Ready set sectra
By Sam Marie Engle
After nearly five years of planning and preparation, Emory Radiology went live with a new picture archiving and communication system, or PACS, on April 20, 2022. It’s a big deal.
PACS defined
A PACS is the technological nervous system for radiology departments. Technologists perform imaging studies from modalities such as CT, x-ray, and MRI, which are uploaded and stored centrally so radiologists can retrieve, read, and share them from any secure location networked to the PACS. Radiologists add their interpretation reports to the PACS, which securely stores them with the associated images.
Ideally the PACS integrates seamlessly with a department’s electronic medical record (EMR) and grows with the department. When a PACS no longer can manage imaging studies from newer or more advanced imaging modalities such as 3-dimensional mammography, a health system can buy a separate software system to handle those imaging studies. That’s not bad when a department has only one or two outliers, but when the PACS is so limited the number of workaround systems becomes unwieldy, it loses its utility.
Enter Sectra.
“Sectra does everything we need it to do today and has the capacity to grow along with us,” says Nabile Safdar, MD, vice chair for imaging informatics. “Sectra can handle the latest imaging modalities now and integrates seamlessly with our Epic EMR. That’s really exciting.”
Ideally the PACS integrates seamlessly with a department’s electronic medical record (EMR) and grows with the department. When a PACS no longer can manage imaging studies from newer or more advanced imaging modalities such as 3-dimensional mammography, a health system can buy a separate software system to handle those imaging studies. That’s not bad when a department has only one or two outliers, but when the PACS is so limited the number of workaround systems becomes unwieldy, it loses its utility.
Enter Sectra.
“Sectra does everything we need it to do today and has the capacity to grow along with us,” says Nabile Safdar, MD, vice chair for imaging informatics. “Sectra can handle the latest imaging modalities now and integrates seamlessly with our Epic EMR. That’s really exciting.”
The pacs man
A different kind of excitement has driven Peter Harri, MD, over the past five years. As medical director of imaging informatics for Emory Radiology, Dr. Harri has been the point person for the PACS upgrade process. COVID-19 upended an already complex process.
“We started planning back in 2017. We did a lot of research and visited vendors at the big conferences like RSNA to see our options,” Dr. Harri says. “We narrowed the field to four vendors and invited them to pitch us here at Emory in the summer of 2019.”
From there, Dr. Harri and Dr. Safdar worked with the Enterprise Information Services Department to develop a budget. Once the budget was approved in September 2019, they selected Sectra as the vendor. Everything was on track.
“And then COVID hit, and we lost our funding,” Dr. Harri says.
After the first wave of COVID subsided and Emory resumed regular patient care services, the team returned to budget negotiations, which proved more challenging, given the impact of COVID on both revenues and staffing.
“We had this small team working on a huge project with restrictions on group gatherings. We couldn’t meet in-person and that was a challenge,” says Dr. Harri. Nevertheless, a new budget was approved, and in February 2021, Emory signed the contract with Sectra.
Successive waves of Delta and Omicron continued to pose challenges to installing, testing, and implementing the system. Nevertheless, they persisted.
“We started planning back in 2017. We did a lot of research and visited vendors at the big conferences like RSNA to see our options,” Dr. Harri says. “We narrowed the field to four vendors and invited them to pitch us here at Emory in the summer of 2019.”
From there, Dr. Harri and Dr. Safdar worked with the Enterprise Information Services Department to develop a budget. Once the budget was approved in September 2019, they selected Sectra as the vendor. Everything was on track.
“And then COVID hit, and we lost our funding,” Dr. Harri says.
After the first wave of COVID subsided and Emory resumed regular patient care services, the team returned to budget negotiations, which proved more challenging, given the impact of COVID on both revenues and staffing.
“We had this small team working on a huge project with restrictions on group gatherings. We couldn’t meet in-person and that was a challenge,” says Dr. Harri. Nevertheless, a new budget was approved, and in February 2021, Emory signed the contract with Sectra.
Successive waves of Delta and Omicron continued to pose challenges to installing, testing, and implementing the system. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Go-Live and beyond
As go-live approached this year, a series of training sessions helped familiarize clinical faculty, trainees, advanced practice providers (APPs), and staff with the mechanics of Sectra, while a library of digital user guides provides additional help with working day-to-day in the new system.
Now that Sectra is here, the team is planning for next-stage advancements. These include integration with machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) programs; integration of pathology and imaging findings, which in turn supports integration of clinical and research imaging in a single PACS; lesion tracking; and multidisciplinary conferencing.
“One of the most exciting features we’ll leverage starting next year is the ability to fuse PET and MR imaging without having to buy a separate software package,” says Dr. Safdar. “Image fusion is essential as we bring more advanced modalities on board.”
For now, Sectra is speeding productivity for the many faculty members working remotely and making it easier for faculty to communicate with one another and with referring colleagues on challenging cases. While keeping an eye on the day-to-day operations of Sectra, Drs. Safdar and Harri are co-developing solutions and next-step enhancements responsive to Emory’s unique and ever-growing enterprise.
“We’re pleased the vendor is eager to work with us on designing the workflows and practices of the future,” says Dr. Safdar.
Now that Sectra is here, the team is planning for next-stage advancements. These include integration with machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) programs; integration of pathology and imaging findings, which in turn supports integration of clinical and research imaging in a single PACS; lesion tracking; and multidisciplinary conferencing.
“One of the most exciting features we’ll leverage starting next year is the ability to fuse PET and MR imaging without having to buy a separate software package,” says Dr. Safdar. “Image fusion is essential as we bring more advanced modalities on board.”
For now, Sectra is speeding productivity for the many faculty members working remotely and making it easier for faculty to communicate with one another and with referring colleagues on challenging cases. While keeping an eye on the day-to-day operations of Sectra, Drs. Safdar and Harri are co-developing solutions and next-step enhancements responsive to Emory’s unique and ever-growing enterprise.
“We’re pleased the vendor is eager to work with us on designing the workflows and practices of the future,” says Dr. Safdar.