The Sana Clinic in Remscheid successfully Manages PACS

Sana Klinikum Remscheid GmbH

M. Willmann, M.Sc.

The Sana Clinic in Remscheid is a hospital focusing on specialized care with 16 departments and 684 planned beds. In 2005 it was newly constructed as a result of combining two locations. "The new facility provided the opportunity to improve the organization of procedures and, thereby, to work more economically. That requires rapid and lean processes", explains Michael Willmann, M.Sc. Head of Information Technology Department. A significant part of the comprehensive IT strategy required to accomplish this objective is the digitalization of radiology. ... [more]

Paradigm Change: From Radiology PACS to Enterprise-Wide Image Management

Protestant Foundation Augusta, Bochum

Kay Siercks, Head of IT

The PACS developments of the past few years have been primarily focused on the needs of radiology or radiological imaging. In this regard digital diagnosing and archiving are of primary importance; these will be amortized through the reduction of film costs. From the very beginning, Augusta Hospital Bochum together with VISUS Co. has been innovative and also has included the imaging procedures of other departments in the PACS concept. ... [more]

Multi - Site PACS Increases Efficiency

and saves Costs

VISUS realises image distribution and archiving across six sites in Herne

Private Radiology Herne

MD Christoph Labisch, Radiologist

Ev. Hospital group Herne

Andreas Jacoby, Head of administration

In radiological diagnostics it becomes more and more important to provide findings in real time to image acquisistion – not only in the hospital but also in the doctors’ practice where the patient is waiting for his/her radiographs and findings to bring to his/her GP. In a film-based radiology the doctor has to make a decision: he is either giving the patient the radiographs to take with them and later on has to duplicate the scans to provide findings which leads to higher costs. Or he finds the scans right afterwards which leads to longer waiting times for patients. ... [more]

Reif & Möller Diagnostic Network AG

Dr. med. Torsten Möller, Radiologist

It was just the year 2000 when private practice radiologists Dr. Emil Reif and Dr. Torsten Möller offered hospitals their diagnostic services. Today, both are managing Diagnostic Network AG, a company with a mission to provide superior, area-wide, round-the-clock, cross-sectional diagnostic imaging by means of teleradiology. Within a space of only five years they have built up an easily accessible computer centre in Dillingen on Saar which is linked to about 50 hospitals and 50 diagnostic centres. Their main focus is on hospitals that lack their own radiology units and welcome this endeavour by two teleradiology visionaries. ... [more]

Pay-Per-Use Model makes costs transparent and budgetable

Essen Radiology Group Practice

Dr. Frank Stöblen, Radiologist

It is no longer possible to manage a radiology unit economically without a PACS. Such a system is indispensable with regard to organizing effective work processes and ensuring high quality diagnostics in particular – especially when providing services to mammography screening units in parallel. This is exactly the situation at the radiology group practice of Dr. Krüger, Dr. Stöblen, Dr. Baschour, PD Dr. Eising and Ms. Stelkens-Gebhardt. In order to keep costs transparent and budgetable, the radiologists decided that rather than buying a PACS solution, they would task VISUS with operating it for them. ... [more]

JiveX for Practitioners of Radiology in the Hospital

Marienhospital Wesel

Claus Kölzer and Dr. Horst Jäger, Radiologists

In Germany, the trend toward digitalized health care is here to stay. Digital radiography places physicians in the unique position to schedule a more efficient work flow. German pioneers in this field are Dr. Horst Jäger and Claus Kölzer, who have a joint practice for radiology, neuroradiology and nuclear medicine at the Marien Hospital in Wesel. They speak of a coming paradigm shift or even a revolution in radiology in this country. For them, digitalization paves the way for a globalization of the health system. This networking makes radiology a live-wire field. ... [more]

Total solution by VISUS proves itself in practice with screening solutions

Radiological Practice Dr. Susanne Wurdinger

Susanne Wurdinger, MD

Radiological Institute Dr. von Essen

Toni W. Vomweg, MD

http://www.dr-von-essen.de/

The Associations of National Health doctors in Bavaria on one and in North-Rhine and Westphalia-Lippe on the other side have each programmed an own Mammography Information System (MIS) for mammography screening to organize the invitation issue and to administer clients data. So there exist two systems called „MammaSoft” and „MaSc” which providers of software solutions need to integrate into the image logistic of screening units. The Bochum IT provider VISUS has now completed two successful projects – one with „MammaSoft” and the other with „MaSc”. ... [more]

