Bidirectional integration successfully incorporated into an RIS system.
The Clinique Saint-Jean in Brussels has 558 beds and 1,400 staff members over three sites (Botanique, Méridien and Léopold I). It offers a full range of physical and mental health services. It has a cardiac surgery unit, radiotherapy facilities, neurosurgery unit and a maternity department in which there are over 2,200 deliveries annually.
In 2007, Clinique Saint-Jean chose the Telemis PACS system. This collaboration has gone from strength to strength. Telemis has provided expertise not just in radiology but in various applications in cardiology, radiotherapy, vascular ultrasound, operating theatre imaging and nuclear medicine.
-Dr Christian Venet
The Clinique Saint-Jean has recently updated its RIS system, adopting a more powerful and accurate version. SBIM (the Belgian Medical Informatics Society) suggested the new MEDES software (Medical Efficient Solutions) for this purpose. Implementing this system at Clinique Saint-Jean and integrating it with the Telemis PACS system was a pilot project for SBIM.
The challenge was to migrate the old RIS system to the new framework, while maintaining flawless integration with the Telemis PACS system. For over nine years, the Telemis-Medical image management system has been used daily for acquiring, storing, archiving and using radiology images for diagnostic purposes.
Flexible integration
In integrating the new system with the existing one, the main priorities for Telemis were to respect existing users’ habits and the multi-site nature of the Clinique Saint-Jean. PACS functionalities and configurations, which had been added piecemeal as part of eight different upgrades, had to be preserved, while leaving the way open for new possibilities. “The system is designed to be adaptable to various requirements coming from all radiology services.” said Dr Christian Venet, head of the Radiology department at Clinique Saint-Jean.
Processes that are simple... from the user’s side
The front-end integration was reviewed to make the job easier and reduce the number of operations required to move between files. One example is automatic retrieval of the end of the RIS summary in the PACS system. This gives a diagnostic indication to clinicians in the shortest possible time. This simplicity of process and powerful integration has led to the excellent results this project has achieved.
A fruitful collaboration
With this combined PACS expertise with RIS knowledge, radiologists now have access to a solution that is entirely appropriate for the Belgian market, with clear synergies between the two solutions, thanks to twelve years of joint working.
20/07/2016