Medicor Imaging's MiPACS Dental Enterprise PACS has been selected as the dental Picture Archive and Communication System for the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry. The school evaluated the MiPACS software, along with several other systems, during a pilot project in the Advanced Education General Dentistry graduate program in 2011.
"The UNC School of Dentistry has been using digital x-ray technology for almost 12 years without an upgrade in software and digital scanning equipment. While we were the first dental school in the U.S. to be completely digital, our current system does not allow us to fully utilize the rapidly advancing digital imaging technology of today," said Dr. Don Tyndall, Director of Radiology at the UNC School of Dentistry. "MiPACS software provides the School of Dentistry with a significant pathway for growth in digital 2-D and 3-D technology."
The purchase of multiple brands of capture devices over the years resulted in a segmented digital imaging system in the school, and forced users to deal with four different applications to acquire images. These systems also used proprietary databases and didn't store using the industry-standard DICOM format. The MiPACS solution is hardware independent, meaning that the school can leverage and continue to use the existing capture devices, and provides the same user interface to more than 90 devices from 27 different vendors. By using MiPACS, the school will also be able to select the best of breed for imaging devices going forward without worrying about adding to the complexity of their system.
MiPACS is built around the DICOM industry standard and allows UNC to take control of their data. DICOM is a standard for handling, transferring, storing, and printing medical images. Using DICOM enables interoperability between devices from different manufacturers, and provides users with a standard image storage format. The standard has been used for nearly 30 years in the medical world, and Medicor Imaging has led the initiative to bring DICOM standards to dentistry since 2001. As a long time participant in the American Dental Association's Standards Committee on Dental Informatics and the ACR/NEMA DICOM for Dentistry Working Group, Medicor Imaging is committed to maintaining these imaging standards.
The school's implementation of MiPACS will include MiPACS Storage Server, which is a DICOM image archive, and MiPACS Dental Enterprise Viewer, which is a DICOM client application used for acquiring x-ray and color images, as well as viewing and manipulating images. Paired together, these products offer an enterprise-level client/server system for imaging. Similar MiPACS systems have been implemented at many other dental schools, within the US Department of Defense, and in several foreign healthcare systems.
"MiPACS will greatly improve the workflow for our faculty and students and provide for better image quality for our patients," explained Dr. Tyndall. "We will be able to unite all of the current and future advanced imaging technologies, from x-ray to optical, in one integrated and powerful software package giving us a robust platform for growth in the increasingly important area of digital dentistry."
The transition to MiPACS will allow the school to use a single application to acquire x-rays and photos from any of their existing digital imaging devices. All images acquired with MiPACS will be transferred over the network using the DICOM protocol and stored in DICOM format, ensuring standards-compliance and compatibility for the future.
Medicor Imaging worked with the school to implement one-click integration with the school's clinical management system, which was developed by the Office of Computing and Information Services in-house. This allows for patient demographic data to flow seamlessly from the established system of record to the imaging system, reducing clerical errors and providing a streamlined workflow for clinicians and students.
The UNC School of Dentistry will be the 47th dental school worldwide to implement MiPACS Dental Enterprise PACS. Medicor Imaging is leader in dental PACS systems for enterprise environments, and has more installations in educational institutions than any other imaging software.
About UNC School of Dentistry
Chartered by the North Carolina Legislature in 1949, the UNC School of Dentistry opened its doors to its first class of students in September 1950. In addition to being the first dental school in the state of North Carolina, the UNC School of Dentistry is recognized both nationally and internationally as one of the world's leading dental schools. The mission of the School of Dentistry is to promote the health of the people of North Carolina, the nation and the world through excellence in teaching, patient care, research and service.
UNC School of Dentistry Media Contact
Tiffany Brannan, Director of Communications
919.537.3260
[email protected]
About Medicor Imaging
A division of LEAD Technologies, Inc., Medicor Imaging was created to provide the medical imaging community with products and professional services that will help facilitate a more rapid transition into the digital era. This was in direct response to the requests of LEAD Technologies' clients who were searching for an efficient means of creating or modifying DICOM-based applications to meet DICOM standards.
About Medicor Imaging
With a rich history of more than 33 years, LEAD has established itself as the world's leading provider of software development toolkits. LEAD's flagship product, LEADTOOLS, provides programmers with a powerful set of libraries for Recognition, Document, Vector, Medical, Imaging, and Multimedia development. LEAD boasts a diverse customer base as well as a strong list of corporate partners including some of the largest and most influential organizations from around the globe. For more information, visit www.leadtools.com.
