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| EXAM-PACS Details |
PACS doesn’t really have to be as complex and as expensive as some other vendors may have led you to believe. After all, a PACS performs only a few easily definable functions:
- It harvests completed digital exams from your various DICOM modalities.
- It sends these exams to workstations for reading by a radiologist.
- It stores the “read” exams in a secure archival manner.
- It allows these archived exams to be recalled for later comparisons.
While a PACS does only perform these few functions, it must however, perform them flawlessly, quickly, accurately and reliably. And, that’s where the CoActiv EXAM-PACS™ really shines.
- EXAM-PACS™ easily and precisely integrates with all DICOM compliant modalities to assure you of the most accurate, highest quality digital images that current technology provides. If your existing modalities lack full DICOM compliance, many can be upgraded by the manufacturer or can be easily interfaced through DICOM gateway products from Merge Technology or NAI.
- EXAM-PACS™ images never suffer from any resolution loss due to needless compression. While other PACS vendors apply various forms of lossy compression in order to move and store large exams in an acceptable manner, EXAM-PACS™ has been designed to always deliver and store all images in exactly the same resolution as when they originally came from the scanners.
- EXAM-PACS™ never modifies the original exam images in any way. All DICOM Header information is kept 100% intact. Any changes in windowing and leveling, annotations, measurements, zoom level, rotation, ROIs, etc. are all kept in our unique MOD files which store all this ancillary information right with the original unmodified images. In fact, we allow the application of multiple MOD files, giving the viewer the choice of which MODs should be applied to the viewed exams. Of course, when the exam is marked as “Read” by the diagnostic radiologist, his MOD files can no longer be changed, however, additional MOD files can easily be created for teaching or instructional purposes where you might choose to turn off all on-screen annotations for privacy reasons. (A HIPAA requirement).
- EXAM-PACS™ gives you instant access to a complete “history file” associated with every exam. You can instantly see important information such as where and when the exam was performed, who read the exam and when it was read, who created any associated MOD files, when they were created, and a list of everyone who downloaded the file to view it. This history file is in addition to the very detailed logs kept by the system of all exam activity.
- EXAM-PACS™ allows referring physicians to instantly view the exam report while in the exam viewer window, and at the same time, listen to the voice file from the transcription (should you choose to include it). Not only can you attach Reports and Voice Clips to the exam, but now, for the first time you can easily and seamlessly attach just about any additional information that you wish. Imagine being able to have one-click access to emailed or scanned prescriptions, insurance cards, video clips, frame-grabbed selective images, insurance company pre-certifications, etc.
- EXAM-PACS™ presents exams to the diagnostic radiologist the way he or she wishes to see them. Vertical or horizontal monitor configuration, and in series and image layouts of the radiologist’s choice. Our unique approach to “hanging protocols” allows the radiologist to always view the series in the same screen layout, with each exam series always in the same screen location on one or more monitors. Of course, series layout, screen layout and image layout can be instantly changed with a simple mouse click.
- EXAM-PACS™ was designed with the input of working radiologists and is a true Radiologists’ PACS. Our newly developed EXAM-Viewer™ never fails to please the production radiologist whose main concerns are always accuracy, reliability, speed, repeatability and ease of use. We believe that our consulting radiologists had to be the smartest, and were certainly the most demanding professionals that we have ever encountered. After all, we told them that they could have anything and everything that they wanted in a PACS… and that is what they demanded… and what they got!
- EXAM-PACS™ allows the radiologist, if he chooses, to instantly and simply perform quite a list of “extras” not available in other PACS products, such as:
- Instantly send an exam to another radiologist for a second opinion.
- Instantly send an exam still in progress to a referring physician for preliminary viewing and consultation.
- Have instant access to all attached related files.
- Instantly burn a custom labeled EXAM-CD™ (with viewer) for exam jacket, referring physician or patient.
- Instantly view the entire history of an exam.
- Automatically synchronize different series or even different exams
when viewing.
Of course, the radiologist can have all of these functions performed by a tech or aide from an administrative workstation, but it is nice to be able to perform these functions quickly and easily himself if he chooses.
- EXAM-PACS™ was designed with exam security, privacy and availability in mind. Exams harvested from local modalities are immediately saved to a local IMAGE-Server™ (or EXAM-Server™ depending on facility size) and are instantly and automatically pushed to the first of two ARCHIVE-Servers™. This first ARCHIVE-Server™ can be either on-site, in the practice’s data center, or in one of CoActiv’s two class-A data centers. The exam is then immediately copied to a second ARCHIVE-Server™ in our second Data Center where it is also backed up to archival tape. We call this Quad-Redundant Archiving, and we challenge anyone to suggest a better system. And, since your exams are always on-line, retrieval is always easy, fast and dependable… no CDs or DVDs to be stored, restored, lost, damaged or scratched. And our archive tapes are kept off-site in a secure storage vault.
s EXAM-PACS™ allows for the fastest possible retrieval of stored or archived exams. A database search for an archived exam is usually accomplished in less than a second in a 250,000 exam archive and less than 3 seconds in an archive of 1,000,000 exams. (Yes, we did test it!) Actual retrieval of a previous exam from the archive is as fast as your broadband connection… usually less than a minute for the average exam with most cable modem, DSL, Point-to-Point T1 or frame relay connections. And of course, this retrieval of previous exams for comparisons can all be automated with pre-fetching being requested by your RIS or HIS.
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