Mercy Technology Services (MTS), the IT backbone of one of the largest Catholic health systems in the nation, announced the launch of a new picture archiving communication system (PACS) imaging solution.

MTS has bundled a best-of-breed enterprise viewer, vendor neutral archive, workflow orchestrator, speech recognition and reporting in a Software as a Service model, which is securely hosted in its cloud, making it ideal for small to midsize hospitals looking for efficiency and cost-effectiveness from cloud solutions.

With its power to help providers achieve goals related to productivity, satisfaction and better, more precise patient care, imaging technology is today’s health IT imperative. Yet hospitals still struggle with multiple, disparate, aging PACS systems. As a result, radiologists lose time locating imaging studies, switching between workstations and dealing with system slowness, which causes frustration and hinders their ability to quickly deliver high-quality diagnostic interpretations for efficient patient care.

That was the case for Mercy, a 40-plus hospital system across four states, until it switched its platform with the help of MTS, consolidating nine legacy PACS systems down to a single, integrated solution. Today, with speedy server-side image processing from the Visage enterprise imaging platform, a workflow orchestrator from the Siemens Healthineers company Medicalis to auto-coordinate radiologists’ worklists in a one-stop shop and Nuance’s Powerscribe 360 speech recognition and reporting, Mercy’s radiologists have increased efficiency and decreased report turnaround time by up to 50 percent.

Now, built on a foundation of proven hosting services, MTS will become the first health care provider to extend PACS as Service, whether bundled or by the component, to hospitals across the country.

“Mercy’s is a solution built by busy radiologists for busy radiologists, and they’re thrilled with it,” said Steve Bollin, Mercy’s vice president of radiology support services. “We were bogged down before. Now, having everything together and instantly viewable with the click of a button – all prior studies, all modalities – means radiologists aren’t waiting and neither are patients.”

Built on this success, Mercy has since expanded the solution to its emergency and orthopedics departments to support point of care ultrasound.

Gil Hoffman, Mercy’s CIO, believes a PACS model like this also makes good financial sense.

“As a health care provider, we know how critical it is to use technology resources wisely,” said Hoffman. “With this solution, hospitals can forego the upfront infrastructure expense, pay only for what’s used on a per-study basis and supply all the advanced features needed on the frontlines. If you ask me, it’s a smart way to get the most out of an investment in better patient care.”

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