Case study: VU University Medical Center (VUmc) & Academic Medical Center (AMC), Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Connected images - the ‘new normal’

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A Shared Image Management Strategy

Vision founded on 4 pillars

1,700 beds

13,000 staff

Alliance

Streamlined & standardized workflows for image capture and acquisition

Centralized image archiving & back-up of all images

Centralized exchange of image data

Single image viewer for all types of images, integrated in the EMR

2 hospitals

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“What is a medical image”

3 type of images:

Radiology: 50% of all images

Function testing: EEGs, EMGs, ECGs, pulmonary,...

Miscellaneous: needle insertion, wound care, endoscopy,...

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Agfa HealthCare Solution

VNA Universal Viewer Image Exchange

Enterprise Imaging Platform

Vendor-Neutral Archive (VNA) consolidates all imaging data from multiple systems, departments, facilities and vendors, into a central clinical data foundation.

Enterprise Imaging Exchange allows fast, secure, reliable transfer of any and all studies, with no CDs or DVDs.

The web-based XERO universal image viewer provides secure access to DICOM and non-DICOM imaging data from different departments and multiple sources, to anyone inside and outside the hospital

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Implementation

Efficiency and compromise

“ENT, ophthalmology, gastro-enterology units and the vascular lab all had paper-based workflows, which we wanted to eliminate, so they had the highest priority. Next we connected the radiology images to the VNA, obstetrics and gynecology, cardiology, pulmonary diseases, emergency care, intensive care and pediatrics.”

Migrating 20 years of images

More than 200 devices have been connected, and the number rises each week. The previous archive, with 20 years of images, has been migrated into the new platform: “about 4.5 million studies, representing almost half a billion images mainly from radiology, but also from other departments, such as obstetrics/gynecology.”For some studies, up to 50 different names had been used over the past decades. “We mapped all those different names to one generic study name and procedure code, that is also used in the EMR: instead of thousands of codes, we now have less than 1000 EMR codes. ”

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Communication & Collaboration

Intubation videos to enhance patient care

Intubating patients under narcosis can be very difficult, and placing a camera on top of the intubation tube can be helpful. Various departments create these intubation videos. The Enterprise Imaging platform enables the videos to be stored to review them if a patient returns for another surgery.

Sharing ECGs across departments

ECGs from the various departments were paper based (except for cardiology, which stored them on an old IT system). This prevented them from being shared between colleagues in different specialties. Now, all ECGs are in the process of being digitalized & connected to the centralized Enterprise Imaging platform. Cardiologists can view ECGs from clinical departments, and vice-versa.

Collaboration reduces duplicate exams

Stroke patients in Amsterdam are cared for at AMC. When a CT shows that a patient has had a stroke, he is transferred to AMC; timely delivery of the CT results means the care team does not have to duplicate exams. The Enterprise Imaging platform supports this type of collaboration between hospitals, including via the CDs. Reducing duplicate exams saves costs, saves time and enhances the patient’s experience.

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The ‘new normal’

VARSHA BIRDJAApplication specialistImage ManagementVUmc and AMC

TOON DE CLERCApplication specialistImage ManagementVUmc and AMC

ERNEST VAN BECKHOVENProject leaderImage ManagementVUmc and AMC

“Imagine 100s of clinicians spending ½ h, every day just looking for their images…

Now clinicians have instant access to images going back even 10 or 15 years. Think how much time & effort that saves! Already, it has become the ‘new normal’ for them.”

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Customer Testimonial

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