Think outside the dicom
What is Enterprise Imaging? What do you think Enterprise Imaging means?
Apollo’s new podcast, “Think Outside the DICOM” will provide you with some Apollo thoughts on Enterprise Imaging related topics.
Fine tuning the definition provided by the HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Workgroup, there are a few key aspects that Apollo focuses on.
Enterprise Imaging is...“a set of strategies, initiatives and workflows implemented across a healthcare enterprise to consistently and optimally capture, index, manage, store, distribute, view, exchange, and analyze all clinical imaging and multimedia content to enhance the electronic health record.”
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are driving us to have more and more clinical information available and easier access to clinical information. So how does an enterprise imaging system do that?
- Can the system store and archive all medical images centrally, eliminating departmental silos? Archiving is important but it’s not the only solution to Enterprise Imaging.
- Can the system support the workflows to make it easy to capture, save and view all types of clinical images?
- Can the system provide cooperation with the EMR as an integral part of the treatment workflow, image-enabling the EMR to ensure care collaboration across specialties and clinicians?
At Apollo, we think Enterprise Imaging comprises 3 components:
- Centrally managed storage access with images stored in native format
- Ability to connect the archive and images to the EMR
- Ability to drive clinical workflows – how are you capturing those clinical images?
The solution should not just be an archive, it needs to support all specialties, including non-DICOM or visible light generating departments, across the enterprise, enable image acquisition workflows, store them in native format, and view them in native format. This is when you jump from being an VNA to a true clinical enterprise imaging system.
The advantage of having an enterprise imaging strategy in place provides a more holistic, comprehensive view of patient imaging. There is a value in creating a timeline or story with clinical pictures. The universal use and access of the picture, and the story that can be told with that picture at a patient-centric level. It also suggests that tags or metadata can be added to these images easily, where in the past, it was not readily available. To have all of this accessible, when you are uniformly and centrally managing the information with an enterprise imaging solution, ensures care collaboration and creates efficient workflows that drive effective care
Take a listen to Apollo’s first podcast episode, Think Outside the DICOM Episode 1: What is Enterprise Imaging and see if our thoughts on the subject are the same as yours.
Then contact us so we can continue this conversation and provide you with a demo to show you how your organization can create efficient workflows that drive effective care.
