Authored By John Hansen, Director of Product Management, Synapse VNA

The mobile workforce has arrived in healthcare. Smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous in the workplace and are increasingly being used at the point of care. Meanwhile, healthcare organizations are increasingly investing in vendor neutral archive (VNA) technology to embark on their enterprise imaging journey and have recognized mobile solutions for point-of-care imaging is an essential aspect of their strategy. 

These enterprise imaging strategies must account for  mobile solutions capturing images at the point-of-care. Thinking about the convergence of mobile and enterprise imaging, here are three areas of importance, and what to look for in a well-designed solution to capture images at the point-of-care.

1. Improve Productivity. Health care professionals are some of the most patient and compassionate people on earth, but not when it comes to dealing with poorly designed software applications that slow them down, add steps and are frustrating to use.

Software solutions intended for use by health care professionals must be intuitive,  elegantly simple to use, require minimal training and enhance productivity. The software should be harmonized to the workflow at the point-of-care, rather than requiring the care provider to conform to a poorly designed workflow built into the applications.

Speed to the ‘capture flow’ with the fewest clicks and steps possible are essential. The time between when a care provider decides to capture point-of-care images to the time when they are capturing images should be as instantaneous as possible. For example, this may start  with facial recognition or touch ID for authentication. Manual entry of username & password is a productivity killer at the point-of-care.

Manual patient lookup is another productivity killer. An intelligent, department-specific, easily navigable patient list is preferred. The patient list should be encounters-based and not require orders to be placed ahead of time. Alternatively, a barcode scan is also preferred over manual patient lookups.

Once in the capture flow, applications need to enable the user to do everything quickly and seamlessly in a single experience to improve productivity. For example, a form should be provided to capture supporting documentation such as body site, clinical notes and observations at the point-of-care. We shouldn’t force the care provider to capture images in one place and document those images in another.

2. Improve Care. The ultimate objective of any point-of-care solution should be to improve patient care. If implemented properly, mobile solutions to capture patient photos, videos and audio clips at the point-of-care can positively impact care. 

Care providers require access to imaging from across the enterprise to see the full patient picture so they can make better informed decisions on behalf of their patients. This includes images taken at the point-of-care. For maximum benefit, this content must be available in the context of the patient record in the EHR, be easily accessible to the care team, and include body site labeling for those close up photos where it may be difficult to discern the body site and laterality.

3. Risk Reduction. Simply enter ‘HIPAA data breach’ into your favorite search engine and you’ll get the idea. HIPAA data breaches (and corresponding lawsuits and fines) can be costly to healthcare providers and tarnish their reputation in their markets.

Increased security and risk reduction are a major aspect of the overall VNA value proposition and securing the mobile workforce is a win-win for the organization.

In absence of a secure mobile application, care providers may be tempted to use the native features of their own device resulting in PHI on their device which exposes the organization to risk. A well designed mobile capture solution should ensure no PHI is stored on the mobile device thereby eliminating the risk of PHI leaving the premises inadvertently. 

Healthcare organizations have seen for some time the introduction of mobile image capture during patient procedures. What has been missing are the workflows and solutions to support these images being accounted for in the patient record. With a valued partner and an overall enterprise imaging strategy, the VNA can provide seamless solutions to the end user to capture, store and manage these images, all in a secure location- which in the end are accessible throughout your organization in the EHR. 

By Greg Strowig, Vice President, TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

For the second year in a row, our Synapse^® VNA has been named Best in KLAS for the VNA/Image Archive category of the 2021 Best in KLAS Software & Services report!

Each year, thousands of healthcare and IT professionals across the globe take the time to share their technology experiences with KLAS, and we value these honest, unbiased insights as they help shape the development and evolution of our enterprise imaging solutions.

For nearly two decades, the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm has remained focused on leveraging our clinical expertise to help advance VNA technology to enable healthcare interoperability and improve patient care, but the ways in which we achieve this have diversified greatly.

It is because of our unwavering industry partnerships and continuous customer collaboration that we have been able to evolve Synapse VNA to become the industry’s leading image-enablement solution. We’re integrating more specialties, more devices, and more data than any other VNA on the market, and what’s more:

• We’re fueling breakthroughs in biotech.
• We’re advancing pediatric care.
• We’re boosting surgical efficiencies.
• We’re connecting the full patient picture.
• We’re accelerating deployments.

