Diagnostic imaging is now easier in the North Country, thanks to a joint effort between Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization (FDRHPO), North Country Initiative (NCI), and their hospital partners.
Recently, regional hospitals and patients expressed difficulties sharing patient images, such as CT scans, mammographies, and x-rays, between medical offices.
Image sharing has been available through Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) along with other medical information. While HIEs can send imaging, larger radiology images require long transfer/download times and prohibit some files from being transmitted. Often, hospitals manually call or fax various radiology departments to request images, and/or ask patients to physically shepherd their images using a hard copy disk from one entity to another. These methods have been time (and potentially cost) intensive for both healthcare providers as well as patients and can add delays and frustrations in diagnostic care.
To address a need to streamline the process, FDRHPO & NCI worked with its Clinically Integrated Network of healthcare providers, to create an agreement that allows participating North Country healthcare entities to directly query and retrieve imaging using a solution called PowerShare Imaging Sharing.
Part of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, PowerShare Imaging Sharing is a cloud-based solution that allows medical professionals and patients to securely share medical images and reports instantaneously; diagnostic quality imaging is directly imported between medical facilities without the need to arrange and transport physical media such as DVDs or digital files.
“In such a system, multiple healthcare entities connect to the system and can manually request patient imaging from one another, or alternatively, groups of entities that interact regularly can set up a ‘direct query and retrieval’ function that allows them to directly retrieve needed patient images without a manual request process,” said North Country Initiative Deputy Director Joanna Loomis.
In November 2023, six entities entered into the agreement: Carthage Area Hospital, Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Clifton-Fine Hospital, Lewis County Health System, River Hospital, and Samaritan Medical Center.
“The regional imaging sharing project has had a substantial impact on care delivered to our patients in our community,” said Rob Pfeiffer, Director of Radiology at Lewis County Health System. “The ability to import and view imaging studies done at other facilities in the North Country has resulted in quicker, more accurate diagnosis while helping to lower the cost of healthcare.”
FDRHPO and NCI work across the healthcare spectrum with hundreds of partners to improve the health and wellness of all individuals living in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Counties. The need for an improved image-sharing strategy is one example of how FDRHPO and NCI leveraged resources and addressed identified gaps through collaborative work with North Country healthcare professionals, to ensure a high-quality, patient-centric regional healthcare system.
To date, over 10,000 images have been shared throughout the network of local hospitals from its start in January 2024 to August 31, 2024.
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