December 2, 2013 — The New South Wales statewide image repository, powered by TeraMedica’s Evercore vendor neutral archive (VNA), has been recognized with the Australian Premier’s Award for Public Service. The project, managed by government agency HealthShare NSW, was selected for superiority in the Public Sector category for Improving Performance and Accountability. Installation is being divided into phases to help enable immediate access to patient imaging exams and reports across all public hospitals included in one of the world’s largest health imaging exchanges (HIEs).
The solution provides for an efficient and effective means for transmitting medical images and reports between facilities. This improves patient care and service while significantly reducing costs of repeated tests, unnecessary patient transfers and manual data sharing. The solution is the only one known to provide for a true picturing archiving and communication system (PACS)-to-PACS and radiology information system (RIS)-to-RIS sharing of images and reports without manual intervention or manipulation, in addition to image-enabling all electronic medical records (EMRs) located in the State.
The Premier’s Award encourages continual improvement of services and systems to promote more effective use of vendor resources. It encourages the adoption of excellent business and management practices to spur the growth of a culture of ongoing improvement, innovation, reform and change. This year’s six award winners were selected from among 330 nominees.
“TeraMedica’s advanced technology and dedicated team have been one of the main reasons behind the success of the New South Wales image repository,” said Joe Hughes, program manager, image repository project. “Everyone involved is extremely pleased that both the project and TeraMedica have achieved recognition through this prestigious award. TeraMedica has become part of our team and brought a significant commitment to the success of our project. The company’s selection from a pool of such highly qualified nominees for this award speaks volumes about its efforts on our behalf.” Hughes notes that he believes the New South Wales VNA ranks as one of the largest in the world in both number of images and level of integration involved.
In 2013, the Australian award focused in particular on the delivery of value and recognizes initiatives achieved within the state’s available capabilities and resources, providing the best value for monies expended.
TeraMedica has succeeded in consolidating and seamlessly sharing medical images across enterprise and local health district boundaries in approximately 60 hospitals and clinics. The implementation project is nearing completion and will connect more than 110 clinical facilities and numerous disparate imaging systems in an area as large as Texas. In all, the exchange will connect 10 different PACS and RIS solutions processing over 3 million imaging procedures annually for a patient population of more than 7 million. Additionally, nine different EMRs will be image-enabled through TeraMedica’s Univision universal viewer.
For more information: www.teramedica.com, www.rsna.org