And in line with our company’s commitment to never stop innovating for a healthier world, you know we won’t stop there.

As stated by KLAS president Adam Gale, “The Best in KLAS report and the awards it contains set the standard of excellence for software and services firms. Vendors who win the title of “Best in KLAS” should celebrate and remember that providers now accept only the best from their products and services.”

We’re honored to have your continued support and unwavering trust in Synapse VNA, we’re humbled that we have been given this honor by you, and at our next industry in-person event, we look forward to celebrating with you.

This blog post was syndicated from FUJIFILM Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.’s blog, The EI Connection.

By Bill Lynch, Director of Business Development, TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

As COVID-19 continues to rapidly spread around the world, scientists are scrambling to identify diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines that can help put a stop to the relentless outbreak. To help expedite the extensive clinical trial process, many biotech firms are working with contract research organizations (CROs) to quickly identify real-world evidence (RWE) and real-world data (RWD) as proof points for the efficacy of certain drugs. For a quick refresher on Research 101, RWE is clinical evidence that points to the potential benefits and/or risks of a medical product. RWD is data that’s routinely collected from a variety of sources to show how a population’s health status has subsequently evolved over time.

Why this heightened focus on RWE and RWD?

One obvious factor is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act. This law was designed to help accelerate medical product development and bring new innovations to patients who need them faster. Under this law, Congress mandates the FDA’s use of digital data to make regulatory decisions and maintain post-market safety. And what, you might ask, is a prime example of digital data that can be used as RWE/RWD? You guessed it—medical imaging!

Yes, those CTs, MRIs, ultrasounds, PET scans, and so on that are stored in various data repositories play an increasingly important role as RWE/RWD for clinical trials. A few prime applications include:

• Mechanism of action: Imaging can help determine if the expected action of a drug can be observed. For example, did a new cancer drug reduce the size of the malignant tumor or alter its characteristics to slow overall progression?
• Biomarkers: Certain imaging biomarkers can help scientists quickly make objective decisions related to drug safety and efficacy. This increased efficiency also reduces overall research and development (R&D) timelines and expenses during the early phases of clinical trials.
• Surrogate endpoints: Imaging biomarkers can also act as a surrogate endpoint, or “an endpoint used as a substitute for a direct measure of how a patient feels, functions, or survives.” Relying on imaging as this endpoint allows scientists to quickly access results that have strong statistical power when assessing a new drug’s efficacy.

So RWD/RWE is critical for biotech advancements, and imaging is a great resource. What’s the problem?

Two words: imaging liquidity. At a high level, imaging liquidity refers to the ability to store images and their associated metadata (those hundreds of rich-data fields that accompany your images) in ways that are easily searchable and accessible throughout the enterprise and via your software systems of choice. The challenge with imaging liquidity, however, is that the various imaging software systems that most CROs or biotech firms rely on are not interoperable. As a result, it is extremely challenging, if not impossible, to use these systems to search, locate, and save the images that can serve as RWD/RWE during a clinical trial.

Is there a way for imaging data to be searchable and accessible to those who need it for drug development?

Fortunately, there is a solution that can link all health IT systems and allow seamless access to the complete patient-imaging record. The solution is known as a vendor-neutral archive, or VNA. Widely familiar in the enterprise-imaging arena, though often a foreign concept to those in the biotech or clinical research space, a VNA bypasses the need to switch CROs or pursue the dreaded system rip-and-replace method. Instead, the VNA simply optimizes and unifies the systems already in place to provide the complete patient-imaging record to those who need it.

How does a VNA work?

The top VNAs can run on-site or in the cloud, and they employ the latest industry standards, including DICOM, DICOMweb, HL7, FHIR, XDS, and RESTFUL Web services, to seamlessly exchange information between systems. They then extract exact copies of images and the associated metadata from the source systems and store them in secure, standard formats so the data is accessible to the CRO or biotech firm’s software systems.

Remember that term “imaging liquidity?” That’s what a VNA enables for the biotech sector. By indexing all the metadata, hundreds of thousands of images can easily be searched in seconds, allowing CROs and their biotech counterparts to quickly locate and use the information they need to help fuel biotech breakthroughs.

