December 15, 2011 – McKesson today announced the successful deployment of its market-leading medical imaging solution at the first four of 35 hospitals in Ireland as part of an exclusive partnership with the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE). Beaumont Hospital, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Sligo General Hospital and Waterford Regional Hospital are among the first to roll out McKesson's Horizon Medical Imaging picture archiving communications system (PACS) and radiology imaging system (RIS) as part of HSE's National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) initiative.
NIMIS is the world's largest integrated medical imaging project designed to move Ireland to advanced digital technology. Using McKesson's solutions will help ensure that all 3.5 million radiology studies performed each year in Ireland are available to clinicians at any time and in all locations for greater efficiency, safety and more accountable patient care. When NIMIS is complete, Ireland will have one of the most advanced and integrated radiology IT infrastructures in the world.
“PACS and radiology information systems (RIS) are at the heart of the modern radiology department,” said Niall Sheehy, M.D., lead radiologist for NIMIS. “NIMIS will bring PACS/RIS to all public hospitals in Ireland and enable electronic image-sharing between them.”
Not only have the hospitals already experienced a significant reduction in radiology report turnaround times -- from up to two weeks to 30 minutes -- but the project also is the foundation for a national image archive.
Like many countries, Ireland had already begun the steps toward automation. In fact, one quarter of Irish hospitals have a PACS system where images are captured, stored and examined. However, without a centralized architecture, all existing PACS in Ireland acted in isolation with no sharing of images or patient data between facilities. Patients transferred or sent for second opinions required film packets or images stored on CD.
With McKesson's Horizon Medical Imaging, a single solution is being deployed across the country to link all public hospitals and standardize care through a central database that will serve as
a national image archive. As a result, when patients are examined at any public hospital or outpatient clinic in Ireland, their entire imaging history will be immediately available to the clinical team, minimizing errors and accelerating decision-making.
McKesson also is implementing 3-D and advanced visualization, research tools and electrocardiography for cardiology that integrate with Horizon Medical Imaging. In addition, a voice recognition system will permit immediate digital dictation, transcription and distribution of radiologists’ reports.
“With McKesson and representative hospitals from across Ireland, we invested the time upfront to create a central design methodology that standardized our implementation process,” said Neil O’Hare, professor and HSE NIMIS project lead. “This methodology helped to ensure success at each of our go-lives and allowed us to deploy the multiple sites in a short period of time.”
In addition to technology, McKesson offers a wide range of industry-leading services designed to help radiologists maximize the value of their image management solutions. For example, its storage service provides full disaster recovery with archiving in a single solution, helping providers eliminate expenses associated with storage, administration costs and hardware obsolescence.
“Imaging deployments can be complex and costly, but that isn’t the case with McKesson,” added O'Hare. “With McKesson, we get a digital imaging solution that is not just for radiology but includes specialties such as cardiology, vascular surgery, obstetrics and mammography.”
McKesson will roll out Horizon Medical Imaging at the remaining hospitals over the next twenty months. Five hospitals in the Northeast region will round out the first phase of implementations. The second phase will include Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Naas General Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital in Dublin.
For more information: www.mckesson.com
May 01, 2024 
