New Version of PACS Designed to Meet Accreditation Standards

The latest version of a picture archival and communications system (PACS) supports radiologists' efforts to meet accreditation standards.

Intelerad Medical Systems (Montreal, QC, Canada), a leading PACS solution vendor, announced the availability of its IntelePACS quality suite. The fully integrated quality modules were developed as a direct response to the requirements of Intelerad's clients to improve best-practice standards in patient care.

Implementing the latest quality improvement measures is one of the steps radiologists are taking to receive accreditation from bodies such as The Joint Commission, formerly (JCAHO), a well-known healthcare accreditation group in the United States. Such accreditation is becoming increasingly important with the numerous challenges in the current healthcare environment. Meeting specified quality standards demonstrates a commitment to quality patient care, helps improve risk management and reduction efforts, and provides a competitive edge in the marketplace.

The new IntelePACS modules address quality improvement requirements in three ways: (1) Critical results management, which facilitates timely communication of critical findings between radiologists and referring physicians. Critical results are delivered faster and all events are tracked, providing a communication audit trail. The critical results notification process is improved, which results in better patient care and increased efficiencies. (2) Peer review, which supports the requirement for the ongoing practice-based evaluation of radiologists' performance. Geared toward measuring diagnostic accuracy, peer review allows a radiologist to comment on a peer's interpretation and state their level of accordance. By embedding the peer review process in the diagnostic workflow, more reviews can be documented in a shorter amount of time. (3) Image quality review (IQR), which allows a radiologist to review and comment on the quality of images acquired by a technologist. Integrated with the IntelePACS workflow, IQR provides a streamlined method of providing feedback to technologists. The resulting improvement in image quality reduces the need to reimage the patient.

Because the modules are integrated with the IntelePACS, radiology practices also benefit from significant cost savings, as they no longer need to invest in expensive stand-alone applications to meet their quality requirements. "Intelerad is committed to developing quality management tools that support performance improvement in radiology. With each new IntelePACS feature, we bring our customers closer to reaching their patient safety and clinical productivity goals,” explained Randall Oka, Intelerad president.

Intelerad develops and distributes IntelePACS, an industry-leading PACS. Intelerad's newest system, InteleOne, brings considerable efficiency gains to radiology groups reading for multiple clinics and hospitals.

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