Accenture helps NHS radiologists exchange medical images in the cloud
Cloud-based RIS system deployed across five hospitals and 23 health facilities in South West
Accenture has completed the deployment of a cloud-based Radiology Information System (RIS) for five hospitals and 23 facilities within NHS trusts in the South West.
Using Accenture Clinical Services, the new platform enables clinicians to store, access and exchange patient and diagnostic information from virtually anywhere over a highly-secure infrastructure.
The deployment project - from signing contracts to going live - took just 10 weeks and included migration of data from the old systems to the new Accenture solution.
“The growing demand for imaging means that radiologists are confronted with increasing workloads and the challenge of processing larger amounts of data,” Matt Oakley, who leads Accenture's medical imaging practice in the UK and Ireland.
“As the NHS national IT contracts draw to a close, this cloud-based solution will enable clinicians across the region to share patient data, which can be crucial in urgent cases, such as stroke or major trauma. It also will enable trusts to concentrate on providing the best care to patients, rather than having to worry about maintaining an IT system.”
Accenture worked with Healthcare Software Systems (HSS) to deploy their RIS solution to enable radiologists and clinicians to securely share and manage patient diagnostic data, radiology reports, appointments and administrative functions with confidence. The new RIS solution replaces an existing system and is part of a five-year strategy.
“Our group of hospitals are undertaking a major replacement of the picture archiving and communications system (PACS) and RIS systems under an aggressive timetable in the lead up to the end of the national contracts,” said Andy Blofield, director of Plymouth ICT Shared.
The increasing demand for cloud computing in medical imaging is expected to grow by 26% annually through 2018, according to a recent Accenture survey. Roughly 73% of healthcare organisations are expected to shift medical imaging data into the cloud in some capacity, while 32% currently use some form of cloud computing for imaging, according to the findings. The shift from analogue to digital images has resulted in exponential growth in the amount of data that must be stored.