Piggyback PACS: Pursuing Enterprise Image Management

February 16, 2011 | Feature

Radiologists have become PACS experts, sometimes by default. Because diagnostic images made the greatest demands on early information systems in health care, the most sophisticated systems were first developed to handle these images and associated data. These systems became PACS, which grew out of the homegrown image-management systems of... Read More »

Interpreting From Multiple Facilities: The Case for a PACS-driven Workflow

December 12, 2010 | Radinformatics

For the first five years of its existence, Tower Saint John’s Imaging, a full-service outpatient imaging center in Santa Monica, California, that is a joint venture between Saint John’s Health Center and Tower Imaging Medical Group, used its own RIS, PACS, and speech-recognition products separate from those... Read More »

Implementing Next-generation Radiologist Workflow

November 28, 2010 | Practice Management

Health-care payment models are shifting, with providers taking on risk in the form of accountable-care organizations, bundled payments, impositions such as radiology benefit managers, and other strategies. At the same time, the Joint Commission has increased its requirements for proof of quality. There are increased regulations and controls, as... Read More »

Riverside Radiology Doubles Down on Distributed Reading

November 15, 2010 | Radinformatics

To improve patient care and further build its business, Riverside Radiology of Columbus, Ohio, wanted to provide 24/7, subspecialized service to all 10 of its hospital clients. The busy radiology practice, with 70 physicians, was already providing 24/7 coverage to its hospitals, but... Read More »

The PACS Divorce: Rules of Engagement

October 13, 2010 | Imaging Informatics

Maybe your PACS vendor is going out of business, or the system is so creaky that your vendor no longer offers support. Perhaps your hospital signed an exclusive purchasing agreement that requires a new PACS from a different vendor. Maybe your new department chair just prefers a different system.... Read More »

Building a Distributed-reading Solution: Sunshine Radiology

October 11, 2010 | Radinformatics

Sunshine Radiology was facing a quandary familiar to many radiology groups. The busy 25-radiologist practice (based in Sebring, Florida) wanted to expand its hospital business, but knew that it needed to lower its costs in order to do so. “... Read More »

PACS Passages

September 03, 2010 | Feature

Few processes in radiology are as dreaded as switching from a legacy PACS to a newer replacement. Often approached only when the former PACS is on its last legs, the transition between systems requires diligent selection from an ever-widening field of solutions, lengthy migration of complex (and sometimes flawed)... Read More »

Debunking the Primary Myths of PACS

July 26, 2010 | Planning Portal

The road to PACS perfection is paved with distractions and pitfalls, Paul Chang, MD, FSIIM, says. Chang is professor of radiology, vice chair of radiology informatics, and medical director of enterprise imaging at University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois. During the 2010 Dwyer Lecture, “The Role of Imaging Informatics... Read More »

Have RIS/PACS, Will Travel

June 16, 2010 | Radinformatics

For over thirty years, Radiation Physics Inc (Beltsville, Maryland) has been providing mobile imaging services to the Baltimore and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas, serving long-term–care and assisted-living clients, as well as prisons and private residences. “We started doing... Read More »

Executing the Digital Transformation

May 17, 2010 | Radinformatics

When Saint Michael’s Medical Center (SMMC), Newark, New Jersey, was acquired by Catholic Health East in 2009, the organization had some catching up to do in the IT department: With no PACS or electronic medical record (EMR), its... Read More »

Crystal Ball: Toward True Enterprise Image Management

April 12, 2010 | Radinformatics

As the potential role of informatics in transforming health care gains national attention, how are IT tools for imaging and image management evolving to improve clinical efficiency and bolster quality of care? ImagingBiz spoke with Aaron Waitz, vice president of product development for FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA, Stamford, Connecticut,... Read More »

Academic PACS: It’s Not Elementary, Watson

April 07, 2010 | Planning Portal

In the late 1990s, Yale School of Medicine, New haven, Connecticut, implemented its first PACS. James Brink, MD, chair of the department of radiology and professor of diagnostic radiology, recalls how radiologists initially adapted to the brave new digital world: “It took some of the more senior radiologists a... Read More »

Enterprise Image Management: Bringing Cardiology Into the Fold

March 16, 2010 | Radinformatics

Harris County Hospital District (HCHD) is the public health-care system for the nation’s third most populous county (Harris County, Texas); with 44 locations, it generates 420,000 radiology procedures and 70,000 cardiology procedures each year. When HCHD made the decision to expand its electronic medical record (EMR) to include PACS and other... Read More »

