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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.
Fovia Medical Inc. and Voyager Imaging, a Australia-based international provider of radiology products for more than 20 years, have collaborated to make natively integrated High Definition Volume Rendering (HDVR) available throughout Voyager PACS (picture archive and communication system) products.
Imaging is critical to all medical specialties so it is logical that images should be available to specialists outside of radiology. There is a trend to reduce repeat exams by making images more easily accessible, including prior exams. This traditionally has been accomplished using the cumbersome process of mailing or physically carrying CDs to referring physicians. Often these CDs do not open or take a long time to download. Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements for certified electronic medical records (EMR) also call for the sharing of medical images electronically to help improve efficiency and reduce healthcare costs. All of these factors have given rise to remote image access systems.
Today’s digital picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) is highlighted with several choice words around the industry: accessible, flexible, Web-based, thin client versus thick client and vendor-neutral. Whatever term is used to describe the PACS of today and the future, one thing is clear: the aim now is to be able to store medical images, sourced from any modality, in a secure location on a network and retrieve them for review from any platform or any device.
Today’s remote viewing systems will stimulate changes and challenges in healthcare in a manner similar to what online banking has done for the financial industry. The areas of improvement include safe, secure, remote access from any browser, or ultimately any mobile device. This is the reality of today, and it comes without the need for special applications or image and associated data downloads from virtually any source.
If you are part of a health system that has spent months building and designing a new picture archive and communications system (PACS), it is undoubtedly an exciting time. Reaching the point of PACS activation and getting staff up and running is a true milestone. Once your company reaches this point, it may feel like the hard work is over and that it is time to take a deep breath, but in reality there is still much more to do and questions that have to be answered in order to fully support your organization during and post PACS go-live.
Voyager Imaging is Australia's pioneering medical imaging company specializing in teleradiology, radiology workstations and PACS products.
Voyager Imaging's Web streaming technology aims to provide fast delivery of images to referring doctor desktops through low-to-medium bandwidth connectivity. Using the Voyager workstation as a base, doctors have the advantage of a highly configurable and functional workstation, that will quickly display images even in a poor network connectivity environment, according to the company.
Voyager PACS has implemented its Data Replication and Mirror Function that provides data and operational redundancy for imaging and hospital centers. This means that data loss can be prevented if there is an unrecoverable failure, as well providing business continuity if there is any server downtime at a site.
For data and operational redundancy, Voyager PACS servers can be configured for local storage at clinic/hospital site with a replicated copy located at another location (i.e another hospital site or a data center).