From the June 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Insurers would gain the ability to reduce duplicate exams and lower costs. Our objective is to streamline the collection of imaging data and enhance patient care. I don’t know exactly what the process could be for involving insurers, but it’s certainly a goal worth pursuing for all parties. Other critical aspects of managing image data are redundancy and guaranteed uptime. We have designed our enterprise imaging network to include RIS, PACS and imaging modalities with two redundant nodes. Since these nodes can operate independently, if one node goes down we can continue to operate using the other node.
This dual-node design makes it easy for us to run diagnostics, install new hardware and software, undergo construction and make repairs without interrupting operations. For greater protection during a disaster, one node is on-site and the other node is offsite. We also have all data backed up to a cloud-based data center.
As a Level 1 trauma center we created an environment that allows our emergency department to function during a power outage or disaster. The ED has a horizontal network that will keep RIS and PACS functioning if we lose the hospital network. Our systems have UPS-protected power and we have generators that can keep the RIS, PACS and all major modalities functioning for 72 hours, so we can provide emergency patient care during a catastrophe.
The ultimate goal of the health care industry is to be patient-focused, not disease-focused. Discrete departmental systems create an environment where physicians are accessing only a small amount of data to make diagnostic and treatment decisions. We need to work toward a future where we can deliver a comprehensive view of the patient — including a patient’s medical history as well as imaging studies, lab results, radiology and pathology reports, and other forms of patient data. This holistic approach can utilize the industry’s impressive technological advances to establish a new generation of patient care.
About the author: Rick Perez, BS, RT, CRA, has served as the administrative director of Winthrop-University Hospital’s Department of Radiology since 2003. He oversees 253 full-time employees and 31 radiologists while managing a $27 million budget. The hospital and its affiliated sites conduct 265,000 procedures a year.Back to HCB News
