With OneDx, when the exam is completed, the patient receives an e-mail saying the medical results are available for viewing, (provided they share an e-mail address with us). They go and register on our portal, and they get a list of all the exams they had done at Zwanger-Pesiri, even if it was from years ago.

At that point they can share those results with their doctor wherever he may be, and that doctor will be able to fax them or email them to someone else to collaborate. There is even a video conferencing collaboration capability which allows a doctor and patient or two doctors to look at the images together, even if one is on Windows and another on iOS or Android.

They are also integrating with some pathology labs on Long Island, so when a patient gets a PET/CT and we suspect cancer and send out a biopsy, the lab sends back a pathology report. Traditionally, we would dictate that into the radiology report but now we work with them through OneDx and they send secure FTP into a folder and we grab that exam and marry it to the radiology exam.

Zwanger could be closed for the evening and the patient will still have full access to their medical history, can route it, share it, collaborate with a doctor, without us getting in the way.

DOTmed News: Is this a PACS system?

JF: It has the capabilities of a PACS minus the FDA approval of a medical device, but you can do window level measurements, one on two, two on two, film view... You can see comparisons, so if the referring doctor is seeing a herniated disc he can do a comparison with another MRI of the spine from another doctor it will show up as a comparison. That's a big benefit for both the referrer and the patient.

DOTmed News: Is FDA approval on the agenda?

JF: They could apply for FDA approval but there are so many PACS viewers out there already. I believe they can beat the competition by focusing on the sharing and the communication aspect. What he's working on now for us is something that reminds me of online banking.

You have a profile where it sets up how you want to be communicated with, you are notified if your balance goes below X, someone deposits a check above Y, that kind of stuff. In that way, you need to be sensitive to the method in which referring doctors want to be notified.

Let's say there's a critical finding and it's an emergency. The impression is cancer and you want to get them into the hospital right away. You want to be notified immediately on critical findings.

If it's not critical, you think they have a sprain, maybe you don't want to get a notification and jump on right now, maybe you want to wait until the end of the day when it will come in with a couple other low urgency studies to review. Let the doctor customize how he chooses to be notified so the system doesn't become noisy.

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