Three Ottawa-area hospitals connect to Diagnostic Imaging Network
Posted Mar 4, 2010 By EMC News
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Tweet ThisEMC News - On Feb. 24, the Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital (CPDMH) along with the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) and the Kemptville District Hospital (KDH) became the first hospitals in the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to start sending patient information to the Northern and Eastern Diagnostic Imaging Network (NEODIN).
NEODIN is a diagnostic imaging repository that will link together the medical imaging records from hospitals throughout Northern and Eastern Ontario. NEODIN has adopted a hub and spoke model for service delivery that pairs small facilities to larger ones. CPDMH and KDH were connected to the network as spokes to QCH, the hub hospital.
"This is a really important step forward for our hospital and we know it will improve the delivery of timely health care to our patients," stated Christine Boast, Diagnostic Imaging manager for CPDMH. "As other hospitals join the network, physicians and other healthcare providers will be able to access important diagnostic information from many facilities, ensuring a more comprehensive view of a patient's diagnostic history and overall understanding of patients' existing conditions."
NEODIN is one of four diagnostic imaging repositories (DI-r) being implemented in Ontario. A DI-r enables diagnostic images and reports to be shared between facilities, eliminating the need for patients to transport images and reports between doctors on CDs, films or by fax. It also permits specialists at one facility to access the reports for images acquired at other hospitals, allowing for faster and more convenient information sharing between doctors. This improved access to patient information will help health care providers make more informed and timely medical decisions. In addition to improving medical access to patient information, it is anticipated that NEODIN will help reduce duplicate testing that results from lost, misplaced or otherwise unavailable images.
EHealth Ontario and Canada Health Infoway fund the project. It is aligned with the digital imaging strategy and e-health strategy of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, eHealth Ontario's ehealth implementation strategy and the electronic health record vision of Infoway.
"We are proud to be a funding partner on an initiative that advances health care delivery and benefits Ontarians," said Ray Hession, chairman, board of directors, eHealth Ontario. "This is a perfect example of how collaboration within the health care system can deliver results that improve patient care."
"This is a major step forward in our efforts to modernize the way we exchange medical information throughout the health care system," said Richard Alvarez, president and CEO of Canada Health Infoway. "NEODIN will help hospitals gain efficiencies, and will allow doctors to diagnose more quickly, so patients can get the care they need sooner."
Ultimately, NEODIN will connect a large portion of Ontario. When completed in 2011, 59 hospitals from the North West, North East and Champlain LHINs, servicing almost two million people across 840,000 square kilometres from the Manitoba border in the West to Cornwall and Hawkesbury in the East, will be able to seamlessly share patient images and reports.
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