Logicalis US: Image Management is One of Healthcare CIOs' Toughest Tasks
Solution Provider IDs Five Core Components in an Effective Enterprise Imaging Strategy
NEW YORK, March 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Gathering, storing, accessing, and analyzing a rapidly expanding volume of patient images is one of the most complex IT tasks in today's healthcare environments. These images tell a patient's clinical life story, and with the recent proliferation of affordable digital technologies such as point-of-care ultrasounds, digital cameras and medical/surgical scopes, images in varying formats are being produced in record numbers by a variety of service lines outside of radiology – including surgical services, dermatology and pathology. According to Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), the key to managing these images is to develop a comprehensive enterprise imaging strategy that addresses five core components and to do so, in a standardized, vendor neutral way.
"Developing a thorough enterprise imaging strategy is quickly becoming one of the most important things a hospital CIO can do," says Kim Garriott, Principal Consultant, Healthcare Strategies, Logicalis Healthcare Solutions. "Medical imaging is so much more than just capturing and storing X-rays and ultrasounds; it's a multi-modal discipline that gathers images from a variety of sources and makes them readily available to clinicians through the patient's electronic medical record (EMR) regardless of the underlying technology used to obtain them. Imaging gives clinicians information they need to enhance patient outcomes, and having that technology available, from a business perspective, can result in increased reimbursements from insurance and Medicare. Beyond the obvious quality of care issues, hospitals that aren't taking the steps necessary to move their imaging management practices to the next level risk regulatory infringements and compromised data security making the development of an enterprise imaging strategy one of the most important tasks in healthcare IT."
Healthcare Imaging's Five Core Components
Logicalis Healthcare Solutions' imaging experts have identified five core components that, when properly addressed within the healthcare system's enterprise imaging strategy, will result in improved coordination of care, increased satisfaction among clinicians, improved patient engagement, streamlined operational costs, and stronger regulatory compliance:
- Acquisition: Healthcare IT pros must discover the technologies and clinical workflows used to acquire medical images across as many as 40 service lines before developing their EMR optimization plans.
- Storage: Keeping medical images on hand involves more than just storing them; it also requires an in-depth disaster recovery plan and whole-system monitoring to ensure those images are both available and secure 24x7.
- Access: Until now, physicians have accessed medical images in a variety of cumbersome ways ranging from portals to unsecure CDs and other portable media delivered directly by the patient into the doctor's hands. What doctors want – and are beginning to expect – is to have the patient's entire medical image library available through their EMR and accessible for viewing regardless of device or source of acquisition.
- Sharing: The ultimate goal is for a variety of clinicians to be able to collaborate, securely sharing a patient's images both within the same healthcare provider and between providers regardless of where those images reside.
- Analytics: Clinicians also need to be able to analyze medical images and the associated meta-data in a thoughtful, patient-centric way that leads them to new diagnoses and treatment plans that can benefit both the individual patient as well as a larger patient population as a whole.
Want to Learn More?
- Explore imaging on the Logicalis healthcare web site, then download an imaging data sheet here: http://ow.ly/KHr6E.
- Read a Logicalis eBook, "EIMA Solutions Needed Stat": http://ow.ly/KHrNt.
- Examine six concerns keeping healthcare CIOs up at night, then listen to Ed Simcox's interview, "Lowering the Risk in Healthcare IT," on the Healthcare Insider radio network: http://ow.ly/Bnsps.
About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international IT solutions and managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration, data center and cloud services, and managed services.
Logicalis employs over 3,800 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex IT infrastructures to meet the needs of almost 6,000 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM, CA Technologies, EMC, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware and ServiceNow.
The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of $1.6 billion from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific and is one of the leading IT and communications solution integrators specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues of approximately $6 billion.
For more information, visit www.us.logicalis.com.
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To learn more about Logicalis activities through a variety of social media outlets, click here.
Media contacts:
Lisa Dreher, VP, Marketing & Business Development,
Logicalis US
[email protected]
425-201-8111
www.us.logicalis.com
Karen Franse, Communication Strategy Group for Logicalis US
[email protected]
866-997-2424
www.gocsg.com
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SOURCE Logicalis US
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