Where can I learn more?

Interested to know more about how a VNA can bring complete imaging value to your clinical trial? Be sure to download our white paper from the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm, and contact us directly to schedule a demo of our industry-leading Synapse^® VNA.

This blog post was syndicated from FUJIFILM Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.’s blog, The EI Connection.

By Sara Osberger, Senior Director of Marketing, Enterprise Imaging, FUJIFILM Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.

Today’s CIO’s and healthcare IT professionals need to manage an enormous array of systems and technology that span and serve the entire institution. Add to that the fact that technology is constantly changing and evolving, and it’s no wonder how any CIO or IT professional can keep pace with all of what’s “out there.”

Most of you are likely familiar with vendor-neutral archive technology, or VNA, which was designed for imaging interoperability. Fujifilm’s Best in KLAS Synapse® VNA provides secure, easy-to-manage storage, and allows access to the complete patient imaging record. It also integrates with electronic health records (EHRs) and health information technology (HIT) systems to provide the complete patient health picture.

But let’s examine the roots of VNA—why VNA came about and took hold—so we can better understand the reach of this technology now.

As many may recall, it all started with picture archiving communication systems (PACS). For more than four decades radiology departments have used PACS to manage and archive DICOM images. But as more vendors entered the market with their own variations of PACS technology and DICOM conformance, the ability to easily exchange and view images among different PACS systems became challenging. Add in the influx of specialty departments now curating images in a variety of non-DICOM formats—AVI, MPEG, WAV, JPG, PDF, PNG—and it’s clear why the VNA was born. It presents a simple, all-inclusive image archive and management solution.

Perhaps you’ve helped choose and implement a VNA solution for your organization. If so, then you well know how VNAs are changing the way clinical teams capture, view, store, manage, and distribute medical images and patient content. They are the wings, if you will, that are empowering clinicians across the enterprise to work more swiftly, more collaboratively, and to drive better patient outcomes.

Let’s take just one example. Think about how VNA technology can boost surgical efficiency and help improve patient care. After all, today’s surgeons require the same content sharing and storage capabilities that were once the domain of radiology. Consider, for instance, how previously collected enterprise-wide images or videos may be useful during surgical planning and pre-op. But how can surgeons quickly have these images at their fingertips?

With Fujifilm’s Synapse Mobility Enterprise Viewer, PACS and 3D, content is retrieved directly from the source archive (PACS, VNA, etc.) and accessible to the user from a PC, mobile device or browser. The benefit of an enterprise viewer is the ability to provide access to the patient’s full medical imaging record in the EHR, regardless of the specialty department in which it was acquired. Enterprise viewers can display multiple images simultaneously, display patient photos, and play patient-centric video or audio content.

The comprehensive Fujifilm Synapse solution also enables surgeons to be productive and efficient in surgical planning wherever they might be working—in the hospital setting, at their office, off-site, at home, and so on.

Now let’s take it a step further. Once in the OR, a surgeon may need to reference previous PACS images (MRI, CT, ultrasound, etc.) viewed alongside endoscopic images as PiP, PaP, etc., during the procedure itself. With Fujifilm Systems Integration, alongside our VNA or your PACS system, surgeons can access all the images in one place and route them to any monitor destination in the OR. All surgical images and videos captured are saved directly to that patient’s record in the VNA for storage post-procedure, as well as notification to and immediately accessible in the EHR.

With millions of inpatient surgeries performed annually across the nation, today’s busy surgeons demand a holistic, robust workflow solution that provides them with the comprehensive diagnostic imaging they need to perform operations successfully. That’s what our systems integration technology is all about.

There is no need to purchase separate middleware systems or archives by specialty. In addition, the VNA also allows your organization to collapse existing storage silos and can prevent multiple specialties from purchasing on-going departmental solutions. This is more efficient because the enterprise-wide needs can be better achieved with a single platform. It’s also more cost-effective because separate departmental solutions require their own support, maintenance, and integration—and that can add up to big dollars.

OR integration technology from Fujifilm, coupled with Fujifilm’s VNA technology, allows clinicians to integrate more specialties, more devices, and more data than any other system on the market—all from one central data repository.

Think about how your healthcare organization can benefit from Fujifilm’s VNA paired with OR integration technology. They can help your surgeons perform more successfully and make your quality metrics soar. With the right technology, good things take flight.

