GE Healthcare unveils Universal Viewer

GE Healthcare has launched a Universal Viewer in response to demand for more mobile and web-based solutions.

Karen Senior, GE Healthcare IT UK and Ireland sales manager, said: “Using the Universal Viewer, a radiologist no longer has to move around workstations to carry out specialist adaptations to the images.

“There’s been a huge push from our UK customers for web-based solutions, and integrated advanced applications. They’ve been telling us this for a long time.”

The viewer was launched at the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) annual conference this week, but the company will be offering it to UK customers.

At the launch, the company said the viewer brought together “advanced visualisation, intelligent productivity tools, and multi-modality workflow for oncology and breast imaging” within a single workspace that can be accessed anywhere, at any time.

It is designed to work with the company’s Centricity PACs, Centricity PACS-IW, and Centricity Clinical Archive.

GE Healthcare added that the viewer will reduce costs because trusts will no longer need to buy multiple advanced application servers for different modalities.

Powered by the GE Healthcare AW server, the Universal Viewer has 28 computer aided diagnosis applications ported into the PACS workflow. These are downloaded in a smart hanging protocol.

Senior explained: “If a user usually requires a specialist reading format to review a case, then it is automatically available on their desktop. It is all found in one location, which is a huge advance.”

For example, an oncologist could size a tumour, and could categorise growth lines using different applications to visualise the tumour. The technology can also perform advanced vessel analysis, auto bone removal and registration.

“It’s an upgrade to the existing PACS,” Senior said. “Globally, we have a blend of different PACS solutions out there- this viewer sits on any existing PACS. This is a natural upgrade path- not a rip and strip.”

Further development of the Universal Viewer is an ongoing process and will involve active customer input.

GE Healthcare uses a review process called Sprint review, which involves a fortnightly conference call between the developers and customers to assess the pros and cons of the user or radiologist experience.

“The developers walk the users through the product features and the users provide feedback which is then incorporated into further development of the product,” said Senior.

“We want it to work with them – this has enabled us to develop this solution within a tight timeframe and to our customers’ requirements regarding workflow.”