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University of Florida College of Dentistry

Medicor Imaging partnered with the University of Florida College of Dentistry to implement a solution that would bring digital imaging in all the clinics together, including the school's five satellite clinics located across the state.

Situation

A small portion of the College of Dentistry was operating on Schick CDR sensors, while the rest of the school was still dependent upon traditional film. The Schick images were not centrally archived.

In addition to those sensors, the school had already purchased several Air Techniques ScanX phosphorus plate scanners and Kodak Trophy sensors. They needed a single solution that would work with devices from all vendors.

The school used Software of Excellence's Quick Recovery for their clinical management system. UFCD needed a seamless integration between Quick Recovery and the imaging solution through the QRChart component of Quick Recovery.

The school's five satellite clinics throughout the state of Florida link to the main campus. These connections were somewhat unreliable, however, and because X-rays still need to be taken regardless of whether the link was up or down, UFCD needed an imaging solution that wouldn't rely on the network connection to the main campus.

Training on the imaging solution was an important issue to the school. In addition to on-site training to faculty and staff, they had a vision of creating an online training resource for their private use.

Image storage was to be on an EMC Centera content-addressed storage server. Through the use of a content-addressed gateway, the imaging server would be able to store to the Centera.

Solution

Medicor Imaging cooperated with UFCD to identify their concerns and needs. MiPACS Dental Enterprise Solution was deployed throughout the school.

Scalable Server Based on the DICOM standard

MiPACS Storage Server was installed in a highly-scalable configuration. Through the use of the content-addressed gateway, the DICOM storage server stores images to the EMC Centera, which is scalable to multiple petabytes.

The server runs in a network load-balanced cluster of 2 servers, providing up to 32 scalable nodes to accommodate the load of more view and capture stations should the school expand in the future.

The server is based upon the DICOM standard for digital imaging. This industry-standard format ensures that the school owns their data. Proprietary image formats are a thing of the past—images in MiPACS can be viewed at any other hospital, clinic, or even in the patients' homes with a DICOM viewer, which is available for free.

Support of Multiple Imaging Devices

MiPACS inherently supports every device that the University of Florida had already purchased, including Air Techniques ScanX, Kodak Trophy RVG USB, and Schick CDR.

In addition to the existing devices UFCD owned, MiPACS has support for capturing from over 50 other popular digital radiography devices in case the school decides to broaden their range of capture devices. MiPACS also has support for WDM and VFW still-frame capture from video, as well as TWAIN devices like flat-bed scanners.

A Mini-PACS in Every Clinic

Since UFCD's five satellite clinics needed a solution that would enable them to capture x-rays even if the link to the main campus was inactive, Medicor Imaging installed a Mini-PACS server in each of the clinics. The capture and view stations at each clinic store images to a local MiPACS Storage Server. Each night, the images are forwarded automatically to the server at the main campus.

Images remain stored on the local server for six months before they are "cleaned" from the local server. The images then exist only on the central server, and can still be accessed at any time. If the link to the main campus becomes inactive, then any images captured during the past six months at that clinic are still available for viewing.

Seamless integration with Axium

When the University of Florida decided to upgrade their Electronic Dental Record to AxiUm, Medicor Imaging worked with Exan to develop a link to MiPACS Dental Enterprise Viewer from the AxiUm chart. This integration passes both the patient demographics and security permissions based upon the group in which the user belongs to in AxiUm. Only approved faculty members have the right to approve students' images. This integration prevents data entry errors since all of the patient data is transferred directly from AxiUm.

Training

Challenged with providing a way to reach all users of the software throughout the state, Medicor Imaging worked with UFCD to provide training on-site on the main campus in Gainesville, and on the web for the satellite clinics. Training videos with narration were provided for the college's website, where training videos can be streamed to any computer with Internet access. Medicor also created quick reference guides customized to the school's workflow and imaging devices. On-site training to faculty, staff, and graduate students was performed before the school went live.

The Future

The University Of Florida College Of Dentistry now has a digital dental imaging system that will bring the school into the filmless age. MiPACS Dental Enterprise Solution will provide them with more than adequate scalability for future growth. Medicor Imaging will strive to continue to have an excellent working relationship with UFCD and accommodate any of their future needs.