GE Healthcare has signed an agreement with the Southwestern Ontario Diagnostic Imaging Network to expand its existing Diagnostic Imaging Repository (DI-r) to participating hospitals in the Waterloo-Wellington and Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant Local Health Integrated Networks (LHIN).

"Over the last few years the hospitals in LHIN 3 and 4 have worked together to create a shared and collaborative environment," said Murray Glendining, executive vice president of corporate affairs at Hamilton Health Sciences and Regional CIO. "The DI-r is the first of many projects that will help implement EHRs for the patients in our communities....The LHIN 3-4 DI-r initiative is aligned with the provincial eHealth strategy and is supported by eHealthOntario and Canada Health Infoway."

LHIN 3 and 4 will add 26 hospital sites, 12 RIS and PACS, and 1.5 million exams to the DI-r, raising the total number of exams across all four LHINs managed by the DI-r to more than three million annually, according to the company.

GE said it will integrate data from five different PACS vendors, including its own Centricity PACS, and two RIS vendors into the repository.