State-of-the-art image capture, archive, and viewing technologies designed to Visualize the EHR to be showcased at HIMSS 2010
One of the more common challenges healthcare organizations face is effectively capturing, managing, and sharing clinical imaging information across the enterprise or Health Information Exchanges (HIE).
(Media-Newswire.com) - One of the more common challenges healthcare organizations face is effectively capturing, managing, and sharing clinical imaging information across the enterprise or Health Information Exchanges ( HIE ). This challenge is compounded by an explosive growth in imaging data and a sprawl of proprietary imaging systems that have effectively trapped the organization's data and its users within a single, departmental application. Today's CMIO/CIO can break this deadlock by practicing improved stewardship of the organization's clinical imaging information. By deploying a vendor-neutral, enterprise-class clinical imaging infrastructure, the CIO can provide clinical users with the ability to efficiently capture, store, view, and manipulate images and results. This can be accomplished by extending the capabilities of the existing or planned electronic medical or health record with open standards technology.
Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX® Data Center and IMPAX Data Center Viewer uniquely solve these enterprise imaging storage infrastructure and viewing needs, enabling a longitudinal imaging patient record in the continuity of care.
Visualize the EHR IMPAX Data Center - Agfa HealthCare will highlight its industry leading vendor-neutral medical imaging repository that allows healthcare facilities to efficiciently manage and share clinical imaging information. Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX Data Center is the foundation for healthcare enterprises looking to take control of clinical imaging information. Using standards-based infrastructure, IMPAX Data Center is a central component of a hospital's archive, access, and disaster recovery strategies across a wide range of departmental PACS and imaging solutions.
IMPAX Data Center serves a key role in bringing the last major information space - imaging - into the Electronic Medical Record ( EMR ) or regional Electronic Health Record ( EHR ). Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX Data Center provides large-scale multimedia storage for DICOM 3.0 medical images and diagnostic results including DICOM-encapsulated images, reports, waveforms, and .pdfs for hospital groups, regional healthcare organizations and national medical archives. The solution consolidates imaging data from disparate systems into a single point of storage and distribution via the EHR, to help speed decision-making. Through enterprise-wide and vendor-neutral image management services, Agfa HealthCare solutions help enable facilities to provide clinicians with comprehensive, 24/7 access to images and results while enhancing image-focused communications among interdisciplinary care teams.
IMPAX Data Center Viewer, powered by XERO™-At HIMSS 2010, Agfa will highlight a revolutionary medical imaging and results viewer that address one of the most common issues facing healthcare CIOs and CMIOS today: extending the electronic medical or health record ( EMR, EHR ) to include support for all medical images and related information, providing physicians with point-of-care access to the longitudinal patient record. Using XERO technology, Agfa HealthCare's innovative viewer embeds image content into the EHR and renders it accessible by those who need it, whether in-hospital clinicians or referring physicians using a wide variety of browsers and networks on their office or home computers.
IMPAX Data Center Viewer, powered by XERO, is a zero-download, Internet browser-based medical imaging viewer developed to provide ubiquitous access to imaging information by clinicians at any point of care, regardless of network constraints and/or the wide variance of platforms and administrative rules that can be so problematic with typical viewers. Only an Internet browser and a simple network connection are needed: with Agfa's XERO technology, the user needs no ( zero ) client software to access a patient's images.
Other systems that claim zero download actually require Flash, ActiveX, Silverlight, Java, a DLL, an EXE, or some other browser-based plug-in for the user interface.
IMPAX Data Center Viewer's innovation is the utilization of standards from healthcare IT ( i.e., DICOM SR, C-Find, C-Move, WADO, and IHE actors for ATNA,CPI, SINR,KIN, and SWF ) as well as standards from traditional IT ( i.e., LDAP, SSO, HTTP/HTTPS, HTML,CSS, XML, JavaScript, JPEG and RESTful web services ). IT staff and integrators on the front end are not limited to DICOM for integration; their designs are free to be based on existing web standards. Using XERO technology, the healthcare IT staff is able to achieve application integrations without sacrificing interoperability with the rest of the healthcare enterprise.
