Kettering Health

Kettering Health operates 14 medical centers and 120-plus outpatient facilities that employ more than 1,800 physicians and 15,000 workers.

“The emergency departments approached us with an issue: FAST exams needed to be stored, tracked and viewable from Epic,” Kettering Health Senior Imaging Systems Analyst Aaron Egbert said.

FAST (focused assessment with sonography in trauma) exams are rapid point-of-care ultrasounds that evaluate blunt abdominal trauma. Traumatic injury is the leading cause of death among individuals younger than 45, and it’s essential that medical professionals identify trauma quickly.

Kettering Health built an imaging infrastructure that centered on Hyland’s Acuo vendor neutral archive (VNA). Acuo consolidates imaging information into a single repository that seamlessly and transparently communicates across a health system’s enterprise. This allowed Kettering to expand new functionality to other systems.

NilRead, Hyland’s universal diagnostic viewer, provides access to Kettering’s medical images. Hyland’s PACSgear, which leverages automation to expedite the indexing of captured images, is the health system’s DICOM modality worklist, and Acuo provides long-term storage.

All of the health system’s migrated data is in the VNA.

People, process and technology

When designing workflows, Egbert recommends focusing on what matters most.

“People are the core of the system,” he said. “They are the ones who are relied on to follow the processes. And if they don’t, the technology doesn’t work.”

And with the right technology and sound processes, workflows are more efficient and effective.

Proof of concept

This was another important step for Kettering. The health system set up a test VNA, then implemented NilRead and PACSgear. Next, they “started playing with it,” Egbert said.

Doing so allowed Kettering to detect potential problems and resolve them before the project went live.

• Test, test and test again: “Every modality needs to be tested at least three or four times, if not five, until it goes correctly. You’re always going to run into issues,” Egbert said.

• Know your limitations: Uncovering the challenges they were facing, as well as the contributing factors, helped Kettering Health design its new imaging infrastructure.

• Know your resources: There will be staffing challenges — employees might leave, which can be a temporary setback for a project — and things that will be learned on the fly. Stakeholders need to be kept in the loop as changes happen, Egbert said.

Kettering Health’s doctors wanted to utilize NilRead for all their studies, so Egbert’s team integrated the universal diagnostic viewer with Sectra and Merge Cardio. The result: Kettering now has a simple-to-use, consolidated system for its medical imaging.

“They can just click on it and see every study that’s in the VNA, all in one place,” Egbert said.