Integrating smartphone imaging into a multi-modal, multi-organizational PACS

Gary Wendt, MD, MBA

Gary J. Wendt, M.D., MBA, is a Professor of Radiology, and Enterprise Director of Medical Imaging and Vice Chair of Informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has more than 20 years experience in electrical and computer engineering, business, internal medicine and radiology. Dr. Wendt began his career as a computer scientist where he wrote several copyrighted applications for large commercial institutions. A frequent speaker at conferences, he spoke at the SIIM Wisconsin Regional Meeting last October. He outlined the UW Medicine experience in implementing a multi-organizational, multi-modality PACS. As part of that project Dr. Wendt and his colleague at UW, Dr. Richard Bruce, spun off a company to develop a software system called ImageMoverMD that makes it easy for physicians and other providers to upload images captured from mobile devices to a PACS that is DICOM compatible and feeds into to the patient’s EMR.

RSNA 2016, What’s New?

Herman Oosterwijk sums up RSNA 2016

This year’s annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA2016) tradeshow in Chicago was 

pretty good, the weather was cooperating, the labor unrest and strike from Lufthansa and workers at O’Hare just ended in time for us to get to the city, and the overall mood and atmosphere was positive. Vendors were happy about increased traffic from serious buyers and contenders, and the PACS replacement market seems to be growing. Here are my (subjective) observations:

Read more ...

PARCA plays key training role in nationwide PACS effort in Saudi Arabia

Over a 100 PACS administrators have undergone 

PACS Administrators Registry and Certification 

Association (PARCA) training by PARCA founder 

and OTech Imaging president, Heman Oosterwijk

 (standing left) and received Certified PACS 

Associate (CPAS) certification in Saudi Arabia. 

Image courtesy of Zainab Alalawi.

PARCA eNews – Nov. 14, 2016 – PACS not only improves efficiency and clinical decision-making but also shortens hospital stays, a study from Saudi Arabia has found, however challenges remain, particularly the time taken to find images, recurrent system downtime, and insufficient training.

The researchers wanted to assess the perceived benefits in quality of care of PACS among physicians and radiologists, and assess the perceived challenges of PACS implementation and adoption inside and outside the radiology department.

EU Green lights Privacy Shield

PARCA eNews – Oct. 25 2016 – The European Commission, following a delay, has now given the green light to the EU-US 

Privacy Shield governing how personal data is transferred across the Atlantic. The data protection regulation is intended to provide much-needed clarity for EU businesses.

Accenture cyber security survey reveals gaps

PARCA eNews – Nov. 2, 2016 – A new security survey from Accenture found that in the past twelve months, roughly one in three targeted cyber attacks resulted in an actual security breach, which equates to two to three effective attacks per month for the average company. Nevertheless 75 percent of security executives surveyed are confident in their ability to protect their enterprises from cyber attacks.

ONC offers Health IT Playbook

PARCA eNews – Oct. 1, 2016 – The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is releasing its Health IT Playbook to help make using health information technology (health IT) easier for providers so they can get the most out of their technology investment.

$2.14 million HIPAA settlement underscores importance of managing security risk

PARCA eNews – Oct. 18, 2016 – St. Joseph Health (SJH) has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules following the report that files containing electronic protected health information (ePHI) were publicly accessible through internet search engines from 2011 until 2012.

Integrating PACS with EMRs: the UCSF experience

John Mongan, MD, PhD

Dr. Mongan is the vice chair for informatics at the University of California, San Francisco, where he has led a group from UC Health in efforts to outline the requirements for a UC system-wide decision support system. Dr. Mongan interests include improving quality, safety and efficiency of medical care through increased and improved incorporation of computers and technology. Dr. Mongan, is an assistant professor in residence in the Abdominal Imaging and Ultrasound subspecialties in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at UCSF. He received his MD and PhD from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include dual-energy computed tomography, ultrasound and CT contrast media, and informatics and electronic medical records . UCSF Medical Center serves as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which operates three hospital sites and two outpatient imaging centers. The Department of Radiology has more than 100 attending radiologists along with an equal number of trainee residents and fellows, who perform more than 300,000 studies a year.

ONC announces cyber attacks info sharing initiative

Nicole Lurie, 
M.D., M.S.P.H.
Assistant Secretary
for Preparedness
and Response (ASPR)

PARCA eNews – July 25, 2016 – To enable better dissemination of threat information, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) released two Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) to build the capacity of an Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (ISAO). 

30 healthcare data breaches reported in Aug., Sept.

PARCA eNews – Sep. 23, 2016 – More than 5 million healthcare records may have been compromised in data breaches reported to the Office for Civil Rights in August and September. 

