Image Sharing Critical To Patient Outcomes

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

A peer60 survey found two-thirds of providers believe image sharing - such as in the case of radiological images - is critical to driving quality patient outcomes.

Image sharing has been a problem in the past with data stored on CDs and exchanged physically, but as peer60 explains, “Existing technology is enabling vendors to provide cloud-based solutions that makes image sharing a whole new experience. The downside is there are a number of different technology options that don’t play nice with one another and the marketplace has not yet settled on one solution. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for vendors as they pry healthcare’s cold hard grip on CDs.”

peer60’s latest survey asked nearly 600 providers their opinions on image sharing. While the majority of respondents said image sharing was invaluable, one in six still use outdated technology, such as CDs, as their way of sharing.

Fierce Health IT reports respondents were also asked to list the hospital departments with the greatest need for image sharing technology. Ninety six percent said radiology departments, 78 percent said orthopedics, 75 percent said trauma, 64 percent said oncology, 63 percent said cardiology, 63 percent answered neurosurgery, and 53 percent said neurology.

Ideal technologies to handle image sharing were:

• 68 percent PACS Vendor
• 68 percent cloud network
• 31 percent VNA vendor
• 20 percent stand-alone image sharing vendor
• 17 percent CD exchange
• 3 percent other

“We found an interesting anomaly in conducting this study. Vendors that provide an image-sharing solution as their only offering were not viewed as the ideal fit by most health systems,” said Jeremy Bikman, CEO in a statement. “However, Nuance, a stand-alone image-sharing vendor leads in both mind and market share.”