Hospitals
References
Chernihiv City Hospital , Ukraine
The historic city of Chernihiv located in northern Ukraine is home to two high-class state hospitals, Chernihiv City Hospital No. 2 and the nearby City Hospital No. 3.
Chernihiv City Hospital No. 2 was put into operation in 1992 and offers a capacity of 535 beds. Around 17,000 patients are treated in the hospital’s 15 clinical departments every year and the outpatient department receives even around 1,000 visits a day. The hospital’s personnel is known for their expertise in treating the most difficult patient cases from Chernihiv and the region and around 7,500 surgical interventions are performed there per year. Last but not least, a total of 226 physicians including 2 radiologists provide their professional services at this medical facility.
Chernihiv City Hospital No. 3 was originally organized in 1983 as a medical and sanitary unit and has been operating under its current name since the mid-90s. It includes the only general rehabilitation department in the region and employs 540 people including 83 physicians.
A state-of-the-art PACS, please!
Both institutions have been working without modern methods for viewing and transmitting DICOM data for a long time. They decided to invest in a state-of-the-art PACS that would manage all their data properly and called for proposals in a public tender process. What had to be taken into consideration was that each hospital had remote branches with diagnostic equipment of their own. Thus, it was an essential requirement to be able to browse all patient studies received from all devices and remote facilities on a professional radiology workstation and have these studies stored centrally in a long-term archive. IMAGE’s local sales partner MEDSTAR presented the most convincing offer and won the tender in November 2019.
Why iQ-SYSTEM PACS?
In addition to being a solution coming from an experienced global supplier, the fair price and the ability to expand the system in the future were some of the decisive factors for the hospitals to opt for iQ-SYSTEM PACS. Further criteria that led to the purchase of the solution were the availability of both thin-client and thick-client diagnostic viewers for remote and onsite viewing as well as the possibility to easily share patient research data with colleagues for consultation and to integrate the system with the local HIS.
MEDSTAR installed the eagerly awaited PACS solution in December 2019 and took all the necessary steps that the system could go live a month later. Initially, six AETs were connected to each PACS which still leaves some upgrade opportunities in the future without the need for purchasing a larger PACS edition. So far, the hospital’s radiologists have enjoyed working with the iQ-VIEW reading station onsite and iQ-4VIEW for remote viewing. By means of the new WADO interface, doctors can now directly access the patient studies from the hospitals’ HIS systems and conveniently review the findings for an efficient treatment process.
Currently, negotiations are underway to expand the radiology service and add iQ-WEB UPLOADER to the PACS in order to offer the possibility to securely upload patient studies by means of an easy-to-use website.
Project configuration
Chernihiv City Hospital No. 2
- iQ-WEBX 10 – PACS for 10 AE titles
- WADO interface of iQ-WEB – Image access from any information system
- iQ-4VIEW 20 – Diagnostic zero-footprint viewer for 20 concurrent users
- iQ-VIEW PRO – Diagnostic viewing station
Chernihiv City Hospital No. 3
- iQ-WEBX 10 – PACS for 10 AE titles
- WADO interface of iQ-WEB – Image access from any information system
- iQ-4VIEW 15 – Diagnostic zero-footprint viewer for 20 concurrent users
- iQ-VIEW PRO – Diagnostic viewing station
PACSolution for Multi-Functional Hospital, North Kazakhstan
High-level multidisciplinary medical care for the population of the North-Kazakhstan region is the main aim of the North-Kazakhstan Regional Multi-Functional Hospital. With an amount of 25 facilities, they are the largest diagnostic imaging provider in this region. Besides 5 major facilities like the Regional Oncology Center, 4 city polyclinics and 13 remote hospitals belong to the group.
To reach the goal of providing best medical care, the hospital needed to upgrade their IT infrastructure and requested a centralized studies storage with the help of a regional-level PACS solution. Until the beginning of the cooperation with IMAGE Information Systems and their on-site sales partner TND LLP KZ in 2019, the customer was faced with different challenges. These led to long, medically unacceptable waiting times for patients and unnecessarily complicated workflows for staff:
No PACS in combination with overloaded medical equipment workstations
A huge amount of studies ended up being stored on medical equipment workstations until overloaded, instead of being stored in a regional PACS
Diagnosis for mammography screening up to 2 months
Important mammography screening studies were printed on film and transported only once a month from remote facilities to the oncology center for a second opinion and back again. Therefore, a diagnosis could take up to 2 months.
