Northland DHB to implement next-generation imaging technology

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PICTURE: Northland DHB radiographer Alistair Rumball-Smith.

eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The imaging and informatics technology has adaptive intelligence that provides a holistic view of the patient and responds to each radiologist’s diagnostic needs.

Northland District Health Board will implement Philips’ next-generation imaging and informatics technology, Illumeo.

The DHB is the first user of the technology outside of the United States.

Philips describes Illumeo as “an imaging and informatics technology with adaptive intelligence that redefines and enhances how radiologists work with medical images.

“Using adaptive intelligence to pull data from various hospital sources, the intelligent software presents a holistic view of the patient and provides diagnostic tools that adapt to physician needs, offering added insights and optimising their workflow based on their own preferences to enhance clinician confidence for every patient,” a company press release says.

Northland DHB radiologist Alistair Rumball-Smith says the hospital will be upgraded to Illumeo within the next financial quarter. The hardware refresh needed to support the new platform is already being implemented.

“What it introduces is a lot of new workflow tools,” Rumball-Smith says.

These include critical results’ notifications and peer review of radiological studies.

“What was really interesting for us is the ability to bring in other clinical information from other systems for radiologists to view while they are doing their reporting,” he adds.

The system provides a Patient Briefing, which includes the patient problem list, laboratory results, prior radiology reports, imaging orders or scanned documents pulled from other integrated systems.

Rumball-Smith says the system can also identify and label organs and measure tumours automatically, based on previous reporting.

Philips says Illumeo’s built-in intelligence will “automatically record the preferences of Northland DHB radiologists and will adapt the user interface to assist the clinician by offering tool sets and measurements driven by Illumeo’s understanding of the clinical context”.

The head of healthcare informatics and population health management at Philips ASEAN Pacific, Fernando Erazo, says “we understand that the amount of data and information that radiologists work with each day is dramatically increasing.

“With Illumeo we are now equipping them with the tools to enable a more efficient, uniquely personalised workflow experience and more confident diagnosis.” 

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