On Thursday, June 19, the San Camilo Clinic in Argentina hosted speakers from the private sector to discuss the benefits of implementing RIS (Radiological Imaging Systems) and PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System).
The event “Digital experiences: practical case studies of digital imaging projects”, organized by the company Carestream, was divided into two sections. The first featured three speakers who explained the processes of implementation, development and monitoring of RIS/PACS at the organizations where they worked. The second was based on the experience of the doctors, who recounted their everyday experience with the digital images and explained how this changed the way they worked and the next steps that needed to be followed.
Karina Arcidiácono, project coordinator for the Imaging Sector at Grupo Swiss Medical, opened the event. She started with a brief historical overview, noting previous problems with the implementation of RIS/PACS in 2006, such as the inability to carry out consults between specialist doctors and problems having rapid access to the files.
As she said, the main problem she was forced to face in the systems area was a resistance to change. “The doctors didn’t want to look at a computer screen, they wanted to stick with the slides.” However, she said that after the imaging technology was implemented it provided a series of benefits: it changed workflows, medical specialists were able to access images connected to the patient’s electronic health record, the storage capacity was expanded and all the information at the clinics belonging to the Group was centralized. Next year, Swiss Medical plans to publish all the reports on a website so that patients can access results and diagnoses more easily.
Next up was Eduardo Knoll, head of Maipú Diagnostic Systems, a center specializing in the handling of images. With the implementation of RIS/PACS, the three centers that make up the institution created corporate ties that resulted in better distribution of work between specialties, interaction between different doctors on the staff, a reduction in report delivery times and the fidelity of patients.
“By 2016 we want to provide the reports along with the image, i.e. the report won’t be issued as it is now, it will be done on an RIS system and linked to the image so that they are completely connected and that connection cannot be broken,” he explained.
The economist Roberto Basso, a service administrator for imaging diagnostics at the Allende Clinic in Córdoba, explained the results of the RIS/PACS implementation: “The budget goals for investments were achieved and the quality of information in our systems improved substantially in terms of monitoring quality of care and general administration of information. It also greatly improved workflows at the clinic.”
The second part of the event was opened by the trauma specialist Marcelo Figueroa from the Mapaci Sanatorium in Rosario, who showed how one plans a hip replacement for a patient with arthrosis by using OrthoView software.
“Last year, the system to carry out pre-operative planning was implemented, it can be used for practically any trauma surgery to correct deformities or insert implants,” he explained, using devices to display the different steps that need to be followed when using the software.
Next, Antonio Moreno spoke about the project he leads at the San Camilo Clinic whose objective is to digitalize and integrate information and images. He provided a brief summary of the situation prior to the project and emphasized the high cost, the difficulty patients had with accessing information and the space used up by the files. Like the other speeches, he mentioned the difficulty of changing the culture of the organization with the digitalization of images but he also listed the main benefits being noticed at the clinic: savings on space and facilitating workflow between different departments, print-outs at the request of the patient to improve costs and online availability of the information for every doctor.
The final speaker was the doctor and professor Carlos Diaz, who spoke about his experience administering the implementation of processes at the Sagrado Corazón Clinic. “Given the risks and uncertainty involved, one must proceed with full knowledge of the evidence, common sense and perseverance. One needs to understand that this is a process linked to a physical structure, human resources, processes and results, with care focused on the patient and safety. A report can be corrected, but the decisions that one makes regarding the patient based on a pre-report can’t be. What we offer is an asset that one can be confident in based on the information provided. Security measures should be part of the organizational culture,” he concluded.
