we store, access, and manage imaging information has never been more important, and complex, than it is now.
In the early days of radiology, data entry errors by radiology technologists were common. Their attention, after all ...
As the saying goes, sometimes less is more — a maxim that is proving true in the world of medical imaging as remote viewing systems continue to advance. While some manufacturers are still utilizing software-based systems for reading and sharing imaging data, many are embracing browser-based models, otherwise known as zero-footprint viewers.
It’s funny how terms catch on. Sometimes it’s the result of an innovator’s brand. No one goes out to play flying disc — we play Frisbee. Sometimes it’s the result of simplification. Everyone in healthcare knows about PACS — even when many (if not most) don’t know what exactly PACS (picture archiving and communication system) means. Then there is that instance when a term is generally used but doesn’t necessarily fit — either by innovation or by general adoption.
CoActiv Medical debuted a fully cloud-based version of its advanced Exam-RIS (radiology information system) solution at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2014 conference as part of its full suite of digital radiology products. Along with this the vendor introduced a diagnostic version of Exam-Browser, which enables anywhere, anytime high-fidelity reading capabilities on any high-resolution display.