ECR 2013.indd - Agfa HealthCare

envision your eHr withimaging using iciSDespite the promise of the ElectronicHealth Record (EHR) to provide a view ofpatient health generated from encountersacross all healthcare settings, imaginghas been a critical missing component.Until now. In keeping with its “Leave noimage behind” promise, Agfa HealthCarehas developed the Imaging ClinicalInformation System, or ICIS, to provideclinical images within the EHR. In thisarticle, Charles Morris, Chris Magyarand Genady Knizhnik of Agfa HealthCarereveal how ICIS empowers physicians tomake more informed care decisions byembedding medical image accessibilitywithin the EHR user interface to provide amore accurate view of the patient.ICISEXCHANGEICISACCESSICISCONNECTICISWORKFLOWICISVIEWICISCAPTUREICISVNAgiven these realities, image-enabling theEHR is a logical way to help physiciansdeliver higher quality care, faster. To putit in context, imagine an orthopaedicor plastic surgeon is preparing to repaira patient’s severely injured hand. Ifthe surgeon was able to access imageswithin the EHR to visualize the hand,using clinical photography side by sidewith CT and perhaps even MRI imaging,it would add so much value to theprocess and the patient. Furthermore,if the primary care physician also hadeasy access to pre- and post-surgeryimages and reports through the EHR,that patient’s experience would becomericher still.Healthcare organizations around theglobe are under pressure to delivercare more cost-effectively and withhigher quality. One way to achievethis is to empower physicians witheasy, direct access to all of a patient’srelevant medical information. While thisunderstanding is driving a meteoric risein Electronic Health Record installations,there is still one significant roadblock toultimate clinical productivity: most ofthe EHRs available on the market todaydo not complement the textual data withrelevant clinical images.“Physicians can deliver better, moreexpedient care when they haveimmediate access to a patient’s entiremedical history regardless of the caresetting the information was createdwithin,” explains Charles Morris,ICIS US Market Segment Manager.“If they are limited to only looking atthe textual data that comes out of theEHR, then they aren’t getting the wholepicture. The addition of pre-diagnostic,diagnostic, treatment, and descriptiveimaging data gives a truly integratedview of the continuity of care.”imAging silos ARE widEspREAdgiving physicians access to all theimages associated with a particularpatient isn’t easy. “Most departmentshave their own solutions for capturingimages, but their strategies for storingand distributing those images varygreatly,” says genady Knizhnik, Business16 THEREDevelopment Director, Regional HealthEMEA. “Radiology has the systems inplace to manage all of their images, dataand workflow – and even to collaboratethrough regional PACS – but otherdepartments do not have the same levelof sophistication. Solutions can rangefrom sophisticated and automated imagecapture and workflow to simple digitalsnapshots, for example, in dermatology.”While each department’s clinical imagestorage solution is based on proceduresthat work fine within their own walls,things get more complicated when theytry to share those images with colleaguesin other facilities or departments, orwith referring physicians.“Images are going into privatedepartmental silos in every possibleway that you can imagine,” explainsChris Magyar, Head of the ICIS BusinessUnit for the US Region. “Some imagesare printed out and filed in a paperrecord. Some are stored on hard drives,CD or USB sticks. Some are enteredas a line item in a spreadsheet. Nowimagine you’re a physician from anotherdepartment and you’re making a caredecision. How much time do you haveto hunt that image down? Even if you dohave the time, there is no guarantee thatyou will find what you are looking forin the end. You have to choose betweendoing without that piece of the puzzleor, if you can’t, reordering an imagingstudy that has already been performed.”TAking THE EHR To A wHolE nEwlEvEl“Our Imaging Clinical InformationSystem addresses a whole class ofmissing information from the EHR,”explains Morris. “It seamlessly capturesimaging data in a clinical contextand then links it to the EHR. Sincethe images are embedded inside theprimary textual interface, it is muchmore streamlined and efficient for thepeople using it. Images are presented inthe context of the patient’s entire healthrecord. Doctors do not know that ICISis managing the imaging health record,they simply know that images show upwithin the EHR when they need them.”According to Morris, creating ICISinvolved looking at existing AgfaHealthCare solutions and expertiseand imagining what was possible.“iciS has workflow componentsfor capturing image sourcesthat do not adhere to DicoMstandards, creating metadataaround them and deliveringthem to the same vendorneutral archive as the moretraditional imaging generated bydepartments like radiology.”gENADY KNIZHNIK, Business DevelopmentDirector, Regional Health EMEA