Cardiovascular Business - March/April 2008 - (Page 28) ‘DASHBOARD’ CARDIOLOGy › By BETH WALsH Integrated Cardiac Records Drive effiCieNCy associated images into a common viewing and reporting environment is a process still in the works. PACS and RIS have helped radiology departments improve efficiency, integration and workflow. Now, those same efforts are going into cardiology departments—a bigger challenge but with, perhaps, even more to gain. ardiology is where radiology was about five years ago, says Joseph Marion, an independent consultant and principal of Healthcare Integration Strategies. While PACS was originally viewed as an image management solution, users eventually realized it was really an integration of images into the rest of the workflow. “The same thing is now starting to happen with cardiology, but because there are so many different players and systems, it’s a bit more of a challenge.” For one thing, cardiology workflow is much different than radiology workflow, he says. Cardiologists have a much more integrative interpretation process that often includes multiple imaging study results. Reliably getting hemodynamic data and C Creating a cockpit Tri-City Medical Center, a 397-bed district hospital in Oceanside, Calif., is in the preliminary stages of accomplishing that by working with McKesson Provider Technologies, says Donald Dawkins, RN, cardiovascular service line administrator. The goal is to eliminate the cumbersome process of viewing separate applications and put all relevant information into a single ”cockpit” (also called a “dashboard”) so that cardiologists have everything they need in front of them. “As soon as they complete a procedure, the system creates a final report that is faxed directly to the referring physician and into the electronic medical record,” Dawkins says. “We’re moving into a much more automated process to get all of our processes paperless.” Tri-City’s cardiovascular services growth has been consistent year over year. The facility has one each 64-slice, 8-slice and single-slice CT scanner, two cath labs, two echo rooms, four nuclear cameras and four ultrasound rooms, several interventional radiology suites, two 1.5T MR machines and a strong PET/CT program. The facility is looking at implementing 3T MR and moving into cardiac MR next year and upgrading to a 256-slice or a dual-source CT scanner. “Part of our advantage is that we are so cutting edge and can move rapidly,” Dawkins says. “Administration recognizes the power that our imaging has for referring physicians. They have a clear understanding that they want to keep funding imaging because it really drives volume.” Cardiovascular services aren’t necessarily in a traditional orders-driven environment, says 2 Cardiovascular Business March/April 2008
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