Northwestern Medicine
Leading academic healthcare system significantly improves its research imaging request process with Hyland’s Acuo vendor neutral archive.
Leading academic healthcare system significantly improves its research imaging request process with Hyland’s Acuo vendor neutral archive.
Northwestern Medicine encompasses dozens of hospitals, clinics and medical centers in Illinois. The leading academic healthcare system works closely with Northwestern University, whose Feinberg School of Medicine is consistently ranked in the top tier of research-oriented institutions.
Northwestern Medicine’s research imaging requests range from a single image to “hundreds of thousands for retrospective trials,” Enterprise Research Program Manager Jeff Schnoebelen said.
As demand for imaging data increased, Northwestern Medicine realized it had a significant issue.
“There was no process in place. It was literally email requests,” IS Program Lead for Enterprise Research Vic Apostolovski said.
The health system’s research analytics team put the images on discs — a process that was outdated and inefficient.
Northwestern Medicine implemented a streamlined process for data delivery that utilized Hyland’s Acuo vendor neutral archive (VNA) to extract and de-identify imaging data. The solution consolidates research imaging information into a single repository that seamlessly and transparently communicates across the research programs.
Acuo’s de-identification services have made retrieving and identifying exams for requestors much more convenient, Northwestern Medicine Application Analyst Jacob Grogan said.
Northwestern Medicine’s streamlined approach now handles requests that are as small as one image and can be turned around in less than a day to small- (26 to 100 images), medium- (101–9,999), large- (10,000–49,999) and super-sized (50,000–200,000) requests.
Some of the features of Northwestern Medicine’s Acuo VNA are as follows:
Research imaging requests completed in the first 18 months of the new process
Imaging exams delivered to Northwestern Medicine’s research partners
Servers across two data centers on which Hyland’s Acuo VNA is installed
For Northwestern Medicine, it starts with a dedicated team to pull the exams and supply the imaging research data for the health system and university.
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In the first 18 months, Northwestern Medicine completed more than 1,700 individual requests and delivered 500,000-plus imaging exams to their research partners.
—Jacob Grogan, Application Analyst, Enterprise Imaging and Research, Northwestern Medicine
Northwestern Medicine plans to incorporate cardiology and ophthalmology research into its existing process, which is primarily focused on radiology.
The leading academic healthcare system also wants to increase its use of automation and continue to leverage its key relationships with research leadership.
“We want to be better partners for our researchers. We want to make lasting partnerships and lasting relationships,” Schnoebelen said.
They’ve already made major advancements, boosted by a strong relationship with Hyland.
“They figured out in advance what we needed,” Grogan said. “A lot of the features were already there that we utilize, and they’re working with us to improve the product. It’s been really helpful for us.”