Southwest England hospitals deploy joint cloud-based radiology information system

22 May 2013

Accenture has completed the deployment of a cloud-based radiology information system (RIS) for a consortium of five NHS hospitals and 23 facilities in Southwest England.

Using Accenture Clinical Services, the new platform enables clinicians to store, access and exchange patient and diagnostic information over a highly secure network infrastructure. The deployment, from signing contracts to going live, took just 10 weeks and included migration of data from the old systems to the new system.

Accenture worked with Healthcare Software Systems (HSS) to deploy their RIS solution to enable radiologists and clinicians to securely share and manage patient diagnostic data, radiology reports, appointments and administrative functions with confidence. The new RIS solution replaces an existing system and is part of a five-year strategy.

“Our group of hospitals is undertaking a major replacement of PACS and RIS systems under an aggressive timetable in the lead up to the end of the national contracts,” said Andy Blofield, director of Plymouth ICT Shared Service. “For RIS, the most important considerations in choosing a new vendor were confidence in the service and patient safety and the continued ability to share data across organizations. With the rapid deployment and support services it provided, Accenture has demonstrated that we made the right choice.”

“The growing demand for imaging means that radiologists are confronted with increasing workloads and the challenge of processing larger amounts of data,” said Matt Oakley who leads Accenture's Medical Imaging Practice in the United Kingdom and Ireland. “As the NHS national IT contracts draw to a close, this cloud-based solution will enable clinicians across the region to share patient data, which can be crucial in urgent cases, such as stroke or major trauma. It also will enable trusts to concentrate on providing the best care to patients, rather than having to worry about maintaining an IT system.”

The increasing demand for cloud computing in medical imaging is expected to grow 26% annually through 2018, according to an Accenture study. Roughly 73% of healthcare organizations are expected to shift medical imaging data into the cloud, in some capacity, while 32% currently use some form of cloud computing for imaging, according to the study. The shift from analogue to digital images has resulted in exponential growth in the amount of data that must be stored.