This blog post was syndicated from FUJIFILM Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.’s blog, The EI Connection.

By Nick Donofrio, Director of Client Services, TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

As the leader of the Synapse® VNA Client Services team, one of the most common questions I am asked by prospects, usually during the sales cycle, is “what is the average time span from project kickoff to go-live for your VNA?” When I respond with “many months,” I’m usually met with that deer-in-the-headlights look. Why do these types of projects take so long? And what are some of the common proactive measures organizations can take to help streamline the process?

After 7 years as the Director of Client Services for Synapse VNA, and with more than 30 VNA deployments under my belt, I’ve come to recognize a number of VNA deployment best practices that can help simplify implementations and smooth potential bumps in the road. Here are seven VNA deployment best practices to help accelerate your go-live:

1. Have the Right Technical Infrastructure in Place

Projects can come to a screeching halt if the appropriate server environment, network infrastructure, or storage system(s) are not in place. Ensure that these components are available right after the project kicks off to avoid any unnecessary delays.

2. Set Your Lineup

Optimize your go-live success by having the right person, with the right skill, available at the right time in the project plan. Healthcare IT staff juggle many projects simultaneously, each with competing priorities, so make sure your VNA deployment needs are on their radar well in advance. Most organizations also have an individual or group of specialists for specific elements of the IT infrastructure, such as HL7 integrations, for example. By ensuring that these specialists are available when you need them, organizations can avoid potential delays that can sideline their deployment agenda.

3. Determine the VNA Data Structure

One of the most important elements for a VNA deployment project is deciding on the system’s data structure. There is not one optimal way to organize data in a VNA. Each healthcare enterprise has its own unique objectives. While experienced project teams can offer their suggestions, it’s ultimately the organization that makes the final decision. For some, that involves obtaining input from numerous stakeholders and final approval from executive leadership, which can ultimately add months to the project. Start this conversation early so that when the time comes to make your data structure decision, you’ve already one step ahead.

4. Account for Load Balancer Configurations

Sometimes called a “content switch,” a load balancer is a physical or virtual system that controls the distribution of network traffic across two or more servers. By evenly spreading the network traffic across multiple servers, a load balancer prevents any individual server from being overloaded and improves application responsiveness. A load balancer is frequently used to control the traffic going into the VNA. In theory, this sounds like a great idea, but load balancers are complex and notoriously challenging to configure. While there are configuration recommendations, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Determining your specific configuration can take weeks of collaboration with your VNA provider, so make sure that this is accounted for early in your project plan.

5. Set Aside Time for System Validation

After the VNA has been installed and fully configured in your network environment, the next phase of the project requires your team to validate VNA operation in your clinical workflow. While tenured VNA providers often provide validation plans to help the organization structure its test cases and remain on standby if needed, execution of this phase of the project is the responsibility of the organization. Competing priorities can cause this phase to take much longer than anticipated, so allocating the right timeline—usually several weeks or months—is critical to keep your go-live on schedule.

6. Set and Stick to a Weekly Meeting Schedule

Weekly conference calls between the organization and VNA provider team are generally recommended to help keep the project on task. Still, project members are bound to miss meetings due to competing priorities, illness, and vacation time. This can cause critical tasks in the project plan to slip and deployment timelines to be pushed back. To help instill a sense of urgency for your VNA deployment project, try to keep this weekly cadence of meetings as consistent as possible while providing flexibility to shift the time slot by a few hours, if needed. Often, giving team members a few extra hours to complete their tasks can add up to huge time savings in the end.

7. Break the Project into Phases

Some VNA projects are very large and can easily seem overwhelming at first glance. Instead of trying to take in the full picture (or in most cases, the thousands of pictures), the project should be divided into phases that are easier to digest. For example, Phase I may include the basic installation and integration with a PACS and Enterprise Viewer. Phase II may then be the integration with the facility’s existing cardiology system, and Phase III may be the integration of non-DICOM sources, such as dermatology and wound care. While the full project may still take 2 years or more to complete, breaking down the project into phases will help inspire a sense of achievement and make the project a bit easier to manage in the months ahead.

