Health Imaging & IT - January 2009 - (Page 28)

RIS/PACS: Migration & Integration Offer Challenges for Imaging Centers capabilities and projected business volume. Just as underestimating these elements can hamstring a practice’s IT investment, overestimating them can result in an expensive and unnecessary system that is not fully utilized. Overall, Hicks has been extremely satisfied with the path his practice has taken. Integration disparate PACS A little more than five years ago, Henry Hollenberg, MD, and a partner at Total Radiology Solutions (TRS) in West Monroe, La., recognized the solution to reading studies for multiple hospitals with disparate PACS was to present the data to radiologists on a single system. He worked with Brit Systems and the company’s Roentgen Files PACS to route studies from a collection of small- to medium-size hospitals into a server driving the practice’s diagnostic interpretation workstations. At each facility, all modalities, as well as their hospital information system or RIS, communicate directly with the PACS server, Hollenberg says. The server provides features to ensure data uniqueness and labels it so that the PACS is aware of which facility it came from and can return the radiology report to the originating entity. In some of the hospitals, the system acts as the primary PACS server and communicates directly with the HIS/RIS. For others, Hollenberg says the institutions use a nighthawk reading model where orders, images and their relevant priors are pushed to the server as a secondary system. TRS also took over the DICOM modality worklist with its PACS, superseding installed systems at all other facilities. “This allows us to manage workflow and maintain a high level of productivity by using one user interface,” he says. All radiologists in the practice read from the same worklist, regardless of their physical location. “In addition, our technologists QC their studies and patch multiple modality studies into one seamless presentation, including history sheets,” he notes. This workflow model enables the practice to ensure quality study data, without the burden of tasking additional full-time equivalent employees to clean up errors made downstream, Hollenberg says. At TRS, the PACS also is integrated with the firm’s billing company, allowing the automation of the entire workflow from imaging requisition to charge, he notes. Hollenberg advises practices considering a multi-site presence to fully map out their frontend workflow with their back-end technology needs as part of making a system selection. “Persistence and finding the right vendor to make it work is the best bet,” he says. 28 Health Imaging & IT | January 2009 HealthImaging.com http://www.portwell.com http://www.HealthImaging.com

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Health Imaging & IT - January 2009 Contents The Enterprise News Update DR Breathes New Life into Radiography Radiology in the Spotlight Educational Sessions Keynote Addresses Tech Trends on the Exhibit Floor Imaging Tools Managing Technology People & Technology Reader's Resource

Health Imaging & IT - January 2009

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