From the January 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
As part of the initiative, begin to develop an image access and visualization model that will satisfy the image access requirements of a broad spectrum of imaging users who require access to imaging content in their practice of medicine. Deployment of a universal viewer integrated with the EHR will satisfy as much as 85 percent of the caregiver’s access and visualization requirements. The model you develop for your organization must also include image intensive users within the orthopedic and oncology areas as well as providing remote access to caregivers who practice outside the organization.
Incorporate an image and content exchange program to ingest studies from outside the organization and make these images available through the EHR. Once opportunities are identified and clinical and business use cases documented, careful thought must be given to designing and building the imaging infrastructure that will provide the technology foundation for the program. The foundation infrastructure must provide not only an imaging storage layer, but must also include an integration engine with the EHR, workflow management applications to connect department systems and image capture devices, a universal viewer to facilitate image access as well as exchange platforms to manage images from outside sources.
Options of locally hosting all or parts of the infrastructure or to adopt an off-site, cloud-based model must be weighed in light of IT infrastructure costs, expected service level agreements and the ability to scale the platform as the program grows. Clinical image content is being acquired across most of the departments and institutes within a health care organization. As organizations begin to optimize the HER and drive additional value for all the caregivers, a strategy must be initiated to begin to manage the content that is missing at the point of care.
An enterprise imaging strategy is designed to create an infrastructure and program that will capture, index, store and make imaging content available through an integration with the EHR. The program also helps the organization provide an imaging technology platform that includes a secure storage environment and standardize department workflows that allow all content to be associated with a patient event or order. The enterprise imaging strategy is closely connected to the EHR story by providing a program and technology infrastructure that will securely and effectively manage all clinical imaging content and allow your caregivers access to the imaging content that has historically been absent from the EHR.
About the author: Louis Lannum is the director of MyPractice Imaging at the Cleveland Clinic, leading the enterprise imaging team that is responsible for the strategic imaging initiative across the health care system including image distribution, integration, implementation and access within the EMR. He is a nationally recognized leader in enterprise imaging and frequent presenter at numerous national conferences including HIMSS, SIIM, AHIMA, UGM and RSNA. He is a founding member of the HIMSS–SIIM Enterprise Imaging Workgroup.Back to HCB News
