Meaningful image capture has moved beyond the radiology department and requires a comprehensive strategy to collect data and share information.
At the Becker's Enterprise Imaging Virtual Event March 11, Hyland Healthcare, an enterprise imaging and content services provider, hosted a discussion on connecting every image across every hospital department. Lyle McMillin, senior product manager at Hyland, outlined three considerations for health systems before engaging vendors.
1. Bringing together multiple specialties under one enterprise imaging strategy combines unique challenges from each department. There are various devices used to capture content across specialties and the way information is indexed and archived varies.
"Understanding where you want to start and your desired end result will allow your organization to properly assess the needs of those departments before ever engaging a vendor," said Mr. McMillin.
2. Historical imaging workflows are designed around radiology and cardiology, but those workflows may not translate to the entire organization. It's important to standardize image capture and archiving so the information can be shared systemwide.
"Designing with interoperability in mind is critical to make sure you can make this content available to the widest array of clinical systems and users within your organization without having to spend extra time integrating through custom connections," said Mr. McMillin.
3. Develop a rough timeline for cloud migration and plan ahead to make sure data is easy to transfer. Clinical and research teams depend on this data and will need consistent archives for building machine learning and neural network models in the future.
Andrew Longoria, picture-archiving and communications (PACS) system and radiology informatics manager at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, outlined his experience moving into a multispecialty enterprise imaging infrastructure. Philadelphia Children's began an imaging assessment in 2016, examining all departments and gathering feedback from clinicians.
The enterprise imaging steering committee found disparate processes for gathering and storing images, and in many departments, images were exchanged between patients, physicians and clinical staff through emails and text messages. Many physicians were also unfamiliar with how to use photo and video technology.
Mr. Longoria and his team expanded the steering committee to other departments and developed stronger standards. The panel now meets monthly and continues to troubleshoot new challenges.
"Every week, it feels like there's a new area that wants to take advantage of our enterprise imaging platform and join the movement with all of their imaging so that it's available for all their physicians as well," said Mr. Longoria. The hospital continues to work with Hyland to optimize their evolving enterprise imaging strategy.
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