Partnership to Add Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing Capabilities

Cross-enterprise document-sharing capabilities have been added to radiology information systems (RIS) to further interoperability and enhance cross-enterprise access to patient images and information.

Intelerad Medical Systems (Montreal, Canada), a developer of medical imaging picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), radiology information systems (RIS), and workflow solutions, has signed a teaming agreement to utilize Forcare’s (Zeist, The Netherlands) IHE [Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise] cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) functionality to further enhance their cross-enterprise data sharing abilities.

“We are excited that Intelerad will leverage Forcare’s standards-based health information exchange technology to complement their market-leading radiology interoperability suite,” said Andries Hamster, founder and chief marketing officer, Forcare. “Through this agreement, we look forward to helping them expand on these capabilities to pursue larger HIE [health information exchange] projects.”

“At Intelerad, we are always looking for ways to extend the capabilities of our solutions and to offer more value to our clients,” said Chris Henri, founder and chief technology officer, Intelerad. “By integrating Forcare’s capabilities into our solution suite, we will be able to offer our clients solutions that enable them to participate in modern health information exchanges.”

By incorporating XDS technology, imaging enterprises are able to find and retrieve relevant patient images and reports, and share related documents with affiliated enterprises. For radiologists, this helps optimize quality through a better understanding of the patient’s history, while facilitating collaboration among healthcare providers and improving the continuity of care.

Quick access to information stored in disparate repositories across the enterprise also improves the productivity of radiologists and technologists by reducing unnecessary patient transfers and exams. In addition, leveraging XDS-I can reduce operational costs associated with the acquisition, storage, management and sharing of medical records.

Forcare was established in 2006 and is active in the health information exchange (HIE) space. Forcare’s intelligent product suite facilitates HIE within and across organizational boundaries and is based on international IHE XDS standards. Today, Forcare has a leading position with large scale installations in hospitals both in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and North America and is one of the few independent solution providers in this space.

Intelerad Medical Systems is a developer of distributed radiology, specializing in RIS, PACS, and workflow solutions for healthcare organizations. Intelerad solutions are used in more than 1,000 sites across North America, Oceania, and the United Kingdom.

Related Links:
Intelerad Medical Systems 
Forcare