“The
service that we received, and continue to receive, from Medcon
and Equipmed is very impressive. The assistance we received
from Medcon to customise the report templates was excellent
and the ongoing dial-in support we receive from both Medcon
and Equipmed here in Australia cannot be faulted.”
Kym
Batt, the Practice Manager,
Dr
Alan Appelbe (Cardiologist), Dr Elizabeth Ryan(Cardiologist)
Equipmed recently assisted Victoria’s largest regional health
care provider, Barwon Health, to implement a new state of the art
Cardiac Image and Information Management System by Medcon for Geelong
Cardiology Practice.
The Medcon system has
substantially improved image and data management for Geelong Cardiology
Practice, and has given the organization an excellent platform from
which to further enhance its computer and IT systems.
Barwon
Health is Victoria’s largest regional healthcare provider.
Through its extensive range of services and programs, it provides
general and specialist hospital, rehabilitation, residential and
community services for over 90% of the Geelong community, and to
an increasing number of residents across the Barwon South- Western
region.
The
Challenge
Barwon Health and, in
particular, Geelong Cardiology Practice, needed to upgrade its echocardiography
and Cath Lab equipment due to the age of some of that equipment.
Geelong Hospital has two Cath Labs, one manufactured by Philips
(Flat Panel) and one by Toshiba. The labs are housed in two different
buildings and had to be networked to facilitate image management
and archiving. Echocardiography is conducted at five different sites,
from Werribee to Colac, some 150 kilometers apart. It is therefore
important that Echo exams performed at sites outside of Geelong
Hospital be easily downloaded into one central image storage and
reporting system.
Selecting a supplier
Geelong Cardiology Practice
evaluated a number of suppliers before selecting the Medcon Telemedicine
Technology solution presented by Equipmed. Factors that influenced
the decision to accept
Equipmed’s integrated hardware and software solution were
product maturity, customizability and cross-platform support.
The
Medcon system includes:
• 4 x multimodality
workstations offering powerful network review capabilities for the
Cath & Echo Labs, as well as for additional cardiac modalities,
which include diagnostic DICOM viewing, report generation, advanced
image processing, digital subtraction and professional quantitative
analysis, along with built-in telecardiology.
• 2 x Cath Reporting
software modules are seamlessly integrated into the Medcon environment
and database. They run a clinical database and integrate images
and analysis results with hemodynamic information.
• 8 x Echo Reporting
software modules enable rapid generation of clinical comments, measurements,
calculations, wall motion scoring and a final summary report. Echo
Reporting runs a clinical database and integrates Medcon images
and analysis results.
• Unlimited web-based
viewings are accessible throughout the Geelong Hospital using the
existing network, or from anywhere outside the hospital using a
secure connection over the Internet.
