Carestream Health unveiled several innovative features for its Kodak Carestream RIS/PACS solution—features that provide added convenience and significant time savings -- at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Carestream Health unveils several innovative features for its Kodak Carestream RIS/PACS solution -- features that provide added convenience and significant time savings -- at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The company also plans to show its next-generation RIS/PACS as a works-in-progress.

New features available now

New features for the Carestream RIS platform utilize voice activated controls and voice activated standardized reporting to allow radiologists to dictate reports from any location for added convenience and workflow improvement.

In addition, Carestream Health is one of few vendors to offer a RIS with the ability to pre-populate radiology reports with patient and exam information captured during order entry, so radiologists do not need to spend valuable time dictating patient and exam information that is already available. This information includes: patient name, date, type of exam, referring physician, symptoms, and other patient and exam data.

Carestream PACS enhances staff efficiency and productivity by delivering optional integrated applications such as native 3-D, image fusion, orthopaedic templating and cardiac analysis to authorized users at remote locations as well as on-site diagnostic workstations. The current version of the company's PACS platform, which was launched worldwide this summer, utilizes specialized display protocols that organize images into each radiologist's preferred format so interpretation can begin in seconds instead of minutes.

Marc Garant, MD, evaluates a spine image using a Kodak Carestream PACS Workstation at Oregon Medical Group. Carestream Health's newest PACS platform offers optional integrated applications such as image fusion and orthopedic surgical templating, in addition to native 3-D imaging and advanced cardiac features.

"There is worldwide demand for greater automation to help clinicians and staff handle increasing workloads. That is why we have embedded clinical applications into our PACS platform and made these applications available to onsite and offsite users," said Michael W. Jackman, President, Healthcare Information Solutions, Carestream Health. "Our RIS produces a more efficient workflow by eliminating redundant data entry and by delivering information automatically instead of relying upon radiologist queries. All of these capabilities can result in greater staff productivity, decreased incidence of errors, and better service to patients and clinicians."

Workflow and productivity improvements

Other key features of the Carestream RIS/PACS include:

• Web-based reporting, including integrated speech recognition software.
• Remote transcription for web-based users.
• Enhanced practice management tools including standardized productivity reports and improved management reporting.
• Efficient support of a multi-site workflow community through a global worklist and central database.
• Single desktop with integrated clinical applications equips authorized users with all the data and tools required for efficient reading or viewing. Dynamic streaming expedites remote reading and transcription.

Company showcases information management solutions

Carestream Health is also highlighting Kodak Carestream Information Management Solutions (IMS), including Kodak Carestream Enterprise Information Management (EIM), which efficiently archives radiology images and consolidates fixed content information such as scanned patient documents, reports, audio clips, e-mail and video files into a central data repository and displays both DICOM and non-DICOM data.

EIM solutions can be integrated with a customer's existing storage area network or network-attached storage systems. Carestream Health also offers KODAK CARESTREAM Regional Information Management (RIM) for intelligent, enterprise-wide storage management on a regional level.

Carestream Health's IMS portfolio was recently expanded with the introduction of eHealth Managed Services, which includes a remotely hosted archival service in an ASP model that manages DICOM and non-DICOM information to meet long-term storage and disaster recovery needs. This eliminates the cost and maintenance of multiple enterprise archives.

Kodak Carestream Solutions address the diverse operational needs of clinics, imaging centers, hospitals and healthcare networks, including orthopaedic, mammography and oncology facilities. Carestream Health is an independent company that employs more than 8,000 people and its products are present in 90 per cent of hospitals worldwide.

Carestream Health, an independent company, has licensed the Kodak brand for use with its own brands -- such as Carestream, Directview and Dryview -- across its portfolio of leading-edge medical imaging and healthcare IT products.