Vendor neutral archiving in medicine

All medical information in one location

Medically relevant information is stored scattered across various systems and archives - from the HIS to specialist systems - in different formats, and in some cases even in different locations within the hospital. This decentralized storage presents two problems for the treating physician: bringing together all of the medical information needed for treatment requires a great deal of time. Furthermore, there is a risk when data is held in scattered locations of important information not being considered during the decision-making process because its existence is simply overlooked.

In IT departments, the numerous systems and archives mean substantially increased time and effort on administration and training, while the large number of storage formats prevents fully consistent, legally compliant, and audit-proof archiving of medical information.

The JiveX Medical Archive solves these problems by enabling all medical information within a system to be bundled in a vendor-neutral manner and a standardized format. The information is distributed using a standardized viewer which can be accessed from any workstation.

Data centralization means increased safety and efficiency
The JiveX Medical Archive is a logical step forward from JiveX Integrated Imaging (PACS-II), which was already a first step for VISUS towards data consolidation. JiveX Integrated Imaging extended the excellent archiving, distribution, and display options from a classical PACS to areas outside radiology. Now, the goal of the JiveX Medical Archive is to bring together all information from all areas of the hospital that logically belongs together, regardless of the format: medical reports, radiological images, EKG tracings, functional data, findings from specialist systems (such as endoscopy), wound documentation, or information which was previously still in the form of printouts (e.g. pulmonary function tests).

Centralization of this kind permits the physician to view all of the information necessary for the treatment of a patient at a glance within a single viewer. This saves valuable time and thus manpower. It also increases the safety of treatment as it ensures that all of the information is taken into consideration.

On the IT side, the time and effort spent on administration is reduced enormously as now only one archive has to be managed and maintained. Converting the data into a standardized format, the established and globally recognized DICOM format, also ensures that the medical information is stored and can be recovered over the long term in a legally compliant and audit-proof manner.

Standards mean vendor neutrality and flexibility
Another advantage of the JiveX Medical Archive is the fact that institutions have access to the information gathered at all times thanks to the use of the globally established DICOM standard. This also means that findings can be migrated without making compromises. As a result, institutions regain the data sovereignty lost when vendor-dependent specialist systems were used. Above all, independence of this type creates long-term flexibility with regard to IT architecture expansion or updates.

For communications within the IT infrastructure, for example with the HIS, VISUS also relies on standards, in this case, HL7. Thus, deep integration is permitted, thus ensuring smooth information exchange and with it, a high level of ­consistency.

User-friendly and workflow optimized

The JiveX Medical Archive has been conceived for medical information only. All administrative information regarding a patient remains in the systems designed for this purpose. The answer to the question of whether information is best stored in the Medical Archive will therefore depend on the purpose of the data: if the information is part of the medical/treatment workflow, it should be held in the JiveX Medical Archive.

It is not a function of the Medical Archive to encroach on the core functions of the HIS, such as report generation or management of digital patient records. The Medical Archive starts its work where the functionality of the HIS ends - specifically with the smart presentation and organization, audit-proof storage, and hospital-wide availability of the patient‘s medical history. Deep integration into the HIS thus helps the user to access information from within the treatment context.

It is also not the goal of the Medical Archive to supersede existing and well established subsystems. An approach of this type would not be desirable for the users who cannot do without the highly specific functions of certain systems. Therefore, the JiveX Medical archive captures the data acquired, converts it to DICOM, and archives it within one system. Therefore, nothing changes on the data capture side for the users. Conversely, the generation of findings is simplified enormously as the user only has to log into one system to access all of the information and can inspect the information using just one viewer.

Functional highlights DICOM conversion tools - the key to independence

So that the construction of a standardized archive can be possible without rendering previously used systems obsolete, results from various sources must, regardless of their original format, be converted into a standarized format - DICOM. For this purpose, JiveX draws simultaneously on several tools.

JiveX PDF Print Gateway

The tool known as the JiveX PDF Print Gateway, which makes it possible also to integrate medical devices into the PACS which previously generated output which was only available on paper. Instead of generating a printout, the PDF Print Gateway converts the data to DICOM and makes this data available to the PACS. Thus, the user will in future be able to file information such as the results from hearing tests or pulmonary function data in the Medical Archive with a print command. A dedicated DICOM worklist broker is then used to link the printout to the job message so that the findings can be held in the archive in verified form and archived long-term and in a legally compliance manner.

JiveX File Import Gateway
The JiveX File Import service operates on a similar principle. Currently, paper reports are frequently scanned in by a service provider and made available on data media. The JiveX File Import service also converts these documents into DICOM and imports them automatically into the PACS. This occurs either on the basis of a DICOM worklist or by objects having already been assigned a unique name in advance.

JiveX Viewer
All of the data in the Medical Archive - radiological images, EKGs, documents, and videos - are presented in one standardized viewer which meets German Medical Devices Act (MPG) 2b requirements.

HIS Communication using HL7 MDM
The deep integration of JiveX in the HIS means that many routine operations can also be automated, resulting in time savings and ensuring greater consistency in the data held in the archive. For example, the HIS uses an HL7 MDM message to „inform“ JiveX that diagnostic, operative, or medical reports have been released for use and exports them automatically into the Medical Archive.

Conversely, JiveX sends an HL7 notification regarding objects received to the information systems, ensuring data consistency on both sides without any need for the redundant storage of the objects themselves.

Future-proof thanks to XDS conformity
One standard which will in future ensure even greater transparency for data archiving is XDS (Cross Enterprise ­Document Sharing). This standard, which is still in development, carries the thinking behind the Medical Archive further by making it possible to archive data in such a manner that they can be made available not just throughout a hospital, but across institutions. In this context, JiveX can in future be used both as an XDS repository and an XDS consumer.

Secure and flexible archiving

The archiving solutions of the JiveX Medical Archive are flexible and can be tailored in line with the needs of the individual customer. The data storage and archiving options extend from online storage in a central computer center, to storage network solutions (Storage Area Network, SAN), to network attached hard drive systems (Network Attached Storage, NAS), or hard drive systems connected directly to the server (RAID, DAS). Of course, offline archiving solutions on DVDs, Blu-ray discs, or magnetic tapes, are also supported. No matter how the solution is implemented in technical terms, they will be transparent to the user at all times thanks to status reports via the archiving status. Reconciliation with the job communications from the lead information system ensures process quality at all levels of the imaging cycle.