From the January/February 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Another complexity, already alluded to, is that we don’t want to have to copy and store the clinical info in the PACS. That would be too slow and run the risk of pulling up old or inaccurate information. The ideal situation is to be able to communicate very quickly with the EMR and simply present the results of the search as an assembled page of summary information. The solution is to make the information available online and retrieved on-demand, so there is no need to pre-cache and subsequently update the information (keep it synchronized with the EMR).
The process must be able to query the EMR for information rather than only get messages pushed to the PACS from the EMR. This variation on VAR is attainable, but it depends on the radiologist’s ability to effectively consume relevant clinical information from the patient portfolio. To enable that and “unlock” the information, standard APIs should be developed and made available by both the EMRs and PACS vendors because the length of time for the search depends on the API, which in turn determines how far in advance the search must be initiated. It’s definitely time to start thinking about that API.
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About the author: Michael J. Gray is a consultant specializing in the digital management and distribution of medical image data, and the founder of Gray Consulting. Gray’s areas of expertise are market analysis, technology analysis, strategic planning, equipment utilization, needs assessment, workflow analysis, and vendor analysis/ selection.Back to HCB News
