Pro-Laudo now connects referring providers 90% faster
GREENVILLE, S.C., Dec. 2, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pro-Laudo, a leading teleradiology practice in Brazil, has successfully implemented eRAD PACS with integrated reporting and Speech Recognition, completely localized for Brazilian Portuguese.
eRAD—a subsidiary of RadNet, Inc. (Nasdaq: RDNT ), a leading provider of standards-based, web-centric, radiology image and data management solutions—provided a flexible configuration of its medical imaging workflow platform for Pro-Laudo's unique requirements. As a result, the pioneering practice is achieving its goals for reliable customer connectivity, efficient workflow distribution, easy report customization, fast report turnaround times, and strategic growth.
"We needed a solution that could address our local market needs. eRAD adapted their available tools and translated the whole system to Brazilian Portuguese," said Dr. Felipe Morais, Radiologist and Medical Director for Pro-Laudo. "Now we can connect and train a new customer in less than one hour. Because of that direct interaction, we can count on our customers to perform some steps that had been done by our internal team before."
Connectivity had to be reliable and fast to keep pace with rapid adoption of Pro-Laudo's teleradiology services across Brazil. The practice can now quickly add a new customer facility via an easy-to-deploy, Windows-based DICOM gateway, which can be downloaded and installed on a Windows machine. Deployed at sending sites in the field, eRAD's DICOM gateways compress and encrypt images, which speeds transmission times, before sending them to eRAD's cloud server using Secure DICOM. A highly-configurable rules engine allows studies to be routed by specialty, prioritized by STAT status, or distributed in whatever way meets Pro-Laudo's business requirements. "We created new rules to fit the system to our needs," said Dr. Morais.
These advantages of flexibility and speed, along with persistent sending from the gateways (re-sending lost or interrupted data rather than a whole study), enable Pro-Laudo to meet the strict report turnaround time limit that it brought to market—two hours or less—and to connect new customers quickly in a region of the world that doesn't have the most reliable telecom infrastructure.
"eRAD solutions reduced our time to connect by 90%," Morais said. "We can even run tests with our prospects to show how we work."
According to Seth Koeppel, Senior VP of Sales for eRAD, "This project is a testament to eRAD's value proposition in this rapidly expanding segment of medical imaging. Teleradiology Service Providers, and now community-based radiology groups who are transitioning to a distributed reading environment, have a unique set of business, clinical, and technical requirements which are significantly different than the traditional PACS systems. eRAD has established itself as valuable partner to groups who see this as the future of radiology."
Pro-Laudo has approximately 40 radiologists reading from virtual locations, for widely disparate customer sites. "Pro-Laudo is one of the most professionally run organizations I have had the privilege to work with," said Koeppel. "They pushed us on several key features to meet their business requirements. They needed more than a viewing platform; they wanted a platform robust and extensible enough to run their complex business on. We provided a highly configurable, rules-based engine to manage the workflow distribution and capture important, real-time metrics all the way through the lifecycle of a study—from first send to a DICOM router to report delivery for the referring provider."
eRAD performed an extensive validation of a test system before the go-live, to confirm the language localization and the efficiencies introduced to Pro-Laudo's workflow, such as peer-review of reports. Morais added: "The eRAD Services team was available to understand our needs and offer the right tools to solve our issues."
About Pro-Laudo
Pro-Laudo is a teleradiology company that provides services for a range of radiology modalities, from conventional to highly specialized, including mammography, x-ray, tomography, MRI, breast and cardiac studies, and many others. With a network of highly qualified radiologists, Pro-Laudo uses the most modern tools for transmission and storage of tests and reports, ensuring high standards of safety. Pro-Laudo provides 24-hour, 7-day a week support for its referring providers, clinics, and hospitals.
For more information, visit http://www.pro-laudo.com.br
Contact:
Dr. Felipe Morais
Cell: (55) 21-98855-7133 | felipe.morais@pro-laudo.com.br
About eRAD, Inc.
eRAD offers a complete suite of workflow solutions for the imaging industry. Its Meaningful Use-ready RIS, web-based PACS, and multi-site workflow solutions are used by teleradiology businesses, specialty reading groups, multi-site reading groups, hospitals and outpatient imaging centers. With over 300 customers in the US and several other countries, eRAD's solutions are available as cloud-based hosted solutions, or as in-house enterprise solutions. For more information, visit erad.com
Contact:
Seth Koeppel, SVP Sales
Cell: 617-821-4175 | skoeppel@erad.com
About RadNet, Inc.
RadNet, Inc. is a national market leader providing high-quality, cost-effective diagnostic imaging services through a network of 251 fully-owned and operated outpatient imaging centers. RadNet's core markets include California, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Florida, New Jersey and New York. Together with affiliated radiologists, and inclusive of full-time and per diem employees and technicians, RadNet has a total of approximately 6,300 employees. For more information, visit http://www.radnet.com .
