Axolotl launches Elysium Image Exchange

Axolotl Corp., the nationwide leader in health information exchange (HIE) solutions and services, today announced the immediate availability of Elysium Image Exchange, a state-of-the-art technology integrated with Axolotl’s Elysium® Exchange suite of products. Powered by Axolotl’s partner eHealth Global Technologies, Inc. (eHGT), Elysium Image Exchange enables the electronic sharing of diagnostic quality medical images between health care providers participating in an HIE.

The partnership enables Axolotl to market a solution that leverages the eHGT technology to retrieve and securely deliver diagnostic quality medical images in a cost-effective and easy to implement service, available today. Elysium Image Exchange is one of the first partner applications to leverage the Elysium SOA platform’s web services-based integration capability. The Elysium SOA platform is a technology which enables critical, high value applications to be easily integrated into the HIE via exposed APIs.

With a single click, authorized users of the HIE can quickly access images from multiple disparate picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) from any radiology and cardiology imaging provider that participates in an HIE. Traditional medical image sharing approaches require a CD or a print to be sent to physicians, as electronic image access was not possible due to large bandwidth and processing requirements.

Rochester RHIO, powered by Axolotl, allows authorized users to see patient information, including radiology images, at any time from any computer with a secure Internet connection. Physicians using either Axolotl’s Elysium EMR Lite, a CCHIT certified EMR, or Axolotl’s Virtual Health Record, a community wide EHR, are able to view and access diagnostic quality medical images — including X-rays, MRI, CT scans and Ultrasound — from six radiology centers. The Greater Rochester RHIO covers the 9-county Rochester, New York region, with 20 hospitals and health care organizations providing information on more than 1.2 million patients.

Dr. Daniel Jacobson, President of Rochester Radiology and Rochester Diagnostic Imaging, noted that being able to automate access to patient images across institutions has improved patient care. “This new capability offers a tremendous advantage over traditional methods to obtain comparison images. In seconds, we can view other studies our patients have had, use that information, and interpret today's study proficiently and efficiently.”

Ted Kremer, Executive Director of Rochester RHIO, added that making radiology images more accessible benefits all members of a patient’s medical team. “Primary care physicians, specialists and radiologists can view images on-screen from any participating radiology provider for a more complete picture of their patients’ health. The anytime, anywhere access can help in emergency situations, second opinions and routine visits.”

“Until now, remotely accessing images on disparate PACS required a multitude of dedicated viewers on the physician’s PC, which often caused compatibility issues as well as training problems. Elysium Image Exchange enables a single, robust unified viewer to access studies on any PACS connected to the HIE,” said Glenn Keet, President of Axolotl. “We are thrilled to have best of class applications such as Image Exchange integrated into our open web services platform.”

Additional Elysium Image Exchange benefits and features include:

Referring Clinicians

• Streamlined referral process
• Immediate access to reports with images
• Consistent delivery format for all clinical information

Imaging Providers

• Ready access to priors from all locations
• Improved outreach to referring sources
• Easily implemented and managed, without affecting existing PACS systems

IT/Administration

• Reduced costs with minimal impact on existing systems
• Less IT effort managing community users
• Fewer user licenses and less infrastructure to support
• Reduced need to burn, distribute and store CDs and films