FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BOSTON, MA - July 26, 2010 - lifeIMAGE (www.lifeimage.com),rapidly becoming the medical image e-sharing choice for hospitals with image-intensive specialty practices, proudly announces the addition of Moffitt Cancer Center (http://www.moffitt.org/) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (http://www.mskcc.org) to its growing client base. Additionally, Massachusetts General Hospital, already a lifeIMAGE customer for enterprise management of incoming patient CDs, will pilot receiving outside medical images via the lifeIMAGE cloud at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center (http://www.massgeneral.org/cancer/). These renowned oncology centers, which treat nearly one million patients annually combined, selected lifeIMAGE’s technology platform to better manage referrals and the ingestion of outside imaging exams vital to patients’ local treatment planning.
• Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, is recognized as one of the world’s most sophisticated cancer centers of excellence
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, is the world’s oldest and largest private cancer center, with 10,000 employees, and ranked second on U.S. News and World Report’s 2010-2011 hospitals for cancer
• Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, is ranked one of the country’s top ten cancer centers by U.S. News & World Report
Accessing and sharing patients’ prior imaging exams is critical to cancer treatment planning and follow-up care. At Moffitt, Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, broad referral networks and geographically dispersed patient communities limit electronic data exchange, so obtaining image data pre-care and sharing exams with patients’ local healthcare providers during treatment programs or post-care is typically done via CD media. Transferring medical images on CD media is problematic for the recipient due to unreadable disks, proprietary viewers and workstation incompatibility, and this method also presents a number of clinical workflow challenges. When prior exam data is inaccessible, patients may need to undergo duplicate exams, which waste time and can cause unnecessary radiation exposure.
lila InBox™ is a solution from lifeIMAGE for the complexities related to high volumes of incoming patient CDs. It lets physicians and clinic staff quickly access, view and share the contents of patient CDs at the point of encounter, without having to push the data to picture archiving and communications systems (PACS.) Users can nominate outside images to be imported to PACS as lila InBox provides an end-to-end request workflow with quality control and patient identity reconciliation.
lila DropBox™ is a cloud-based service that provides specialists with a secure online repository to which referring physicians and patients can upload cases, including digital imaging exams, reports, and other associated documents.
Moffitt and Memorial-Sloan Kettering are lila InBox customers; the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center has signed on for a lila DropBox pilot to complement its existing usage of lila InBox.
“Getting diagnostic radiology images from a disc and into a form we can see, share and store has been a major challenge and frustration for us,” said Dr. Vernon Sondak, chair for the department of cutaneous oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center. “lifeIMAGE software has greatly simplified that process for the vast majority of our patients. It has been easy and intuitive to use.”
“lifeIMAGE has been a tremendous benefit to my program,” commented Dr. G. Douglas Letson, a senior faculty member and chair for the sarcoma department at Moffitt Cancer Center. “It has been helpful to have one system that quickly reads all of our patient CDs for clinic and our consult service. It is fast and easy to navigate, and has made the clinics run on time and improved our assessment of our patients.”
“lifeIMAGE is solving one of the biggest challenges large cancer centers are facing – management of incoming CDs. Mass General, Moffitt and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centers have talented physicians treating patients from large numbers of remote locations, with the patients often carrying their CDs to a consultation. lifeIMAGE allows these doctors to spend their time efficiently and meaningfully, on their patients, instead of managing a labor-intensive process of accessing, handling and loading images,” said Hamid Tabatabaie, president and chief executive officer, lifeIMAGE. “Improving data flow for clinical specialties is a hallmark service of ours, and we will continue to develop technologies that help the world’s biggest hospitals manage their imaging data.”
Moffitt, Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center join Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital as part of lifeIMAGE’s growing list of oncology clients. lifeIMAGE customers perform nearly six million imaging exams annually. Ten of the nation’s ‘Best Hospitals,’ as ranked by U.S. News & World Report’s 2010-2011 survey, including four of the top 25 cancer care sites, have already selected lifeIMAGE.
About lifeIMAGE
lifeIMAGE provides an Internet service for universal e-sharing of diagnostic imaging information. The service is designed to connect hospitals, radiology groups, and physicians, to their patients everywhere. lifeIMAGE makes it possible to securely deliver or receive patient imaging information wherever needed from wherever the information originates. The goal of the lifeIMAGE platform is to help avoid duplicate exams and eliminate unnecessary patient exposure to excessive radiation. In an era of concerns about rising healthcare costs, lifeIMAGE is investing in a platform that helps advance patient care, while reducing $10 to $15 billion of unnecessary costs. For more information visit www.lifeimage.com.
Media Contact:
Mark O’Toole
The Castle Group
(617) 337-9535
motoole@thecastlegrp.com