Deploying a VNA is no easy feat and can take considerable time, even for the most efficient of organizations. By taking each of these best practices into consideration, you will be able to anticipate and maneuver around many of the most common deployment speed bumps. Looking for more VNA insights? Contact us today to be set up with one of our Synapse VNA specialists.

This blog post was syndicated from FUJIFILM Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.’s blog, The EI Connection.

By Laurence Yudkovitch, Product Manager – Synapse VNA, TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

Almost every clinical practitioner, regardless of his or her specialty, uses images to care for patients. And while radiology and cardiology still generate the majority of all clinical imaging volumes, today’s healthcare facilities have expanded their imaging reliance far beyond these two service lines. Take a physical therapist, for example, recording a video of a patient’s knee range-of-motion, or a dermatologist taking a picture of a patient’s skin lesion before a biopsy.

Each of these various specialty departments rely on their own imaging formats, which are uploaded to their own source system, and stored away in their own departmental silo. What often results from this type of imaging strategy is a fragmented view of the full patient health picture. Think of a “patient puzzle,” with each anatomical piece being scattered throughout the enterprise. If this sounds familiar (and is part of what keeps you up at night), don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Many enterprises are still figuring out how to achieve a comprehensive enterprise imaging strategy – one that supports seamless point-of-care image capture followed by unrestricted content access across the organization. Thankfully, a vendor-neutral archive (VNA) is specifically designed to achieve that exact goal.

A VNA captures, stores, and manages every form of digital content that’s associated with a patient and clinical study, regardless of the content’s originating format, location, or storage system. For Synapse VNA – 2020’s Best in KLAS award winner – the platform uses its various workflow solutions to unify that full patient health picture that’s dispersed across your enterprise. They also automatically associate the content with a patient record, and make it available to other providers who may need it. Using specific tool sets, the solutions are designed for the following activities:

PATIENT/STUDY DETAILS Patient demographics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Context Sharing Encounters-based workflows

IMAGE CAPTURE Point-of-care image capture Standards-based system integration Software development kit

CONTENT DISTRIBUTION Image availability notification Health information exchange Custom integration

Below is a quick snapshot of Synapse VNA’s workflow solutions, and how they connect today’s various specialty departments by using standards-based intelligence workflows:

• Connext Point-of-Care Worklists – DICOM MWL Q/R or RESTful web services allow point-of-care modalities and imaging systems to retrieve patient demographics for encounters-based procedures and store content.
• Connext Mobile – Mobile app captures photos, videos, audio recordings, and notes. Launch with patient context directly from the EHR, or select patients from the integrated, department-specific point-of-care worklist. Supports configurable attributes and restricted workflows (for VIP patients or abuse victims).
• Connext Web – Web portal to upload any clinical content. Catch-all tool when other automated methods cannot be deployed. This can also be launched with patient context directly from the EHR, or you can select patients from the integrated, department-specific point-of-care worklist. The solution also supports configurable attributes and restricted workflows (for VIP patients or abuse victims).
• Connext SDK – RESTful and SOAP web services upload clinical content and query/retrieve patient information.
• DICOM – Traditional DICOM services to query (C-FIND), retrieve (C-MOVE) and store (C-STORE) DICOM objects.
• DICOMweb™ – DICOM standard for web-based medical imaging. RESTful services to search for (QIDO) and retrieve(WADO-URI/WAD-RS) content.
• HL7® FHIR® – RESTful web service to create, read, update and delete DocumentReference FHIR resources.
• HL7 file uploads – HL7 messages from the source system include patient demographics, and content metadata. Files can be included in the message, or retrieved from a location specified in the message.
• Shared directory – Process to monitor a shared folder for new content stored by the source system; VNA ingests data and parses demographics from the object.
• XDS – Supports the exchange documents and images across the healthcare enterprise as a cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) Document Source and Document Repository, and XDS-I.B Imaging Document Source and Document Repository. Also provides XDS connectivity for data acquired through other connector methods.

With healthcare facilities continuing to expand their imaging volumes, the time is now to start thinking about why your enterprise imaging strategy needs to start with a VNA, you can read more on that here. If you’re interested in learning more about Synapse VNA’s various workflow solutions specifically, and seeing some real-world examples of how the solutions can connect the full patient picture across your enterprise, check out our Synapse VNA Connext Workflow Solutions eBrochure.

