GE Healthcare, the US$17 billion healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), showcased at the European Congress of Radiology in Vienna, Austria, its newest release of Centricity RIS/PACS (Radiology Information System/Picture Archiving and Communication System) with advanced clinical applications. Centricity RIS/PACS 3.0 offers ultra-fast image display and business dashboards to reduce waiting times and decrease report turnaround times. It supports radiologists with more efficient interpretation of large data sets, which can decrease false diagnosis.
GE’s proven know-how and ability to execute complex projects is especially important when it comes to the implementation of Enterprise Imaging solutions, a trend currently emerging across Europe. One example is the latest RIS-PACS-Web installations at the newly built Mater Dei Hospital in Malta, achieved within a 60-day timeframe.
Another example is the LSP (Local Service Provider) project, where to date, the two clusters in the Northern and Southern UK were deployed with RIS/PACS digital data and image management solutions – out of which GE Healthcare provided 60 percent of the solutions.
More than 75 hospitals in the Northern cluster are now connected to one central PACS repository and 76 million images are stored in GE managed data centers. Similar projects can be seen in Spain, where Centricity Enterprise solutions are successfully running on the Balearic Islands and the Extremadura region as well as in Germany, at the University Hospital in Heidelberg and the City Hospital Group in Munich.
On display at ECR 2008, was GE’s new Centricity RIS/PACS 3.0 solution that offers more than just basic 3D with a unique set of clinically advanced applications like the Autobone, CardIQ or Colonography functionalities that are dedicated to deliver fast and high quality diagnosis. On top of these applications, state-of-the-art tools like advanced Vessel and Lung Analysis (VCAR) help radiologists find suspicious lesions faster and auto-measure growth of lung nodules more efficiently.
“We believe that in today’s healthcare environment, where more and more imaging data is produced by new generations of modalities, two factors are key for RIS/PACS: speed and clinical applications,” said Juergen Reyinger, Vice President and General Manager of GE Healthcare’s Integrated IT Solutions (IITS), EMEA region.
“And that is exactly what our RIS/PACS offers – a very fast streaming technology and an extended set of clinically intuitive applications. In addition, the trend to consult large data sets is not anymore limited to university or teaching hospitals. We see an increasing need of referring physicians to have access to the same kind of advanced tools as radiologists,” Reyinger emphasized.
GE Healthcare’s latest image distribution solution was also on display at this year’s ECR and reflects these requirements offering advanced post processing tools also to referring physicians. Private imaging centers and smaller hospitals alike are looking for a digital workflow and advanced reading ability of complex studies. As these target groups often do not have the same IT infrastructure as big healthcare enterprises, they have other expectations related to PACS systems.
Dedicated to these specialists, GE Healthcare offers a Web-based PACS solution that is easy to use, easy to deploy, ultra-fast and offers advanced clinical tools to consult large data sets. It also addresses the specific requirements of teleradiology and remote reading and brings affordable film-less and paperless technology to all members of the imaging community.
“What really differentiates us from our competitors is our proven competency in executing complex projects,” explained Reyinger. About 400 highly qualified IT and professional service specialists deliver excellent service and high quality project execution to customers across Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Together with a professional team of project managers, application specialists and system integrators, these experts can help ensure a fast and smooth go-life of any installation.