Enhancing Workflow Through Role-Based Portals and Innovative Applications

Newly designed portals serve as a crucial component to workflow innovation, as they are the intelligent access point to information and applications critical to the daily functions of radiologists and other caregivers.

At the 93rd scientific assembly and annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) from November 25-30, 2007, held in Chicago, IL, USA, the Siemens Medical Solutions (Erlangen, Germany) Image and Knowledge Management Division revealed the newest enhancements and research to its range of systems that are role-based, context-sensitive, and knowledge-driven.

The syngo Portal Radiologist is role-based and logically structured for radiologists performing specific tasks. Three task areas: Check Requests, Read Images, and Sign Reports, allow radiologists the ability to organize their work according to the workflow step. Quick and precise reading with syngo Voice, the online dictation tool embedded within syngo Portal Radiologist, can optimize reporting quality and speed.

The syngo Portal Referring Physician offers role-based workflow support, allowing referring physicians to quickly and securely interact with the radiology department. The portal allows for easy scheduling of appointments directly from the ward or referring physician's office, and offers predefined request sheets and the ability for referring physicians to quickly search for available appointment times.

The syngo Portal Executive++ provides a top-down approach, allowing proactive management of issues relevant to executives and managers. The user interface will have a high level of customizability and will provide real-time and historic data drill-down capabilities, trending and data mining.

New enhancements have been developed for syngo TrueD, a multimodality application used as a tool for cancer management. The latest version of syngo TrueD enhances the ability to compare patient scans over time, by allowing the user to simultaneously display three studies, such as a baseline and two follow-up exams.

syngo TrueD was designed for the oncology workflow, including diagnosis, staging, and assessment of cancer treatment response. The application enables efficient reading of patient scans from hybrid imaging systems, such as positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT-CT). syngo TrueD provides advanced image analysis and comparison, including a range of change detection tools, to enable a more informed diagnosis and treatment. The newest version of syngo TrueD allows users to quickly fuse and compare up to three studies, including magnetic resonance (MRI), CT, PET and SPECT imaging exams.

Siemens also showcased the planned integration of syngo TrueD with the picture and archiving communications system (PACS), syngo Imaging. This integration will allow for the reading of hybrid imaging studies on PACS, accessed by radiologists and referring physicians via syngo portals.

syngo Imaging, an underlying enabler in supporting workflow, has undergone recent enhancements that will be shown at RSNA. In addition to the integration with CAD applications, such as syngo TrueD and syngo Colonography PEV (Polyp-Enhanced Viewing), the newest version also allows for fast and easy installation of syngo Studio, the main two-dimensional (2D) image reading application.

Based on centralized system architecture, syngo Imaging is adaptable to the structures and processes in hospitals or practices, ranging from a small-scale system to a completely integrated high-end system across several locations. To give radiologists optimized support in patient diagnosis, syngo Imaging, with syngo Studio, can be supplemented with 3D and other post-processing functionalities.


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