Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 - (Page 25)

T handle the interfaces that had to be created. Tcheng says Duke is he cardiology PACS market is maturing toward planning to develop into a multimodality, multi-vendor environa data revolution that has allowed for a continment to bring up images from all cardiac-specific modalities. ued decline in cardiac morbidity and mortality, says James e. Tcheng, MD, professor of centRalized iMage ManageMent medicine at Duke university in Durham, N.C. When the Cardiology unit at the university of rochester MediThe American Heart Association says that since 2005, deaths from heart disease have dropped by 25.8 percal Center decided to upgrade its echocardiography lab, including ultrasound and a server to a cardiology PACS, administracent and deaths from stroke have fallen 24.4 percent. Tcheng says that, considering that the major advances in cardiovascular medicine have been in the last 20 years to drive What you need to know… this reduction, he attributes the reduction to four things. “Statin therapy, new stent technology, a reduction in smokWhat should you consider when shopping for and ing, and imaging—which is one of the deploying a cardiology pacs? Martin e. smith, of the biggest reasons cardiovascular deaths university of Rochester Medical center cardiology have dropped,” he says. “With better unit in new york offers this key advice. imaging, comes better diagnosing— which means better care for patients.” ✓ Identify all the various associated costs and Tcheng says these advancements in recognize areas where cost might prohibit certain imaging have enabled staff at Duke’s pacs features. Heart Center to view multiple modali✓ Plan for needs such as interconnectivity, dicOM Martin E. Smith, Cardiology ties in an integrated, web-accessible IT Manager, University of requirements and worklists. environment in the echocardiography Rochester Medical Center lab through Xcelera cardiology PACS ✓ Recognize the true amount of data space required, being sure to include different modalities. from Philips Healthcare. They’re also in the process of linking ✓ Recognize the limitations of the software with regard to the network and Xcelera to the cardiac catheterization select appropriate speeds to guarantee smooth streaming. lab. “In the heart cath lab, we are obtain✓ Understand software limitations to viewing and storing each modality. ing images with intracardiac echo, intravascular ultrasound, and we want to be ✓ Choose the appropriate method of long-term storage to meet state/ able to associate these studies so that if location/patient requirements as well as meet the physicians’ needs. you are looking at the cath and you see ✓ Retrieval of studies should be quick and smooth for comparative studies. an ultrasound probe in the coronary tape systems just won’t cut it despite the reasonable costs—you get what artery, you can simply pull up the ultrayou pay for. sound as well—Xcelera gives that capa- BefORe yOu Buy bility,” he says. Going from one hospital lab to three hospitals demanded a cardiology PACS with scalability, Tcheng says. “We needed an application that was more robust with the horsepower we needed to manage the flow of patient information and images in an efficient fashion,” he says. Moving to an enterprise SAN (storage area network) demanded a mature solution to HealthImaging.com ✓ Find a system that allows for individuality among various modalities such as nuclear cardiology, echocardiography and catheterization lab. ✓ Choose hardware that will provide the maximum uptime at a reasonable cost. ✓ Build an appropriate disaster recovery plan to include a full alternative location for the main server with duplicated data. ✓ Choose an application that provides a method to maximize your bandwidth and allow physicians to work as a cohesive team to provide timely, reliable patient results. March 2008 | Health Imaging & IT 25 http://HealthImaging.com

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

Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 Table of Contents On the Web The Enterprise: Communicating Better News Update Critical Test Results Management: The Human Touch The Changing Face of the Cath Lab Cardiovascular CT: A Clinical Boon Cardiology PACS: Solutions to Fit Your Needs ACC 08: Building Quality & Value Together Picking the Perfect PACS Displays PET/CT: A Game-Changer in Cancer Patient Management DR: You Gotta Have IT – Delivering Speed, Efficiency, Savings Laser Imagers: Answering the Call for Hard Copy Reader's Resources Stat Sheet

Health Imaging & IT - March 2008

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