RIS viewer & legacy data repositories

As part of the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) one of the elements was to replace the existing Radiology Information Systems (RIS) with one provided by the Local Service Provider(LSP). Also, a number of data definitions had changed between the existing radiology systems and the new LSP systems, which, when combined with poor data quality as a result of duplicate patient registrations and incomplete data, aging hardware platforms and a decreasing level of support it was necessary to find an alternative to migrating incomplete and potentially poor quality data to the new systems or retaining the existing systems longer than necessary.

Thus, the need was borne to develop a solution that would satisfy the requirements for operational, clinical and legal reasons to retain existing radiology data yet not to create a new system requiring significant resources, to implement, purchase and use.

The primary initial design goal was to create a user-friendly viewer for the radiology data, based on data extracted from the existing Radiology Information Systems that allows users to view historical data, maintain film tracking functionality and provide an ad hoc statistical capability.

The RIS Viewer solution is web based, easy to use and offers a reliable and cost effective way to view existing information without having to retain the overhead of running and managing a legacy radiology system.

The functional components of the system are:

• Login screen

• Patient selection screen

• Film Folder selection screen

• Study selection screen

• Study detail screen

• Film Tracking screen

• Ad Hoc Statistical Reporting inc KH12 (if required)

Since the first install of the RIS Viewer we have seen the demand for the management of legacy data via a repository type solution extend beyond Radiology and we are now actively engaged with our clients developing web based views for areas including Pathology, Child Health and Community data.