Siemens, KODAK, GE, and Philips updates on their latest advances follow:


Siemens Trendsetting Healthcare IT Innovations Enable Care Without Boundaries; End-to-End IT and Imaging Workflow Solutions in Support of Interoperable EHR


Demonstrating proven outcomes across the continuum of care, Siemens Medical Solutions showcased its trendsetting strategy and innovative portfolio of workflow-driven healthcare information technology (IT) solutions at the 2006 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition, held Feb. 12-16 in San Diego.

"Patient care is no longer about one doctor's office or one hospital bed," said Tom Miller, president, Healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "It's about care delivery occurring across multiple settings and among interdisciplinary care teams, each with a network of collaborative support systems that must act in a coordinated and timely manner. Siemens is transforming the way care is delivered by breaking down the traditional boundaries that exist in today's care settings: too few resources, unavailable information and broken processes."

Helping to expedite healthcare processes through workflow technology, Siemens' solutions bridge the boundaries and connect processes, providers, information and patients to support the delivery of safer, more effective and collaborative care - care without boundaries.

Visitors to the Siemens' HIMSS booth learned about the role of Soarian© and syngo© in delivering consolidated, continuous workflow capabilities, while providing the foundation for an interoperable electronic health record (EHR) by allowing real-time access to the complete patient record, including images and data. Through Soarian, Siemens next generation workflow-driven health information solution (HIS), clinical and administrative cycles come together with the integrated image acquisition, Radiology Information System (RIS), Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), and post-processing capabilities of Siemens syngo Suite. The syngo image management platform delivers unprecedented linkages to Soarian, bringing together all Siemens software into a single instrument to support patient care. Soarian features a longitudinal clinical repository that gives clinicians browser-based, real-time access to patient histories, demographics, allergies, results, and images.

Soarian's workflow technology reduces manual process steps; orchestrates clinical best practices; and monitors, tracks, and escalates processes automatically. For example, Soarian's Pneumonia Workflow identifies patients with community-acquired pneumonia and initiates orders automatically, accelerating completion of the diagnostic phase. The system assists clinicians in completing tests and triggers an intravenous (IV) antibiotic protocol within four hours after admission, reducing manual paper work and phone calls. Similarly, a Soarian-driven IV Restart Workflow tracks and initiates IV site care protocols to prevent infection and maintain IV access, improving quality and patient safety.

More Industry Headlines