Carestream Health launches latest RIS

The latest version of Carestream Health’s RIS promises significant new features, including role-based configurability to suit different users and a low glare mode to stop the RIS screen distracting radiologists as they focus on medical images.

The new RIS, launched high above London at the Gherkin skyscraper, is version 11 of the system and has been designed with an emphasis on scalability at an organisational level and ease of customisation for individual users.

Carestream’s UK MD, Charlie McCaffery, told E-Health Insider that the plan was to roll out version 11 in the UK at end of 2009 and in the first quarter of 2010. The first UK implementation is scheduled to be at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.

“Customers in the UK on refresh agreements will get the new version when they are ready for it,” he explained.

Outside the UK, the first site up and running with the v11 RIS is in Viborg, Denmark. Gouda in the Netherlands is also under implementation; and Lingen will be the first site in Germany, though the installation is not completed yet.

Discussing the new version’s configurability, McCaffery said: “Time and time again we hear customers say they want to configure [the system] to match their work. They say they have similar graphic user interfaces (GUIs) across all their roles and that’s not what they want.”

Version 11 is colour-coded for different roles and offers different views of the system to different users according to their needs.

For example, a person managing bookings will have a screen configured to arrange appointments quickly for patients, while radiologists will have easy access to areas of the system they use most.

Another feature created to help radiologists is the ability to give the screen what McCaffery described as “more grey, monotone look” to stop the clinician being distracted from images they are examining on other screens in the reporting room.

McCaffery said the new version’s scalability also meant that it could be installed in settings ranging in size from a private clinic right up to a confederation of hospitals.

“You just buy what you need,” he said. Version 11 is web-enabled and McCaffery predicted this would save time for IT support staff who would not have to spend time loading client apps.

For users , the new version promises reduced complexity in information sharing, in particular, the ability to collaborate seamlessly across multiple sites and multiple clinical specialties.

Link: Carestream Health