Interoperability, Accessibility and
Long-Term Storage with iConnect®
Interoperability a Necessity
CUSTOMER PROFILE
• H
ealthcare system comprised of
40 hospitals that provides
integrated, patient and family
centered care to more than six
million people annually
• F
ifth largest health system in the
nation with 10,000 physicians,
55,000 employees and 8,800
acute care beds across Arizona,
California, and Nevada
CUSTOMER CHALLENGES
• Image exchange concerns
including unreliable CDs,
expensive courier services and
remote readings
• R
eferring/community physicians
need fast and easy accessibility
to information
• C
onsolidation of archived images
• M
ultiple PACS sources and viewing
destinations
SUCCESS WITH MERGE
• R
eferring physicians have access
to images within Dignity Health’s
HIE (health information exchange),
enabling more timely care
• R
eliable enterprise image archive
solution stores over 1.5 petabytes
of information
Interoperability across healthcare organizations is a necessity in today’s unpredictable
landscape. Facility-based care is a thing of the past. Silos are no longer conducive to a
profitable organization and quality care. Today’s model is patient-centric. As a
regionally deployed integrated health system comprised of 40 hospitals and several
imaging centers it connects to, Dignity Health needed a strategy in place that would
provide access to any image, anywhere, any time to speed time to treatment, facilitate
relationships with referring physicians and most importantly, provide patient-centered
care.
Image Exchange
As a large healthcare system, Dignity Health knew it had to invest in technology that
would facilitate a central distribution point for affiliated entities and community
physicians. Involved with a variety of outside partners including other hospitals,
affiliated physicians, home health and more, an enterprise imaging strategy was critical
to their success.
There had to be a better way to share images than burning and transporting CDs. It
was frustrating when the CD didn’t work and forced them to perform duplicate tests.
This was not only expensive, but posed a potential risk for patients with the extra
radiation dosage and delayed treatment.
And Dignity Health’s large network of referring/community physicians needed fast
accessibility to images as well. CDs took too long, and they also wanted the option of
viewing when outside of the four walls of the hospital.
Another challenge they faced was having separate local archives for storing all of their
images, which equated to about 3.25 million studies in fiscal year 2012. They needed a
long-term archive that would not only act as a central location for all DICOM images,
but a solution that would provide a disaster recovery strategy
as well.
Success With Merge
So far, Dignity Health has deployed iConnect Access, a zero-download viewer, to
connect its forty hospitals and seven imaging centers. According to Scott Boswell,
IT Medical Imaging and ID Management at Dignity Health, “iConnect has been
great from a marketability standpoint. It has provided a competitive advantage by
offering our referring physicians online access to their reports and images quickly
and conveniently, regardless of where the patient received health services.”
“iConnect has
enabled us to retain
our current referring base as
well as increase our business
by adding new clients.”
Scott Boswell, IT Director, Medical Imaging and
ID Management, Dignity Health
Dignity Health is also in the process of image-enabling its EHR for its employed
physicians, integrating iConnect Access through a clinical workstation interface.
Now their referring physicians are able to access images, anywhere, any time,
through MobileMD, Dignity Health’s HIE via an integrated viewer and link within
clinical reports. This is currently being utilized by 5,000 physicians in nine markets
within the HIE.
They also implemented iConnect Enterprise Archive, Merge’s vendor-neutral
archive, to help reduce their storage footprint at their local facilities and provide
more ready access to their hosted HIE. “We keep about eighteen to twenty-four
months of images at our local facilities. Now, with iConnect Enterprise Archive, if a
site needs priors, they just do a pre-fetch and they pull those up when they’re
relevant to the exam. But more importantly, we’ve tied it into our HIE along with
iConnect Access to extend images off the VNA versus extending them off the local
stores. This enables faster transmission to the HIE, which allows our referring base
to access them faster and ultimately provide more timely care,” said Boswell.
Merge’s iConnect Enterprise Archive is also equipped with Replicated Content
Management, which surpasses standard back-up and recovery system availability.
This ensures full business continuity for the enterprise, even after a PACS system
failure or natural disaster.
About Merge
Merge is a leading provider of clinical systems and innovations that seek to
transform healthcare. Merge’s enterprise and cloud-based solutions for image
intensive specialties provide access to any image, anywhere, any time. Merge also
provides health stations, clinical trials software and other health data and analytics
solutions that engage consumers in their personal health. With solutions that are
used by providers and consumers and include more than 25 years of innovation,
Merge is helping to reduce costs and improve the quality of healthcare worldwide.
©2013 Merge Healthcare
877.446.3743 x3 · merge.com