Radiology Solutions by Bluebird Medical
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Introduction
Blackbird is a comprehensive radiology solution designed by IntelMS (PTY) Ltd, the company behind the highly successful Bluebird product.
Digital imaging and especially multi-detector CT, has produced a revolution in radiology that, many argue, will fundamentally change the practice of medicine.
Problems
Accompanying this revolution has been a veritable explosion of imaging data.
New generations of imaging modalities no longer acquire a few hundred images per study – they acquire thousands.
This has created an expensive problem – how does one manage and share the avalanche of data produced by modern modalities (modalities which dramatically increase not only the number of images but also the amount of data per image). Radiology practices now, not only require slick and accessible image storage (PACS), but radiologists must be able to perform complicated analyses of mountains of complex data, quickly and accurately.
Such analysis mandates sophisticated workstations capable of complex post processing, workstations that until recently were prohibitively expensive.
All of the above need to be integrated with a radiology practice management system that includes electronic submission to medical aids (insurers).
The radiologist also needs efficient tools to construct reports and distribute those reports rapidly to referring doctors. Many referring doctors want those reports (and images) channeled into the same portal as their lab reports, referral notes and consultation reports (Bluebird).
Some sub-specialists require access to sophisticated post processing workstations and the practice that offers them this feature is likely to get their work.
Modality vendors often seduce practices into buying proprietary solutions that attempt to lock that practice into a particular vendor. The suggestion being that buying your modality, PACS and workstations from a single vendor ensures that they all play well together. Besides being expensive, this is often a temporary solution; modalities progress and you do not want to be forced by your PACS or RIS to limit your future choice of modality (such as your new 64 or, one day, 256 CT). Many legacy PACS’s are simply not volume ready!
Traditional, paper based workflow processes are being stretched in this era of digitalization. A good example is the dual entry of data, first in the RIS, then at the modality. Unfortunately, mistakes happen and the two sometimes do not match – this leads to orphaned images, which require time-consuming manual management. Ideally, radiology workflows should be digitalized and data-entry streamlined.
Most practices run a large book debt. Loss of that billing data (theft, fire, flood) can be catastrophic, yet the off-site backup of accounting data is often not well organized.
Management of all these IT solutions generally require expensive RIS / PACS administrators and the practice has to ensure IT coverage during vacation, sick leave etc.
How has IntelMS (Pty) has solved these problems?
BLACKBIRD is IntelMS’s turnkey radiology practice management and imaging solution, specifically designed to address these problems for South African radiologists.
Blackbird is standards based (DICOM, HL7, IDE) and, because there is no technology lock in, your investment is protected.
Blackbird provide’s the ability to receive, store, retrieve, display and post-process extremely large image studies.
Blackbird comprises a RIS, PACS, and multiple high-speed radiology workstations all integrated into the Bluebird web service. The latter allows referring physicians’ access to electronic reports and images. Bluebird also supplies full featured, yet inexpensive, post processing workstations for referring doctors who might wish to do their own post processing of axial images.
Blackbird’s RIS streamlines radiology workflow and with offsite back up protects the practice book debt from disaster.
Blackbird is a powerful, fast, easy to use, secure, yet surprisingly affordable, turnkey radiology solution, installed and managed by IntelMS (PTY) Ltd, the company behind the successful Bluebird product and a company trusted by doctors for more than a decade.
Perhaps best of all, Bluebird provides centralized IT management services so that the practice can concentrate on seeing patients.
Benefits
- Ability to manage large image sets very quickly.
- Improved patient satisfaction and improved patient care.
- Improved referrer satisfaction.
- The ability to do advanced imaging manipulation outside the radiology department (radiologist at home, neurosurgeon in theatre).
- Streamlined (paperless) workflow
- Increase productivity (radiologist, radiographer and billing department).
- Protection of practice investment.
Features
- Reliable. Blackbird’s ultra-reliable components (papyrus, openGL, VTK, DCMTK….) are combined in a way that enhances collective reliability.
- Efficient.
- Supported. IntelMS installs a turnkey solution, trains your staff, mans a help line and, on an ongoing basis, manages the IT plumbing. You get to drive the “Rolls Royce” of radiology and let our comprehensive support services worry about what lies under the bonnet.
- Scaleable. To ensure protection of your investment, Blackbird is scalable from the smallest to largest practice. To our knowledge, Blackbird is the only solution without limits (users, connections, studies, etc). Expandable storage starts with 10 terabytes, and is massively scaleable.
- Secure.
- Automated daily offsite back up of accounts receivable.
- Advanced radiology workstations.
- Efficient report and image distribution. Reports and images are immediately available to referring physicians (via Bluebird’s web service) at no additional cost.
- Sophisticated imaging tools are available for that part of your referral base that wishes to do their own post processing.
- Operational integrity – built in system checks, 24/7 remote system monitoring, automatic upgrades delivered over the Internet.
Company Values.
IntelMs (Pty) Ltd, the company behind Blackbird, is committed to:
- Reliability,
- Scaleable architecture,
- Ease of use
- Value.
IntelMS (Pty) Ltd, the company behind both Bluebird and Blackbird, excels in the design and implementation of radiology networking and is committed to building systems that set new standards in reliability.
Blackbird is thoughtfully designed, ultra-reliable and elegant, and should be your first choice for high performance medical imaging.
Going forward, we believe that imaging will be everything.
Good examples are virtual endoscopy and cardiovascular imaging.
It has become clear that cardiovascular imaging is enjoying major growth and technological advances. 256 CT will further disrupt old technology and legacy PACS systems.
In recent years, the concept of multimodality imaging has emerged coincident with advances in the newer technologies of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) and Coronary Computed Tomography (CCT).
Multimodality and hybrid imaging of the heart and blood vessels use several imaging technologies simultaneously (e.g. PET-CT and SPECT-CT).
Blackbird has been designed to take full advantage of these new technologies.
RIS
Blackbird’s RIS is a user friendly, radiology information system that supports the routine workflow of a typical South African radiology practice, while offering compelling features you will wonder how you did without.
These features include:
- Stability.
- To our knowledge, Blackbird is the only RIS to run on Apple’s stunning new Unix platform (although it also runs on Microsoft Windows!). It makes no sense to buy into Apple’s radiology workstations yet have a RIS that cannot run on those same workstations.
- Local billing system with EDI and Medprax integration.
- Integration with Bluebird’s electronic requisitions.
- Paper requisitions are scanned into the PACS on patient arrival.
- Incremental daily offsite backups (your book debt is important).
- Modality work list. Information from Blackbird is auto-entered into the modality, preventing dual data entry and minimizing mistakes.
- Radiographer work list optimizes the radiographer’s workflow.
- Structured reporting templates, built in dictation and state of the art voice recognition (using Dragon – the world’s most accurate voice recognition engine) is all integrated into the radiologist’s workstation.
- Blackbird is fully integrated with Bluebird’s web services – this allows referring doctors secure, electronic access to reports and images (using the same portal that they currently use for lab reports). We even support Apple’s iPhone and WiFi enabled iPods – referring doctors have never had it so good!
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