| Customer Stories
Meridian Regional Imaging - (PDF Version)
"We have made a significant investment in Fusion RIS, and with the merged companies this decision gives us longer-term value for the combined RIS and PACS. We know that a single-vendor environment makes our life much easier from many fronts – service, support, and product development going forward. We are pleased that the merger allowed us to have the best of both worlds in a single-vendor environment."
Situation
Founded in 1999, Meridian Regional Imaging is a premier provider of subspecialty MRI, located in Mundelein, IL. Meridian's professionals leverage information and digital technologies, providing expert service to dedicated single specialty groups and freestanding imaging centers. Their ACR board certified radiologists are fellowship trained in musculo-skeletal, neurological, abdominal and body MR imaging. With 22 FTE's, including 5.5 Radiologist FTE's, they operate a billing company as well as support structure for the radiology practice that reads over 41,000 annual procedures, and expects to grow to 50,000 in 2005.
Meridian has been utilizing Merge Healthcare's Fusion RIS for the past three years, and had chosen to interface another vendor's PACS. While the Fusion RIS delivered strong operational efficiencies, the PACS system could not support the dramatic growth strategies that were expected in the coming years. "We have been extremely pleased with the operational efficiencies that Fusion RIS has delivered for us," said Larry Ranahan, CEO of Meridian. "However, the PACS that we were using required that every case be handled by a technologist and required a significant amount of post-processing manual labor, an inefficient model for a high-volume practice with significant growth
Requirements:
Meridian's goal was to have a single unified workflow environment that would improve efficiencies and enhance referring relationships. They established requirements that would assist in achieving their goals:
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A RIS PACS integrated model provided by a single vendor
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A system that included web access to images and reports for their referring physicians
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The expansion of their disaster recovery and long-term archiving capabilities
Solution
The recent merger of Merge eFilm and eMed Technologies allowed Meridian to acquire the best solution for their workflow needs: Fusion RIS and Matrix PACS. "We considered Fusion's integrated RIS/PACS which has significant advantages for many workflow models. However, because of our unique workflow model with studies being sent from multiple facilities outside of Meridian, we felt that the combination of Fusion RIS and Matrix PACS would best fit our workflow needs. The Matrix workflow allows us to reduce the amount of labor required while increasing the productivity of the radiologists. We have made a significant investment in Fusion RIS, and the decision to purchasing a solution from a single vendor gives us longer-term value for our combined RIS and PACS. We know that a single-vendor environment makes our life much easier from many fronts – service, support, and product development going forward. We are pleased that we can have the best of both worlds in a single-vendor environment. We have a significant investment in Fusion RIS, and this gave us longer-term value for the RIS and the PACS.
Result
"We chose this solution because it would streamline the post processing environment and capture labor savings that would lower the unit cost for every exam we perform," said Ranahan. "With the Fusion RIS/Matrix PACS solution, over 90% of our studies will be read by Radiologists without human intervention once it is sent to us. In addition, we have reduced the cost of acquisition and support. We are about to expand into CT and ultrasound, which brings more complexities to our business. We will use this solution as the lever for maximizing productivity across all functional areas of the company, whether transcriptionist, radiologist, front office or technologist. And finally, we know that the product will grow with us as we continue to grow our business, and will continue to enhance the features and functions that allow us to accelerate our productivity."
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