Fort Carson, Colo. -- The Evans Army Community Hospital has fielded a new Picture Archival Communication System (PACS) in its radiology department that enables radiology technicians and doctors to view any X-ray taken at a DOD hospital or clinic.
The radiology department switched to the IMPAX system to archive and retrieve X-rays Feb. 26, 2016.
"With our old system there were only two of us at Evans who could retrieve studies from another location, (such as the U.S.) Air Force Academy," said Staff Sgt. Eric Arellano, PACS administrator at EACH. "Colorado Springs is a market and we have to have that seamless communication between all the medical facilities and we didn't have that."
Arellano said under the old system it would take two to three days for EACH doctors to have access to X-rays taken at the Air Force Academy. The doctors had to contact the PACS office which would then contact the academy to send the images to Evans.
"Now the providers will have access to the X-ray with the push of just one button," Arellano said.
"The ability to communicate with the entire system will be nice," said Maj. Matthew Angelidis, the former chief of EACH Department of
Emergency Medicine. "If a Soldier (transfers) to Fort Carson his records will be available to us immediately."
Angelidis said the DOD-wide system will be an improvement in health care for those from other branches of the military who seek treatment at Evans.
"Since we can now access records for those in any service, we can limit the radiation exposure by not repeating procedures already done," Angelidis said. "We will also be able to pull older records of an individual to compare to a new CT scan."
But the new system is not just for present day visits to the doctor but for future ones as well, noted Arellano. The IMPAX also has an 8-petabyte (8 million gigabyte) long-term storage device that will store all past and future radiology images.
"It is massive data storage that will allow us to store images for (a patient's) entire life," said Arellano. "And this is a good thing, because instead of X-rays being logged under the sponsor's Social Security number (SSN), we are now putting the individual's DOD identification (ID) number on them."
Under the Social Security system, mistakes could be made when a Soldier remarried as a doctor could pull up the previous spouse's X-rays instead of the current spouse. Identifying the correct images for twins was also a challenge.
"That is not going to happen with the new system, as everyone has their own unique DOD ID number,"
Arellano said. "A DOD ID stays with an individual throughout his life, even if born as a military dependent, then joining the Army, then getting out and marrying a service member. The number transfers with the person through all three stages."
In the past, this person's records would have been filed under his parent's SSN, then his, and finally under the military spouse's SSN.
Arellano said in this case he and his PACS counterparts would have had to look at three systems to find all the medical records. With the IMPAX all the records will now be kept under the same DOD ID.
"Most of our patients will not realize what IMPAX has done to improve their health care," said Arellano. "That is a good thing; the switch to the new system has occurred and is already allowing us a seamless flow of images from anywhere someone might have been stationed previously."
Related Links:
Evans Army Community Hospital web page
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