Health Imaging & IT - February 2008 - (Page 46)

CD/DVD Burners: Burn, Baby, Burn cations, at Alegent Health System in Omaha, Neb. “It doesn’t matter how expensive it is—if the quality is there, that is what should drive the decision.” Alegent uses the eXpedo XR2 system from Sorna to answer the call from physicians and patients for images on the go. Broz says the decision to use the XR2 was fairly easy since they had been using other Sorna CD/DVD systems, such as the XR1. They upgraded to the XR2, a newer model, because the company came out with a design that completely changed the robotics. “The new systems are much more self-contained, much less complex and very stable. The media are as well—in four years we have not sent a bad disc out of here,” which he says is a “huge positive for the company. We do not want to be sending things out that are causing problems for the physicians or the patients.” The XR2 prints labels with patient information directly on the disc using an inkjet printer. To minimize space requirements, an LCD and a six-key keypad are integrated into the server which in turn fits directly on top of the robotics system. The ability to burn the reports as well as the images onto the discs was an important and necessary addition, says Broz, so that when the physicians are using the viewer and manipulating the images, they can reference the final interpretation as well. “We send the studies that we need to burn to the burner and it automatically determines, based on size, whether to use a CD or a DVD,” he says. The storage capacity for the CDs is close to 700 MB and once the XR2 has reached that capacity, it will split the study at the series or study level to span multiple discs. “You are only as good as the laser that burns it and the media that you are writing to,” Broz says. He says Alegent uses CDs recommended by Sorna that are pre-labeled for ink jet printers so a user “can just grab the CD and burn it.” It’s important to use a label because “the back side of a CD is much more sensitive than the bottom side,” Broz says. “We want to make sure that if we send something out that is in a patient’s jacket, that it is going to be there for several years.” Alegent keeps an audit trail by checking out the discs through the hospital system’s radiology information system (RIS) to the patient or the referring physician just to make a catalog of what has been done. user-friendly design Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit health plan headquartered in Oakland, Calif., serving the healthcare needs of members in nine states and Washington, D.C. It encompasses Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and the Permanente Medical Groups across different regions of the United States, including northern California, which has a membership of 3.2 million. Five months ago, 17 hospitals in the Kaiser network in northern California began using PACSGEAR MediaWriter for patient and physician image distribution throughout 32 medical centers and 416 medical offices which include 13,729 physicians. According to R.L. Kennedy, technical director of Imaging Informatics at Kaiser, the network, which uses the Philips Healthcare iSite PACS for storage and archiving, needed a CD/DVD burner system that was user-friendly and could be customized to each radiology file room. “Each of the 17 northern California hospitals has two ‘digital’ radiology file rooms—an inpatient and outpatient where most CD requests are processed at each hospital,” Kennedy says. He adds that the network currently has about 150 people who process the requests—people who are not “technical,” he says, and need something easy to use. With the Media Writer, a user can “export and label CD/DVDs compatible with more than 25 modalities with a single click.” Typically, a patient requests a CD from the file room clerk. Once the patient provides a release, we copy the images from PACS to create the CD, he says. It takes about 15 minutes to locate the images and create each CD. “For external requests, the viewer is included on the CD, so all they need is a PC with a CD reader,” Kennedy says. The system also has a built-in printer that labels customizable information for patient privacy. The MediaWriter has the ability to add the corresponding report, but the current Kaiser back-end systems do not support this. “We’re looking to add this capability with our new RIS in the future,” he says. HealthImaging.com POST-PROCESSING FOR EVERYONE SAVE UP TO 90% ON A 3D WORKSTATION aycan workstation OsiriXPRO ›› FDA cleared workstation for reviewing and post-processing. ›› Fast uploading and processing time of images. ›› Intuitive and easy to use. ›› Designed by radiologists for radiologists. ›› Stable, secure, and easy to integrate Apple platform. www.aycanus.com info@aycanus.com 46 Health Imaging & IT | February 2008 http://www.aycanus.com http://www.aycanus.com http://HealthImaging.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Health Imaging & IT - February 2008

Health Imaging & IT - February 2008 Contents On the Web The Enterprise News Update Cover Story: Enterprise Image Management Makes the Grade Modality Update Special Section: Health IT: Image Management Special Section: Health IT: PCs on the Move Convention Spotlight Technology Outlook Technology Update Reader's Resource Stat Sheet

Health Imaging & IT - February 2008

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