Health Imaging & IT - October 2008 - (Page 26)

special section cardiac imaGinG CVIS Spurs Innovation supply programs. The results include a more accurate bill and the ability to instantly order replenished supplies. seizing the competitive advantage Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles operates in an ultra-competitive medical neighborhood. The 450-bed hospital is shoehorned among six hospitals in an eight-mile radius. “We have to stay ahead of the curve,” asserts Ed Lopez, service line director for cardiovascular and respiratory services. Last fall, the hospital upgraded from a first-generation cardiology PACS to a fully integrated CVIS solution by deploying McKesson Corporation Horizon Cardiology. The goal was simple: to make it easier for physicians to come to Northridge and provide efficient patient care. The three-phase project started with a cardiology PACS upgrade. Prior to Horizon Cardiology, cardiologists were tied to a single PACS workstation in the cath lab. Horizon Cardiology, a web-based system, provides access to cath lab and echo images in the cath lab, throughout the hospital, in physicians’ offices and at home. The hospital ensured speed by adding a separate 2 gigabyte (GB) network and new network drops in the cath lab, echo suite and in physician review areas. Phase two centered on hemodynamic monitoring and nurse charting. “This is the age of quality. We wanted everything captured for American College of Cardiology (ACC) reporting,” explains Lopez. Horizon Cardiology captures essential data and populates the physician report with it, which ties to the final phase of the project: physician reporting. Documentation is more complete and consistent, he says. For example, consider the patient with a small myocardial infarction. Horizon Cardiology ensures that the physician documents the length of the lesion and stent. One year after beginning the CVIS project, Northridge Hospital continues to refine its implementation. Cardiologists regularly use Horizon Cardiology to access images and complete reports from home. “They don’t have to come to the hospital as often to dictate or review images,” reports Lopez. In fact, with Horizon Cardiology, cardiologists can view images and consult with each other from home to make an informed patient care decision. In many cases, the hospital can begin treatment before the physician arrives to accelerate patient care. [ Mckesson Horizon cardiology Web, a web application for high-quality image review and reporting, provides cardiologists with access to cardiology procedures and reports from any location, at any time. ] we could be,” recalls Gregory Eaton, MD, director of cardiovascular medicine. Top cardiovascular programs, on the other hand, provide efficient care because data are readily available. Eaton spearheaded a plan to create an integrated backbone of data. The task, says Eaton, is mission critical. “All hospitals need to use IT to its full potential to provide care in an efficient, cost-effective manner to improve patient outcomes.” The core of MedCentral’s strategy is Siemens Medical Solutions Soarian Suite, including Soarian Clinicals, Soarian Financials and syngo Dynamics. The IT-based approach removed silos of data, allowing the hospital to increase efficiency, standardize patient care and review outcomes. A before/after snapshot illustrates improved processes. Before the hospital deployed Soarian and syngo, it was very difficult for physicians to obtain prior EKGs. In many cases, treatment started without key pieces of data. “Physicians were hampered without the old test. They couldn’t tell if the changes were old or new,” shares Eaton. Today, physicians access all data via Soarian. If the data show that changes are new, the patient can be directed to a more invasive [treatment] approach. On the other hand, patients with old changes can be treated more conservatively. “Ready access to old data improves safety, and we think it may improve outcomes,” states Eaton. As MedCentral-Mansfield Hospital eyes the future, the hospital plans to continue to mine Soarian to drive improvements in care and efficiency. For example, it is difficult to extract data from the traditional dictated patient report. Soarian provides a structure for report generation, pushing physicians to add key elements that influence outcomes. Researchers can search the key elements or variables to connect the dots between variables and patient outcomes. “This isn’t possible with dictated reports,” Eaton says. Similarly, the hospital is collaborating with Siemens to tie drop-down menus in the structured report to billing and 26 Health Imaging & IT | october 2008 collaboration counts When Atrium Medical Center, a new 250-bed hospital in Middletown, Ohio, opened its doors last year it started with straightforward goals for ScImage software. “We wanted to improve report turn-around time, provide enterprise access to images and enable serial comparisons,” says Lead Echocardiography Technologist Healthimaging.com http://www.HealthImaging.com

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

Health Imaging & IT - October 2008 Contents The Enterprise News Update Top Trends in Health Imaging & IT - Topping the Competition Advances in Cardiac CT & MRI CVIS Spurs Innovation Technology Outlook People & Technology In Practice Reader's Resource

Health Imaging & IT - October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.