Software

Mercy Technology Services Launches Cloud-Based Imaging Solution

The all-encompassing picture archiving system has cut radiologists' report turnaround time by up to 50 percent at Mercy Health.

Juliet Van Wagenen

Juliet is the senior web editor for BizTech and HealthTech magazines. In her six years as a journalist she has covered everything from aerospace to indie music reviews — but she is unfailingly partial to covering technology.

Mercy Technology Services, the IT arm of 40-plus hospital system Mercy Health, has launched a new picture archiving communication system (PACS) imaging solution, with the aim to improve on aging and often fragmented imaging systems.

The Software as a Service system calls on server-side image processing, a workflow orchestrator that auto-coordinates radiologists' worklists and speech recognition and reporting tech from Nuance to create an all-encompassing solution, according to a press release. Mercy has already integrated this system into several its own care facilities, including its emergency and orthopedics departments where it supports point-of-care ultrasound, uniting "nine legacy PACS systems down to a single, integrated solution," which has improved report turnaround time by up to 50 percent.

“Mercy’s is a solution built by busy radiologists for busy radiologists, and they’re thrilled with it,” Steve Bollin, Mercy’s vice president of radiology support services, says in the statement. “We were bogged down before. Now, having everything together and instantly viewable with the click of a button — all prior studies, all modalities — means radiologists aren’t waiting and neither are patients.”

The PACS solution is positioned in MTS' own cloud solution, which it launched earlier this year in partnership with VMware, with the aim to extend a provider-focused healthcare cloud option to organizations that couldn't otherwise afford it.

“As a health care provider, we know how critical it is to use technology resources wisely,” says Gil Hoffman, Mercy’s CIO, in the statement.