FINAO Solutions

FINAO Solutions is a Dragon Medical Advantage Reseller Partner

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:19:47 +0000

Nuance has just announced Dragon Medical Practice Edition, the next version of Dragon for current Dragon Medical and Dragon Medical Small Practice users. With a host of new features and improvements over Dragon Medical 10 and Dragon Medical Practice Edition 10, Dragon Medical Practice Edition recognizes that it takes all kinds (of clinicians) to run a practice.

Dragon Medical Practice Edition is the first solution from Nuance Healthcare designed for all clinicians. Now, physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, therapists, and other providers all can use Dragon Medical Practice Edition to navigate and dictate medical decision-making and treatment plans directly into a patient’s electronic record – easily, efficiently and effectively.

Dragon Medical Practice Edition is the perfect compliment to an EMR. Ask FINAO Solutions how we can improve your workflow.

For more information, please send an email to dragon@finaocorp.com.

LAWRENCE MEDICAL CENTER selects FINAO Solutions for PACS

admin — Sun, 01 May 2011 13:00:27 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, AL—MAY 1th, 2011— FINAO Solutions (FINAO) announces the LAWRENCE MEDICAL CENTER has selected FINAO to provide a PACS solution. FINAO’s solution is a combination of the AMICAS PACS, FINAO PACS administration, and FINAO developed enhancement utilities.

The FINAO solution enables Lawrence Medical to:

Use a sophisticated web and instant messenger type technology that enables physicians to securely access images and patient information when they want, wherever they want – thus eliminating frustration and wasted time spent tracking down information.
Use personalized workflow management making it possible to create a vast number of custom workflows for everyone involved.
Access to images, priors and all relevant patient information are available within powerful Web-based interface that provide the physician with the right tools for their review – no matter where they are located – with a common user interface.
Track & distribute patient exams in real-time, thus giving all constituents visibility into where their patients are in the imaging workflow.
VIEWING Capabilities that include:
- Web-based accessibility
- Study and user level hanging protocols
- Standard image review and manipulation tools (window/level, zoom, pan, magnify, stacking, etc.)
- A variety of measurement and annotation tools
- Automatic display of scout lines
- Identification of key images
- The ability to automatically or manually link series
- 3-D Cursor, MIP, MPR, Color Volume Rendering, Presets, and 3D image capture
- Compare previous studies

FINAO provides additional services & tools that:

Provide 24 x 7 support & management of the PACS.
Maintain fluid flow of imaging studies through imaging workflow.
Provide access and training to all physicians.
Allows for future enhancements of information distribution via FINAO HL7 messaging.
Scan patient paperwork or history directly into the study

FINAO Solutions is a services and software company that develops, supports, and manages solutions for customers in the healthcare and corporate markets. FINAO Solutions has aided practices and companies in moving from paper-based processes to complete electronic solutions. FINAO maintains a high-level expertise in EMR, PACS, and HL7. FINAO Solutions has partnered with leading software companies to provide comprehensive solutions to its customers.

HERITAGE FAMILY MEDICINE selects FINAO Solutions for PACS

admin — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:01:24 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, AL—APRIL 10th, 2011— FINAO Solutions (FINAO) announces the SPINE AND NEURO CENTER has selected FINAO to provide a PACS solution. FINAO’s solution is a combination of the AMICAS PACS, FINAO PACS administration, and FINAO developed enhancement utilities.

Experience, technology and trust are the benchmarks of care at Heritage Family Medicine heritagefamilymed.net.

The FINAO solution enables Heritage Family Medicine physicians to:

Use a sophisticated web and instant messenger type technology that enables physicians to securely access images and patient information when they want, wherever they want – thus eliminating frustration and wasted time spent tracking down information.
Use personalized workflow management making it possible to create a vast number of custom workflows for everyone involved.
Access to images, priors and all relevant patient information are available within powerful Web-based interface that provide the physician with the right tools for their review – no matter where they are located – with a common user interface.
Track & distribute patient exams in real-time, thus giving all constituents visibility into where their patients are in the imaging workflow.
VIEWING Capabilities that include:
- Web-based accessibility
- Study and user level hanging protocols
- Standard image review and manipulation tools (window/level, zoom, pan, magnify, stacking, etc.)
- A variety of measurement and annotation tools
- Automatic display of scout lines
- Identification of key images
- The ability to automatically or manually link series
- 3-D Cursor, MIP, MPR, Color Volume Rendering, Presets, and 3D image capture
- Compare previous studies

