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St Paul Radiology Goes Filmless

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St Paul Radiology Goes Filmless

Part 5

The enterprise had already established eMed teleradiology links to its radiologists at their homes. However, St Paul Radiology administrators noted that it was beginning to take too much time to transmit images due to the growing volume and size of the data files being sent across the phone lines. Moreover, this early teleradiology system began proving limited in delivering the high degree of resolution necessary for satisfactory diagnostic interpretation of the images.

Once PACS was in place, these problems were solved. However, the learning continued and a new issue became evident -- connectivity. “Connectivity wasn’t as much an issue within the confines of our St. Paul Radiology owned-and-operated centers,” says Rasmussen. “We had relatively little difficulty linking all of our image-generating scanners to the PACS server so that it would be able to funnel studies to the radiologists for interpretation on high-resolution, two- and four-monitor, diagnostic workstations in specially designed reading rooms.” Olson credits eMed’s open architecture with having been central to achieving connectivity within the St Paul Radiology owned-and-operated centers.

However, it is a different story with the group’s client hospitals and treatment centers, she divulges. “Establishing connectivity with our clients was extremely difficult,” Olson says. “There were several reasons for this. First, the hospitals each had modalities and information systems from different vendors, none of which was DICOM or HL7 compliant, so compatibility on that front was a real battle. Second, since these were clients of ours, we could exert no authority over them to compel them to upgrade their existing systems or procure all new technology that meets standards.”

“Also,” Rasmussen interjects, “the hospitals had varying degrees of expertise themselves with networks. It was left to us to help them along the way, but there was only so much we could ask of them.”

Underlying all of this were sensitive political considerations.

“Among our clients are four major medical groups, a medical management group and an independent group,” says Olson. “The connectivity issues are as much a matter of the very different work styles of these clients as it is a matter of them not having compatible equipment.”

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