Radiologisches Zentrum am Kaufhof, Luebeck, Germany
The imaging center „Radiologisches Zentrum am Kaufhof“ in Luebeck, Germany, offers not only the whole range of medical imaging techniques including X-ray, CT and MRI, but also new technologies such as 3D imaging, whole-body MRI or MR mammography. A team of five radiologists and several technicians take care of providing their patients and referring physicians with state-of-the-art radiology services.
RIS/PACS integration, please!
When the imaging center first approached IMAGE Information Systems in December 2020, they were looking for a reliable PACS solution to be integrated into their local GE Centricity RIS system. So far they had used OsiriX freeware for this purpose, but were tired of accessing their RIS and PACS systems separately and rather preferred a stable and integrated RIS/PACS solution. Besides this, the imaging center was trying to achieve more web-based customer interaction, such as sharing medical images via QR code or receiving previous studies via the internet.
After several onsite meetings between IMAGE, the radiologists and the center’s local IT provider, a solution had been found for the situation. The iQ-WEB PACS was installed in July 2021 together with two iQ-VIEW PRO diagnostic viewing stations for onsite reading. The legacy PACS data (around 96 TB) was migrated from the OsiriX servers to iQ-WEB and the new PACS was successfully integrated with the local RIS.
In a second step, IMAGE implemented a web portal solution in order to achieve an easier and faster communication with referring physicians and patients. This way, medical images and reports can be shared and accessed in full diagnostic quality via QR code or direct login.
Anything else? Yes, please!
What started out as a relatively small integration project, became bigger than expected as the implementation work moved forward. Further ideas came up on how to improve the workflow even more. For example, to not just be able to open studies in the RIS but also the respective reports, the iQ-WEBX REPORT CONVERTER was added to the solution. This iQ-WEB add-on allows that DICOM Structured Reports and HL7 text reports can be converted and transmitted between the RIS and the PACS system.
Another idea was to make the uploading procedure for prior patient studies a lot easier by using the iQ-WEB UPLOADER where patients and referring physicians can conveniently upload the DICOM data through an easy-to-use website. And finally, a radiation dose management solution was needed due to the new dose regulations that had taken effect in the meantime. Of course, also this was something IMAGE could provide.
According to the feedback IMAGE received from the customer, the radiologists loved their new DICOM viewer iQ-VIEW PRO from day one. Only little training was needed to start working with it and everybody was especially happy about the integration of the PACS viewer into the RIS. Now, radiologists can easily open their medical imaging studies directly from the RIS which saves them about 50-100 mouse clicks per day. By means of the freshly implemented web portal for referring physicians and patients, the imaging center is now able to offer better services to their customers which represents an advantage in this competitive market. Last but not least, the integrated dose management solution iQ-DOSE ensures the imaging center’s compliance with EU dose regulations.
Project configuration:
- iQ-WEB 20 – PACS for 20 AE titles
- iQ-4VIEW 20 – Diagnostic zero-footprint viewer for 20 concurrent users
- iQ-WEB UPLOADER – Upload portal for medical images or relevant photos and documents
- iQ-WEBX REPORT CONVERTER – Consistent medical reports in all systems
- iQ-WEBX WADO – Image access from any information system
- iQ-VIEW PRO x 2 – Diagnostic viewing station
- iQ-DOSE PRO 10 – Efficient dose management
- iQ-MIGRATION – Easy PACS data migration