The list of 30 breaches from Aug. 1 to Sept. 23 included breach types ranging from unauthorized access, to outside hacking and included accidental loss as well as theft. 

Health IT Policy and Standards Committees Discuss Data Updates and Task Force Recommendations

PARCA eNews – Sept. 16, 2016 – On Tuesday, the Health IT Policy Committee and Standards Committee, Federal Advisory Committees to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), convened for a virtual joint meeting.

Vaishali Patel with ONC provided a data update on Hospital Adoption of Patient Engagement Functionalities based on results from a 2015 American Hospital Association Health IT Supplemental Survey. 

ONC interoperability standards posted for stakeholder comment

PARCA eNews – Sept. 7, 2016 – Today, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) published the draft 2017 Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) for public comment.  

The ISA is a coordinated catalog of standards and implementation specifications that are available for use by the health information technology (health IT) industry to meet interoperability needs. 

Texas Health Resources Joins Health Info Exchange

ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Health Resources recently became the first North Texas health system to join HASA — the health information exchange for 132 counties in North, South and West Texas regions.

The collaborative effort is a newly expanded health information exchange (HIE) established to enhance the interconnection between health care providers and patients across several Texas regions.

Enterprise imaging, what to look for in a VNA

Phil Wasson is Healthcare Industry Manager and Consultant at Lexmark Enterprise Software and has been involved in health information technology since the 1990s. Over the past 15 years, he served as CIO and CEO at Tri- Rivers Health Partners, which provided IT support for Swedish American Health System in Rockford, IL and FHN, formerly Freeport Health Network in Freeport, IL. A year-and-a-half ago Mr. Wasson joined Lexmark to provide the Global Healthcare Industry Team with product marketing expertise to expand Lexmark’s understanding in the healthcare space to offer exceptional customer engagement, industry expertise, and deep technology capabilities through an extensive portfolio of product offerings in both enterprise imaging and healthcare content management.

News Roundup

Revived SIIM Annual meeting generates kudos by attendees

PARCA eNews – July 5, 2016 – The Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine Annual Meeting SIIM 2016 was held June 29 to July 1 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland Ore. Attendance was up, vendor exhibits were up, and lively presentations and discussions brought a renewed energy to the SIIM annual meeting.

PARCA Administrator Kirstin Leal’s first impressions

SIIM Conference Wrap-up

Administrator Kirstin Leal at PARCA booth SIIM 2016

This was my first time to attend and be a part of the SIIM Conference. It was held in Portland, Oregon from June 29 through July 1, 2016 at the Oregon Convention Center. Since it was my first time, I cannot speak to how well attended and busy the conference was compared to previous years, but comments from other attendees and exhibitors seemed to agree that it seemed to be busier than the previous year.

Ransomware: Your money or your data

HHS guidance

PARCA eNews – July 14, 2016 – The FBI has reported an increase in ransomware attacks and media have reported a number of ransomware attacks on hospitals. One of the biggest current threats to health information privacy are posed by the serious threats of malicious cyber-attacks on electronic health information systems, such as through ransomware. To help health care entities better understand and respond to the threat of ransomware, the HHS Office for Civil Rights has released new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidance on ransomware. The new guidance reinforces activities required by HIPAA that can help organizations prevent, detect, contain, and respond to threats.

Breached data offered for sale on dark web

Stolen data traced to healthcare databases

PARCA eNews – July 14, 2016 – As many as five databases that have been offered for sale on the dark web have been traced to healthcare organizations according to Databreaches.net*. Although the organizations whose data have been listed for sale have not come forward and confirmed that they are the victims, investigators at have traced at least one database to a Midwest orthopedic clinic and another to a Georgia clinic.

What is FHIR and how do I find the latest version?

Resource Link

PARCA eNews – July 20, 2016 – Healthcare records including imaging are increasingly becoming digitized and integrated into EMRs. As patients move around the healthcare ecosystem, their electronic health records must be available, discoverable, and understandable. Further, to support automated clinical decision support and other machine-based processing, the data must also be structured and standardized.

The Role of Standards in Preventing & Mitigating Health IT Patient Safety Risks

PARCA eNews – July 20, 2016 – ONC and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)  are hosting a health IT community technical workshop on September 7, 2016. 

Health IT standards are part of the foundation needed to deliver high quality, patient-centric care. The industry continues to gain a better understanding of the relationship between managing risk and providing quality care through the safe use of Health IT.

Measuring Interoperability: Listening and Learning

PARCA eNews – July 1, 2016 – Following feedback from the Health IT community, the Office of the National Coordinator has pledged to simplify measurements for interoperability.

