MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The
base hospital on Bayshore Boulevard soon will offer some of the most
technologically advanced patient-care equipment in the country. The
film-less Picture Archiving Communication System, manufactured by AGFA, is
going to revolutionize day-to-day operations, said Kevin Reed, the PACS
administrator.
"This system will change not only the workflow
in Radiology, but in the entire hospital," said Mr. Reed, adding that
acquiring this new technology began three years ago.
Use of Digital Radiography already has begun, and
the PACS will be fully integrated into the facility by October. The PACS
can be used with all imaging modalities including standard X-rays, CT, MRI
and ultrasound, and allows these images to be distributed electronically
and interpreted on computer workstations.
The benefits of the PACS are multifold. Diagnosis
turnaround time is reduced and patient care is improved, as physicians no
longer need to wait for film images to be processed and then analyzed and
delivered. These benefits will be monumental for operating room and
emergency room cases, where immediate decisions are critical.
"Right now everything is conventional
radiography," said Mr. Reed, giving an example scenario. "The
(X-ray technician) has to take the film into a darkroom, dip the film into
a chemical bath and process the film."
In an all-digital environment, physicians will no
longer have to wait for film images to be found or worry about lost films,
because information can be quickly retrieved from the computerized PACS
archive. Through the immediate routing of images to workstations for
interpretation, report turnaround time is reduced and patient care is
improved due to earlier decisions on what course of action should be taken
in each individual case.
Physicians with a reputation for working long hours
and taking work home with them will have the ability to access the files
from home if the situation demands it.
The anytime-anywhere access will provide for ease of
consultation between physicians, who instantly and simultaneously can
access images, reports, and audio report summaries throughout the
hospital, in their office or even at home through a secure web server. The
system eventually can be configured to automatically acquire prior images,
which are held within the patient's virtual folder in the PACS.
While patients will not see a noticeable change in
how X-rays or MRIs are taken, hospital employees are excited about the
changes the new technology will bring, said Mr. Reed.
Images will be permanently stored at the hospital in
a DVD jukebox of sorts, eliminating the possibility of lost records. That
will mean fewer man-hours used to track, sort and file thousands of
patients' films, currently stored in a large warehouse type building for
up to five years. For now, those files will remain available for
physicians but Mr. Reed predicted that within two years they will no
longer be needed.