Acuo DICOM Services Grid for Lancaster General Hospital

Acuo Technologies, developer of medical image management software, data migration tools and services, announced the implementation and acceptance of Acuo’s DICOM Services Grid at Lancaster General Hospital.

The new Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) will provide the foundation of image storage across the Lancaster network, clinics and affiliates, enabling Lancaster’s plan for community outreach.

Acuo Technologies worked with EMC Corporation through EMC’s Open Systems Archive (OSA) Initiative to implement an archiving solution based on Acuo Technologies DICOM Services Grid software in combination with EMC Corporation’s solution. The EMC OSA solution archives medical images from sources throughout the Lancaster enterprise, enabling system-wide efficiencies, improving access to critical medical imaging, and increasing system reliability, resulting in lower total cost of ownership, quicker response time, and improved patient care.

The EMC and Acuo Technologies’ integrated medical imaging solution, allows Lancaster to gain control of more than 100 terabytes of existing medical imaging data through an automated data migration software and services solution, as well as providing a flexible image management layer managing all future DICOM medical imaging content. The power of the solution provides Lancaster a standards-based automated system with robust business continuity and eliminates the expense of multiple proprietary systems and storage platforms.

"In combination with EMC we are extremely pleased to launch this relationship with Lancaster through the successful implementation of Acuo’s leading middleware solution," said Jeff Timbrook, CEO of Acuo Technologies. "We are looking forward to building on this relationship through ongoing collaboration with Lancaster and EMC thought leaders. This vision combines knowledge of the industry and solution requirements enabling an image enabled electronic medical record initiative."

"Vendor Neutral Archiving is a central component to the EMC Information Infrastructure for Healthcare," said Ken Waldbillig, EMC Director of Clinical Informatics. "Through a strict adherence to Open Systems and IHE standards based technologies, leading healthcare organizations like Lancaster General Hospital achieve improved clinical effectiveness, enhanced operational efficiency and a financially attractive total cost of ownership over the life of the data. This approach is critical because information outlasts both applications and infrastructure."

The solution selected by Lancaster will ensure that all patient studies are safely stored, and can be accessed from any Lancaster location in a consistent and reliable fashion. Lancaster will also be using the Acuo DICOM Assisted Migration (ADAM) software to move data from the existing proprietary archive into the Acuo/EMC vendor neutral archive, ensuring that Lancaster will be able to gain control of their data and never pay for a migration again. This standards based approach will enable Lancaster to grow the utilization of the Acuo archive without expensive and complex integrations to existing and future PACS.

"Lancaster is impressed with the scalability and flexibility of the Acuo software," added Chuck Eimer, Manager, Servers and Network. "Their ability to work with the Lancaster team, along with Lancaster strategic partners like EMC, to enable a flexible and scalable architecture is key to achieving our archiving strategy while also lowering our total cost of ownership."