German Hospital Interfaces Cardiac Cath Lab with Image Archiving and Reporting System

A clinic is the first hospital in Germany to interface its angiography systems with an image management and reporting system. All data generated prior to or during an intervention in the cardiac cath lab are now automatically transferred to the new information technology (IT) system.

The advantage of this IT system is that while the examination is still in progress, operating personnel can use important examination data to prepare a report for wards or referring physicians in just a matter of minutes. Previously, this took several hours, because the data was transferred from forms to the reporting system manually and the images were also stored manually. For this innovative IT system, in the Peine Clinic in Lower Saxony's catheter laboratory, Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany) interfaced its dynamic image archiving system syngo Dynamics with the angiographic system Axiom Artis FC and the hemodynamic measuring station Axiom Sensis XP.

In May 2008, the former community hospital in Peine opened a cardiac catheter laboratory. In order to begin with the most efficient environments possible, the Peine Clinic chose Siemens Healthcare syngo Dynamics cardiology image management and reporting system. In the past, one of the most time-consuming tasks in the clinical routine for cadiac cath has been the preparation of reports. The large amount of data that had to be transferred manually from different forms, or from external data media, to the electronic reporting systems caused long delays in report availability.

The Peine Clinic chose Siemens to install a solution that would considerably reduce the amount of time and effort for report preparation following cardiac catheterization. To achieve this goal, Siemens interfaced its multi-modality image archiving system syngo Dynamics with the angiographic system Axiom Artis FC and the hemodynamic measurement station Axiom Sensis XP. An interface to the clinic's ultrasound systems will be added in the future. Axiom Sensis XP, a state-of-the art recording procedure for interventional cardiology and electrophysiology, even transmits measurement data automatically to syngo Dynamics via real-time data transfer.

Directly at their syngo Dynamics workstations, the reporting physicians are now provided with all data required to prepare the necessary reports as soon as catheterization is completed. This considerably accelerates the workflow in the cardiology department and allows for more precise reporting than in conventional catheter labs.

"While selecting a suitable provider, we were looking for integrated as well as cost-effective solutions for angiography systems and IT. The Siemens spectrum fully met these requirements with the real-time data exchange of Axiom Sensis XP and syngo Dynamics,” explained Arturo Junge, director of administration at the hospital.

The chief physician of Medical Clinic I (cardiology and pneumology), Dr. Petra Wacker, also appreciates the benefits of having this reporting system for diagnostic image viewing and dynamic image processing at a single workstation. According to Dr. Wacker, evidence-based reporting also supports both the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical procedures. "We benefit especially from the fact that reports are generated almost automatically, a fact which greatly reduces the risks incurred through user errors. This allows us to ensure high-quality patient care,” commented Dr. Wacker.

"With this scalable solution, we are best equipped to face the technical challenges of the future. Networking will make the data exchange even faster and offer further advantages, for example in long-term archiving. This will certainly expand the existing cooperation of our hospitals,” said Wilfried Schröter, head of medical systems of the Peine Clinic.

Klinikum Peine, gGmbH was founded in March 2003 as a subsidiary of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus Celle foundation. On April 1, 2003, the Clinic took over management of the hospital of the Peine administrative district and on September 1, 2009, the Peine hospital passed to the ownership of the Klinikum Peine.

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