eMix announces additional list of medical facilities that are taking part in beta trials

eMix, a new business venture incubated by DR Systems, today announced an additional list of medical facilities that are taking part in beta trials of eMix, the cloud-based technology for sharing imaging studies and reports. Earlier, eMix had announced a partial list of participating facilities.

“Experts have predicted for a long time now that cloud computing would rule the IT future”

The total number of facilities in the process of implementing eMix is now 21. The newly announced institutions are:

• Seattle Children’s Hospital (Seattle, Wash.)
• Imaging Healthcare Specialists (San Diego, Calif.)
• Rapid City Medical Center, LLP (Rapid City, S.D.)
• South Peninsula Hospital (Homer, Ark.)
• Benifis Health System (Great Falls, Mont.)
• Great Falls Clinic (Great Falls, Mont.)
• St. Luke Community Hospital (Ronan, Mont.)
• Kalispell Regional Medical Center (Kalispell, Mont.)
• St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences (Missoula, Mont.)
• Community Memorial Hospital of Ventura (Ventura, Calif.)

These beta sites demonstrate several notable qualities of eMix. The facilities are diverse both geographically and in terms of circumstances, including both urban and rural healthcare. The trials also show the scalability of eMix. Among institutions launching eMix are community hospitals, larger hospitals, medical centers, imaging centers, and radiology practices.

eMix is a vendor-neutral solution to the challenge of securely sharing electronic medical image and report data. For example, between the 10 facilities, picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) by 6 different vendors are involved in the beta tests, including PACS from Agfa, AMICAS, DR Systems, GE Centricity, GE Centricity-IW, McKesson, and Phillips.

“As we wrap up the beta trials, it is a revealing window into the advantages of eMix,” said Florent Saint-Clair, Product Manager for eMix. “You see eMix working smoothly with multiple varieties of PACS. The per-use and subscription pricing structure means that smaller, low-quantity users pay less. You also see how straightforward the process is. A radiology practice is just as capable of realizing the benefits of the system as is a big hospital with a full IT staff.”

eMix, which stands for Electronic Medical Information Exchange, enables secure sharing of images and reports between disparate institutions and physicians via the Internet. It also can help facilitate associating patient images to electronic medical records (EMRs) and patients’ personal health records (PHRs). This interoperable technology eliminates the need for the provider facility to burn CDs, print films, or fax reports.

Using eMix is as simple as using email. “Experts have predicted for a long time now that cloud computing would rule the IT future,” said Saint-Clair. “eMix adoption has been going viral and is showing that when it comes to sharing patient image data, the future is now.”

SOURCE DR Systems, Inc.