NCH/MGH Among Top 10 ‘Connected’ Healthcare Facilities In U.S.
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Selected By Editors Of National Magazine The editors of Health Imaging & IT magazine have honored Marin General Hospital/ Novato Community Hospital as one of the top 10 connected healthcare facilities in the U.S. for imaging and information technology in 2005.
NCH Chief of Radiology Dr. Ralph Koenker, said, “This award recognizes the work of numerous teams striving to integrate complicated computer systems and imaging systems so that patient images and reports and other laboratory data can be available quickly to treating physicians. The Marin sites employ digital approaches which are generally only seen in major university centers, and these sophisticated fully integrated systems lead to optimum patient care.”
 MGH/NCH Executive Director of Ambulatory Services Peggy Dracker said, “This is quite an honor for our hospitals. So much has been achieved at our multiple campuses. This is a well deserved award for the hard and innovative work of our technical team.”
The team included Koenker and Dracker, Gary Woodruff, PACS System Administrator; Terry Mann, MGH/NCH Director of Information Systems; Tim Jefferson, MGH Director of Diagnostic Imaging; Mike Colhouer, NCH Manager of Diagnostic Imaging; Laura Marks and Henry Berendt, both with MGH/NCH IT; and Linda Drake, Radiology Information Systems.
MGH and NCH – both Sutter Health affiliates – join an impressive list of hospitals that have been selected including, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Brigham and Women’s/Faulkner Hospital in Boston, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison.
The editors considered a number of factors before making their selections, including interviewing “each nominee (hospitals and specialty facilities vying for the honor) to gather their input on data that were harder to quantify,” they said, “such as level of physician connectivity, productivity increases and the facility’s vision toward digital imaging.”
 The announcement was made in the magazine’s September issue.
In a lengthy summary of the NCH/MGH imaging program submitted to the magazine, Koenker wrote, in part:
“Sutter Novato Medical Campus and Marin General Hospital represent the major healthcare institutes serving Marin County. All images are stored on unified Siemans PACS (picture archiving and communications system) database with distributed servers.
"Thanks to a common patient database server, imaging studies can be readily viewed at any of the sites of service, with no regard to whether the image originated from the more northern Novato location versus the more southern Marin General location.
“Moreover, a busy urgent care center is also part of the network as well as two separately located imaging centers. Images from ICU patients are readily available at the San Francisco based “eICU” which is a centralized 24 hour ICU surveillance system staffed by nurses and  intensive care physicians with electronic access to all ICU patient monitoring data as well as to all patient imaging studies (using Siemens MagicWeb).
"The system allows for immediate access to a vast amount of current evidence-based medical data. Staff in the ICU and the eICU system can review this information to confirm medical decisions as well as continually improve clinical quality.”
Marin General implemented eICU this summer and NCH was on board with it last fall. Sutter Health, one of California’s largest not-for-profit, integrated healthcare delivery systems, is investing more than $25 million over three years to install the eICU technology.
Sutter has opened two eICU monitoring centers in Northern California – including one in San Francisco that is linked to MGH and NCH. When fully operational at the end of 2005, the eICU system will monitor more than 100 patient beds in 10 Sutter Health hospitals, with additional beds being brought on line in 2006.
The MGH/NCH digital network was the first hospital group within Sutter Health to be film-less (2003) and it allows both hospitals to exchange images via the Internet.
Digital imaging means more precise diagnosis and better patient care. The system eliminates images on film (the old time x-rays) and allows radiology results to be sent to attending physicians via secured Internet access.
“This provides physicians with high resolution images and means more precise diagnosis and less waiting time for patients,” Koenker said. “Images and the radiologists’ interpretations will be available to referring physicians almost instantaneously.”
 Viewing an image on a computer screen improves diagnostic accuracy because it allows physicians, among other things, to adjust the brightness and contrast and have infinite magnification, he said.
The electronic distribution of images means that they can be reviewed almost anywhere – an operating room, a physician’s home or office, or on the hospital floor where a patient is located – by those with special access to the encrypted information.
The security is similar to the privacy safeguards used by the banking industry, and the Marin/Novato hospitals employ a method of “strong user and data authentication” which is among the most secure methods of data protection used in the healthcare industry.
A few years ago, Novato Community Hospital became one of the first in the nation to employ digital direct radiography. Today, the diagnostic imaging department is applying this technology in new ways to diagnose problems faster and more accurately.
Results include: a) 15 percent improvement in breast cancer diagnosis. Every mammogram is read twice—once by a specialist radiologist and once by a computer, b) quicker communication between radiologists and patient’s physicians—which leads to quicker treatment—thanks to a computer program refined at Novato and Marin General, c) greater efficiency and precision in reading images using automated computer enhancements developed at Novato, and d) better information by using plasma television monitors to display images in greater detail in the operating room.
Sept. 14, 2005
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