Information technology, diagnostic imaging  

Agfa integrates clinical data into RIS/PACS

6 March 2007

Agfa HealthCare has launched the IMPAX Clinical Module, a new software component for the IMPAX radiology information system/picture archiving and communication system (RIS/PACS), that brings disparate clinical data such as lab results, pharmacy and pathology to the IMPAX Radiology Desktop.

The new module brings clinical information that radiologists need from multiple sources into a single desktop location. Having this information available in real time, from multiple systems with a single log-on, saves the physician time and could potentially result in improved decisions.

"This patient-centric information workflow is a new level of information integration for radiologists," said Lenny J Reznik, Director of Enterprise Imaging and Information, Agfa HealthCare Corporation, Americas. "Information is available in organizations in non-integrated legacy systems. Our solution integrates the clinical information from these legacy systems into the daily workflow of both protocoling and interpretation."

The system flags abnormal results transmitted by the modality. The process of having this information on demand in real time has made radiologists comment on the potential to save up to five minutes for every study they need to protocol. Little has been done to bring clinical information to the radiologist until now. Integration of clinical evidence to aid the radiologists with the protocoling and interpretation process is delivered through a zero click context sensitive integration to any clinical system in real-time.

Agfa has learned from radiologists that they need pharmacy data (such as medications and allergies), results (such as urinalysis for infection and liver function), lab data (such as creatinine, white blood cell count, and pregnancy test results), as well as surgical and cytology pathology reports. The company says that the challenge has been to retrieve that data from multiple clinical systems in real time without separate logins and incorporate that data into the protocoling and interpretation workflow. The IMPAX Clinical Module is the result of this challenge.

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