International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra has signed a contract with Kent and Medway Medical Imaging Consortium. The new agreement will help a consortium of trusts deliver faster diagnoses, improve capacity and deliver community diagnostics. Benefits from utilizing the same imaging system as many other trusts across large of South East England are also expected.
Sue Lang, who has worked as program lead for the consortium and radiology transformation program manager for East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The new system will make important diagnostic images instantly available across our trusts to diagnostic reporters and people delivering care. It will also support improved access to imaging across large parts of South East England, where many other hospitals also use the Sectra PACS.
“Patients can expect their imaging to follow their care journey—whether that’s within our consortium or beyond. For example, cancer patients often move to specialist centers, and others are referred to London hospitals as part of a trauma network and then come back to us, so it is key that we can easily share and access imaging.”
Radiologists and other clinicians at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, and Medway NHS Foundation Trust will be able to easily access images such as x-rays, CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and more regardless of where in the consortium a patient has had their medical imaging captured.
Timely and more informed diagnoses and clinical decisions are expected for patients due to improved imaging access, and trusts across the region will be able to pool their resources and balance the workload of scarce radiologists and specialists. Better discoverability and accessibility of images will also lead to enhanced patient safety by avoiding unnecessary duplicate scans and associated radiation exposure for patients.
The radiology module of Sectra’s enterprise imaging solution will be implemented across the trusts alongside Sectra’s vendor neutral archive. In addition to the initial focus on radiology and medical photography, the enterprise imaging solution provides the potential to expand the program to other diagnostic disciplines in the future—for example, digital pathology.