AT&T and Accenture have partnered to offer a cloud-based image storage and exchange solution to hospitals. The solution will help radiologists and other healthcare professionals electronically share, review and store medical images.
AT&T's hosting and telecommunications capabilities will support the Accenture Medical Imaging Solution. The new service can increase the efficiency of radiologists and can enable multi-regional healthcare systems to manage their imaging centrally, the companies said.
The changeover to a cloud-based imaging infrastructure is occurring rapidly throughout the industry. According to Accenture, 32 percent of healthcare organizations already store and retrieve images on remote web servers. Seventy-three percent of organizations plan to shift their image management to the cloud.
According to the announcement, benefits of the new AT&T/Accenture offering include:
- A benefit assessment and optimization analysis offered by Accenture that helps hospitals and other healthcare providers share medical images and related information;
- Access for community hospitals to radiology services from larger medical centers;
- The ability for providers to store, access, view and share patient medical images from virtually anywhere;
- The ability for providers to avoid costly capital investment in storage infrastructure.
"Accenture's systems integration experience coupled with AT&T's cloud-based technologies means hospitals can have virtually real-time access to medical images while reducing healthcare costs," Randall Porter, assistant vice president with AT&T ForHealth, said in a statement.
To learn more:
- read the press release
- see the Healthcare IT News article