VIENNA - German multimodality vendor Siemens Healthcare of Erlangen is using this week's European Congress of Radiology (ECR) to launch a new software subscription service for computer-aided detection (CAD). The company believes the service could represent the next evolution in the way that CAD is used clinically.
Syngo Chest X-Ray CAD Subscription takes the company's existing Syngo Chest X-Ray CAD software and places it on a remotely located server. Customers send images from digital radiography or computed radiography studies over an Internet connection to the server, which analyzes the images and returns them to the customer with CAD markings. The entire process takes about four minutes.
Siemens believes the service will offer advantages over the way CAD is currently used. Although most CAD applications no longer require separate workstations, even when integrated with PACS they require the CAD software to reside on a server at a customer's site. With the subscription approach, customers can start using CAD with no upfront investment in hardware or software, according to the company.
The Siemens CAD server can be located anywhere, but the company can locate servers in particular countries if they have rules barring the export of patient data outside of national borders. The data transmission process includes data transmission to meet patient privacy rules.
Siemens began signing subscribers on the first day of the ECR meeting, and the company is offering a free 90-day trial to potential customers in Europe. The company plans to price the service at different tiers based on the volume of chest x-rays being conducted at the client facility. The firm is not yet able to market the service in the U.S. as the CAD algorithm at the heart of the model does not yet have 510(k) clearance.
The software as a service (SaaS) model exemplified by Siemens' new CAD offering is already commonplace in other industries, but it's a relatively new business model in radiology. Siemens believes the service could be the first step in what could become a virtualized environment for radiology software applications, and the company plans to offer other software tools under a similar model.
By Brian Casey
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
March 5, 2010
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