Across France 37 privately owned medical facilities are utilising Hosted Information Management (HIM), one of a number of eHealth Managed Services from Carestream Health designed to archive, share and distribute medical data more cost effectively and efficiently. Current contracts with these facilities will result in annual storage of approximately 1 Million imaging studies and range from individual imaging centres such as Centre Duroc in Paris to GCN St. Vincent with 8 imaging centres and clinics around Rennes in the Ouest Region of France.
The HIM service from Carestream Health is aimed at hospitals and imaging centres choosing to manage the exponential growth of patient data by outsourcing for disaster recovery or multi site virtual archiving and workflow. These innovative services are based on a "pay as you go" principle, with a simple business model consistent with those operated within many hospitals across Europe.
In France, as in many other European countries, initial and ongoing costs of infrastructure are the greatest barriers to healthcare IT adoption. These challenges have led to introduction of the "Avenant 24" initiative, which offers a financial incentive to private facilities in France implementing a digital archiving solution for radiology images. Several of the sites in France now connected to HIM from Carestream Health selected the service as a direct result of this initiative.
"In Mammography, comparison with prior exams is essential to correctly interpret the evolution of anomalies," said Dr Jean-Yves Seror, Senologist at the Centre Duroc in Paris. "We are not IT specialists and were immediately interested in the HIM concept proposed by Carestream Health. The service meets our needs for efficient archiving of images, fast retrieval and access to priors and removes all the long-term financial and technical implications linked to maintaining an effective, dependable archiving system."
Carestream Health's remote archive architecture involves installation of a Data Access Point, which provides the interface between the site and the data centre and interaction with local systems through standard protocols and the web server. The service is based on a GRID infrastructure that supports both local and remote storage and is powered by KODAK Versatile Intelligent Patient Archive (VIParchive) software, the leading radiology archiving platform that allows on site storage for quick access to data to be combined with off site storage at a data centre for protection, disaster recovery, data exchange and access.
Developed in Europe, the key advantages of Carestream Healths remote archive services are:
- A flexible combination of on site and remote storage to meet existing workflows with on site storage ranging from a few days to several years
- Enables a virtual community with all sites connected, even where different PACS, modalities and workstations are operating
- Secure remote access by authorised users using intelligent streaming for smooth transfer of images, even large studies
- Data centre distribution to referring physicians with remote viewing through a web portal
- Interfaces to any PACS, modalities and RIS systems using IHE standards (DICOM, HL7)
"Increasingly hospitals and imaging centres facing storage, growth and obsolescence management see the value of Carestream Health taking responsibility for those issues," said Pierre Yves Nectoux, European Business Manager, eHealth Managed Services, Carestream Health. "We are seeing rapid growth across Europe for our eHealth Managed Services as our healthcare customers see the benefits of risk free, secure, cost-effective and dependable solutions for managing the growing volume of patient data."
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.
Related news articles:
- Carestream Health's Profile
About Carestream Health, Inc.
Carestream Health, Inc., is a leading provider of dental and medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions; molecular imaging systems for the life science research and drug discovery/development market segments; and x-ray film and digital x-ray products for the non-destructive testing market. The company was formed in 2007 when Onex Corporation (TSX: OCX.TO) purchased Eastman Kodak Company's Health Group. For more information about Carestream Health, contact your Carestream Health representative or visit www.carestreamhealth.com.