Enterprise Imaging

By Louis Lannum, AS

Depending on the source, up to 60% of all information gathered on a patient is missing from the EHR. A large portion of that information is imaging content that is acquired, captured, or scanned across the healthcare system as part of a patient’s episode of care. An enterprise imaging strategy is focused on building a program that will provide a technology infrastructure, workflow design, and integration with the EHR that will allow all imaging content to be stored, indexed, and accessed by caregivers across the healthcare system.

There are five parts of an enterprise imaging program:

1. A technology foundation to store, index, and manage all clinical content.
2. Imaging service-line integration that includes developing department and enterprise workflows to identify and associate an image to an EHR event.
3. Content access programs that allow all the images to be viewed by caregivers across the healthcare system.
4. An image exchange program to allow images from outside the healthcare system to be managed and viewed.
5. Business analytics that can provide clinical, business, and operations reports on the clinical content.

An enterprise imaging strategy is an enterprise governed, multi-department, and IT initiative with a primary goal of enhancing the EHR by providing access to all imaging content that has historically been locked in department systems or independent storage solutions scattered across the heath system.

At the AHRA Annual Meeting, I will present “Beyond Radiology – Building an Enterprise Imaging Strategy” on Sunday, July 31 at 1:00 PM. My presentation will define the challenges healthcare organizations face as they develop an organization-wide focus on image management. I will also outline a strategy and design for meeting these challenges.

Louis Lannum, AS is the administrator, radiology informatics at Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, OH. He can be reached at lannuml@ccf.org.