Faster diagnoses, elevated collaboration between healthcare suppliers, and prioritizing essentially the most pressing affected person instances – these are simply among the advantages of a brand new diagnostic imaging system launched earlier this 12 months at Niagara Health.

Called Sectra Enterprise Imaging Solutions, this highly effective software program additionally does every thing from loading pictures sooner, which makes it simpler for healthcare suppliers to share affected person data, to stopping gaps between affected person referrals and followup appointments.

“If we want to provide the best possible care, we need to have the tools to do that,” says Dr. Julian Dobranowski, Chief of Diagnostic Imaging. “This is one of the important tools that will allow us to optimize the patient care we provide.”

Sectra will permit healthcare groups in Cardiology, Radiology, Orthopedic Surgery, Emergency and Oncology departments to collaborate extra effectively and share assets throughout all 5 Niagara Health websites.

Additionally, it would provide workflow, communication, and diagnostic options that make it extra handy for clinicians to learn research, and report findings immediately into the software program somewhat than recording and transcribing them individually. It will even permit them to speak immediately with one another a few affected person’s situation and remedy.

Sectra might be totally built-in with the brand new hospital data system when it launches in September 2024.

Making diagnoses sooner

Niagara Health performs about 30,000 CT scans a 12 months, with some scans capturing between 200 and 1,000 pictures. Having that data and people instruments in a single place means extra environment friendly diagnoses, explains Dr. Amit Mehta, Deputy Chief of Diagnostic Imaging.

Radiologists will even be capable to assessment essentially the most urgent affected person instances first because of the flexibility to construct options, akin to synthetic intelligence to prepare instances by precedence inside Sectra.

“We try to do everything as quickly as possible but if we get a deluge of studies, it’s hard to know which to do first. The only way to prioritize these until now was by the time of the study,” Dr. Mehta says. “Going forward, this will allow us to prioritize studies that are the most urgent and that prevents any delays in treatment for those patients.

“Our goal for anyone coming from the Emergency Department is to interpret their images within an hour or less; strokes within 20 minutes. These are the patients who need treatment as soon as possible.”

He and others on the Diagnostic Imaging workforce will be capable to use knowledge supplied by the Sectra system to trace whether or not they obtain these targets and decide different potential service enhancements, notes Mike Sharma, Director of Diagnostics.

“The data analytics, which we will be able to mine from the Sectra picture archiving and communication system will include our volumes, report turnaround times and many other key performance indicators. This will allow us to monitor our performance and efficiency and to see where improvements can be made,” Sharma says.

Healthcare suppliers exterior Niagara will be capable to entry affected person data rapidly and simply, too, as a result of Sectra integrates seamlessly with regional and provincial digital imaging options. This will forestall pointless duplicate testing that may additional delay analysis and remedy.

Meanwhile, groups at Niagara Health will be capable to use Sectra to entry and migrate over pictures completed elsewhere in Ontario from way back to 2010. They’ll be capable to view these archived pictures inside minutes somewhat than having to attend days like with the earlier digital imaging system.

“It was always a struggle to obtain prior examinations to do a comparison,” Dr. Mehta says. “Without these prior studies, it would be hard for the radiologist to know if there were changes in a patient’s condition or if things stabilized.”

The change to Sectra is a part of Niagara Health’s digital technique, aimed toward enhancing the affected person expertise. It comes after listening to affected person suggestions, Dr. Dobranowski says.

“We’re trying to improve quality, patient outcomes, and the patient experience,” he says. “That’s the driver of this change.”

Patient partner Catherine Bourque is worked up by Sectra’s potential.

Bourque has been receiving remedy for most cancers at Niagara Health since 2015. She is aware of how essential high-quality diagnostic imaging, thorough, standardized reporting, and early analysis are to a affected person’s healthcare journey.

With physicians in Niagara, Mississauga and Toronto, she’s additionally grateful Sectra’s digital archives might be accessible to medical doctors wherever in Ontario, decreasing repeat checks, which creates extra stress for sufferers and might expose them to extra radiation.

“I know the danger of delayed diagnoses and I’ve decided that’s never going to happen to me again,” Bourque says. “Information is power. Anything that makes diagnostics more accessible and easy to understand, I’m all for.”