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Innovative QICS Platform Provides Not-for-Profit’s IT Backbone

April 26, 2011—Sarasota, FL—peerVue today announced a partnership with innovative not-for-profit Imaging the World (ITW) for the use of peerVue’s QICS IT platform in ITW’s ultrasound imaging program in Uganda.  peerVue’s new QICS (Qualitative Intelligence & Communications System) will support global interpretation worklist management, structured reporting, results communications, workflow and clinical outcomes analysis of the program’s overall results.

The first application for the ITW/peerVue collaboration will be for prenatal ultrasound, in Uganda. Ushering in a new protocol in remote diagnostic care, ITW’s Uganda program uses a newly designed process to train local midwives and other healthcare providers to capture high quality ultrasound scans of pregnant women in remote villages. These are transmitted via cellular modem and the Internet to medical volunteers worldwide. Within hours, potentially lifesaving diagnoses are returned, offering never before available treatment options.

peerVue’s innovative new QICS solution will provide much of the crucial IT underpinnings for the imaging outreach in Uganda, according to Kristen DeStigter, M.D., Co-Founder of ITW and Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Radiology at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen Health Care. The QICS platform will help collect information from multiple program participants—from midwives to radiologists—as well as to unify otherwise disparate IT systems. This will be used to help manage and monitor the program’s complex communication and workflow as well as provide structured exam reporting functionality and complex analysis of the final program results.

“Without peerVue, ITW would have to devote significant resources to make the workflow behind this effort function efficiently and effectively—peerVue automates the ultrasound results reporting and communications details necessary for the information transfer behind this unique patient care model.”

In this groundbreaking effort, ultrasound images will be acquired in remote Uganda and ultimately transmitted to a PACS server. After transmission to the PACS, the peerVue QICS will detect a study and determine the image type. It will then automatically assign exams to an appropriate reader (interpreter) based on study type, time zone and exam urgency. Exam assignment is accomplished through a global web-based worklist and email and SMS.

Interpreters will record results using special web-based point-and-click structured reporting configured within the peerVue QICS. Once completed, QICS will send Ugandan healthcare workers an email link to the report. After notification by email or cell phone text, they also can view reports on a web-based QICS worklist. In the case of urgent or emergent findings, a similar notification process will be initiated with local and regional hospitals and local healthcare workers.

The peerVue ITW system also includes numerous built-in Q/C and communications tracking. For example, if local caregivers fail to act on an urgent-finding report, they are re-notified via text or email, and eventually the incident escalates further. The system also supports fully automated peer review of all local caregivers as well as all members of the volunteer physician reading network.

QICS also will play the leading role in ITW’s evaluation of the program efficacy and overall results. Using QICS, ITW will monitor such factors as the accuracy of the local caregivers’ scanning techniques and speed of their response to urgent situations to determine whether program protocols meet quality-of-care goals. ITW also will examine the degree of patient compliance with recommendations for additional care as well as healthcare history and trends among the study population.  It will also enable ITW to mine data for ongoing feedback across every aspect of the program.

According to Kyle Lawton, peerVue CEO, QICS is able to support ITW’s specialized information flow because of the unique nature of the product itself. “QICS is a highly configurable platform that can be customized to support the widely ranging workflows and goals of any hospital or clinic,” he says. “To meet ITW’s complex needs, peerVue analyzed their sources of data and the information they wished to obtain and then custom designed specialized workspaces to meet their needs. That’s what QICS can do for any user—whether a radiology department or a not-for-profit.”

About peerVue, Inc.

Since its inception in 2002, peerVue has been redefining the healthcare IT market with intelligent workflow and communication solutions that enable healthcare organizations to improve patient care and safety, while reducing risk and simplifying process.  With a passion for technology and innovation, peerVue was established to solve critical workflow and communication gaps in healthcare that jeopardize patient safety and render imaging organizations inefficient.  Headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, peerVue delivers solutions worldwide with dozens of integrations to leading healthcare imaging and IT across multiple specialties, including radiology, mammography, cardiology and pathology.  Contact peerVue at 877.572.9505 or visit www.peerVue.com.

For more information please contact:

Jeanne-Marie Phillips

HealthFlash Marketing

1234 Summer Street                       

Stamford, CT   06905

888-655-3434

jphillips@healthflashmarketing.com

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