A software package developed within the LSU System is overhauling the way some doctors are taking and storing CAT scans and X-rays.
The University’s computer science department and technicians at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans created Universal Picture Archiving and Communication Systems, better known among the state’s charity hospital system as UniPACS. The program allows radiologists to view and archive medical images such as X-rays and CAT scans in a more efficient and less expensive way.
With this kind of software, a Louisiana physician or radiologist can offer an additional medical opinion from more than a thousand miles away by observing an MRI scan performed at another facility through his wireless laptop computer.
The first working model in 2004 went into Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which lost an undetermined amount of paper records during Hurricane Katrina.
But many of the files in the electronic system were recovered at other LSU institutions.
Earl K. Long Medical Center received its first working model of the UniPACS software in June 2004 with enough storage space on its server for two weeks of medical records. The current model can hold a month’s worth of records.
Melissa Soulier, radiology manager at Earl K. Long, said the software is especially beneficial now that LSU’s health care services have further spread out after Katrina.
“We didn’t even have neurosurgery here until after Katrina,” Soulier said. “But now we have those patients here.”
LSU System spokesman Charles Zewe said the charity hospital system contracts with dozens of private vendors for this type of medical equipment. But most facilities, including University Medical Center in Lafayette, Lallie Kemp Regional Medical Center in Independence and Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville, have a UniPACS model.
The hospitals still face an issue with storage.
“The cost we have on UniPACS is that we have the minimum specifications on the computers to run the software,” Soulier said. “The bigger the server, the more images we can hold. But we don’t have the money for larger servers necessary, for unlimited storage.”
The software is still being modified and the LSU System officials have formed a company in 2004 to license the software from the University to the private sector.
“In this case, post-hurricane need was great,” said James Hardy, director of technology development for the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. “It was the best opportunity for the University to license this start-up company.”
The third-party company, also known as UniPACS, is owned in part by the University. The company offers the software to imaging centers, hospitals, emergency rooms and private clinics.
“LSU has a very passive ownership interest in the company, which has tremendous potential if the technology is adopted and becomes the standard by how digital imaging is managed in radiology treatment,” Hardy said.
The software began in 1998 as a medical imaging research project among the Department of Computer Science, Charity Hospital radiologists and the Center for Computation and Technology.
“Even though we developed it here, we needed a test bed to be sure it worked,” said John Tyler, computer science professor, about the software’s 2004 instillation at Charity Hospital. “It’s branched out to various private clinics. We’d like more private clinics. That’s where the money is.”
UniPACS software began selling in the private sector in 2005, said Oleg Pianykh, president and CEO of the company.
Pianykh said half of the LSU hospitals used UniPACS as a convenient radiology application before Katrina. But after Katrina it became their major radiology tool, “enabling doctors to work from any location, and under different, often very stressful, circumstances.”
UniPACS has a heavy market to compete with – from companies such as Siemens, General Electric and hundreds of smaller companies.
A key component to its advantage could be the price.
A standard version of UniPACS runs about $9,000 to $10,000.
“But the big hospital equipment companies can sell theirs for as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Hardy said.
UniPACS can also run on virtually any type of hardware, Pianykh said.
As it is being integrated into more self-managed installations, a complete electronic registry is the next step – a working model of which can be seen at Earl K. Long.
“The electronic registry has already been developed. It just needs to be integrated,” Tyler said. “UniPACS will incorporate the history of the patients, including invoices and their medical histories.”
 
 
Contact Chris Day at [email protected]