Writing in the HealthITBuzz blog, Seth Pazinski / Director, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Analysis, and Talisha Searcy / Director of Research and Evaluation, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Analysis, ONC outlined their efforts to listen to stakeholders in Health IT in developing metrics for measuring interoperability.

Belgium-based Agfa HealthCare joins IBM Watson Health collaborative

PARCA eNews – July 18, 2016 – Agfa HealthCare has signed on with IBM’s Watson Health medical imaging collaborative, which includes 15 leading health systems, academic medical centers, radiology providers and imaging technology companies. 

In it’s June 22, 2016 announcement, Agfa said the effort aims to bring cognitive imaging into clinical practice by aiding doctors treating patients with breast, lung and other cancers, as well as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and other diseases.

Interoperability remains challenging as HIE approaches 20

Seonho Kim, VP of Information,
Exchange, CIOX Health

 Seonho Kim is vice president of Information Exchange and HIT at CIOX Health. CIOX Health facilitates and manages the movement of health information with the industry’s broadest provider network and capabilities in release of information, record retrieval, and health information management. Seonho’s expertise is specialized in designing/developing distributed systems, patient security and privacy, federated identity management, clinical data transactions, administrative transactions (X12 transactions) and compliance with interoperability standards including HL7, Health Information Technology Specification Panel (HITSP), Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), and Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN – HHS/ONC Initiative) Exchange and Direct. 

News Roundup

Will 3D printing be added to radiology services?

PARCA eNews – May 20, 2016 – At the American College of Radiology ACR 2016 annual meeting held May 15-19 in Washington, D.C., radiologists from New York and Pennsylvania provided a guide for radiologists interested in adding 3D printing to their practices. They presented a step-by-step workflow from acquisition of CT image data to consultation with referring clinicians using a 3D printed bone model. 

Why would radiologists want to add 3D printing to their imaging services? Many

Kansas Heart Hospital hit by ransomware attack

Security News

Paying a ransom resulted additional demands from attackers.

Image used under license: Gleb Shabashnyi

PARCA eNews – May 24, 2016 – As reported in HIPAA Journal, the Kansas Heart Hospital was hit with a ransomware attack May 18 with critical files locked. The amount of the demand was not disclosed, but paying the ransom resulted in some files being unlocked and an additional demand for the remaining files. The hospital refused the second demand.

Healthcare organizations prioritizing compliance over data breach prevention

Image used by license Copyright : Alex Millos

PARCA eNews – APRIL 15, 2016 – A recent survey conducted by 451 Research on behalf of security firm Vormetric indicates 96% of IT managers expect their organizations to be attacked by cybercriminals.

The survey involved 1,100 IT managers including over 100 working in healthcare organizations. Results showed that 20 percent of organizations have experienced a data breach in the past 12 months, while 63 percent of respondents said they have experienced a data breach in the past.

HHS announces proposed rule to support the reliability, transparency, and safety of certified health IT

ONC program to enhance oversight and accountability 

PARCA eNews – May 22, 2016 – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in March proposed a new rule aimed at modifying the ONC Health IT Certification Program to reflect the widespread adoption of certified electronic health records and the rapid pace of innovation in the health IT market.

Interoperability & Standards Webinar

Addressing the challenges to achieve secure interoperable exchange of patient data

Register Now!

June 14, 2016 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Eastern Time

If you missed the HIMSS16 Interoperability & Standards Breakfast Panel at the HiMSS Conference in February, you can sign up for a Webinar presentation of the session, and learn about this topic from the comfort of your own home or office. The session will be held June 14, 2016 from 12 noon to 1 pm, EST.

2016 ONC Annual Meeting set

PARCA eNews – May 31, 2016 – The 2016 ONC Annual Meeting: “Committed to Better Care through Health IT” is being held this week in Washington, DC. The ONC Annual Meeting is an opportunity for a wide array of public and private sector partners to discuss ways to leverage health IT to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.

Digital Imaging Adoption Model (DIAM) aims to guide users and purchasers of imaging technology

Jörg Studzinski

Jörg Studzinski, is senior consultant at HIMSS Analytics, and is responsible for product development, market reports, and consulting services around the EMR Adoption Model. Jörg’s professional background includes academic research, as well as experience in internationally active market research and extensive experience in data collection, data analysis, report writing, and in solution-finding by working closely together with the client. He supports hospital directors, IT executives and clinicians with their strategies to adopt and use healthcare information technology. Before joining HIMSS in 2010 he was the responsible project manager for the European eHospital Census, the most comprehensive study on the installed base of hospital IT applications, supplier structure and market influencing factors in Europe, at dii GmbH. 

