HEARTLAB INTEGRATES 44 CARDIAC ULTRASOUND SYSTEMS AT NINE DIFFERENT CUSTOMER SITES THIS QUARTER
The Encompass digital echo lab solution to manage more than 60,000 digital echocardiograms a year among the nine sites
- Press release
- WESTERLY, RI
- October 31, 2001 08:58
Heartlab, Inc. completed the integration of 44 cardiac ultrasound systems
Heartlab, Inc. completed the integration of 44 cardiac ultrasound systems into its new Encompass solution for echocardiography at nine different customer sites this past quarter. A fully integrated digital echo lab solution, the Encompass system will manage more than 60,000 echocardiography exams per year among the sites, based on Oracle, DVD and web client workstation technologies. The hospitals include:
· Gwinnett Medical Center, Lawrenceville, GA
· Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT
· Methodist Healthcare, Memphis, TN
· Miriam Hospital, Providence, RI
· Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI
· Shands Healthcare AGH, Gainesville, FL
· South Austin Hospital, Austin, TX
· St. Francis Hospital, The Heart Center, Roslyn, NY
· Valley Children's Hospital, Madera, CA
"Heartlab's digital technology preserves the high-quality images of today's ultrasound equipment," says Alan S. Katz, MD, director of medical information technology at St. Francis Medical Center. " One of Heartlab's strengths is their capacity for high-volume storage with quick access to images. We perform more than 10,000 echocardiograms a year and we wanted fast access to them. Heartlab offers that to us.
"We selected Heartlab's Encompass network system because we were very happy with the image quality and support of their angiography system," Katz continues. "The echocardiography technology is fully integrated with the cath lab system, so we can store images on the same server, and view them on the same software and review stations."
According to Carl Owada, MD, director of cardiac catheterization at Valley Children's Hospital, "We were absolutely, totally satisfied with the capabilities of our first Heartlab system. Encompass represents the next step in the digital evolution of pediatric cardiology.
"Now, with ultrasound as well as angiography archived in the same place, I can pull up studies with no delay and review them whether I'm in the cath lab or my office," he says. "Without question, this contributes to better patient care. Before, I'd have to go to the lab, find the right tape, cue it, and fast-forward to find maybe ten seconds of tape I needed in order to prep a patient for a cardiac cath. Now I simply go to the computer, pull up the study, view the images I need, and I'm ready to go."
Heartlab's Encompass is the industry's leading multi-modality, cardiac data management system that is based on DVD and Oracle DBMS technology. It connects to all major cardiac x-ray and Ultrasound systems using the industry-standard DICOM, creating a central repository of digital images from multiple modalities together with the associated reports. The Encompass Report System for Echocardiography provides a seamlessly integrated clinical results reporting system, based on the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) recommendations for echo report elements.
"With Encompass, hospitals have the flexibility to purchase a system for both cardiac x-ray and ultrasound, or x-ray only, and then add ultrasound capabilities as their needs grow and change," explains Dean Terry, Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing. "We take an integrated approach to delivering cardiac data management solutions so our customers can protect their hardware and network investments while maintaining the ability to add technological features as new system capabilities develop, or as their clinical needs change."
Using Heartlab's diagnostic review stations, clinicians can have instantaneous access to several thousand diagnostic cardiac catheterization or echocardiography cases stored on the Encompass Enterprise Server, and access in less than 30 seconds to cases stored on the Encompass DVD Image Archive. In addition, secure LAN, WAN or Internet access is also available so clinicians can reference patient data from any PC with a Web browser.
Heartlab's DVD archive is about ten times faster than competing technologies, with scaleable capacity to store from 3,600 to more than 70,000 cases. Retrieval times are about 30 seconds for DVDs, versus five to nine minutes with tape.
Founded in 1994 and based in Westerly, RI, Heartlab, Inc. specializes in the development of cardiac imaging software and the integration of cardiac imaging network systems. Today, Heartlab's networks are installed in more than 114 of the nation's leading heart centers, and the company's cardiac archiving systems manage a volume of more than 850,000 patient cases. Heartlab is ranked #242 on the current Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing firms, the only company of its kind to make the 2001 list. For more information about Heartlab, visit www.heartlab.com or call (401) 596-0592.