Cardiology departments in U.S. hospitals are looking to more closely integrate their cardiovascular PACS (CPACS) and cardiovascular information systems (CVIS), according to a report from market research consulting firm IMV.

The report, “"2014 Cardiology Information Continuum: Present Access and Future Integration Strategies for Cardiovascular Information Technology," is based on a survey of 194 department administrators.

Improving efficiency seems to be the objective in integrating CPACS and CVIS, as the top two departmental priorities for the administrators are “manage the integration of cardiovascular IT (CV-IT) systems with EMR” and “align CV-IT systems with workflow practices.”

Hospitals are at varying stages of developing their CV-IT systems, according to IMV. While 77 percent reported having both CPACS and CVIS, 17 percent had one system or the other and 6 percent had no formal implementation of either. Of the sites that already had both systems, almost half had fully integrated the systems while the rest had not yet accomplished integration.

The survey also found that two-thirds of sites are planning to upgrade or implement a new or replacement CPACs and/or CVIS within the next three years.

Respondents indicated that the ideal CV-IT solution shouldn’t necessarily be integrated by their EMR vendor, even though they acknowledged the ideal architecture includes integration with the EMR. Because of the importance of aligning CV-IT systems with cardiology workflow, a higher proportion of respondents favored their current CPACS, CVIS or radiology PACS vendor for integrating CV-IT.

The most sought after functional capabilities are critical results reporting, additional/enhanced structured reporting and the capability to view images on a portable device.