Agfa electronically connects radiology and emergency departments
At the 2008 HIMSS conference in Orlando, Fla., Agfa HealthCare, launched its Impax ConnectED, which automates and expedites communication between a hospital’s radiology and emergency department (ED) regarding preliminary findings.
“We found that the workflow requirements that connect emergency departments and radiology departments have very specific needs. Traditionally, phone and a piece of paper really don’t work, even though that’s how people have done it since the beginning of radiology. Unfortunately, there are many documented cases, where mistakes have been made due miscommunication between ED doctors and radiologists,” Lenny J. Reznik, director of enterprise image and information solutions at Agfa, told Health Imaging News.
To combat these challenges, Agfa released Impax ConnectED, which provides multiple mechanisms to notify the ED physician of a critical result or to notify multiple individuals in the ED as desired, and it also offers department-level visibility of messaging activity, with the complete communication trail automatically stored in a searchable archive for over 10 years. For critical test result management, Impax ConnectED facilitates and automates compliance with legal and professional standards for clinical communications, Agfa said.
“For ConnectED, we worked with Veriphy to create a solution that’s unique to Agfa, which allows an ED doctor to initiate a workflow with radiology in real time. ED doctors and radiologists can communicate instantly about critical cases, by using technologies like instant messenger to create real-time workflow,” Reznick said.
Agfa’s ConnectED “also creates a discrepancy report to try to improve the process of clinical healthcare between the two departments,” which also allows administrators to audit or monitor the department, Reznick added.
The radiologist would not even need to be on-site because ConnectED and Impax are both web-enabled, he pointed out. “Wherever a doctor can access the internet with a secure log-on, you can access that information,” Reznick said.
“We found that the workflow requirements that connect emergency departments and radiology departments have very specific needs. Traditionally, phone and a piece of paper really don’t work, even though that’s how people have done it since the beginning of radiology. Unfortunately, there are many documented cases, where mistakes have been made due miscommunication between ED doctors and radiologists,” Lenny J. Reznik, director of enterprise image and information solutions at Agfa, told Health Imaging News.
To combat these challenges, Agfa released Impax ConnectED, which provides multiple mechanisms to notify the ED physician of a critical result or to notify multiple individuals in the ED as desired, and it also offers department-level visibility of messaging activity, with the complete communication trail automatically stored in a searchable archive for over 10 years. For critical test result management, Impax ConnectED facilitates and automates compliance with legal and professional standards for clinical communications, Agfa said.
“For ConnectED, we worked with Veriphy to create a solution that’s unique to Agfa, which allows an ED doctor to initiate a workflow with radiology in real time. ED doctors and radiologists can communicate instantly about critical cases, by using technologies like instant messenger to create real-time workflow,” Reznick said.
Agfa’s ConnectED “also creates a discrepancy report to try to improve the process of clinical healthcare between the two departments,” which also allows administrators to audit or monitor the department, Reznick added.
The radiologist would not even need to be on-site because ConnectED and Impax are both web-enabled, he pointed out. “Wherever a doctor can access the internet with a secure log-on, you can access that information,” Reznick said.