CoActiv Successfully Meets 30-Day Installation Timeframe and a Host of Unique Demands
RIDGEFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ProHealth Physicians, the largest primary care practice group in CT with more than 250 provider physicians state-wide, has selected CoActiv EXAM-PACS for the management of all medical images across its 75 offices. EXAM-PACS was selected for its advanced features and ease of use as well as CoActiv’s technological expertise and ability to partner with the practice to meet its unique and demanding requirements.
“We wanted our PACS to interface directly with our Allscripts electronic health records (EHR) and practice management systems so that radiology reports could move directly into the EHR without involving a RIS. That also meant the system would have to be configured to enable radiologists to dictate directly into the PACS itself,” says Norm Robillard, Director, Diagnostic Imaging Services for ProHealth.
“Additionally, we had to have the entire PACS operation installed and functioning flawlessly within an extremely demanding one-month period. This involved connecting 75 regular ProHealth locations, seven full-time imaging centers, portable sites, and our new offsite radiology providers who were just coming on board, as well as training everyone involved. It was a tall order, but CoActiv was able to deliver.”
“Our new radiology group was extremely skeptical about all this happening in the limited time frame. But, CoActiv did it,” adds Timothy Barnard, Senior Vice President, Ancillary Services and Recruitment for ProHealth.
Eric Rosenberg, MD, a board member and Chairman of ProHealth Physicians’ Ancillary Committee notes, “As a clinician, I was extremely impressed with the speed and professionalism with which CoActiv got us up and running on their system. We are now able to offer our 75 provider locations their radiology readings in their electronic health records within minutes of the time their patient completes a radiology study.”
ProHealth is a primary care practice made up of family practice, internal medicine, pediatricians and some sub-specialty providers. As part of its commitment to delivering the highest level of patient care, it also offers a range of ancillary services such as clinical laboratory, physical therapy, audiology, sleep diagnosis, hearing services, extended hours centers, and an ADHD center, as well as diagnostic medical imaging. “We produce about 30,000 imaging exams annually, and we truly offer this as a benefit for our patients as well as operating imaging as a profit center,” says Barnard. “For a wide range of procedures, our patients are able to come directly to our familiar and comfortable office environments.”
To enable this, ProHealth runs six diagnostic imaging centers in its busiest locations, as well as mobile units that deliver imaging services at 25 to 30 smaller ProHealth sites. Onsite imaging services include general x-ray, general gynecological and vascular ultrasound, echocardiology and bone densitometry. Mobile units provide a full range of both ultrasound and echo exams. While all imaging services are delivered by board-certified ProHealth physicians and fully credentialed technologists, they are read by an offsite, 19 member multi-specialty radiology group. Maintaining exacting standards of patient care, ProHealth insists that all exam results be delivered to referring physicians within two hours of the exam.
Prior to the installation of CoActiv EXAM-PACS, the practice stored its exams on CDs and maintained a large in-house courier staff to hand carry them to their radiology provider. “We had already begun looking into a PACS as an alternative when our former radiology reading group was acquired by another larger practice. At that point, we decided to develop a relationship with a new reading group and simultaneously install a digital imaging management system,” says Robillard.
After seriously considering several vendors, ProHealth selected CoActiv, in part because it offered an extremely robust solution for an affordable price. The company also was extremely flexible, willing to launch the installation immediately and to work with the practice closely to ensure that installation and training would be completed in a very short timeframe. “A lot of vendors expected we would alter our way of doing business to suit their PACS. CoActiv was willing to fine tune its applications to meet our specific needs. They were happy to create the EHR and dictation customizations we wanted and were up to the challenge of our timeframe,” comments Robillard.
Today, images from all exam rooms stream directly over ProHealth’s high speed wide-area network to its radiology service providers. Reports are similarly returned quickly and easily to appropriate ProHealth physicians and directly populate the patient’s electronic health record. All exams are stored in CoActiv’s cloud-based EXAM-VAULT® QUAD-REDUNDANT ARCHIVE®, which duplicates data in four different locations for safety and business continuity. In mobile locations, sonographers connect ultrasound devices and computers directly and securely into the network and conduct exams as if they were working at a ProHealth imaging site.
“The PACS installation brought together a large team of modality vendors and our in-house network, wiring and other technology specialists,” says Robillard. “CoActiv was very much a part of that team and worked tirelessly to ensure our goals were met.”
According to Robillard, the entire project went smoothly and everyone at ProHealth was extremely satisfied with the results. “CoActiv even sent its staff to our in-house training center on evenings and weekends to ensure everyone was trained and up and running in time for our deadline. They really did a first rate job.”
About CoActiv
CoActiv Medical™ is a leading healthcare software and IT systems provider offering a full line of PACS, digital image and data storage services, and related solutions for hospitals, imaging facilities and medical practices of all sizes. CoActiv’s EXAM-PACS® family of web-based PACS solutions provide leading edge, affordable and scalable image management with sophisticated tools that cater to the needs of radiologists as well as a full range of other imaging specialists. Available as both enterprise server-based and cloud-based solutions, EXAM-PACS is designed for easy integration into imaging facilities of any size. Comprised of modular software components, EXAM-PACS enables any site to customize a solution to meet their specific needs and budgets or to add advanced functionality to an existing PACS solution. EXAM-PACS includes EXAM-FILER® CD-burning solution; vendor-neutral, HIPAA compliant, offsite/online cloud-based EXAM-VAULT® QUAD-REDUNDANT ARCHIVING®; patent-pending EXAM-SENDER® referring physician system; EXAM-3D® advanced, multi-modular 3D color reconstruction and visualization; and EXAM-NET™ teleradiology suite. EXAM-PACS includes such premium features as support for breast specific gamma imaging (BSGI) and storage of non-DICOM data, such as prescriptions, reports and surgical plans in patient files. Complementing this is CoActiv’s family of EXAM-RIS® solutions scaled for imaging facilities of every size site and budget. Contact CoActiv at (203) 894-1651; [email protected]; www.coactiv.com.
CONTACT:
CoActiv Medical
Jeanne-Marie Phillips, 888-655-3434
[email protected]
KEYWORDS: United States North America Connecticut
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Health Hospitals Medical Devices Oncology Radiology
MEDIA: