Cardiovascular Business - March/April 2008 - (Page 31) bill burke, MHP, MBA, director of cardiovascular medicine at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., uses GE Healthcare’s Centricity system to handle physician reporting, operating statistics, volumes, turnover times and more. ground of this type of technology,” says Mark Weber, manager of clinical services for the health alliance clinical engineering department. Because the alliance incorporates multiple facilities, they knew patients would be transported between those facilities. “We wanted to make the diagnosis and the transportation of that information more seamless. We realized we were going to have to invest in technology.” A selection committee spent a lot of time choosing a vendor. “We really set a goal on partnering with a company, not just making a purchase.” Although the alliance chose Emageon, Weber says they continually evaluate the company against other competitors to make sure Emageon is on the cutting edge. “That’s the difficult part of buying technology early. If you’re not careful, you can quickly fall behind.” Having the HeartSuite cardiovascular information system (CVIS) in place has helped avoid unnecessary expense. Since physicians can access images remotely and make consultations or diagnoses over the phone, patients don’t have to be transported by ambulance, or perhaps even helicopter, for a real-time consultation. VERICIS is the cardiology PACS which manages the alliance’s cath lab images, echo, cardiac echo dictation and noninvasive vascular images. The echo department is using the reporting package rather than the former process of dictation and transcription. “The software lets them compose their own reports,” Weber explains. “Once they are finished, they confirm the report which is then immediately available through the CVIS.” The alliance is just starting to integrate nuclear medicine, which is done through a competing vendor. “That’s another reason we chose Emageon—even though it’s a cardiac system, it’s not limited to just cardiac images. Their technology supports both radiology and cardiology.” Weber says he has yet to find a system from another vendor that he couldn’t get to communicate with HeartSuite. He says the workflow advantages are definite. The image management system allows images to be warehoused, so physicians can go to a dedicated workstation or access them through a web browser. He has seen improvements in follow-up decisions because the information is readily available. Since cardiology often involves patients with ongoing disease, the CVIS helps clinicians compare against prior images and studies more efficiently. For successful results, Weber advises that other facilities really understand their workflow before buying a system. “People are unwilling to adopt their workflow to the product they just bought. They try to bend products.” Facilities need to replace their current processes rather than cling to what they know. “Understand your processes and how they will evolve.” Leave the Counting to Us With WaveMark CIMS you’ll always have what you need WaveMark CIMS captures inventory and usage information in real-time with RFID-enabled cabinets and bins. Information is available via a web browser empowering hospitals to intelligently set target inventory levels, manage expiring products, track lot and serial #s, identify usage patterns, provide accurate charge capture, optimize bulk buys, and more. A web-based solution with a low monthly service fee, means no capital expense or up-front fees. Call 877-4WAVEMARK, or visit us at “With WaveMark we are now able to reduce the manual work of inventory tracking.” —Halsey Bagg, Director, Cardiac Services www.wavemark.net CardiovascularBusiness.com Cardiovascular Business 31 http://www.wavemark.net http://www.wavemark.net http://CardiovascularBusiness.com
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