ACHIEVING BETTER PATIENTCARE THROUGH ENTERPRISE IMAGING

RADIOLOGY

Achieving better patient care through enterprise imaging

Dr Rachel Coxon,Vice President (health divison),Barco APAC,explains how qualitative enterprise imaging and the digital centralisation of all kinds of imaging information of a patient, empower physicians and hospital management to take informed decisions through consolidation of multiple service lines within and outside the enterprise,leading to better patient outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare gaps in the healthcare systems that need to be addressed with urgency. Timely and error-proof responses are crucial to treating illnesses. COVID treatments are relying heavily on computed tomography (CT) scans, x-rays and other such exams that determine the status of a patient's health. With an over-burdened healthcare system, the availability of efficient and reliable tech goes a long way in improving outcomes.

Qualitative enterprise imaging (EI) has emerged as the key to deliver excellent patient care. EI is the centralised digital record of all radiological imaging, images, videos, graphs, or tables, from different specialties, connected with a patient's history, and brought on to one platform. These are made available along timelines of treatment across all facilities, central around the patient. Further, interactive reports may link from the text to the image. Such centralised records help doctors to view a patient's clinical history, from the first encounter to the last, with descriptions and management, with the convenience of a click. It's the latest breakthrough technology for data storage in medical environments.

EI involves complete end-toend strategies, initiatives and workflows, right from capturing data to indexing, managing, storage, distribution, viewing and exchange among healthcare professionals to boost outcomes.

There has been a growing interest relating to the role of diagnostic imaging, chest x-rays and CT scans when it comes to screening, detecting and followup management, related to COVID treatments. Radiologists have been struggling to exchange useful imaging data with colleagues in their quest for collaborative learning and understanding new diseases. Such lack of multi-specialty data availability on to one single platform poses significant diagnostic challenges. However, even though the pandemic has necessitated the need to bridge healthcare efficiencies gap, the importance of diagnostic radiology and collation of such records was already being discussed.

Working in silos or as departments is the old way. A patient's electronic health records are enriched with visual material. This includes CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, videos, photographs, screenshots and recording from surgeries, digital pathology slides, and so on. EI is the digital centralisation of all kinds of imaging information of a patient.

Such digital health records enable physicians to work from any device, anywhere, including the convenience of a smartphone. Clinical collaboration is important, but it is vital that it is done in an orderly, error-proof way. If such records are not wellstructured, a lot of non-organised data can lead to confusion and mistakes, sometimes at the cost of a patient's life.

Therefore, critical, and reliable hardware is very important. With the right sight-and-share technology, EI enhances care collaboration and makes it easy for referencing past histories and radiological findings, decreases costs, optimises

resources, and speeds up diagnosis and care. Such centralised access to a multiplicity of data controls the occurrence of adverse events and helps successful diagnosis and treatments, arming health advisers with precision and speed.

COVID-19 has made us realise the need to reimagine delivery of care, so that "predicting" and "preventing" illnesses gets easier. Medical teams are increasingly using data from other disciplines to have a more complete view of the patient's conditions and to determine therapeutical plans. Moreover, the use of AI within the existing Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) will require workflow integration, and that's where EI stands out with its secure and modular ecosystem.

EI platforms empower physicians and hospital management to take informed decisions through consolidation of multiple service lines within and outside the enterprise. In the OT, such vital information can be made easily available during a surgical procedure, and before a surgical preparation.

We live in an increasingly globalised, boundary-dissolving world, especially when it comes to information sharing. Patient care is often part of a larger network, for example, coordination with research institutions or with specialised hospitals that deal with specific diseases. For example, in oncology or remote surgical collaboration, wherein specialists in different medical fields often team up to discuss patient files and to carry out procedures, EI platforms can enable such collaborations with ease, through image exchange based on unique and standardised patient IDs.

From the IT side, the system must be a scalable and flexible platform. From the management side, such platforms need to fulfil legal requirements concerning data and patient privacy, sharing of data between countries or regions, and so on. Like every other digital system, EI platforms are vulnerable to cyberattacks. So, having strong measures for protection is important.

With the right sight-and-share technology,EI enhances care collaboration and makes it easy for referencing past histories and radiological findings,decreases costs,optimises resources, and speeds up diagnosis and care.Such centralised access to a multiplicity of data controls the occurrence of adverse events and helps successful diagnosis and treatments, arming health advisers with precision and speed