Carestream Health Announces Newest RIS PACS, SuperPACS™ Architecture Now Available For Order

New RIS Can Boost Patient Satisfaction By Allowing Patients to Reschedule Imaging Appointments Online

CHICAGO, April 4 — Carestream Health, Inc., announced it is accepting orders for its newest  RIS/PACS platform and innovative SuperPACS™ Architecture at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference this week.   

undefinedThe CARESTREAM RIS can enhance patient satisfaction while boosting staff productivity with a secure Web portal that enables patients to re-schedule a medical imaging appointment. This feature can be used for screening programs or for routine imaging studies. Facilities that are early adopters of the new CARESTREAM RIS report it has reduced “no show” rates and improved room utilization and technologist productivity.

Patients appreciate the convenience of re-scheduling an appointment online after business hours, which also allows scheduling staffs to be more efficient. The new RIS further enhances efficiency with a new enterprise-wide scheduling capability that allows centralized scheduling for multiple healthcare sites.

CARESTREAM RIS is Microsoft® .NET-connected to offer a thin-client platform that simplifies system management, while also enabling full Windows functionality at each workstation. Updates can be automatically downloaded and installed across a single facility or a large multi-site enterprise, and the same features can be made available to any authorized user whether they are using the Internet or a network to access the system.

PACS Power Viewer Can Speed Interpretation

The company also showed a feature-rich “power viewer” for its PACS workstation that can speed interpretation and reporting for routine exams and 3D imaging studies where complex data sets need to be compared. This enhancement, which is part of the company’s next generation of PACS, provides automatic registration and volumetric matching of 3D studies created at different times and by different modalities directly within the viewer used by radiologists.

This new power viewer goes beyond the functionality offered by integrated or native 3D capabilities. Radiologists will be able to directly and dynamically view image data in different planes without switching to other applications or workstations. Automatic registration among differing studies will allow radiologists to manipulate one data set in any spatial plane and the other data sets will automatically follow. 

This viewer can eliminate time-consuming manual or semi-automatic processes currently used to set up comparison tools. Instead, radiologists can immediately use reference lines, swivel, rotate, relate and other tools within current and prior imaging studies. This advanced comparison includes volumetric analysis and different rendition types such as MPR, MIP and others. By speeding the comparison of 3D studies, this new viewer can help enable greater diagnostic confidence, faster exam interpretation and more responsive reporting. 

SuperPACS Architecture to Streamline Multi-Site Workflow

Carestream Health also demonstrated its SuperPACS Architecture, which equips healthcare providers with more efficient and cost effective radiology workflows. The new architecture:  

  • Allows healthcare systems and independent delivery networks (IDNs) with disparate PACS systems to establish an additional information layer that consolidates their patient workflow and provides a single user interface from multiple, different PACS systems.
  • Creates a global, shared patient and clinical information database across multiple sites. This database allows better utilization of resources, easily routes information to the right location and physician, and allows the creation of specialty sites.
  • Delivers a simpler, more affordable way to upgrade to a new PACS. The SuperPACS architecture equips healthcare providers with latest generation PACS functionality, while eliminating the time and expense of data migration.  

The SuperPACS Architecture is expected to be implemented by hospitals and healthcare enterprises, regional health networks, single- or multi-site imaging centers, reading groups and teleradiology services.

                                                                                 ###

About Carestream Health, Inc.

Carestream Health, Inc., is a leading provider of dental and medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions; molecular imaging systems for the life science research and drug discovery/development market segments; and x-ray film and digital x-ray products for the non-destructive testing market. Headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., and serving customers in more than 150 countries, Carestream Health is an independent company operating within the family of companies owned by Onex Corporation (TSX: OCX.TO) of Toronto, Canada. For more information about Carestream Health, contact your Carestream Health representative or visit www.carestreamhealth.com.

CARESTREAM is a trademark of Carestream Health, Inc. Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

2009