Filling the gap for EMR systems and optimizing PACS performance

The ability to access online decision support solutions from within a PACS environment increases radiologists’ use of these tools, reveals a study in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. However, integrated access must be provided upon system deployment rather than down the road.

Accessing high-quality radiology services in rural areas of the United States always represents a challenge, and nowhere is this dilemma more poignant to both patients and providers than in the area of mammography. Arlene Sussman, MD, director of breast imaging at Virtual Radiologic (vRad), Eden Prairie, Minnesota, says, “Imagine waiting months to

Health-care reform—specifically, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)—mandated sweeping changes to the US health-care system. Some of the more controversial of these, such as the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, are being contested in court, but Jon Bailey, JD, director of the Rural Research and Analysis Program at

Winn Parish Medical Center (WPMC) in Winnfield, Louisiana, is like many community hospitals of its size, providing local patients with a broad array of services (ranging from a 24/7 emergency department and general surgery to more specialized services, such as occupational therapy, sports medicine, and cardiac rehabilitation). By mid-2010, though,

Archiving and distributing the large data sets associated with images can be a challenge for many radiology practices. University Radiology in New Brunswick, New Jersey, would encounter a larger-than-usual share of obstacles on this front if it were not for a carefully thought-out image-archiving and -distribution strategy built upon the unique

Arlington-based Virginia Hospital Center (VHC) performs nearly 200,000 imaging studies annually, between its cardiology and radiology departments. Behyar Ghahramani, manager of medical systems engineering at VHC, estimates that cardiology accounts for between 45,000 and 50,000 studies a year, while radiology is responsible for 140,000 to 150,000.

Over the past few years, health-care providers have recognized the potential of enhanced physician access to patient information to improve physician efficiencies and, in turn, patient care. For some, migrating to an integrated PACS/electronic medical record (EMR) configuration—instead of maintaining the legacy IT model in which PACS and the EMR