C-suite Health IT competencies, cybersecurity and cloud connectivity highlight HiMSS16

PARCA eNews – March 7, 2016 – The 2016 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition wrapped up March 4, 2016 after five days in Las Vegas this year. The near record attendance brought in more than 42,000 health IT professionals, clinicians, executives and over 1300 vendors in the exhibit halls.

European Radiologists compile wish list for meeting tech change challenges

PARCA eNews – March 7, 2016 – At the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) meeting March 2-6, 2016 in Vienna, Professor Boris Brkljačić from Zagreb and Prof. Davide Caramella from Pisa led a discussion of the technological changes and modernization challenges facing radiology administrators. 

The European Congress of Radiology (ECR) is the annual meeting of more than 63,000 individual members of the European Society of Radiology (ESR) working across Europe and beyond and provides a broad international perspective on issues in healthcare imaging.

Ransomware attacks on the rise

PARCA eNews – Feb. 17, 2016 – Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (“HPMC”) announced in a letter that it had paid hackers $17,000 to end a malware attack on the hospital’s computer systems.

The hospital’s network was crippled by an attack that locked access to the medical center’s electronic medical record (“EMR”) system. For more than a week, clinicians had been unable to access patients' electronic health records and staff had not been able to communicate by email. Computers necessary for CT scans, pharmacy needs, lab work and documentation were also offline.

OCR launches cyber-security initiative

BBB scam map plots locations of online scams

PARCA eNews – Feb. 3, 2016 – The Office for Civil Rights, in the Department of Health and Human Services has announced its Cyber-security Initiative to improve cyber awareness of the latest security threats to healthcare data security, according to HIPAA Journal.

OCR kicked off the initiative with advice on two growing security threats: Ransom ware and tech support scams, both of which have increased in prevalence over the past 12 months.

ONC reports health IT progress to Congress

PARCA eNews – Feb. 29, 2016 – The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) issued its annual report to Congress on health IT progress on Feb. 29. 

The 47-page report outlines a string of initiatives aimed at improving the IT infrastructure supporting the nation’s moonshot aimed at moving from a paper-based to digital healthcare system.

ONC wants you to share your interoperability experience

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced its Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG), which is an open community platform where healthcare IT professionals can share, learn, and be inspired by interoperability projects taking place across the nation.

Fringe technology driving changes to PACS environment

Insight is a Fortune 500-ranked global provider of hardware, software, cloud and service solutions for business, government, healthcare and educational institutions. Insight provides clients with guidance and expertise in selecting, implementing and managing complex technology solutions to drive outcomes. Chief Information Officer Mike Guggemos is a recognized leader in IT and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal blog, Forbes, and other publications. He spoke at a recent information technology event about survival tips for IT administrators navigating the evolution from information technology to intelligent technology. PARCA eNews spoke with Mr. Guggemos about how those changes in information technology impact PACS administrators.

News Roundup

HiMSS 2016 set to begin leap day Feb. 29

The 2016 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition, Feb. 29 - March 4, 2016 in Las Vegas, brings together 40,000+ health IT professionals, clinicians, executives and vendors from around the world. Exceptional education, world-class speakers, cutting-edge health IT products and powerful networking are hallmarks of this industry-leading conference. More than 300 education programs feature keynotes, thought leader sessions, roundtable discussions and e-sessions, plus preconference symposia and workshops.

CMS ends Meaningful Use, proposes new model

Image from Twitter post

Speaking about the technology component for the Affordable Care Act at the J.P. Morgan Annual Health Care Conference, Jan. 11, 2016, CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt declared the Meaningful Use program over and announced a new initiative to replace it.

"The Meaningful Use program as it has existed, will now be effectively over and replaced with something better," Slavitt said.

Scotland implements nationwide health records breach detection

The National Health Service of Scotland is the first in the United Kingdom to have implemented a nationwide privacy breach detection system.

In a press release issued be FairWarning®, Inc. the electronic health records safeguard is intended to ensure that all patient-protected health information remains private. FairWarning system audits and monitors a variety of healthcare applications, including those used for emergencies and patient administration systems.

Final 2016 interoperability Advisory published

PARCA eNews – Dec. 22, 2016 – ONC released the 2016 Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) – a coordinated catalog of existing and emerging standards and implementation specifications developed and used to meet specific interoperability needs. In short, the advisory provides a single resource for those looking for federally recognized, national interoperability standards and guidance.

HHS clarifies individual rights under HIPAA Privacy Rule

Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH
MSc

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the entity responsible for interpreting and enforcing HIPAA, published an important set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) clarifying how an individual’s right to access their individual health information operates, including key points related to electronic health information sharing. 

The clarifications made by this guidance help ensure that all Americans have access to their health information, in the form