Enterprise Imaging PACS Consolidation and eHR Integration
Comprehensive Scope
Analyze the current state of Radiology and Cardiology imaging storage, workflows, devices and 3rd party systems at all hospital and Physician Organization (PO) clinic locations and based on that analysis, develop and implement a plan to consolidate these devices and 3rd party systems to the Health System standard Core application for that service line and integration of these imaging PACS and diagnostic systems with a new health system eHR integrated Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) – a High Availability imaging management solution. This complex health system initiative typically includes complete infrastructure re-architecture and build, significant software development, service line system consolidation, data reconciliation(s) and migrations, DICOM conversions and decommissioning several PACS. This project integrated all Cardiology and Radiology clinical imaging and diagnostic systems with Epic, Epic Cupid and Epic Radiant. PACS/VNA synchronization is critical to care and risk management.
Why This is so Important!
Funding and justification was based significantly improved care with reduced risk now and a six-year ROI. Imaging consolidation, device standardization and a VNA – an enterprise high availability “super PACS” isn’t a trivial undertaking but clearly delivers value, ROI and improves patient care and safety. A VNA reduces: disparate system support; infrastructure requirements; maintenance and licensing expense; eHR interfaces; disaster recovery plan complexity-cost; plus standardizes viewers and workflow, delivers real time imaging interoperability and eHR imaging integration. Consolidating disparate PACS requires data reconciliation(s), migration and core PACS then VNA validation; PACS/VNA synchronization is critical to care and risk management.
Value proposition
Consolidating and decommissioning increases support efficiency and significantly reduces licensing and support expense. The new imaging architecture is state-of-art, obviated hundreds of Epic HL7 interfaces, automated charge capture and all study migrations reconciled the DICOM header metadata to the new Epic MRN. The Core PACS and VNA contain all prior studies and receive all Radiology and Cardiology production studies. The result was a fully integrated electronic Health System (eHR and Imaging) yielding enterprise "real time" patient information. Integrated technology and optimized workflow drives clinical and operational performance. At the health system level, a critical component is a high availability imaging system.