Data Sharing 1As a hospital administrator, you know that if you want your electronic health record deployments to be meaningful and successful, you must have a well-developed framework for image sharing. Vendor neutral archiving is the right step in creating this successful deployment.

Currently, your system is likely holding on to the clinical images, making them nearly impossible to share across departments or to satellite facilities. To fully realize a functional electronic health record, the image exchange piece is vital. You’ve moved from film-based radiology to filmless technology. You’ve likely moved away from paper records to electronic records, too. But now it’s time to work out a way to exchange your information across disparate systems.

Your doctors and nurses need access to this critical data through an integrated health information system that provides not only a streamlined flow of information, but also a more accurate flow with fewer errors. This not only lowers costs, but provides your clients with much better care. Vendor neutral archiving is a way to allow better communication and a more mistake-free way of getting imaging data from point A to point B and C.

Most hospital administrators are looking for a scalable solution, and the cloud-based image exchange with vendor neutral archiving systems is showing high promise. What are some of the advantages of going with a cloud-based image exchange?

  • It allows dynamic scalability and cost advantages
  • Image exchanges in the cloud offer security measures unavailable to archiving systems that use paper images (negatives) as a backup
  • Users see better performance in data sharing through the cloud-based systems
  • Cloud-based systems come in so many different models that they can fit any budget

The health care industry may lag somewhat behind other industries when it comes to data exchange systems, mostly because the standards used in the health care industry are not clearly defined and can often be interpreted differently from organization to organization. As a result, many administrators struggle to develop a proper electronic health record system that aligns with local, regional and federal standards. However, helping to ease the pain somewhat in the technical arena are vendor neutral archiving systems that take some of the headache out of implementation and the actual sharing of data.

Open-standards architecture got a boost recently when a grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering helped establish a vendor neutral image share network, which allows patients to take control of their ability to access their images and health records. Clinical workflow is critical, and not only empowers patients, but gives your medical staff firm ground to stand on when delivering patient care.

OffSite Image Management Inc., has fully embraced vendor neutral archiving, which offers all of your departments seamless image storing services. OffSite built its vendor neutral approach to meet many requirements, including the ability to work with DICOM SOP classes. OffSite’s approach gives you the ability to handle data updates without disrupting services vital to patient care and they are recognized as an industry leader.