Siemens Healthcare and Curagita Holding are planning to develop and evaluate new e-health solutions for the 100 practices in the Radiologienetz Deutschland (Radiology Network Germany).
An initial pilot phase will test an e-health application in the network's radiology and nuclear medicine practices in Hamburg and Munich, which will support both diagnostic processes and the quality network between the various locations.
In the first stage, from mid-2016, it will be possible for the two participating reference practices within the network, and the patients themselves, to have electronic access to prostate cancer diagnosis results. Siemens will be responsible for interdisciplinary and multisector networking and develop the access portals, the firms said.
The physicians at the major practices will also test the diagnostic imaging software and Siemens' long-term archive. The evaluation of different indicators from medical examinations and expert surveys via telemedicine will make use of a cloud-based IT solution from Siemens, the firms added.
Curagita manages the Radiology Network Germany, which currently brings together 360 radiologists in 100 independent practices and 70 hospital departments, as well as Deutsche Radiologienetz, which operates one hospital and two major radiology and nuclear medicine healthcare centers in Hamburg and Munich.
Siemens and Curagita intend to expand their existing cooperation in the area of imaging systems to include IT and have agreed to test a range of applications for an e-health solution, they said. The first pilot project involves prostate cancer diagnostics using the German Radiology Network's RaDiagnostiX program.
A special feature of the program is the close interdisciplinary and multisector cooperation between urologists and radiologists, radiotherapists, and other specialists using standardized documentation and close communication. Second opinions will be sought in some instances.
For the purpose of diagnosis using the clinical images, the two major practices in Hamburg and Munich have comprehensively tested the diagnostic imaging software syngo.via. The application syngo.share is being tested as a vendor-neutral archive for multilocation long-term archiving with a case database.
In addition, Siemens' teamplay cloud-based collaboration software, is also being tested. In the two practices, teamplay will help analyze the mass of information generated by radiology, such as scanner capacity, examination times, and radiation dose applied, and will link it with other medicine and management-related parameters to create an information system for medical managers.
By the end of the year, the results of the pilot study will be evaluated in conjunction with the radiological supervisory and professional committees of the German Radiology Network, and consideration will be given to implementing the program throughout the network of practices and hospital departments across Germany.
