Cutting Edge Issues
Internet-Enhanced Physician Practices

Deploying a PACS: Issues to consider

Application Service Provider PACS: Analyzing Costs of Service

eHealth:
Towards A New World of Communications in Medicine

Case Study Zone
St Paul Radiology Goes Filmless

Who is eMed?
Mission Statement
Customer Base
Partnerships
Product Offerings
Support Services

Deploying a Picture Archiving and Communications System

Part 4

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise

The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) project is a good idea that has not yet arrived at full usefulness. There have been demonstrations of how the connectivity between radiology devices and information devices is supposed to work. For the uninitiated, these have been good indications of how devices should work together, but industry watchers have been disappointed. There has been much publicity concerning IHE as the answer to all problems. Those who have worked so hard on the development of the DICOM standard have brought forward a communications standard unique to the health care industry in the hope of allowing the integration of many disparate imaging devices. Information-services departments, however, concentrated on Y2K issues in the past and now seem to have become preoccupied with the pending Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. Still outstanding is a question: why does the information-services world appear to be so uninterested in PACS?

Perhaps it is because radiology is driving the issue of distributed imaging while information-services departments have what they consider to be more important issues at hand. It is also possible that these departments do not understand distributed imaging networks and do not want to admit it. These departments function within well defined operating plans. The PACS projects that are now generating interest in their institutions have not been addressed in their past business plans and are still not mentioned for budgeting in their current or near-future fiscal plans. There are many reasons on the delivery side of health care that PACS and imaging networks are not being deployed as quickly as originally expected.

On the vendor side of health care, why have information-services vendors provided little more than lip service toward integrating patient demographics and imaging folders? Why is the IHE effort dominated by imaging vendors, with so few active information-services vendors involved? How will radiology benefit from IHE?