August 30, 2018 — New South Wales, Australia’s Newborn and pediatric Emergency Transport Service (NETS) recently upgraded its Enterprise Image Repository (EIR) to deliver diagnostic-quality image access to the NETS network for 24/7 emergency transport of emergency pediatric cases.
In New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state that is bigger than Texas, there are 254 hospitals to serve its population of nearly 8 million. However, among these hospitals only 10 have neonatal intensive care capacity and only three have pediatric intensive care capacity. To solve this care gap, in 1979 the state established NETS to provide 24/7 emergency transport of emergency pediatric cases to Sydney Children’s Hospital or other locations.
Today, 40 years later, NETS has evolved into a service that, in addition to transport, also provides diagnosis, discussion and consultation on emergency pediatric cases with remotely located clinicians. Image access is critical to the delivery of these services.
"The low-resolution quality of images held within the previous version of the EIR was problematic for NETS… [C]onsultants were unable to rely on the content for diagnostic purposes. The introduction of DICOM-quality images is a massive leap forward for the EIR," explained Andrew Barry, M.D., of NETS.
The new image viewer from Calgary Scientific runs via Internet browsers as well as on mobile devices.This makes it possible for clinicians located anywhere within NSW to collaborate on patient cases while viewing images on EIR’s centralized image database from a laptop or PC. The image viewer also runs on Android and Apple mobile devices connected to NSW's secure Wi-Fi service.
"The ability for clinicians to collaborate and view the same images in real time is enhancing the decision making process, which is a great outcome for patients and families," said Kendall Hockey, manager of NSW's Clinical Repository and Integration Services.
Access to diagnostic-quality images enables consulting clinicians to make a diagnosis without requiring a transfer and eliminates the need for repeat imaging for patients that are transferred. As a result, since the image viewing tool went live in February 2018, NSW's Health Ministry has seen a significant reduction in costs related to repeat imaging and expensive unneeded transfers.
For more information: www.calgaryscientific.com
April 16, 2024 
