Breast Screening goes wholly digital at Royal Cornwall NHS

The platform has enabled the Trust’s existing PACS (Picture Archiving Communication System) to integrate with technology from GE and Siemens, was enabled by CSC as part of its role as PACS vendor in the region under the terms of the controversial National Programme for IT. The new system will also allow full integration between the Trust’s PACS platform and the National Breast Screening System (NBSS).

 

The Department of Health aims to enable all breast screening units across England to become digital by the end of 2010.

 

In addition, the system can display multiple forms of medical imaging data, including MRI and ultrasound scans, saving healthcare professionals from having to load up several software suites to view individual file types separately. All images can be accessed locally whilst being backed-up within the CSC data centre for longer term storage.

 

 “We are very excited about the digital imaging we’re now using because it is far superior to older analogue equipment,” explained Dr. Donna Christensen, director of the trust’s breast screening service. “It’s going to be a fantastic improvement. In particular, it’s going to be better at spotting early signs of breast cancer in dense glandular breast material. In these cases, we hope the new equipment will help us spot a third more cancers early on and offer women treatment at the earliest possible opportunity.”

 

Alan Brimacombe, clinical imaging PACS manager for the trust, said, “I believe the 700 healthcare professionals who have access to PACS – including ward sisters, GPs, radiographers and surgeons – will not only find the digital imaging quality better but also far more convenient to work with.”

 

“It’s a huge leap forwards for healthcare professionals across the region to be able to share mammograms and other test images. Film would generally just sit in one place but now we can distribute a wide variety of imaging data around the region to where it is needed and, crucially, they can do this on one system with one log-on so they don’t have to jump between different software packages.”

 

Gerry O’Keeffe, CSC vice president, UK Healthcare, argued the deployment at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust showed the company was assisting the NHS “not only to improve outcomes but also to deliver benefits-driven and value-for-money solutions”.

 

The future of the National Programme for IT remains uncertain until the publication of next month’s spending review. In August, CSC’s CEO Mike Laphen suggested there may be a fight ahead if the NHS contract is tampered with too much. "Obviously, if it was to happen today, the top line would be impacted," he said.  "I would just say more than likely we would wind up in disputes and therefore, I don’t think either one of us wants that to happen. I think both of us want to make sure that this programme goes forward and delivers what we all expect it to deliver.”