ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Carestream Health, Inc., announced worldwide availability of its enhanced KODAK CARESTREAM Digital Dashboard that now supports monitoring of KODAK CARESTREAM RIS operations. The previous version of the digital dashboard, which was launched this spring, supported CARESTREAM PACS and KODAK CARESTREAM Information Management Solutions.

The digital dashboard provides system administrators with a convenient way to proactively monitor equipment performance, storage utilization and user volumes as well as verify network communication of other vendor's devices.

Radiology and PACS administrators can use the digital dashboard from an existing laptop or desktop computer. A stoplight graphic display gives immediate feedback regarding the status of any monitored device. The dashboard also makes it easy to track the number of concurrent users for a device, the number of read and unread imaging studies, as well as the status of other tasks.
The dashboard's graphic view equips administrators to identify and resolve potential problems, thereby reducing or avoiding system downtime and optimizing workflow. Maintenance checklists provide task details, reminders and a history of completed actions. Administrators also appreciate the dashboard's ability to deliver summary reports on system efficiency, which allows them to adjust schedules, better distribute patient and system workloads and increase staff efficiency.

Joint Township District Memorial Hospital (St Marys, Ohio) uses the digital dashboard to monitor its CARESTREAM RIS/PACS and CARESTREAM Enterprise Information Management.

"Being able to monitor equipment and processes from the digital dashboard takes just 10 percent as much time as it would take me to monitor these systems individually," said RIS/PACS Clinical Coordinator Robert J. Homan, RT(R) (CT). "In addition, the ability to launch administrative tools from the dashboard expedites resolution of any issues."

Homan said the dashboard has already proven its value by flagging an interruption in tape backup of imaging studies and by displaying a network switch outage that eliminated transmissions from one area of the building. In the case of the switch outage, an IT person was able to begin resolving the issue prior to users being aware that a problem existed.

The dashboard also helps ensure the accuracy of patient information by providing statistics on patient ID conflicts, missing accession numbers and patient imaging studies that require backup. At one of the user test sites, for example, the digital dashboard identified a glitch that was causing some imaging studies to be missed during the facility's backup process.

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