IDX Systems Corporation and Morton Plant Hospital, recently completed the first phase of implementation of IDX PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) in the hospital's new state-of-the-art emergency department. Phase one of the implementation provides departmental access to full-fidelity medical images and patient information.

"I was extremely impressed with the speed and quality of the implementation," said John Couris, vice president, medical imaging and health services, Morton Plant Mease Health Care. "We were able to deploy the PACS system within 30 days and open our new emergency room completely digital. I believe this was achieved because of the seamless integration of the technology with our RIS and the skilled team from IDX. I look forward to a full implementation throughout our four hospitals and five ambulatory care centers, and we expect it will not be long before all 415,000 studies are moving through our health system seamlessly. This technology will set the stage for our health systems ability to meet the needs of our customers in a cost efficient manner."

The IDX solution positions Morton Plant Hospital, a member of BayCare Health System, to rapidly deliver digital x-ray images to physicians in the emergency department. By reducing the time it takes to receive and review medical images, the system is expected to improve patient care by facilitating faster diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

"Before PACS, films were first previewed by the emergency physicians, and then given to the radiologists for final interpretation several hours later," said Dr. Dan Krop, chief of radiology at Morton Plant Hospital. "An error in the preliminary evaluation could adversely affect patient treatment. With PACS, images are rapidly available to both departments so the radiologists can provide the final diagnosis while the patient is still in the emergency room. This translates into a significant improvement in patient care."

The architectural efficiencies of the IDX solution facilitated completion of the first phase of implementation within 30 days. As a result, any digital image acquired in the emergency department can be immediately read from one of over 30 workstations throughout the department. Images from emergency department modalities are also immediately available for "soft read" at a workstation within the radiology department.

The full IDX enterprise image and information management solution includes iSyntax technology from Stentor Inc, and is comprised of three main components: enterprise web image and report distribution, radiologist reading workstations, and an online long-term archive. Morton Plant Mease Health Care (MPMHC) has used IDXrad, the company's premier radiology information system, since 1999.

"Since implementing our PACS, images are now sent from Morton Plant Hospital's emergency department in mere seconds," said John Jordan, vice president of sales and marketing for the radiology and imaging solutions division at IDX. "The superior technology of our solution, allows MPMHC to use their existing network infrastructure to deliver images at speeds we believe have not been achievable previously in our industry. IDX solutions are allowing MPMHC to deliver better patient care at a cost considerably less than traditional PACS solutions."