GE RIS/PACS links Winter Olympic healthcare facilities

GE Healthcare’s Centricity Radiology-IW technology will enable medical staff at remote facilities to have real-time access to patient information and images when treating injured athletes at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia.

GE’s Centricity Radiology-IW (PACS-IW and RIS-IC), deployed at Vancouver Polyclinic, will link to the Whistler Polyclinic and a Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) that provides immediate access for emergencies, GE announced. The RIS/PACS technology improves access to medical support and eliminates need to transport athletes to different locations for treatment, the company said.

Centricity Radiology-IW will allow clinical staff to digitize imaging workflow to manage medical images and permit practitioners in different physical locations to access the same information simultaneously to facilitate efficient and informed clinical decision-making. Clinicians’ ability to connect to other automated systems and health facilities could reduce or eliminate the need to transport injured athletes for medical advice, according to GE.

"With the install of GE's Centricity Radiology-IW solution, we have the advanced tools in imaging allowing us the flexibility to view images in both Polyclinics that are more than two hours apart from each other," said Jack Taunton, MD, chief medical officer of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, in a GE press release. "This will also be the first time the medical staff can interface very easily with a large hospital authority like Vancouver Coastal Health that covers the whole Olympic Winter Games Corridor."

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