PACS Streamlines Multi-Slice Image Review

The latest release of the advanced web-based application for a picture archiving and communications (PACS) solution combines a range of innovative new features and functionalities for digital radiology management.

CoActiv Medical (Ridgefield, CT, USA), a developer and marketer of radiology and related healthcare imaging information technologies, presented its next-generation Exam-PACS v. 2.1 at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) conference, held in May 2008 in Seattle, WA, USA.

Debuting in the latest version of Exam-PACS is a sophisticated CoActiv feature that automatically synchronizes image display across multiple overlapping image stacks, as the radiologist scrolls through a single image series. This is particularly valuable, for example, if a radiologist is simultaneously displaying an image series formatted with several different window and level settings and wishes to compare the same slice under a variety of viewing parameters.

Similarly streamlining navigation through image stacks with different orientations, when the radiologist selects an image, an advanced new Auto-Intersect feature automatically locates and displays intersecting images across all image stacks on the screen. For example, when a sagittal slice is selected, coronal and axial images intersecting with this image will display automatically, along with cursor and reference line indicators.

By streamlining image review across today's ever-expanding data sets, these two sophisticated features add important new efficiencies to the multi-slice image interpretation process, saving radiologists significant time.

"These features mean that a radiologist no longer must scroll through hundreds of slices to locate desired image information,” said Ed Heere, president and CEO of CoActiv. "Exam-PACS Auto-Synch and Auto-Intersect features translate to important new efficiencies as well as enhanced accuracy of interpretation for any multi-slice exam. The features were developed at the request of CoActiv users to automate common image interpretation tasks.”

Also debuting in the latest version of Exam-PACS is compatibility with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. "This important enhancement also was added at the request of CoActiv customers,” noted Mr. Heere. "Although radiology sites themselves may not be making the change to Vista, more and more referring physicians are using the new platform. Naturally, our imaging site customers want to cater to needs of their referring physicians,” he said.

A referring physician who has had an opportunity to use the new feature, Larry S. Wasser, M.D., FCCP, from Associated Pulmonologists of Western Connecticut (Brookfield, USA), reported, "CoActiv on Vista is fantastic. It is super fast and delivers a range of perks [i.e., perquisites]. With it, you could tremendously outpace the competition.”

Complementing this, CoActiv introduces a range of new, fully automated document scanning features, which offer important support for high-volume facilities and provides a higher level of efficiency for any practice in today's increasingly paperless workplace. Among these features are two-sided paper scanning that automatically speeds the duplex scanning process by detecting and eliminating blank pages and allowing customizable automatic document naming.

Combined with CoActiv Paperless PACS functionality, these scanning features also renders important new levels of efficiency by eliminating management and storage of hardcopy technologist notes, insurance pre-certifications, release forms, power of attorney releases, US sheets, and mammo sheets. Using built-in CoActiv Paperless PACS, these documents are scanned and attached to digital exams for instant review in both the CoActiv Exam-Console and Exam-Viewer applications.

Along with these features, the new state-of-the-art application provides enhanced management of patient prior exams, which now open and close automatically with current studies. It also delivers flexible barcode printing directly from the Exam-PACS application, more comprehensive and customizable search and worklist features, as well as one-button selection of mouse modes, such as window/level, slice and pan from an enhanced global toolbar. Also new is a unique and intuitive image toolbar, which provides instant one-click image re-sizing and MPR/3D access.


Related Links:
CoActiv Medical