DR Systems’ Integration of Mammography With PACS to Be Showcased at ACR Meeting
SAN DIEGO – DR Systems’ will be demonstrating its industry-leading approach to integrating digital mammography into its top-ranked Unity™ RIS/PACS, at the American College of Radiology’s 33rd National Conference on Breast Cancer.The conference will be held May 8-10 in Orlando, Fla. DR Systems will be at Booth 103 in the Coquita Exhibit Hall.
Nearly 50 facilities nationwide have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, DR Systems’ sophisticated integration of PACS and digital mammography.
DR Systems avoids the problems of reading and archiving digital mammograms on a stand-alone mammography workstation, by tightly integrating digital mammograms with its PACS. This approach saves capital costs and floor space in the radiology department, and better leverages the institution’s investment in its PACS. It also makes radiologists more efficient and productive.
Digital mammography is rapidly becoming the mammography technology of choice as imaging centers replace their legacy analog equipment with digital mammography machines.
However, many early adopters opted for an approach that turns out to be financially and operationally inefficient. They purchased dedicated standalone workstations on which only digital mammograms can be read.
Besides the substantial capital cost for the workstations, this approach forces radiologists to physically move between pieces of equipment – for example, reading a patient’s mammogram on the workstation and then moving over to the PACS to read the patient’s breast ultrasound.
A recent recommendation by the American Cancer Society (ACS) highlights the advantages of DR Systems' approach. ACS now recommends that women at higher risk for breast cancer receive an MRI scan for comparison to their annual mammogram.
With DR Systems’ mammography/PACS integration, the radiologist can compare the mammogram and MRI side-by-side on the PACS. A radiologist who reads mammograms on a dedicated workstation must switch back and forth between the workstation and the facility’s PACS to perform such a task.
Another advantage of the DR System’s approach is its transparency regarding related modalities and prior mammograms. A dedicated mammography workstation forces radiologists to "fly blind" with respect to studies in other modalities.
That is, when the radiologist is at the workstation, there is no indication in the workstation’s on-screen or stored patient information that studies in other modalities have been performed. Thus, the radiologist may not even know that an MRI has been done on the patient and is ready for comparison.
With DR's integrated mammography, the radiologist at the PACS can select any exam in any digitized modality, including MRIs and all prior mammograms. Those exams can be immediately pulled up for comparison with the current mammogram.
Other advantages include:
• Compatibility with mammography computer-aided detection (CAD).
• Complete biopsy reports, with workflow to promote radiology-pathology correlation and display of pathology images.
• Leveraging of referring physicians' Web access to all radiology exams and results.
• MQSA outcome audits for all modalities and all biopsies
• Access to tools unique to DR Systems such as Image Shuffling™ and Pixel Tracking™.
Image Shuffling and Pixel Tracking are display tools that help radiologists quickly perceive changes between different images, such as current vs. prior exams or pre-contrast vs. post-contrast images.
The DR Systems Unity PACS was ranked by KLAS® as the leading PACS in the “Top 20: 2007 Best in KLAS Report,” published in December 2007. For the second year in a row, DR Systems Unity PACS is ranked higher than all other PACS providers including Carestream, McKesson, Fuji, GE Medical Systems, Siemens, Agfa, and Amicas. KLAS is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare’s information technology (HIT) vendors (www.KLASresearch.com).
About DR Systems
DR Systems, Inc. is the leading independent provider of medical imaging and information systems for diagnostic imaging centers and hospitals. For more than 15 years, the company has helped more than 500 hospitals and imaging center sites improve the management of patient information, eliminate film costs, and increase workflow speed, while providing better clinical quality and patient care.
The company’s Unity RIS/PACS integrates numerous tools to improve financial performance and productivity, including: Web-based scheduling, image, report and audio clip distribution; patented, automated hanging protocols for radiologists; and the report format preferences of individual referring physicians.
DR Systems is the only RIS/PACS vendor that has contracts with these major healthcare group purchasing organizations: Premier, Inc., Novation (VHA, UHC, and Provista) and MedAssets. For more information, call 800-794-5955 or visit www.dominator.com.
