Beaumont Hospitals in Royal Oak, Mich., will expand its existing picture archiving and communication system to include a system for imaging and reporting in its cardiology department.
A leading national center for cardiac research, including a 1,061-bed major academic and referral center in Royal Oak, a 361-bed hospital in Troy that is one of the nation's highest-volume community hospitals, and a 289-bed facility in Grosse Pointe, Beaumont will build on existing technology developed by Bellgium-based Agfa HealthCare.
The new cardiology system will include adult and pediatric echocardiography, cardiac catheterization and vascular ultrasound. When the installation is completed this year, Beaumont will be one of Agfa HealthCare's largest integrated radiology-cardiology PACS sites in North America, with more than 800,000 radiology and 85,000 cardiology exams annually.
"The Agfa HealthCare IMPAX Cardiovascular system will help support echocardiogram and vascular studies at our hospital, including on-site and remote display of clinical images," says Paul Peabody, Beaumont's chief information officer. "The system is integrated with the electronic medical records system used throughout Beaumont's patient care network and we plan to implement and integrate the cardiac catheterization module in the future."
A user of Agfa HealthCare's radiology equipment and technology since 1999, Beaumont is recognized nationwide for the world's largest interventional cardiology programs.
IMPAX Cardiovascular provides diagnosticians with a single point of access for multimodality studies and a longitudinal, consolidated view of patient images and information, according to Agfa executives. The open standards-based solution provides image acquisition, display, reporting, storage and distribution management from multiple cardiovascular imaging modalities, including adult and pediatric echocardiography, vascular ultrasound and angiography, cardiac catheterization, nuclear cardiology, cardiac CT and ECG.
By consolidating radiology and cardiology studies, Peabody says, Beaumont will be able to provide clinicians with an integrated view of patient data, promoting a confident diagnosis. Patient images and information can be accessed from any PC, improving knowledge sharing and distribution of reports between hospital-based and referring physicians.
