Ireland’s National Health Service Selects QICS for Radiology Quality Improvement Programme

In the first national programme of its kind, McKesson Qualitative Intelligence and Communication System (QICS) has been selected to provide an ICT solution to support Ireland’s national Health Service Executive as part of the implementation of the National Quality Improvement Programme in Radiology.

The National QI Programme is sponsored by the Quality Improvement Division (QID) of the Health Service Executive and led by the Faculty of Radiologists and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (RCPI).

The initiative aims to improve patient care with improved accuracy of diagnoses. The solution will be deployed at 46 of the nation’s hospitals performing a total of almost four million exams annually.

“QICS will help radiologists to turn what had largely been a manual and paper-based process into an automated and seamless electronic workflow,” said Dr Jennifer Martin of the QID.

“By capturing, analysing and acting on the data stored in the radiological images, we can further advance the strides we have made in communication, care delivery, efficiency and patient safety.”

We are very excited to be involved in helping Ireland’s national Health Service Executive in realising its commitment to a national radiology quality improvement programme

The rollout of QICS to the nation’s public hospitals will enable Ireland to set intelligent national targets for consultant radiologists to drive improvements. Additionally, it will track and evaluate consults between physicians, including the identification and tracking of specific critical, urgent and significant findings and the time-sensitive transmission of these reports to other consultants.

By converting findings into an electronic format, physicians will be able to share results with colleagues while mapping statistical trends. Additionally, the National QI Programme plans to create targets for quality metrics for the most-common QI workflows; radiology quality improvement meeting management, peer review, and critical results communications.

“We are very excited to be involved in helping Ireland’s national Health Service Executive in realising its commitment to a national radiology quality improvement programme,” said Erkan Akyuz, president of McKesson Imaging & Workflow Solutions.

“The commitment by the healthcare professional at both the national and local level is a testimony to its dedication to providing high-quality healthcare to the citizens of Ireland.”

The first hospital, University Hospital Waterford, went live with QICS in June 2014.

Dr Anthony Ryan, consultant interventional radiologist at the hospital and chairman of the Faculty of Radiologists QA/PCS committee and the radiology working group of the National QI programme, said: “The software is excellent; its use fitting seamlessly into our workflow. From a patient care perspective, it allows us to document our reviews of each other’s work and discuss differences of radiological opinion that could potentially alter a patient’s management. The ability to issue and track alerts, relaying critical results to other consultants immediately, is a further key patient care feature.”

Sixteeen hospitals are currently live and the rollout process will continue throughout 2015.

This latest project is the extension of a long-standing relationship between the Irish health service and McKesson. The company is the national provider for Ireland’s National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and radiology information system (RIS). NIMIS is a national effort for transforming the delivery of radiology services by implementing advanced medical technology at hospitals to help ensure patients are receiving the best diagnostic solutions available during treatment.