Foundation Radiology Group Formalizes Strategic Partnership with Emageon to Provide Advanced Imaging Software to Facilitate Industry-Leading Turnaround and Patient Care Response Times
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 10 -- Pittsburgh-based Foundation Radiology Group (FRG), which uses board-certified radiologists to read and interpret diagnostic images for hospitals, has licensed Emageon's RadSuite(TM) enterprise content and workflow manager and PACS (Picture Archive and Communications System) imaging software. This partnership will provide FRG with the technical system necessary to deliver industry-leading, turnaround time performance for diagnostic imaging reads and the opportunity for quicker response times and enhanced patient care from physicians.
FRG provides radiology services to hospitals using state-of-the-art technology and a cutting edge business model that allows for diagnosis 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. FRG's radiologists will now be able to view images (via FRG's network) from any hospital, anywhere in the world. Emageon's software and services will help them return interpretation and diagnosis results to those hospitals immediately.
Emageon, which grew out of research performed at the University of Alabama in Birmingham Medical Center, provides information technology systems for hospitals, healthcare networks and imaging facilities and develops enterprise imaging software for transferring information from any medical imaging device to physicians' reading workstations. Its solutions enhance speed and lessen the cost of diagnostic interpretation, distribution and the long-term management of patient medical imaging and associated clinical content. Emageon also offers open systems archiving and storage for medical images, video, audio and waveforms which Foundation Radiology Group will be able to offer to its clients.
Dr. Brandon W. Chan, Foundation Radiology Group's Chairman and CEO said, "FRG has been evaluating PACS technology for some time and have spent the past six months evaluating competitive systems and found that the Emageon solutions are, by far, the best out there. The Emageon system will not only improve our productivity -- via its workflow management system -- it will also provide a sophisticated image viewing and storage system for the medical images, such as x-rays, CT scans and MRIs. More importantly, the improved turnaround performance will enable our clients to provide enhanced patient care and patient safety."
"We are excited to be working with Foundation Radiology Group," said Chuck Jett, Emageon's Chairman, CEO and President. "Our integrated workflow product and enterprise content management system is a perfect fit for FRG. Our solutions work for multiple sub-specialties, as well as from any medical imaging modality, including MRI, CT, CR/DR and digital mammography. FRG's physicians will have the ability to read diagnostic images from any source at any location."
FRG is building a nationwide network of Radiology Physician groups to provide hospitals and other clients with 7x24 diagnostic imaging services. After-hours reads, which used to be performed as a preliminary diagnosis and had to be reviewed by a board certified radiologist the following morning, are now handled as final diagnoses. Consequently, FRG has changed the typical turnaround time for overnight reads from 8-12 hours to less than one hour.
About Foundation Radiology
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Foundation Radiology Group's mission is to build the preeminent national diagnostic imaging, radiology service bureau and physician practice group network. Leveraging our state-of-the-art network of PACS, workflow system, carrier-grade telecommunications infrastructure and the Internet, our seasoned management team, dedicated to clinical excellence, will profitably deliver industry leading service level performance and clinical subspecialty expertise. Our focus is serving non-university affiliated health care institutions, with emphasis on consolidating the fragmented small to medium hospital segment, targeting multi-year exclusive daytime and 7x24x365 radiology service bureau contracts. FRG's administrative office, data processing and reading center is located at Three Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, where board-certified radiologists are available 24 hours a day. For more information, please visit www.frg-rad.com.
About Emageon
Emageon (NASDAQ:EMAG)
provides information technology systems for hospitals, healthcare networks and imaging facilities. Its enterprise family of solutions includes RadSuite(TM), HeartSuite(TM), and other specialty suites. In addition, Emageon and Dell have teamed to produce RadSuite Express(TM) for the fast growing small to mid-size hospital, clinic and imaging center market. All Emageon solutions are built on a unified Enterprise Content Management system offering advanced visualization and infrastructure tools for the clinical analysis and management of all digital medical images, reports, and associated clinical content. Emageon's standards-based solutions are designed to help customers enhance patient care, automate imaging workflow, lower costs, improve productivity, and provide better service to physicians. For more information, please visit www.emageon.com.
