Special to UM News

Members of UMIT’s award-winning Enterprise Imaging Team are, from left, Shawn Clark, Dawn Cram, and Rick Stratton.

The University of Miami Information Technology’s (UMIT) Enterprise Imaging Team recently won Merge HealthCare’s 2015 Visionary Award for the Acute Care Market for their work on UImaging, an industry-changing enterprise image archive and viewing solution.

“UImaging is a unique solution which goes beyond what is currently available in the industry. It facilitates the efficient and effective archiving and distribution of any medical image, regardless of its format or originating system,” said Dawn Cram, enterprise imaging manager. “This means we are able to store and archive any type of medical image, and that any provider, anywhere in the world, can be granted access to view it within our system.”

The solutions provided by UImaging directly benefit health care providers and patients at UHealth – University of Miami Health System. Over a five-year period, UImaging will be implemented across the enterprise in a phased approach. Beginning with the dermatology, ear nose and throat (ENT), and surgical departments, physicians will be able to more readily access patient images, such as clinical photos or scope videos, within UChart, UHealth’s electronic medical record (EMR) system. This will streamline workflows, reduce the time spent accessing medical images, and increase the time physicians have available to spend providing quality care to patients.

“UM has pushed the envelope with a true partnership by bringing their vision for archiving Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and non-DICOM/Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) to the Merge development and solutions teams,” said Nancy Koenig, Merge Healthcare’s chief operating officer. “Their goal of providing physicians with multidisciplinary access to images is a more streamlined and unified approach. Thinking outside the box is something UM continues to do very well.”

Of Merge’s 7,500 plus customers, UM and three other organizations (Johns Hopkins, Beverly Hospital (a member of Lahey Health), and Kaiser Permanente) were nominated for the 2015 Visionary Award for the Acute Care Market. Read more about Merge Healthcare’s 2015 Awards.