Carestream Vue Advances Healthcare IT Integration and Unveils New Collaborative Ecosystem

Healthcare informatization is an international development trend. With the advancement of information technology, a growing number of hospitals in China are accelerating the comprehensive construction of IT platforms and Hospital Information Systems (HIS) to enhance their service levels and core competitiveness. On December 17, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) reported from the Third China-US Summit on Healthcare Informatics Development and the 2016 HIMSS Greater China Annual Conference that four Chinese hospitals had passed the HIMSS Stage 7 evaluation. Apart from the United States, only 16 hospitals worldwide have achieved HIMSS Stage 7 certification, with four of them located in China.

Opening of the 3rd China-US Summit on Healthcare Informatics Development and the 2016 HIMSS Greater China Annual Conference

As one of the most renowned healthcare information organizations globally, HIMSS originated from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society established in the United States in 1961. Its initial mission was to advocate for and advance the process of healthcare informatization by leveraging its member organizations, thereby delivering more efficient patient care. Currently, it boasts over 52,000 individual members, more than 600 corporate members, and over 250 non-profit partner organizations worldwide, with branch offices established in Europe and Asia.

The Greater China Annual Conference held in Guangzhou brought together prominent figures, including government policymakers at various levels, heads of medical institutions, administrators, and industry leaders, to share healthcare practices and discuss the path forward. In an interview with the media, John Daniels, Global Vice President of HIMSS Analytics, stated that the level of interoperability in China’s healthcare information systems closely resembles that of the United States ten years ago. For physicians, health informatics currently brings not greater convenience but rather more cumbersome workflows. They are required not only to manually enter substantial amounts of electronic medical record data and physician orders but also to constantly switch between interfaces of different business systems.

Carestream Vue CCP Clinical Integration Platform

What physicians need is a seamless, one-stop, personalized workflow platform that integrates various business systems. With years of deep engagement in the global healthcare market, Carestream Health has gained profound insights into the industry’s informatics needs and latest trends, and is actively driving product upgrades.

Carestream’s Clinical Integration Platform consists of three components: the first is data acquisition and ingestion, which transmits data into the system via standard interfaces; the second is storage through a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA); and the third is effective data sharing and collaboration. Built on a scalable, modular system architecture, the platform encompasses all modules of Carestream’s information systems, providing intelligent clinical data extraction, archiving, and management. It meets the workflow requirements of various departments while enabling seamless data access.

Pan Yiqiong, General Manager of Carestream Health’s Greater China Medical IT Division, stated, “Leveraging our strengths in imaging informatics, the Carestream Vue CCP Clinical Integration Platform enables interconnectivity among all devices and IT systems within hospitals. By establishing an ‘Internet Plus’ system based on a clinical data repository, and through an open platform with standardized data exchange and indexing, we ensure full lifecycle management of clinical data, as well as its integrity and continuity. This approach helps reduce diagnostic and treatment costs, improve work efficiency, and enhance service quality.”

Carestream Vue Cloud

Since the successful launch of Carestream Vue Solution in Greater China in 2012, Carestream Cloud Network has been capable of meeting IT deployment needs ranging from departmental imaging management systems and hospital-wide information platforms to regional healthcare collaboration and medical cloud services, providing healthcare institutions with a “one-stop,” multi-tiered architectural solution for future expansion.

Currently, Carestream has established 14 cloud data centers worldwide, connecting more than 350 medical institutions, managing up to 300 million examinations, and storing data on the scale of 20 petabytes (PB). Building on its extensive experience in cloud services, Carestream officially introduced its global expertise in building and operating cloud imaging centers to China in October 2016, offering a range of public cloud services such as cloud storage and cloud imaging.

It is understood that Vue Cloud boasts six key advantages: first, scalability, allowing users to add or remove features as needed; second, controllability, adhering to precise instructions to ensure users always retain ownership of their data; third, superior performance; fourth, predictable costs; fifth, robust security managed by a team of experts; and sixth, high reliability, with professionals ensuring 24/7 system uptime.

“As one of our core businesses for the future, we aim to create value for hospitals by leveraging the significant advancements in healthcare informatization, particularly in big data and cloud platforms, to achieve data interoperability and support the allocation of medical resources in China,” said Liu Jie, Global Vice President and President of Greater China at Carestream Health.