Toward True Globalization: The Air Force and PACS

December 22, 2009 | Radinformatics

Sharing images across any health care enterprise represents a challenge, but doing so across the Pacific Rim was the dilemma faced in 2003 by the US Air Force. Taking up this challenge were Lt Col Grant Tibbetts, MD, now radiology consultant to the surgeon general, and Tom Lewis, the director... Read More »

The Transformational Effects of Informatics on the Practice of Radiology: A Roundtable Discussion

November 09, 2009 | Planning Portal

On October 6, 2009, four physicians gathered in Stamford, Connecticut, to participate in a discussion moderated by Cheryl Proval, Radinformatics.com editorial director.

PACS Nirvana: University Radiology’s Reporting-driven Workflow

July 15, 2009 | Radinformatics

Ever since digital imaging liberated radiologists from the site of image acquisition, radiology practices have labored to patch together distributed reading solutions that would efficiently meet the needs of multiple clients, balance workflow, and enable subspecialization.

Not all solutions have been elegant, and many are downright ugly,... Read More »

In the Navy: The DoD and the Future of PACS

June 15, 2009 | Radinformatics

The US Navy deployed its first PACS—a military-specified system with limited functionality—in 1996. Since then, the Navy has operated multiple PACS from a variety of vendors, all selected through a contracting process monitored by the US Department of Defense (DoD). “Our purchasing process enables us always to select... Read More »

A Virtual Coup: The Server Room of the Future

May 15, 2009 | Data Central

The server requirements of any modern hospital are daunting; the back-end processing power necessary to operate multiple health information systems across an enterprise of any size requires an ever-shifting configuration of blades, proxies, failover systems, and disaster-recovery solutions. It’s no wonder, then, that a five-hospital system with 2,000 beds... Read More »

Maximizing RIS Potential

February 15, 2009 | Radinformatics

The IT needs of today’s radiology practices are ever evolving, and investing in the latest information solutions can be vital to the survival of a business in an increasingly cost-focused marketplace. For Raleigh Radiology Associates, a privately owned North Carolina practice offering a full range of imaging services... Read More »

PACS/RIS Replacement: Cheating the Big Bang

November 16, 2008 | The Daily Grind

Replacing technology is always nerve-wracking, but it is particularly volatile when the systems being replaced are a PACS and a RIS, systems at the heart of daily function for radiology departments and hospitals.

Anthony Jones, PACS administrator for the University of Utah Health Sciences Center (UHSC), knows... Read More »

When Worlds Collide: Integrating Radiology and Cardiology Imaging

November 16, 2008 | Radinformatics

On August 24, 2008, Good Samaritan Hospital, Vincennes, Ind, became the first site in the country to go live with integration between the Synapse PACS from FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA Inc, Stamford, Conn, and the cardiovascular image and information system (CVIIS) from FUJIFILM’s subsidiary, ProSolv Cardiovascular, Indianapolis. FUJIFILM first announced... Read More »

Avoiding Nightmare PACS Outages

September 16, 2008 | The Daily Grind

Preparation is the difference between unexpected PACS downtime and a nightmare, Michael D. Toland told his audience in Seattle on May 17 at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. Toland, who is PACS administrative team manager for the University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, presented... Read More »

Long-term Data Management and Migration for PACS

September 16, 2008 | Destination Digital

PACS data migration is so important that every PACS acquisition should include a plan for outbound migration at the end of that system’s life, according to Frederick M. Behlen, PhD. Behlen is an officer, director, and shareholder of LAITEK Inc, also known as Migratek™ Data Migration Services, Homewood,... Read More »

Advance Preparation Is Key to Smooth Migration

August 15, 2008 | Radinformatics

When John Mowry, digital imaging manager at Cook’s Children’s Health Care System, Fort Worth, Tex, decided to switch from his legacy PACS to a thin-client, Web-based model, he faced a particularly daunting migration situation. The servers in use by the legacy system were on their last legs;... Read More »

Leverage PACS IT Support to Grow Referrals

May 16, 2008 | Planning Portal

While radiology practices and imaging center operators spend heavily on marketing liaisons to help cement favorable referral patterns, few understand the role that hands-on PACS IT support can play.

John Griffith, CRA, CIIP, RT, and CIO of Epic Imaging, Portland, Ore, operates in a market that grew... Read More »