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INTEGRATING RADIOLOGY DATA INTO THE ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The director of radiology at a community hospital discusses the challenges involved in incorporating information from separate RIS and PACS into a single electronic medical record.
It is the new old question in today's healthcare: What exactly is the EMR?
One recent Tuesday afternoon, I got a phone call from the electronic medical records (EMR) team meeting in our hospital. I was on speakerphone and was asked, "Are your techs documenting everything about the radiology procedure in the RIS [radiology information system], or are you keeping records separately?"
After taking the time to investigate, I replied that we were documenting everything in our medical record. "We only have one medical record. Images are not medical records," I said. The EMR team then asked why the hospital always gets two subpoenas from lawyers. I replied with a question: "One is for medical records and one for radiology films?"
The radiology process begins with an image and ends with a report. The report is sent to the referring physician, and the final signed hard copies are submitted to the medical records department. After the radiologist's review and interpretation, the images are filed away....