Agfa is positioning this latest evolution of PACS/IT as meeting the goals of cutting costs by putting all medical visualization data into “one big box”; increasing revenues by making the data easier to access remotely and, therefore, more appealing to referring docs; and boosting efficiency by creating a single global worklist with algorithms that can channel different exams to specific readers for interpretation.

CLOSING THE GAP

Sensing a growing need to make RIS/PACS work well with EMRs, Merge Healthcare is using Regions Health as a beta site to shake out the bugs in its Cedara WebAccess. Regions Hospital and its 18 HealthPartners outpatient clinics and medical offices were slated to begin bringing imaging files into their Epic EHR using this browser-based software. The company has already begun marketing this software to other hospitals and IT vendors.

Healthcare IT developer Allscripts has struck an alliance with Merge Healthcare to use Cedara WebAccess to “image enhance” its EMR system. The software is appealing for its ability to make images accessible without duplicating data or requiring proprietary integrations with individual IT systems. Tim Kulbago, Merge's senior vice president of product development, describes Cedara WebAccess as radiology's equivalent to Google Maps, providing medical images through any web browser.

“All the interaction is happening on the web server, so that all we are sending is a JPEG image,” Kulbago said. “When you zoom or pan an image or make a measurement, it looks like it is happening locally on your PC, but actually it is a ‘web experience.'”

Another company, BridgeForward, wants to close the gap between RIS/PACS and other healthcare information systems. It's betting that the final definition of “meaningful use” will include a requirement that all healthcare information systems work together. Its Viaduct product is a developer's toolkit built to allow vendors, providers, and BridgeForward's own staff to come up with ways to make existing information technologies share data. The company is also leveraging Viaduct so its staff can perform these integrations either entirely on their own or in partnership with providers and vendors. Some of these integrations have already been done and are available to providers and IT vendors.

Other companies, Compressus and MEDxConnect, for example, are focusing on interoperability. Compressus' eEnterprise digital imaging and data management software allows users to create personalized worklist, reporting, and practice tools to streamline exam review, editing, and delivery. With this, radiologists can pull exams over the Internet from different reading centers to help balance workloads. Extended interoperability built into this latest version 2.6 moves beyond integrations with GE's Centricity PACS and Philips' iSite to include connections with information technologies from McKesson, Hologic, Cloverleaf, Kodak Carestream, and Visage Imaging, as well as Sage Intergy RIS, Meditech RIS, and PowerScribe 5.0 dictation software.

The MEDxConnect System acts as a communications hub to create a virtual, unified worklist common to all connected users, enabling various health information systems to communicate across the enterprise. A new return-on-investment package helps facilities determine the kind of impact they can expect from an interoperability project in terms of increased efficiency or revenue.

Other companies hope to get into the IT game with products that make healthcare providers work faster and better with their own or other companies' products. Fujifilm Medical Systems USA has expanded its Synapse Managed Services to include RIS hosting and tele-RIS capabilities through a partnership with Evolved Digital Solutions. Fujifilm founded Managed Services to handle Synapse PACS and related IT functions for customers. Managed services include software, system management, PACS hosting, and disaster recovery, as well as the newly added RIS hosting.

Carestream wants to involve patients more in the healthcare process. A portal released this spring allows patients to access the RIS of a clinic or radiology department to check an appointment and, if necessary, reschedule it for another time. The portal can also be used to update personal information such as a new home address or telephone.

If the past is any guide, technologies that make medical practice faster and smarter will be adopted, regardless of whether stimulus funds are available for their use. RIS/PACS have become commonplace because they are needed. And, in a free market system, necessity may be the best stimulus of all.