Joint Township Hospital Installs CARESTREAM Cardiology PACS; Develops Integrated Workflow Using Existing RIS, PACS

Joint Township District Memorial Hospital (St. Marys, Ohio) purchased and installed a fully featured CARESTREAM Cardiology PACS and integrated that platform with its CARESTREAM Vue PACS and CARESTREAM Vue RIS. The hospital is a member of Grand Lake Health System.

“Carestream’s cardiology PACS offers exceptional functionality and we have further streamlined our workflow by integrating it with our existing RIS and PACS,” said Robert Homan, the hospital’s RIS/PACS Clinical Coordinator. “We use our RIS for ordering and reporting cardiology exams, and we store cardiology exams on the long-term archive offered through our radiology PACS. This interconnectivity also achieves maximum utility of our existing investment.”

Homan said the hospital’s cardiology team selected Carestream’s Cardiology PACS after evaluating the tools and functionality of several systems. “Our team preferred Carestream’s platform because of its exceptional reading tools, structured reporting with electronic signature, and support for efficient remote reading. The cardiology PACS also supports echocardiography, ECGs, Holter monitors and other applications so that cardiologists can access a patient worklist that displays all types of cardiology exams.”

Homan noted that the team rejected use of another supplier’s cardiology PACS it evaluated because that platform required a separate reading application and user log in for each type of exam. The hospital currently uses its cardiology PACS for echo cardiograms and plans to implement ECGs and Holter monitors this year.

Carestream’s cardiology PACS streamlines on-site and remote access to medical images for faster diagnosis, reporting, storage and distribution of clinical data. The Web-based system consolidates review of echocardiography, cardiac cath, ECG, nuclear cardiology and hemodynamic results with easy comparison of priors to help enhance both efficiency and patient care.