Cloud computing comes to healthcare as Telemis rolls out PACS data storage service.
Medical-quality cloud computing provides flexible, cost-effective storage meeting national healthcare-data standards
Telemis, the medical imaging solutions specialist, has added Cloud data storage offering increased flexibility, convenience and cost effectiveness to the options available for customers of its Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). The Telemis cloud technology provides secure storage and access to data such as PET/CT scans, and meets all patient-data handling requirements imposed by local or national authorities.
Cloud computing is transforming the way many types of enterprises manage information and resources. Data in the cloud can be accessed where and when needed, while traditional in-house IT responsibilities like equipment maintenance, skills retention and backup can be avoided. Such advantages are attractive in the healthcare sector also, but additional, stringent security and privacy legislation applies. Moreover, the law can vary from country to country.
Telemis is considering successful deployments at reference sites throughout Belgium, France, Switzerland and elsewhere, meeting all locally applicable laws covering patient data storage. Typically, legislation may call for partnerships with accredited data centers located within the same country. Telemis has put in place all the medical layers, in terms of software and services, to ensure legal compliance as well as enhancing patient support.
"Our reference sites are among the early adopters of cloud technology in the healthcare sector, and are reaping the benefits of increased flexibility and cost effectiveness ahead of the curve", said Stephane Ketelaer, CEO of the Telemis group. "Telemis is positioned to offer the expertise and resources needed to support rapid, widespread adoption going forward."
Among the applications making up the service, Telemis' TM-Publisher provides a web interface enabling hospital consultants as well as patients and their General Practitioners (GPs) to access data securely via the Internet. Two pass-codes are associated with individual patient records, enabling authorized access to data at any time without bandwidth limitations. This helps overcome the problems GPs can often experience accessing traditional hospital-based servers, if large numbers of doctors demand service. Patients also can access their own records online. Images can be stored in either DICOM or .jpg format, eliminating reliance on paper, films or CD-ROM. The web interface provides tools such as zoom, rotate and measure, assisting analysis.
Another application is for public or private health organizations to migrate archives from on-site storage such as a NAS or SAN to the cloud, without requiring their own managers to perform specific configuration tasks. Optimal data confidentiality is maintained throughout the migration.
Telemis will present the first demonstration of its Cloud Technology during the Health Information Technologies (HIT Paris) exhibition and conference, May 22-25, 2012 in Paris, Porte de Versailles (www.health-it.fr). The Cloud Technology will also be shown June 1-6 in Turin, Italy during the SIRM congress (www.congresso.sirm.org). Those who are not planning to attend the exhibition can view an online demo at http://telemis.demo.grita.fr.
21/05/2012