By Sara Osberger, Senior Director of Marketing, Fujifilm Medical Systems, U.S.A., Inc.

Radiology and cardiology departments have dominated the enterprise imaging arena for more than 40 years. About one billion radiological imaging exams are performed worldwide every year, making radiology the clear leader in medical imaging volume. Add to that the global surge in echocardiography, cardiac MR, cardiac CT, and cardiac catheterization studies and there you have the lion’s share of all enterprise imaging.

So when it comes to a vendor-neutral archive (VNA), can healthcare professionals use a VNA to collect, store, manage, and share imaging data outside of these two service lines? What about imaging from specialty departments, such as ophthalmology, wound care, or dermatology? Can a VNA manage those images as well?

In order to bring the complete patient picture to the healthcare enterprise, a true VNA can and should be used outside of radiology and cardiology departments. Keep reading to learn more about the many ways your enterprise can benefit from expanding the use of its VNA.

Strengthen Radiology and Cardiology Departments

Although VNAs have applications beyond radiology and cardiology, the bulk of their imaging storage comes from these two service lines. In both radiology and cardiology, the digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) format is king. This file format is produced by CT scans, MRIs, and other prominent types of medical imaging procedures.

Even with the bulk of DICOM images coming from radiology and cardiology, those two departments are often independent of each other and unable to share images. By implementing a single PACS solution or a robust VNA for both departments, healthcare professionals can cross-reference patient imaging.

Improve Image Management across Specialties

DICOM may be the most common medical image format, but many specialties collect images and media in non-DICOM formats as well. This data has undeniable clinical value, particularly as more specialty departments begin to capture patient images. For example, video clips taken during surgery and endoscopy procedures can assist with treatment planning and follow-up care. Although you could attempt to integrate these videos with a traditional PACS, the large file size and need for editing can make integration unrealistic. Additionally, non-DICOM still images have been proven to be difficult to integrate with PACS due to departmental workflows. To overcome this challenge, a VNA helps to make image management across specialties significantly easier.

At the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm, our Synapse® VNA can handle multiple types of non- DICOM media to seamlessly connect imaging content from more than 30 specialty departments, including:

Enable Essential EHR Interoperability

Most electronic health record (EHR) systems can’t access departmental images through various departmental viewers. This forces physicians to find and reference images, which can be a tedious and frustrating task, not to mention a major roadblock to their workflow. One application for a VNA beyond radiology and cardiology is creating an image-enabled EHR that allows users to view any image type directly within the EHR workflow through the VNA’s enterprise viewer.

Synapse VNA provides full EHR interoperability, so physicians can reference all of a patient’s images directly from the EHR, regardless of the image’s original source or file format. As a HIPAA-compliant VNA, Synapse VNA can also implement rules to limit access to images on a need-to-know basis in an effort to keep sensitive information secure.

Capture Images at the Point of Care

As more enterprises adopt bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, physicians have the ability to capture images at any point during the patient encounter. Emergency care, dermatology, and wound care are already using mobile devices to capture images at the point of care. If your enterprise uses a mobile capture strategy, a VNA can help to minimize PHI risks and securely manage these real-time image captures for your care team.

With Synapse VNA Connext Mobile, for example, physicians can capture images and automatically archive them within the VNA. The VNA then communicates to the EHR that images are available for that patient encounter. Features such as secure sign-on, encrypted transmission, and intelligent data-lifecycle management help keep this tool secure and compliant, while also respecting patient privacy.

Fujifilm TeraMedica Division’s VNA Solution

The right VNA can benefit all departments across the enterprise, not just radiology and cardiology. Synapse VNA from the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm is designed to provide true interoperability across departments. With Synapse VNA, you can view DICOM and non-DICOM images and share them with other physicians, departments, and facilities, and even with patients.

Whether you’re working in cardiology, radiology, or another specialty department, Synapse VNA can benefit you by:

• Reducing data-storage costs: By simplifying data storage and eliminating the need for expensive data migrations, Synapse VNA can significantly reduce data-storage costs over time.
• Streamlining workflows: Synapse VNA makes it easier to provide image access to physicians, care teams, and the clinical departments that need them, saving time and allowing staff to be more efficient.
• Helping improve patient care: Synapse VNA gives physicians access to all of a patient’s images in one central location. With the full picture of the patient, physicians can make more-informed diagnosis and treatment decisions, helping to improve the overall quality of care.

