SourceHOV announces at RSNA 2012 its X-Ray Preservation Program for legacy x-ray images that require long-term retention and that may be in jeopardy of degradation.  Whether for specific pediatric and mammography cases or for a wide range of legal reasons, some medical films must be kept for time periods beyond the standard 5 to 10 years.  These images are frequently on cellulose acetate-based film, commonly used for medical image output during recent years.  Cellulose acetate film has been found to break down over time, leaving important medical films in jeopardy of degradation.

SourceHOV offers a complete program to assess the potential of image loss due to film breakdown and to preserve these images for future use. If a determination is made that X-ray quality has or is likely to degrade, a preservation program will be recommended. This includes:

Film Digitization: X-ray films are digitized (scanned) to produce legal DICOM images either onsite or at SourceHOV's electronic operations center. The scanning process produces high resolution, medical grade digital images of X-ray film studies in the industry standard DICOM format for storage and viewing.

Image Indexing: Patient demographic and exam data from the film study and associated documents are captured as an integral component of the image header and maintained in a relational database to support on-demand retrieval.

Image Storage: The digital images and the associated index are temporarily stored on a portable hard drive for uploading to the customer's information system or on the site's network as a pre-configured server.  Secure cloud-based storage at outsourced distributed data centers is another alternative to onsite storage.  Redundant offsite storage also is available for disaster recovery.

Image Viewing: To facilitate electronic image viewing, a medical DICOM viewer may be integrated with any of the storage options.

Protected Health Information (PHI) Standards: PHI standards are maintained throughout the process. HIPAA and HITECH regulations demand that PHI standards be maintained at all times to prevent loss, damage, or inadvertent disclosure of private patient information. Access to the records will be restricted to authorized SourceHOV personnel directly working with the records secure image management network until quality control and verification policies are met.

For more information: www.sourcehov.com

SOURCE: SourceHOV