Dear customers!

We are glad to inform you that a new version of EMSOW has been released this week.

[#17465] Patient address autopopulation

We have upgraded the autopopulation algorithm for patient addresses in the Processing module. When you are adding a new service, EMSOW automatically fills patient address fields in the following ways:

1. If the referring facility is a nursing home, the fields are populated with the facility’s address.
2. If the referring facility is not a nursing home, EMSOW uses the address from the patient’s record, if available (see Setup → Patients).

You can also populate the patient address for existing studies by clicking the ‘Facility’ and ‘Patient’ buttons under the address fields.

[#17911] Provider access to the Billing module

From now on, your doctors and providers can review billing information for their patients by logging into your EMSOW domain. They can get limited, read-only access to the Billing module to view the billing information only for their services.

To provide access to the Billing module, create a new user account for a doctor or provider and link it to the corresponding reading or referring doctor (or facility) or rendering provider. If you need help setting up user permissions, please contact our support.

Bugs & Stability

We have improved the stability and performance of EMSOW and fixed a few bugs.

An introduction to cloud-based PACS for mobile diagnostic operators

Mobile diagnostic imaging is in high demand by many practices and doctors who are looking to expand their services to new locations and avoid the cost of maintaining an in-house diagnostic lab. Portable diagnostic equipment makes it possible for X-ray technicians and sonographers to travel between facilities. At the same time, it delivers image quality comparable to that of stationary equipment. However, today’s technology has a lot more to offer to mobile diagnostic operators than just portable ultrasound machines and X-ray appliances. In this article, we’ll take a look at one useful tool that can help your mobile imaging business work more efficiently – web-based PACS.

Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) have become a vital part of the IT infrastructure of many healthcare organizations. PACS software allows to capture, store, view and share all types of medical images within local networks. This provides a great number of advantages, including long-term storage, easy search, and image transfer via the network (which is much faster and cheaper than burning CDs).

However, if you are considering getting your own PACS server as a mobile imaging operator, you may face at least the following difficulties:

Maintenance is expensive. Even if you’re a small business, medical images are a heavy kind of data: one echocardiogram, for instance, may take up to 1 GB of storage space depending on the compression level. Moreover, you are legally obliged to keep the images for a long time in most cases. Add to this the need for a trained IT specialist to manage, service, and backup the image storage server.

External sharing issues. A local PACS server may work for you if your images are supposed to remain in your local network without any external access. However, if you use remote reading radiologists like most mobile operators, you will not be able to easily send the images to their remote computers, because a) the images are large, and b) it may violate the privacy of your patients. To include a remote site in your network you might choose to use the Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology, but then the cost of the above mentioned IT guy may reach a six number figure.

Fortunately, in the age of internet services, both of the problems are easily solved with web-based PACS solutions that allow you to:
– Upload images from any location via the internet, with HIPAA-compliant encryption
– View the images in a web browser from any internet-enabled device. To invite a radiologist to read an imaging study, all you need to do is send them a link
– Forget about the long-term storage problem, since now the images are in the cloud (though you should make sure to carefully read the terms and conditions of your contract; for example, you may want to check their policy on data migration in case you decide to move your data to another provider in the future)

If you and your reading doctor are using different PACS systems, advanced web-based solutions should allow you to connect your system to theirs. Thanks to the interoperability of the DICOM protocol, the core of any modern PACS, your web-based solution can be joined with any other system. Security can be provided by the same VPN technology we mentioned, except for it will not be at your own expense anymore – the web service provider should take care of all the technicalities as part of the package.

Therefore, the web-based PACS services allow you to create a secure distributed clinical environment that is available 24/7 from any location. They can reliably connect technicians and reading doctors as well as your office personnel and thus help you manage your workflow completely. There is a couple more things you might look into to get the most out of your web-based PACS experience:
– Manage the schedule of your technicians and transfer it straight to their equipment with Modality Worklist.
– Transfer patient information from the EHRs of your customers to your worklist
– Integrate the billing part of your business with your PACS.

Dear customers!

We are glad to inform you that a new version of EMSOW has been released this week.

[#17850] Ability to email invoices to referring facilities

It is now possible to send invoices to billing email addresses of referring facilities.

[#17851] Payer assignment module update

The Payer Assignment module now allows to select which referring facility should receive a report.

[#17859] TriZetto real-time eligibility check

We have added support for eligibility checks for TriZetto customers.

Bugs & Stability

We have improved the stability and performance of EMSOW and fixed a few bugs.

Dear customers!

We are glad to inform you that a new version of EMSOW has been released this week.

[#17483] A new diagnosis edit option

We have made it easier for users to edit study diagnoses. Instead of opening the “Edit service” window to add, correct or delete an ICD code, you can just click on the link next to “Diag:” below the study name in the Processing or Billing module and make changes. If you want to take advantage of this feature, please send a message to our support at support@emsow.com and we will enable it for you.

[#17484] “Reason for the exam” field

We have added the “Reason for the exam” field to the Dispatch and Physician Portal modules.

[#17462] Stages in Dispatch

The Dispatch module now displays stages of exams in the Procedure column. The stages are changed as described below:

1. A dispatcher enters new studies. For every new study, the stage is set to Undispatched.
2. Next, the dispatcher clicks the “Dispatch” button – the stage is changed to Scheduled or In progress. A technologist receives an email with study information.
3. The technologist reads the email and confirms the study list – the stage is changed to Confirmed. If the technologist has not confirmed the study list, the stage remains the same.
4. After the studies are sent for reading, their status is changed to Transcriptions.
5. If a study is read and has an attached report, the stage of this study is changed to Completed.

[#17798] Storage for sent invoices

We have created a sent invoices storage, which facilitates invoice tracking. Now users can find and check previously sent invoices in the archive at any time. The archived invoices are available in the Invoice Delivery Log module under the Billing menu.

[#17847] Study discount rules

A new feature that allows to set discounts for certain study types based on a set of conditions, including referring facilities, insurances, and early payments.

Bugs & Stability

We have improved the stability and performance of EMSOW and fixed a few bugs.

Dear customers!

We are glad to inform you that a new version of EMSOW has been released this week.

[#17690] Hospitalization dates

We implemented support for hospitalization dates in the system. You can specify admission and discharge dates in the properties of a service, and they will be included in claims that you submit electronically or on paper. If you want to use this feature in your workflow, please contact our support to get a short training session.

[#17820] Double check of patient height in DICOM files

It has been brought to our attention that certain ultrasound machines send patient height in centimeters as the value of DICOM tag (0010,1020), instead of meters. From now on, EMSOW will automatically correct the height value in those cases.

[#17461] Study priority levels in the Dispatch module

With this version, our users will be able to set one of the three priority levels for a case in the Dispatch module:

• “Routine” (default) – highlighted as green
• “ASAP” – highlighted as yellow
• “STAT” – highlighted as red

The users can also quickly filter the cases in the Dispatch module by priority.

[#17811] Referring doctor suffixes on reports

From now on, the suffixes of referring doctors’ names (such as “MD” or “DO”) will be printed on image interpretation reports.

Bugs & Stability

We have improved the stability and performance of EMSOW and fixed a few bugs.