Program targets at contemporary advance image sharing

In the late 2015 year, the Radiological Society of North America cooperated with The Sequoia Project, an industry collaboration to advance secure HIE (health information exchange), to initiate a program motivating the electronic exchange of advance image sharing and related crucial diagnostic reports.

The aim of the advance image sharing or Image Share Validation program is to test vendors’ execution of standards for medical imaging established by DICOM and IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) that determine clinicians to share pictures and reports and offer sufferers control over their own data, claims Chris Carr, director of informatics at RSNA. The Sequoia Project will administer this advance program.

Pilot testing or experimenting is underway with several 8 vendors’ involvement in the initial cycle. While Carr claims the program won’t issue the identity of participating vendors until testing is done, one vendor, Lexmark Healthcare, has already declared its participation.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering is supporting the pilot to enable radiology locations or sites to share pictures and reports with sufferers through personal health records accounts given by 2 vendors, DICOM Grid and lifeIMAGE. Both industries further have devoted to incorporating standards into their commercial items.

The network presently has twelve active provider sites, involving hospital radiology sites, standalone radiology practices, and physician practices.

As of the day August 5, over 26,000 sufferers have utilized Image Share to get images and reports, in accordance to Carr. The project targets to not merely boost patients, but also decrease duplicate medical imaging examinations.

Vendors victoriously completing testing in the Image Share Validation program will get an RSNA Image Share Network validation mark that they can showcase for promotional intentions.

Present funding of the pilot project continues through the year of March 2017, with the target of having a business continuity policy in place to enable the network to be self-supporting.

With the help of advance image sharing or Image Share seeking to become a national network, there are various delivery systems, statewide and regional networks already functioning that could decide to engage, Carr points out.

He appreciates that incentives for sharing data aren’t always clear and that few providers might be slow in adopting such practices due to uncertainties concerns like security and patient retention, but he points out the overall trend, fueled by accountable care and value-based reimbursement, is toward higher data sharing.

“Networks will form where there is a proven business requirement among a cluster of sites and now, utilizing standards-based image sharing, these networks can link to other networks,” he claims.