Highly Scalable as Facility Grows
At the time that CT Ortho went from film to digital radiology, there were only 19 providers. Today, with 21 locations and 48 physicians, imaging volume is growing at a non-stop rate. As the number of yearly studies has grown to just under 90,000, image storage and sharing across locations has become a challenge. A study would be created at one of the 21 locations and then forwarded to the main data center within jurisdiction to catalog the study and inven tory into the PACS. Providers would then have to access that application to view imaging.
In 2016, CT Ortho finalized 5 additional mergers and began looking for a solution that would streamline their processes. Their IT goal was to be highly virtualized and highly available.
“Leveraging infrastructure that others have already built lowers costs. It was a key requirement for us that the vendor we chose had a true SaaS model.”
– Mark Filiaut Chief Information Officer, CT Ortho.
Secure Archiving of Large Data Sets
Currently, Ambra acts as the secondary repository for MRI studies and the primary archive across study types. With Ambra, consolidating multiple imaging systems with one flexible, customizable, and low maintenance cloud platform becomes a reality. The easy-to-use Modality Worklist and flexible routing rules drive better productivity for staff and physicians alike.
Ambra’s secure and scalable cloud based storage makes it simple to move all imaging into one single repository for easy access to priors. Automatically, data can be purged that has exceeded its legal retention period based on configurable retention rules, and store and retrieve dozens of file formats such as JPEG, TFF, DOC, etc to be viewed at anytime from anywhere.
Streamlined External Sharing
CT Ortho’s goal for 2018 is to no longer burn CDs and instead share imaging with referring physicians through Ambra’s live and secure links to patient imaging.
“Referring physicians love live links! Over time, we intend to introduce to community a different way of accessing radiology images.”
– Mark Filiaut Chief Information Officer, CT Ortho.
Simplified Patient List
In March of 2018, Ambra Health released a feature which provides physicians a view of their arrived appointments for patients being seen in the clinical offices. The patient list provides direct access to the library of studies from the Ambra Cloud which greatly improves the operational efficiency for the providers who no longer have to search for studies.
“Our group is very happy about this innovation and appreciated the speed with which this feature was brought to market on our behalf.”
– Mark Filiaut Chief Information Officer, CT Ortho.
Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, CT Ortho, are Connecticut’s premier team of Orthopaedic surgeons and healthcare professionals with over 21 locations throughout the state. Their mission is to provide extraordinary care for children and adults with musculoskeletal injuries & disorders. CT Ortho has a staff of 550 and 48 physicians across its locations and manages just under 90,000 studies per year. Over the years, the group has grown in size across its locations and found image sharing internally and externally with referring physicians to be a complex and time-consuming task. By 2020, CT Ortho predicts having a million studies greater than 10 terabytes of data. With this enormous study volume in mind, CT Ortho sought to engage with a business partner that could take over responsibility for safety, security, and 24/7 access to studies. Partnering with Ambra allows CT Ortho to access images from anywhere, anytime and provides an opportunity for network expansion across local hospitals.