GE Healthcare, the US$17 billion healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), showcases at the Italian Congress of Radiology (Società Italiana di Radiologia Medica) in Rome, Italy, 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. The fully replicated system was implemented within a 60-day timeframe, executed by the Italian team of healthcare IT specialists. 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 S.I.R.M. 2008, GE’s new Centricity RIS/PACS 3.0 solution 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 Emanuele Barbieri, Sales Manager at GE Healthcare IT for Italy, Israel, Greece and Malta. “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,” Barbieri emphasized.
GE Healthcare’s latest image distribution solution Centricity PACS-IW (formerly IntegradWeb by Dynamic Imaging) on display at this year’s S.I.R.M. reflects these requirements and offers advanced postprocessing 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 its PACS-IW Web-based 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.
For the first time in Italy, GE Healthcare is also presenting a new software to support early breast cancer detection. The integrated software solution for mammography workflow and image processing (formerly Image Diagnost International GmbH) brings significant benefits to the diagnosis of breast cancer such as improved cancer detection rates for women with dense breast tissue and ease of use. “We see a significant growing demand for such solutions facilitating reporting, storage, sharing and transmission of mammography data. Our strong Centricity PACS since long time is much more than just a radiology images archive solution but a central hospital archive for all kind of images, no matter if DICOM or non-DICOM, of any imaging modality. With the combination of our state-of-the-art PACS and the outstanding mammography solution, we are now able to bring leading breast cancer screening services to all types of healthcare enterprises in Italy,” said Barbieri.
GE Healthcare has a strong track record of customer-focused IT innovation and proven competency in executing complex projects. Across Italy, there are 21 highly qualified IT and professional service specialists, delivering excellent service and high quality project execution to customers. 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, no matter if it is a university hospital or private practice.