On top of many people's minds, recently, is President Obama’s stimulus package in the development of healthcare reform within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and what it means to PACS.

On Thursday, March 12th, 2009, MedicExchange welcomed and hosted a round table discussion with various ‘top-rated’ PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) vendors to discuss ambulatory electronic medical record ( EMR ) readiness.

The discussion was prompted to answer some questions related to this stimulus package: What will it take to participate in the program? What is the certified EMR system? Who can help me comply? The hot topic also addressed how PACS Vendors are helping their PACS customers to be better prepared for the ambulatory EMR government driven program in the very near future. PACS is no longer able to function as a stand-alone imaging product and has now become a link in the chain of the larger and higher level EMR.

The discussion, hosted by Paul Keough, Editor-in-Chief with MedicExchange and moderated by Mr. Steve Munie, Chief Information Officer, at Pinehurst Radiology, included Mr. Bill Culton, Product Manager with ASPYRA, Mr. Brad Levin, Senior Marketing Manager with GE Healthcare, and Mr. Vijay Ramanathan, President & CEO of RamSoft Inc. The discussion commenced and gave all of MedicExchange’s panelists a chance to comment on how their clients can become better prepared for the ambulatory EMR, government driven program, in the near future.

Aspyra, as Mr. Bill Culton remarks, “is a niche player offering laboratory and radiology products,” a primary source of information to EMR. Products are designed to exchange data with these higher level information systems and provide, to customers, the ability to enter electronic orders, process the information, and create reports to feed back to the higher level information systems.

GE Healthcare, according to Mr. Brad Levin, had a number of team members dedicated to the stimulus package since last November working directly with government officials and legislators in Washington, D.C. to shape the bill and champion for healthcare IT provisions. GE is now shifting the focus, notes Mr. Brad Levin, “to tracking, guiding, and implementing the new law in the coming months.”

In addition, GE team members are actively engaged with various certifying and standard-setting bodies that may play a critical role in defining what is required in the electronic health records to enable providers to take advantage of the incentives in the stimulus package. GE points listeners to a website (click here: GE Hitech ACT) page that has a very informative opening as well as a frequently asked questions document on the site.

RamSoft is a PACS/RIS and teleradiology company providing solutions to various ambulatory and acute care practices. The prime application, Mr. Vijay Ramanathan says of the EMR, for RamSoft, “is to get information to a referring physician in a timely manner."

Today, customers face every day problems of hand-delivering reports and films to their referring physicians because investments in updating technology are unfeasible. The stimulus package could not come at a better time. There is a huge operating gap between practices with electronic capabilities and the ones that are still on paper.

Certainly, the radiologists are, at the very least, in favor of anything that can get the information to their referring physicians more quickly. If more of the referring physicians get EMR, Mr. Ramanathan adds, “then the whole healthcare system can run in a much more harmonized fashion.”

Additional topics within the roundtable discussion were introduced including:

1. Product readiness
2. Business model
3. Company knowledge of workflow beyond radiology
4. Depth of knowledge of sales and support team

The panel, participating in the discussion, afforded the various ways each was concerned for product readiness. “We want to work with the administration and the healthcare community to make sure that we are all aligned to the proper resources to make the most of the technology and provide the optimal environment for patient care,” noted Mr. Brad Levin, further saying, “We play an active role in numerous standards bodies as well as the groups that are working with the Obama administration, groups like the HL7 and DICOM committees, helping to shape the guidelines and standards that the industry has adopted over the years, applying the lessons learned across all our products. Our (GE) product portfolio is really well-suited to help institutions across the market whether you are a small organization, physician office, outpatient imaging community hospital, and all the way up through the academic medical centers.”

The business model for ASPYRA, as presented about by Mr. Bill Culton “currently strives to service mostly rural hospitals, imaging centers, reading services, and medical specialty groups like orthopedic clinics and pulmonary clinics.” Products can scale up to large deployments but the primary focus is to anticipate the needs of improving infrastructure demands as provided in the stimulus.

The workflow moving beyond radiology “is not limited only to hospitals and radiology centers purchasing PACS today,” comments Mr. Vijay Ramanathan, highlighting Ramsoft. He went on to say, “Orthopedic practices, urgent care centers and even intra- hospital settings like the ER, OR, ICU, the outpatient surgery clinic, are all starting to use the system today."

"When you combine a good imaging system along with the EMR, now a complete medical record can truly occur. PACS is no longer a radiology system. Today, we are seeing more and more institutions getting involved in the adoption and the stimulus is really a good push for EMR going forward. EMR will really make communication within healthcare much simpler improving the healthcare delivery to patients. Results will be given to physicians in a timely manner affecting life saving decisions that need to be made.”

For the full multimedia experience of the roundtable event, please visit the forum to post your questions for the moderator and panelists, please click on the play button to hear the audio recording below, and also, enlarge the slides to see the visuals.

Q&A Forum:

MedicExchange welcomes you to continue this conversation on EMR readiness by clicking here. Note that you will need to be logged in to your MedicExchange account, or create a new account if this is your first time. To create a new account click here.

Followup:

Content feedback: Paul Keough, PhD, MBA, Editor-in-Chief, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

MedicExchange is inviting PACS / RIS companies to participate in this currently ongoing PACS Product review program.

In order to submit your product for review, please contact: Brian Marsden, VP Business Development, +1 646 723 4354 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Audio Recording:

Below is an audio recording of this Hot Topic: “How are PACS vendors helping their PACS customers to be better prepared for the ambulatory EMR government driven program in the very near future?” lead by Moderator: Mr. Steve Munie, CIO, Pinehurst Radiology focused on these three Panelists:

1. Mr. Bill Culton, Product Manager, ASPYRA

2. Mr. Brad Levin, Senior Marketing Manager, GE Healthcare

3. Mr. Vijay Ramanathan, President & CEO, RamSoft Inc.

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Slides:

Clicking on any of these slides will enlarge them while still allowing the audio to play:

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