Ascendian Healthcare Consulting

As Featured in Diagnostic and Inverventional Cardiology Magazine

By Val Kapitula and Jen Ireland, Ascendian Healthcare Consulting

Today’s healthcare is changing in many ways and so are the processes, technology and people delivering the extremely complex cardiology procedures and services. There are multiple biomedical and technical advances that are proving to optimize patient care. With declining budgets and reimbursements, healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to develop effective ways of improving efficiency and reducing costs, while maintaining high levels of patient care. Cardiology picture archiving and communication systems (CPACS) and cardiovascular information systems (CVIS) provide considerable benefits to health systems when successfully implemented.

Comparing CPACS vs. CVIS

CPACS, similar to radiology PACS, mainly focus on storage and retrieval of cardiology-centric images. However, one of the key differentiators with CPACS is its ability to support DICOM structure reporting (DICOM SR) for echocardiography (echo) measurements, which is not available through the conventional radiology PACS. In terms of dataflow, CPACS will receive an in-bound HL7 order with patient demographics from upstream information management systems, and once the images are acquired from the imaging modalities via DICOM modality work list (DMWL), they are profiled against the order and stored in CPACS for further distribution, viewing and long-term archive...

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Press Release - Ascendian Healthcare Consulting

Ascendian Healthcare Consulting, a national healthcare IT consultancy, has partnered with Sentara Healthcare to drive increased optimization across the organization’s Enterprise Clinical Imaging operations. Underlying the initiative is the utilization of a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) solution along with efficiencies gained through transformation of processes, workflow and technological advancements.

Sentara is harnessing enterprise medical data and deploying a system that gives physicians and medical professionals access to image data across its sites in Virginia and North Carolina. Integration and interoperability are keys to Sentara’s expansive operations and the management, storage and distribution of digital medical images as well as other clinical content across its healthcare and hospital systems.

“Before engaging Ascendian we treated the VNA as an application project,” said Trent Conwell, Technical Manager – Integration Architecture at Sentara.   “With the expertise that Ascendian brings to the table we now have a comprehensive view of what we call Sentara’s Enterprise Imaging Strategy.  This strategy has given our team the knowledge and structure to focus on each of the components necessary to achieve Sentara’s enterprise imaging goals.”

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As Featured in AHRA's LINK Magazine

Radiation safety entered the limelight after the multiple radiation overexposure incidents in California from 2008-2009. Increased media attention on patient safety requirements has helped spread radiation awareness. The general population began questioning their safety from a substance they could not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. California was the first to regulate radiation dose from CT scans, and now Texas has done the same (effective May 1, 2013). It has been nine months since the California radiation dose safety mandate took effect (mandated July 1, 2012). Many healthcare providers outside of California may be facing a similar mandate in the future and today they are developing their own internal radiation safety programs (moving from departmental to enterprise) and are looking to California for advice.

To demystify California’s response to the mandate, initiative was taken to discuss radiation safety with one of the largest integrated delivery networks in California, Sutter Health. A Q&A session was held with Jack Dobbins, Assistant Radiology Manager at Sutter Memorial Medical Center (MMC) in Modesto, CA, who is responsible for the institution’s radiation safety measures. We discussed the organization’s reaction and response to the California Radiation Dose Safety mandate SB1237, which centered around three pillars of radiation safety:

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As Featured in DOTmed Magazine

Since last summer, California’s 2,500 to 3,000 radiologists have been doing things a bit differently. On July 1, the California dose-reporting law (SB-1237) went into effect. Among other things, it requires radiologists to report the radiation dose from CT scans in patients’ reports. This means reporting the computed tomography index volume (CTDI vol) and doselength product (DLP), clipping the unit’s protocol page onto the interpretive report, and sending the data straight to PACS, if the machine is able to do that.

The rest of the country might follow California’s lead. While the Golden State is, so far, the only one with the dose-reporting statute, legislatures and health departments in the other 49 have been looking over the bill, according to Neil Singh, a consultant with Ascendian Healthcare. “We know that all of the other states have asked for a copy of the California mandate,” he tells DOTmed News. “(Nothing’s) out in stone yet, but it’s coming.”

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As Featured in imagingBiz Magazine

Many radiology administrators remember purchasing their first or second PACS: It was probably no small financial commitment, and justifying the expense might have been a painful process. Just as those older PACS began to collect a little dust—not to mention massive archives—the vendor-neutral archive (VNA) came creeping into the picture. Skeptical equipment purchasers naturally want to know: Why VNAs—and why now?

Jonathan Shoemaker, senior consultant at Ascendian Health Care Consulting, has heard these questions before; their answers stem, in part, from what radiology and cardiology PACS were not designed to do, he says. Software engineers created PACS to run in a structured environment, to address the workflow of radiology and cardiology departments, and to digitize analog processes.

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