Asklepios Clinics in Weissenfels Boost Efficiency and Treatment Quality

Asklepios Kliniken Weißenfels Hohenmölsen GmbH

Reinhard Harweg, IT Manager

The Asklepios Clinics at Weissenfels and Hohenmölsen acquired a PACS in a roundabout way, as IT manager Reinhard Harweg ex-plains: “We wanted to become a certified breast center in Saxony. In order to meet the strict requirements in terms of documentation and archiving a hospital information system (HIS) on its own is inadequate. We also wanted the newly purchased digital mammography system to enable us to launch comprehensive digitization of Radiology. A PACS was installed at an early stage in order to enable archiving and smooth retrieval of exposures, and provide a basis for ongoing digitization.” ... [more]

All images under one button

Antonius Mesos Group, The Netherlands

Robin Timmer, MD, Gastroenterologist

Han Karsemeijer, Information & Automation consultant

“Now we’ve got what we always wanted.” The Department for Gastroenterology of the Antonius Mesos Group (AMG) in The Netherlands is the first Department to have JiveX at its disposal. JiveX is chosen by the AMG Hospital as the Multi Modality PACS next to their existing Radiology PACS. JiveX supports the entire process, from acquisition to viewing. Gastroenterologist Robin Timmer, MD and Information & Automation consultant Mr. Han Karsemeijer explain how it works. ... [more]

Referrer Interface with JiveX

Düsseldorf X-Ray Institute

Klaus Kocher, IT Manager

The digitization of large radiological practices is fully under way. In Düsseldorf an infrastructure was already created making it possible to integrate referring doctors and allowing them to participate in the new quality of communication. While for radiologists the question of ‘digital or conventional’ is no longer asked when planning future investments, it is important to convince referrers of the benefits of the new method of work with a convincing concept. Dr. Wolfgang Stork, radiologist, and his colleagues at Düsseldorf X-Ray Institute have already had PACS experience in their practice since 1997. Via a secure connection they provide referrers with direct access to his PACS. In this way the latter can exploit all the advantages of state-of-the-art image management without having to invest themselves. ... [more]

Augusta-Kranken-Anstalt Bochum

Hospital of Ruhr-University Bochum

Kay Siercks, IT Manager

The general conditions relevant to the operation of hospitals remain very dynamic. The implementation of the DRG reimbursement system is leading to changes in the number of patients treated and to significantly increased competition. The measures introduced by the lawmaking authorities regarding integrated health care delivery across sector borders, as well as the development of new heath care provider structures ("MVZ" (Health Care Centers) etc.) are amplifying this effect. In the course of these changes, a functioning and stable network of referring physicians will therefore become a key competitive advantage. A dependable network of referring physicians and a strategic expansion of the interface to the referring physicians will facilitate the "control" and maintenance of patient volumes. ... [more]

PACS is a key element for boosting efficiency at Altenburg District Hospital

Kreiskrankenhaus Altenburg

Reiner Selent, IT Manager

“It was our aim to integrate radiological procedures into the IT infrastructure with appropriate archive management. In order to meet this requirement for 32,000 radiological examinations a year we had to supplement our existing hospital information system (HIS) and radiology information system (RIS) from the iSOFT company to include a PACS,” says IT manager Reiner Selent, explaining the starting point for the procurement of a digital picture archiving and communication system. It had to have a functioning link with the RIS and preferably be LINUX or UNIX-based. “We wanted to realize clinic-wide image distribution employing web technology. In order to make us independent from a single vendor we did not want the system to be restricted to Internet Explorer or other Windows components,” Mr. Selent explains. ... [more]

JiveX in Private-Practice Orthopedics

Joint practice run by Dr. Markus Reimer and Ralf Pawelzik

Dr. Markus Reimer, Orthopedic Surgeon

In Summer 2003 I addressed the question of what software I would require for digital X-ray. Our newly established joint practice for orthopedics concluded a cooperation agreement with the Radiology Department of St. Martin’s Hospital Olpe. There the patients are X-rayed (Fuji scanner) in an equipment pool 50 meters away and then the images are sent to our practice via a data cable. An interface between the separate networks (Win 2000) had to be taken into account. The interface with our practice information software (Medistar) and hardware issues (e.g. what processing power the radiology server and client PCs actually required, or the reporting monitor issue, which had so far not been ultimately resolved by the authorities) had to be considered. Orthopedic colleagues were unable to help me with regard to these complex issues. ... [more]