Different HIS in region
The use of two different hospital information systems led to redundant data storage and increased search times
The need to organize the clinical workflow on a regional level with a modern PACS, so that all data can be managed properly (in time and quality), was accordingly the primary goal of the project implementation.
Whereby the following combined software solutions from IMAGE Information Systems could remedy the situation:
- iQ-WEBX unlimited x 1
- iQ-4VIEW unlimited x 1
- iQ-WORKLIST PREMIUM x 1
- iQ-WEBX WADO HL7 x 1
- iQ-ROUTER PREMIUM x 1
- iQ-ROUTER PRO x 2
- iQ-ROUTER x 22
- iQ-VIEW PRO x 3
- iQ-VIEW x 22
The implementation of the solution took three weeks. In addition, 2 HIS integrations for the first year of use and training for 300 iQ-WEB users took place. As well as a new server was installed in the provider’s data center.
With the changes made, the facilities of the North-Kazakhstan region can now perform fast reading of studies from remote sites and there is an archive for all patient studies. Furthermore, a dynamic patient monitoring has been enabled and the performance and security of data transmission significantly increased.
US Fertility, USA
Here are some common services offered by USF:
- Fertility Assessments and Diagnosis:
Fertility centers offer comprehensive evaluations to determine the causes of infertility or reproductive issues. These assessments may involve medical history reviews, physical examinations, hormone tests, imaging studies, and other diagnostic procedures. - Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART):
Fertility centers are known for offering various ART procedures to help individuals and couples conceive. These can include in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), egg freezing, and more. - Fertility Treatments:
Based on the diagnosis, fertility centers develop personalized treatment plans. These can include ovulation induction with medication, intrauterine insemination (IUI), and more advanced procedures like IVF. Counseling and Support:
Infertility can be emotionally challenging. Many fertility centers provide counseling and support services to help individuals and couples cope with the emotional aspects of their fertility journey.Egg and Sperm Donation:
Some fertility centers facilitate the process of egg and sperm donation, which can be a viable option for individuals or couples with certain fertility challenges.Surrogacy Services:
Fertility centers may also assist with gestational surrogacy arrangements, where a surrogate mother carries a pregnancy for individuals or couples who cannot carry a pregnancy themselves.Fertility Preservation:
Fertility centers may offer fertility preservation services for individuals who wish to preserve their fertility due to medical treatments, age, or other reasons. This can involve freezing eggs, sperm, or embryos for future use.Education and Outreach:
Many fertility centers provide educational resources and outreach programs to raise awareness about reproductive health, family planning, and fertility treatment options.
A scalable PACS, please!
US Fertility uses imaging techniques to diagnose and document the fertility status. In the past, they had been working with a home-grown PACS system to manage their medical image data. As USF’s center network continued to grow, the legacy software could not be scaled up accordingly and became unstable. So, they started looking for an alternative and a provider who could transfer their existing system into a highly scalable system as easily as possible.
This sounds relatively simple, but it was much more demanding than expected: Most examinations are carried out between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm. JPEG images must be automatically created for the information system from the incoming images, just as measurements must be automatically extracted. These can be automatically transferred from the PACS to the information system.
With IMAGE’s iQ-SYSTEM PACS product line, USF found a scalable solution which also allowed for easy import of the legacy data. Now, data of all centers will be retained in a data center on two separate instances in a high availability environment (HA). The PACS interoperates even directly with the USF Oracle database using ODBC to have a seamless integration.
Frank Caputo, Director of IT services, is happy that the data migration onto the new PACS went smoothly at all locations and that they can now enjoy working with a reliable solution with an uptime near 100%.
Zero-footprint PACS installation at DHAMAN, Kuwait
The Health Assurance Hospitals Company (DHAMAN) was founded in 2015 with the aim of building and operating a world-class health system which services key segments of Kuwait’s population. It is the first Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) healthcare organization in the Middle East, established between Kuwait’s government, the Kuwaiti people and the private sector as part of the national development plan “New Kuwait 2035”.