Applications for Synapse VNA

Synapse VNA connects imaging content across the care continuum, so it has many potential applications. Enterprises that could benefit from Synapse VNA include:

• Large hospitals and healthcare enterprises
• Integrated delivery networks (IDNs)
• Multispecialty healthcare networks
• Pediatric hospitals
• Outpatient imaging centers
• Pharmaceutical companies
• Biotech companies
• Enterprises conducting clinical trials

Contact Fujifilm TeraMedica Division to Learn More

VNAs help to bring the full patient picture to the entire healthcare enterprise. For more information about applications for VNA technology beyond radiology and cardiology, or to schedule a demo of the Best-in-KLAS Synapse VNA, reach out to us today.

By John Hansen, Director of Product Marketing, TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

Healthcare providers have always relied on clinical imaging when making diagnoses, compiling treatment plans, and analyzing treatment efficacy. While the majority of images have traditionally been handled by the radiology department, healthcare enterprises now obtain images from a variety of service lines. If a patient has a suspicious mole or a serious wound, for example, chances are a dermatologist or wound care specialist will take a picture to document a baseline and assist with their proposed care strategy. To keep pace with this proliferation of clinical imaging, healthcare organizations are starting to implement an enterprise imaging strategy to help manage all of the imaging content coming in from across the care continuum. That’s where a vendor-neutral archive comes in.

What Is a Vendor-Neutral Archive (VNA)?

A vendor-neutral archive, or VNA, was designed for imaging interoperability. Many solutions on the market, including Fujifilm’s Best in KLAS Synapse® VNA, provide secure, easy-to-manage storage, and allow access to the complete patient imaging record. They also integrate with electronic health records (EHRs) and health information technology (HIT) systems to provide the complete picture health picture. A few other important features of VNAs include:

• Secures and enables control of all image data on the organization’s preferred enterprise-class storage media or in the cloud.
• Creates a single, patient-centric view across the entire continuum of care.
• Manages all DICOM and specialty department (non-DICOM) clinical imaging content from across the enterprise.
• Captures imaging content using VNA-inherent workflows for encounters-based service lines.
• Facilitates image sharing and collaboration amongst a community of care providers.
• Presents patient data through advanced analytics and configurable dashboards.

Why Do I Need a VNA?

Healthcare enterprises first realized the need for a VNA with the proliferation of picture archiving communication systems – or PACS. Radiology departments have used picture archiving PACS for more than 40 years, which primarily manage and archive DICOM images. However, as more vendors entered the market with their own variations of PACS technology and DICOM conformance, the ability to easily exchange and view images between PACS systems became challenging, causing demand for the VNA to grow. Add in the influx of specialty departments now curating images in a variety of non-DICOM formats – A/V, MPEG, WAV, JPG, PDF, to name a few – and you can see why the need for one, all-inclusive image archive solution becomes so critical.

So how does it work?

A VNA captures, stores, archives, manages and distributes DICOM and non-DICOM images in one common archive, regardless of the imaging device, file format, or department. Some specific benefits of having a VNA as the core to your enterprise imaging strategy include:

• Reduced storage and operational costs: Simplifying data storage with a VNA reduces storage costs and eliminates the need for costly future data migrations.
• Secure patient data: A HIPAA-compliant VNA that provides data in accordance with your organization’s access control policies helps keep patient information secure, with centralized data security across the healthcare enterprise.
• Streamlined physician workflows: A VNA with EHR interoperability allows providers to access images and patient records through a single interface, streamlining workflows and improving clinician satisfaction while allowing them to spend more time on patient care.
• Improved patient care: Access to complete imaging data allows providers to see the whole patient, so they can treat the whole patient.

Synapse VNA – The industry’s leading image- enablement solution

Synapse Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA), from the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm, makes true imaging interoperability possible. Storing more than 40 billion imaging objects from more than 1,500 facilities across six continents, Synapse VNA provides the industry’s leading image- enablement solution. For more information on how you can make Synapse VNA the core to your enterprise imaging strategy, reach out to us today.

