Microsoft And Philips To Provide Better View Of Radiology DataMicrosoft And Philips To Provide Better View Of Radiology Data

Microsoft and Royal Philips Electronics are collaborating to simplify radiologists' workflow and provide a complete view of patients' medical records.

The two companies will combine Microsoft's Amalga, a data aggregation platform, and Philips iSite picture archiving and communications system (PACS), they said Tuesday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando. The combined system will to let radiologists view a patient's complete data set--admission, discharge and transfer data, lab results, pathology reports and medications--as well as images stored in iSite PACS.

With current technology, for a radiologist to get a complete picture of a patient's medical history, he must access and then log into multiple clinical IT applications, navigate to the specific patient and then click through multiple application.

Microsoft and Philips plan to provide a system where radiologists can view Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and non-DICOM data in one place, reducing the time they spend digging around in separate, disconnected systems looking for past diagnosis and treatments, procedures and lab results.

"We're delivering interoperability and aggregating data where it's needed most," said Nate McLemore, general manager of business development at Microsoft Health Solutions Group. "This may mean bringing together a patient's chart to a clinician at the point of care, analytics to an administrator, or patient data through Microsoft's HealthVault."

Two physicians can both look at the same record at the same time, McLemore said. "If they have to discuss a study, the physician and radiologist will then have a common set of data to work from, bringing their particular specialties into play, but viewing the same information. This delivers more efficiency and can help physicians deliver the highest quality of care to their patients."

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