WAYNE, N.J., April 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Assured Imaging, the leading provider of mobile digital mammography in the United States, is reporting significantly increased patient volume and radiologist productivity nine months after implementing the Exa™ Enterprise Imaging platform from Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. Exa has helped the organization increase radiologist productivity by 20%. It has also helped Assured Imaging’s radiologists reduce reading times from two minutes to one minute or less, while lowering report turn-around-times (TATs) to within an hour, at each of the organization’s eight woman care centers.
With a footprint that covers more than 600 locations across eight states, Assured Imaging operates comprehensive breast centers in multiple states. The organization also offers portable and mobile mammography imaging options to all 600 locations it currently serves. “The Exa platform has worked better for us because we have so many radiologists who read remotely,” says Joe Shafe, COO at Assured Imaging. “Exa has helped us create a platform that lets mobile, portable, and brick and mortar sites work together seamlessly.”
Connecting brick and mortar locations with portable systems and mobile imaging via the cloud is a critical advantage for Assured Imaging. The organization includes mobile 3D mammography coaches, portable mammography units, and portable ultrasound units, along with eight brick and mortar sites. Four radiologists, plus two teleradiology groups in North Carolina and California, use Exa to read approximately 60,000 screening and diagnostic mammography exams and 30,000 ultrasound, bone density and CT studies per year.
The Exa platform facilitates the viewing of large medical imaging files, such as 3D Breast Tomosynthesis images, quickly and efficiently on existing workstations throughout the enterprise. With the Exa diagnostic quality Zero Footprint Universal Viewer, clinicians can view these images and more from any modality and any vendor.
“With Exa, we can move large studies more quickly, and we’re not dealing with VPNs between facilities. With the cloud-based system, we’re able to pull studies off the server faster and we can pull up our worklists remotely,” says Shafe. “We wanted a PACS system that was vendor-neutral, and Exa was able to work with all the manufacturers we use across our sites.”
Assured Imaging’s PACS Administrator, Rachelle Ramos-Aved, relies on Exa’s Performance Dashboards to help manage a complex workflow that includes mobile, portable and fixed site imaging services, as well as several teleradiology clients. She regularly utilizes the Performance Dashboards to generate instant statistics on operations, including daily exam volume, radiologist performance, referring physician ordering preferences and even approved and unread study count by facility, reading physician or modality.
“Exa is extremely helpful in enabling us to modify our workflow to meet our performance goals,” Ramos-Aved says. “I can easily add an additional status for the different workflows we have across our organization.”
She credits Konica Minolta Healthcare’s support staff with helping her maximize utilization of the Custom Workflow and Performance Dashboard features. “I am extremely grateful to our Exa team for offering solutions to problems we have encountered due to our diverse business model. They have trained us to be self-sufficient but are always available to help us whenever needed. I’ve reached out to them during off-hours, weekends and even holidays and someone not only responds, but they work with us until the issue is resolved.”
Exa brings the entire business together to support future growth. “Exa definitely helps us grow. We wanted a system that could grow and change with us, and Exa is the right solution,” Shafe adds.