Diagnostic Imaging Scan - March 18, 2008 - (Page 2) applications on its dualsource CT scanner Somatom Definition. The new apps, addressing the heart, brain, lungs, and extremity joints, bring to 10 the number of FDA-cleared applications for dual-energy CT. The most recent are: • syngo DE Heart PBV (perfusion blood volume) provides colormarking of nonperfused parts of the myocardium during cardiology examinations; • syngo DE Gout identifies uric acid crystals, an indication of gout, and monitors changes in the crystals during treatment; • syngo DE Lung Vessels assists in the evaluation of patients with suspected pulmonary embolism; and • syngo DE Brain Hemorrhage assists in the distinction between new and old hemorrhages in the event of cerebral bleeding. Single imaging centers have a new RIS/PACS option from Merge Healthcare. The company’s just-released eFilm RIS/PACS is designed specifically for imaging centers that perform up to 10,000 studies annually, as well as specialty practices. The economical RIS/PACS is compatible with Merge’s desktop imaging software, eFilm Workstation. Referring physicians can tie into the eFilm RIS/PACS workflow via a web portal. Covidien will broaden its portfolio to include tissue implant products, if its $80 million bid for Tissue Science Laboratories goes through. Both companies’ boards of directors have approved the cash transaction, which calls for Covidien to pay 103.5 pence (US$2.10) per share of Tissue Science. Investors representing 23% of the company’s shares have signed onto the deal, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including broad shareholder approval. It is expected to close in the second quarter. Datascope has cut a deal to sell its patient-monitoring business to China-based Mindray Medical International for $202 million. The transaction, if completed, will create the world’s third largest patient-monitoring business, according to Mindray. The Chinese company, in sion came down to the open-mindedness of the federal bureaucrats. “The willingness of CMS to listen to public comments and say, ‘We listened and we are going to change direction’—that is an unusual, if not unprecedented, move, and it is highly commendable,” said Dr. Daniel S. Berman, SCCT president-elect and director of cardiac imaging at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Underlying this change of heart was a grassroots appeal to Medicare administrators. In the 30 days after CMS published its proposed policy regarding cardiac CT, the agency received 649 comments against the policy and only 10 in favor. Lobbying efforts, spearheaded by MITA, led nearly 80 members of Congress to ask CMS in writing to reconsider its proposal. “It really shows that when we work in a collaborative manner with our customers and the professional societies and focus on a common end, we can achieve some real success,” said Andrew Whitman, MITA vice president. In battling for CCTA, the imaging community seems to have found its voice. This ability to articulate an argument could prove critically important in the near future as virtual colonography and other emerging imaging technologies begin to take root. “We as an industry have to continue to provide the necessary information, as well as the clinical and economic proof that the technologies and the applications we bring out really are good for healthcare,” Saragnese said. “The prime concern is to keep all of this manageable,” said Sybo Dijkstra, senior marketing director of Philips healthcare informatics. “Health systems are usually very complex, and CIOs [chief information officers] struggle to maintain control over them.” Almost from the start, vendors worried about the prospect of creating a medical Tower of Babel with PACS. Their concerns led to industry standards, including DICOM and HL7, being adopted. But these apply primarily to the exchange of data, not the efficient use of PACS. To solve problems that crop up due to the use of different systems, Henri “Rik” Primo, Siemens national director of marketing and strategic relationships, advises developing IT portals that could be used to access several systems. These portals would provide a single interface, thereby eliminating the need to learn different systems, he said. Implementing such go-betweens would rely on the development of a common graphical user interface and a common reading infrastructure, said Mike Jackman, president of healthcare information solutions at Carestream Health. The need for such an approach, already palpable in enterprises with multiple IT systems, will grow. “It is becoming a bigger and bigger issue,” Jackman said. “Many people have PACS, and when institutions consolidate and reading groups consolidate, radiologists have to be able to read from anywhere.” The practice of enterprise radiology, with its virtual reading room, raises other problems that vendors say are beginning to trouble some customers. These have to do with being able to identify and call up records for patients who move from site to site at different stages of their medical care. “When a radiologist or surgeon wants to see all the documents of this patient, he or she would need to know all the patient’s ID numbers at the different hospitals,” Primo said. The solution is to create an eMPI (enterprise-wide Master Population Index), which provides a unique identifier for each patient across the enterprise. But more is needed than just a patient tag. Just as patients move around, so do radiologists. To make their work efficient requires a “user profile” that follows the radiologist from one workstation to another. This kind of profile would be easiest to apply if the PACS were designed for use by multiple organizations, Primo said. Interfaces and clever identification schemes March 18, 2008 IT vendors square off against sticky customer issues Strategic planning complements technology in search for solutions Working with disparate or outdated IT systems is among the top challenges facing the PACS industry, according to major vendors. Vendors can run into this problem when installing a PACS that must work with an already operating RIS, electronic medical record, or laboratory information system. It can occur if hospitals follow a “best of breed” acquisition strategy without considering the need for interoperability. But it can also arise from provider consolidation: Hospitals buying other hospitals creates a mixed environment of different PACS. Copyright © 1991-2008 CMP Healthcare Media Group LLC
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