By Greg Strowig, Vice President – TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

Each year at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, I’m astounded by the epic (no pun intended) number of attendees that hit the show floor on the hunt for their next game-changing health IT discovery. Unfortunately, this year’s show was canceled in an effort to protect the health and safety of the global HIMSS community, as well as the public at large, from the potential spread of the coronavirus.

So while you may not have been able to see Synapse VNA at HIMSS, there’s still a number of reasons why the platform is an image-archive must see:

1. It enables true imaging interoperability –One of the biggest – if not, THE biggest – industry buzzwords is interoperability. Healthcare departments need access to imaging data from across the enterprise, regardless of the technology-generating source, format type, or siloed storage system. Synapse VNA makes that kind of true imaging interoperability possible. In fact, the archive manages more than 40 billion objects from 1,500 facilities across six continents, and brings the complete picture of patient health to providers all over the world.

2. It integrates with any EHR –As the primary source for clinical documentation, it’s critical that imaging archives seamlessly integrate with the EHR to improve workflow. Synapse VNA’s Connext EHR solution allows clinical data to be instantly uploaded directly from the patient encounter in the EHR into the VNA. Customized API plugins also automatically sync the patient to their visit, and provides one-click access to the Synapse Mobility Enterprise Viewer to support anytime, anywhere imaging workflows.

3. It could match surging data volumes with succinct AI insights—It’s no surprise that big data has led to even bigger insights in healthcare. To take those clinical learnings a step further, Synapse VNA now has the potential to let AI algorithms analyze the massive datasets stored in the VNA to help enhance workflows and support clinical decision making.

4. It was just named the industry’s leading VNA/image archive—Synapse® VNA has just been awarded Best in KLAS for the VNA/Image Archive category of the 2020 Best in KLAS Software & Services report. What’s so special about this recognition? Best in KLAS measures the performance of healthcare IT solutions based on the feedback provided by thousands of healthcare provider organizations, such as yours. As stated by KLAS President Adam Gale, “Best in KLAS winners set the standard of excellence in their market segment. (“The Best in KLAS VNA/Image Archive award”) serves as a signal to providers that they should expect only the best from the winning vendors.” How’s that for an endorsement?

5. Synapse is more than just a VNA—While Synapse VNA is the core to an extensive enterprise imaging strategy, the Synapse Enterprise Imaging portfolio spans far beyond just the archive. Fujifilm’s comprehensive suite of enterprise imaging solutions – including Synapse PACS, Synapse Cardiology, Synapse 3D, Synapse EIS, Fujifilm’s AI-enabled platform REiLI, and Fujifilm’s latest unified enterprise imaging viewing platform, Synapse 7x – let’s your organization see the whole patient, so you can treat the whole patient.

Interested in learning more about what Synapse VNA and the rest of the Synapse Enterprise Imaging portfolio can do for your healthcare enterprise? Contact us today!

 

By Greg Strowig, Vice President, The TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm

For nearly two decades, the TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm has remained focused on leveraging our clinical expertise to help advance VNA technology, support healthcare interoperability, and, most importantly, improve patient care.

As a result of these efforts, our Synapse® VNA has been named Best in KLAS for the VNA/Image Archive category of the 2020 Best in KLAS Software & Services report. What is unique about this report is the way that KLAS Research measures the performance of healthcare IT solutions. Rather than just being briefed on the solution or receiving a hands-on demonstration, KLAS takes the analysis a step further by asking thousands of healthcare provider organizations, those that rely on that technology each and every day, for their comprehensive, unbiased feedback. It is because of our unwavering partnerships and continuous collaboration with these provider organizations that we have been able to evolve Synapse VNA to become the industry’s leading image-enablement solution.

As stated by KLAS President Adam Gale, “Best in KLAS winners set the standard of excellence in their market segment. (The award) serves as a signal to providers that they should expect only the best from the winning vendors.”

To our customers, we sincerely thank you for your continued support and unwavering trust in Synapse VNA, and are humbled that we have been given this honor by you. To our prospects, we hope this recognition has instilled the confidence to pursue Synapse VNA as your true imaging interoperability archive, and we encourage you to stop by our booth #4559 during HIMSS to see how Synapse VNA can bring the complete patient picture your healthcare enterprise. The TeraMedica Division of Fujifilm will continue to strive to enhance our VNA product and strengthen its use cases in an effort to best serve your needs, and we are proud to be the core to your enterprise imaging strategy.