New Enhancements to Image Management Software Helps Increase Departmental Efficiency

Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany) has signed a USD 11.7 million, multiyear contract with Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City, UT, USA), to deploy Siemens Image Sharing & Archiving (ISA) vendor-neutral archive (VNA) to handle Intermountain Healthcare’s enterprise imaging needs.

Siemens ISA is a hosted VNA that stores images from any modality in the Siemens Healthcare Computing Center (HCC); images are redundantly hosted in a Dell (Round Rock, TX, USA) data center, and the archive is managed with Dell’s clinical data management software.

Moreover, Siemens has a new version (VA20) of its three-dimensional (3D) routine and advanced reading software syngo.via in addition to an entry-level software package for 3D visualization of computed tomography (CT) scans. Siemens also recently presented a new version (VA20D) of its picture archiving and communications system (PACS) syngo.plaza, which features productivity-boosting enhancements that support rapid and efficient reading.

“It is important that we examine cost efficiencies in the way we implement our information technology and Siemens and Dell worked with us to structure this contract in such a way that our costs for managing images would scale with our utilization—but not in a traditional way,” said Marc Probst, vice president and chief information officer, Intermountain Healthcare. “For instance, if our volume expands we would expect our costs per study to go down, as a result of the increased volume, but what gives us more peace of mind is the fact that if our imaging volume actually goes down, we have an opportunity to reduce our overall costs. This type of budget certainty is a key factor in making this solution our long-term answer to enterprise image management.”

Intermountain Healthcare is an internationally recognized, nonprofit, system of 22 hospitals, a Medical Group with more than 185 physician clinics, and an affiliated health insurance company, SelectHealth. The organization serves patients and plan members in Utah and southeastern Idaho. Siemens ISA is a joint offering between Siemens and Dell, whereby Siemens provides the first line archiving in the company’s Healthcare Computing Center (HCC), while using Dell’s clinical data management software and securely federating images to the Dell cloud clinical archive (DCCA). The system is a VNA that helps healthcare providers consolidate imaging data from multiple picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) and adopt a more predictable total cost of ownership, enabling image-generating departments to budget and predict information technology (IT) costs similar in a more uniform manner.

“Healthcare providers today are facing budgetary and reimbursement pressures, especially for diagnostic imaging, so in order to help health systems grow in a sustainable way we find it necessary to deliver solutions and ongoing services that help them achieve their clinical objectives while improving their bottom line operations,” said Kurt Reiff, vice president, business management, Syngo Americas.

Siemens also developed new enhancements to the syngo.via 3D routine and sophisticated reading software that provide greater functionality and access to even more workflow-boosting clinical applications. As an example, syngo.via now includes new applications for mammography reading and for complex examinations in oncology, neurology, and cardiovascular diagnostics.

Furthermore, as scans can be compared with images from other modalities without the need to switch applications, syngo.via helps streamline workflow. Another new feature, called Region Growing, enables syngo.via users to better visualize anatomic structures from volume datasets, for example, from neurologic or vascular exams. This improved view assists both the diagnosis and surgical planning.

Siemens Image Sharing & Archiving is currently only available to customers in the United States.

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Intermountain Healthcare
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