CHICAGO, Nov. 29 — Carestream Health, Inc., demonstrated its new SuperPACS™ Architecture that can streamline radiology workflow by allowing radiologists in any on-site or remote location to read from a global worklist that provides a unified set of imaging studies created from multiple vendors’ PACS located throughout the enterprise.
This unified global worklist enables a cross-site, collaborative workflow, allowing optimized use of radiologists—as well as enabling efficient sub-specialty reading. The SuperPACS Architecture, along with Carestream Health’s fully featured RIS/PACS platform, was on display at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting.
“Our SuperPACS Architecture delivers a streamlined workflow for multi-site healthcare providers around the world, as well as the referring physicians and patients they serve,” said Diana L. Nole, President, Digital Medical Solutions, Carestream Health. “This new infrastructure equips physicians with rapid, convenient access to imaging studies and related patient data. It also enhances collaboration among clinicians and boosts radiologists’ productivity. Ultimately, this system can help improve the quality of patient care.”
Using unique tunneling technology, data-intensive studies can be quickly delivered to radiologists on demand from any location, and do not require pre-fetching or pre-archiving of the image data to a central location. Instead patient information and metadata from existing archives are synchronized into a central database—avoiding the expensive and time-consuming migration of pixel data.
Users maintain control over the global worklist and can elect to deliver exams to radiologists and specialists through a set of user-defined rules. Complementing the tunneling technology, intelligent streaming supports rapid transmission over any type of network bandwidth.
SuperPACS Architecture easily combines or separates patient data created at multiple sites by supporting a Master Patient ID using IHE profiles. This means that a patient-centric view may be created and assures that data from different patients—who may have been assigned the same local patient ID at different facilities—does not get mixed up.
Doshi Diagnostic Imaging Services of Hicksville, N.Y., is implementing the SuperPACS Architecture to create a more efficient workflow and enterprise-wide access to patient imaging exams and information. The company, which performs 1.4 million procedures a year, has 38 multi-modality imaging centers in the New York City metropolitan area and in major cities throughout Florida.
“SuperPACS is an excellent investment because it will enable us to boost efficiency and lower costs. Directing exams to radiologists according to their specialties creates a more efficient reading process and also delivers better patient care,” said Lyle Backenroth, Doshi Diagnostic’s Chief Information Officer. “At the same time, we will enhance our remote reading functionality to achieve a more flexible workflow and reduce expenses related to on-site staff, space and equipment.”
A single user interface available through the SuperPACS Architecture offers a unified set of diagnostic tools, which can improve radiologists’ efficiency by eliminating the need to adjust to different user interfaces when reading from different vendor’s PACS platforms installed at each site.
In addition to offering access to current and prior DICOM exams, SuperPACS also allows users to review non-DICOM data. This infrastructure also supports business continuity and disaster recovery options.
The SuperPACS Architecture is designed for hospitals and healthcare enterprises, regional health networks, single- or multi-site imaging centers, reading groups and teleradiology services.
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About Carestream Health, Inc.
Formed in 2007, Carestream Health, Inc., is a worldwide provider of dental and medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions; molecular imaging systems for the life science research and drug discovery/development market segments; and x-ray film and digital x-ray products for the non-destructive testing market. For more information about the company’s broad portfolio of products, solutions and services, please contact your Carestream Health representative or visit www.carestreamhealth.com.
CARESTREAM is a trademark of Carestream Health, Inc.
2009