Project
Delivery, installation and commissioning of Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and its integration with the information system of the National Cardiology Hospital.
Period of implementation
January – March 2013
Principal
National Cardiology Hospital, Sofia
Solution
- Hospital information system (HIS) – expansion and enhancement associated with sending messages to PACS for appointed (planned) tests, as well as for receiving messages from PACS for completed tests and the necessary actions in CRM to display the image.
- The Syngo.plaza PACS, developed by Siemens, is a medical system including the software and hardware necessary to implement the transfer of data between digital devices, workstations and a central server for data storage. The system is built on a client-server architecture, all elements are DICOM compatible. The product features a graphic intuitive interface with few procedural steps and a user menu in Bulgarian.
- Integration of the hospital information system and PACS – based on exchange of HL7 messages between the two systems.
System components – software module for medical image viewing and management, hardware (workstations, Fujitsu server, disk storage, communication rack, UPS).
Technologies used: MS .NET Framework 4.5, HL7, MS SQL Server, DICOM.
Benefits
Using the two integrated systems, the hospital serves the patients much faster and much more efficiently. The uniform and reliable storage of images and the possibility of quick comparisons between different tests of the same patient done at different times eliminates doing unnecessary repeat tests. After the system deployment, the hospital can easily and quickly provide patient’s digitized information to their GP or other medical institutions. The so developed and deployed integration platform between HIS and PACS can be easily expanded, as other diagnostic imaging devices can be added with DICOM interface. The platform is flexible and virtually does not depend on the number of work stations – each work station of the HIS can be used immediately as part of the HIS-PACS.
The deployment of this integration platform allows for expansion of electronic health records of patients by facilitating and accelerating access to imaging results, leading to improved quality of the medical diagnostic process.
