Agfa HealthCare’s IMPAX PACS reliably manages huge imaging volume at renowned teaching hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA

Staff handling of multi-modality imaging improved by over 25 percent at Massachusetts General Hospital

Founded in 1811, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston is one of America's oldest and most highly regarded medical institutions. It's also among the largest, with nearly 900 beds, a sizeable downtown main campus, and eight satellite facilities throughout the greater Boston area. Imaging volume within MGH's Radiology department is enormous. More than 2,000 exams are performed daily resulting in over 250,000 digital images requiring importation and distribution throughout the enterprise day and night. For longer than a decade, MGH has relied on Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) and related technology to support the efficient, flawless management, distribution, integration, display and archiving of these images.

Rich in history and technology

The history of Boston is the history of America. The nation's quest for independence began here. Settled in 1630 and incorporated in 1822, Boston is America's oldest major city, the most populous city in the State of Massachusetts, and the largest urban area in the region called New England. Current population in the metropolitan area exceeds 4.5 million.
MGH was founded in 1811, making it America's third oldest hospital. When opened, it was the teaching hospital of Harvard University Medical School, and it remains affiliated with Harvard today. Like most hospitals in the early 19th century, MGH was originally intended to serve indigent populations.
While still committed to that legacy, MGH today draws patients of all backgrounds from throughout North America thanks to its long-standing reputation for advancing medical practice and technology. Imaging innovation goes back to the time of Roentgen. Some of the world's first X-ray exams were performed by MGH in 1896, just one year after Röntgen's famous discovery.

Immense in size, staff and scope

With more than 70 board-certified radiologists and support professionals in the hundreds, everything about radiology at MGH is immense. The Radiology department has gained particular distinction for subspecialty experience in thoracic imaging, neuroradiology, musculoskeletal radiology, gastrointestinal and genitourinary imaging, paediatric, interventional and emergency radiology, breast imaging and nuclear medicine.

More than 600,000 radiology exams are performed annually on a wide range of digital modalities including CT, MRI, PETCT, NM, US, DR and Digital Mammography. There are approximately 300 PACS users spread throughout the main campus and eight satellite locations employing 150 diagnostic/clinical workstations and 100 voice recognition units. The off-site facilities are in outlying suburbs of Chelsea, Waltham and Revere, some as far as 15 miles from the main campus. All this presents a colossal challenge for the department's Informatics team, consisting of 19 full-time professionals led by Kevin Conway, Director of Radiology Informatics.

"As a multi-site teaching hospital that continually needs radiology support, the imaging never stops," says Conway. "The challenge to keep all PACS functions up and running smoothly, with no backlogs, delays or compromised quality, falls on me and my team."

For more than a decade, Conway's physically dispersed department has counted on Agfa HealthCare's IMPAX PACS solutions to reliably manage, distribute, and display digital images. Their recently upgraded IMPAX software from Agfa HealthCare delivers further efficiencies and reliability in supporting these functions.

Connectivity and standards compliance improve quality and efficiency

"Agfa HealthCare's system's ability to accommodate the latest, high-quality 16-bit data standard from our various scanners is especially valuable," Kevin Conway says. "This feature, along with overall efficiency gains exceeding 25 percent from the new software, is critical to today's stability and tomorrow's growth, especially concerning importing and distributing studies to hundreds of workstations."

The colossal scale of imaging puts immense pressure on Kevin Conway and his Radiology Informatics team. Performance reliability of IMPAX is crucial to MGH's success as an imaging leader.

"The IMPAX system is a stable and dependable platform that consistently meets the critical needs of our department day and night," adds Conway. "It handles large bursts of data superbly, even during peak usage when it seems every workstation is optimally engaged, and provides radiologists with performance to spare."

Kevin Conway concludes, "While there are always ways to fine-tune workstation features, functionality and interoperability, the benefit I need most and dependably get from the IMPAX system is reliable performance and excellent service. This is not negotiable in an operation of this size and complexity. Trustworthy performance is the key attribute that makes us all sleep better at night.