DHAMAN strives to implement an integrated healthcare system that includes medical insurance programs as well as a network of primary healthcare centers and hospitals that cover the entire Kuwait area. The organization applies best professional practice to achieve sustainability in healthcare and invests in the health sector’s infrastructure based on the highest international standards.
A state-of-the-art PACS, please!
90% of patients in a hospital undergo medical imaging procedures within 24 hours after admission. This leads to a high number of medical images that need to be managed efficiently to ensure a fast diagnosis and therefore a fast treatment. Consequently, a state-of-the-art picture archiving and communication system (PACS) is of utmost importance.
DHAMAN compared various local and international suppliers and opted for IMAGE’s iQ-SYSTEM PACS, mainly because this solution met all of their expectations in terms of stability, robustness, scalability and security. IMAGE implemented their zero-footprint web-based PACS which runs on any browser or operating system. The hospital’s Active Directory was directly integrated with the PACS, so that now all permitted hospital users can easily and securely sign on to the system.
Mr. Hussain AlSayegh, Manager and Biomedical Engineer at DHAMAN, appreciates the very good service IMAGE provided and is especially happy about the deep integration with the hospital information system, which ensures a smooth workflow and seamless communication between the imaging department and the rest of the hospital. In the future, he expects the system to be extended as the healthcare enterprise grows.
European Health Center (ECZ) Otwock, Poland
The European Health Center (ECZ) Otwock is one of the most modern hospitals in the Warsaw area. With a capacity of 120 beds, it provides healthcare services to about 7,000 national and foreign patients per year. The private hospital specializes in cancer treatment throughout the departments of oncology, urology, cardiology, cardio oncology, gynecology, surgery and oncological pain treatment.
To offer patients the latest in diagnostic imaging, the hospital is equipped with state-of-the-art imaging devices, such as:
- 3-Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
- 128-slice Computed Tomography (MSCT)
- Digital Mammography with Tomosynthesis
- Digital X-ray with Digital Diagnostic Auto Image Stitching
- Modern ultrasound machine
- Diagnostic cardiology equipment
A new PACS, please!
Of course, the more modern the devices, the more data is produced. The ever-increasing amount of data started to become too large for their old PACS, so ECZ decided to invest in a new one that was able to manage all the data properly.
ECZ got in contact with IMAGE’s local sales partner TIMKO, who is providing radiology software services to the hospital. Besides their request for a new PACS, they also wanted to improve their workflow by adding:
- Web-based radiology viewer
- Image access from portable devices
- 3D radiology workstation
- Automatic CD/DVD/Blu-Ray burning device
- Improved upload of DICOM data (brought by patients from previous treatments)
IMAGE’s iQ product portfolio can meet all these requirements and fulfil the hospital’s high expectations. That’s why TIMKO suggested the following products for this project:
iQ-WEB unlimited – PACS for an unlimited number of AE titles (in this case, 46 AE titles needed to be connected to the PACS)
iQ-WEB2GO – for image viewing on Android and iOS portable devices
iQ-4VIEW 5 – diagnostic zero-footprint viewer for 5 concurrent users (five out of the hospital’s 12 radiologists can use iQ-4VIEW simultaneously)
iQ-VIEW PRO 3D – Radiology reading station including 3D post-processing
iQ-ROBOT PRO – for fully automated patient media creation (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray)
DICOMReader PRO – for easy import of external patient media
After careful evaluation and comparing this offer to other solutions from renowned manufacturers, the European Health Center finally opted for iQ. TIMKO’s Sales Director, Mariusz Rogalinski, can now report on another satisfied customer who is pleased to have found a robust and reliable PACS solution – strong enough to handle the huge data amounts created by their imaging devices. Radiologists enjoy working from home thanks to web-based viewer iQ-4VIEW, and the receptionists finally have a stable DICOM upload solution for external patient media. According to Mr. Rogalinski, iQ-VIEW PRO 3D was the viewing station best-liked by the Head of Radiology Department.
In the future, there is the possibility to integrate the new PACS into the local HIS and optimize the workflow even more by adding a web-based 3D viewer.