IMPAX Exchange* -IMPAX Exchange is a solution that provides secure, reliable transfer and localization of patient studies among hospitals and other healthcare organizations. Designed to change how providers view image distribution and sharing, IMPAX Exchange, furthers the reduction of redundant tests and treatments through improved information sharing. With IMPAX Exchange, providers no longer need to worry about lost or damaged CDs and DVDs, the mishandling of which can result in treatment delays, higher costs, and squandered staff resources. Lost CDs and DVDs can create inconveniences and delay the delivery of patient care, and one should not replace the problem of lost film with lost CDs. If diagnosticians and clinicians lack a patient's complete medical imaging history, they may delay care or order additional imaging exams, potentially increasing the overall cost of care.
*IMPAX Exchange is a work in progress.
IMPAX Scheduling -At HIMSS 2010, Agfa HealthCare will showcase its web-based enterprise ordering, scheduling and planning solution, IMPAX Scheduling. The solution includes an easy-to-use electronic whiteboard, enabling hospitals and clinics of all sizes to increase productivity by efficiently managing appointments and multiple resources in real-time. IMPAX Scheduling also helpshospitals that depend on referring physicians for inpatient volume and ancillary services, such as radiology/diagnostic imaging, improve communication between the referring physician and the hospital network by allowing order placement and appointment scheduling directly into the referring physician's offices. In departmental or enterprise scheduling, CIO's can enable enhanced communication between the referring physician and the hospital network in a way that improves the delivery of patient care and grows a hospital's referring base.
Departmental Imaging Solutions IMPAX Radiology
For improving the delivery of radiology services, Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX 6 solution provides a unified workflow for information and images, creating context between tools and tasks and simplifying radiologist reporting activities, resulting in increasing throughput and decreasing report turnaround times.
The IMPAX RIS ( Radiology Information System ) delivers functionality and workflow for every user, providing a high level of customization to support the hospital's radiology workflow; from the reception desk to worklist management from inventory tracking, to tracking a patient's progress in the department, from integrated reporting with voice recognition to results distribution.
The IMPAX 6 workstation is the heart of the solution, employing automated task management to help keep your practice efficient. IMPAX 6's unified client combines the information from the RIS, the HIS ( Hospital Information System ), the Modality and other sources into one easy to read display in context with the image review area, so that you can more efficiently spend your time focusing on the reporting task. Because IMPAX employs a fully integrated reporting toolset, report generation and signoff can be accomplished in as little as 2 mouse clicks…start and finish!
IMPAX 6 delivers performance regardless of network or location by employing newly designed workstation accelerator technology, combining workflows and location recognition to provide optimum performance.
Delivering those results is the key to any successful practice, and IMPAX 6 gets results where they are needed. With several viewer options, enterprise users can choose the application that fits their need, from simple results and image review to advanced image processing through rendering technology. IMPAX fits the tools to the user - not the user to the tools.
IMPAX 6 solutions enable the extended desktop, providing optional integrated modules to expand your practice. From advanced image processing for Registration and Fusion, for Digital Angiography and Orthopedic Measurement to Peer Review and Results Notification, IMPAX lets you manage all your activities from one application.
IMPAX 6 also delivers the industry's more powerful multi-modality desktop. From Breast Imaging to Nuclear Medicine, from Orthopedics to Cardiology, the IMPAX departmental extensions converge enterprise imaging needs under one solution, sharing content and workflow.
IMPAX Cardiovascular
Agfa HealthCare's vendor-independent and patient-centric approach to image and report management allows facilities to manage and consolidate the entire cardiovascular patient record. IMPAX Cardiovascular enables cardiology and vascular departments to choose powerful technology solutions that extend their diagnostic capabilities. Agfa HealthCare's booth at HIMSS 2010 will showcase image review, processing and reporting for multiple modalities, including adult and pediatric echocardiography, vascular ultrasound, cardiac catheterization, nuclear cardiology and cardiac CT, as well as our ECG management solution, IMPAX HeartStation®. With integration and enhanced communication with standards-based hospital information distribution systems, including PACS/RIS, HIS/CIS, CPOE and EMR/EHR, IMPAX Cardiovascular is designed to support legacy IT investments as well as preserve freedom of choice for future tool selection.
We look forward to seeing you in Agfa HealthCare's booth during the HIMSSexhibition ( Booth #1633 ).
Miriam Ladin Marketing Communications Director - North America One Crosswind Road RI 02891 Westerly, Rhode Island ( USA ) tel:+1 ( 0 )401 604 22 03 fax:+1 ( 0 )401 596 85 62 miriam.ladin@agfa.com
This story was released on 2010-02-07. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.