FINAO provides additional services & tools that:

Provide 24 x 7 support & management of the PACS.
Maintain fluid flow of imaging studies through imaging workflow.
Provide access and training to all physicians.
Allows for future enhancements of information distribution via FINAO HL7 messaging.
Scan patient paperwork or history directly into the study

FINAO Solutions partners with Nuance Healthcare to offer Dragon Medical

admin — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 23:01:33 +0000

FINAO Solutions announces a partnership agreement with Nuance Healthcare to provide Dragon Medical to the medical community. Dragon Medical is a voice recognition application enabling physicians to dictate their notes quickly and easily into electronic (EMR/EHR – MS-Word) solutions without typing.

“Voice recognition has seen tremendous improvement over the years. Today, Dragon Medical is accurate enough to be an immediate benefit to physicians who are using or planning to use electronic documents/charts.” “Dragon Medical templates make the application very adaptable to any organization’s needs.” said Jason Trites, Senior System Analyst for FINAO.

“We are excited about the partnership to provide Dragon Medical. FINAO continues to partner with best of breed applications in order to provide the best medical information solutions to our customers.” said Gene Cathey, FINAO Solutions CEO.

Investing in PACS and related technology can stabilize and strengthen your practice in uncertain times

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 23:03:04 +0000

OK, what do you need a chair for? You need it to sit on—to provide support. If
you want, for example, to sit at your workstation and get some work done, you’ve
got to sit down on a good, solid chair. Otherwise, your entire foundation is pretty
shaky.
I liken the lessons our practice has learned about PACS, its related technology,
and the nontechnical aspects of the PACS purchase, implementation, and use to
the four legs of a chair.
Here’s what each of those four legs looks like: a good local IT vendor that
understands your needs, a PACS vendor that’s both agile and flexible, a robust
network, and buy-in from your radiology group on the value of investing in a
PACS system. The truth is, PACS isn’t an inexpensive proposition. But it
certainly is an investment in your practice—one that will continue to pay dividends over time.
Radiology of Huntsville, where I’m a practicing radiologist, is located in Alabama. Our practice comprises
approximately 30 radiologists who are committed to improving the health care of our patients by delivering
state-of-the-art imaging. Our radiologists value what our patients and referring physicians value: accurate
interpretations with rapid turnaround.
“Redefining the standards of excellence in the radiology profession” is a tall order. But I think our practice
does accomplish this goal. Our smart investments in technology are just one part of what helps us accomplish
this—but those investments have been vital to our success and vital to the well-being of the patients we serve.
Before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you about my experience thus far with Radiology of Huntsville. When
I joined our group in 2004, we covered several independent facilities that were not affiliated with the two
primary hospitals for which we provide services. I’m sure that our practice wasn’t running much differently
than others at the time. We read from hard-copy films. What that meant to us as radiologists was that we had
two options: either we had to drive from one facility to another to perform interpretations, or the films
themselves had to be transported to where we were.
Reading from film is like having a yoke around your neck: It’s slow and expensive, comparisons are difficult,
and films don’t move easily or rapidly from one place to another. Reading from film also created delays in
turnaround time. At this point, we pursued what could best be described as a mini-PACS system.
Unfortunately, within a very short period of time, our network was bogged down and it became clear that this
system was meant more for a local area network within the confines of the four walls of a hospital or imaging
center. Once you got outside of those walls and tried to use a secure T1 line or other connectivity, the system
fell apart and became virtually unusable.
So, with all of that as background, what are the keys to delivering excellent patient care in the most efficient
way possible? To get there, let’s return to my analogy about the four legs of the chair.
A Good Local IT Vendor
Subscribe to Issue Stories
Imaging Economics – May 2009This is absolutely critical. When you’re shopping around for an IT vendor, don’t even consider one that doesn’t
serve clients in the health care space. That might appear to be a no-brainer—given HIPAA regulations—but
I’ve heard of stranger things.
We’ve got just the right IT consultant (FINAO Solutions of Huntsville, Ala)—one that completely understands
our business. They completely get what a physician needs from a PACS system. And their team helps make
all of our lives easier, mostly because they understand “what’s going on underneath the hood.” For our
practice, that means our local IT vendor has a solid understanding of the intricacies of software versus
hardware versus networking.
Our practice can’t afford to have someone who understands only some of the systems we need to operate our
practice—we need someone who can help, regardless of the type of challenge.
Related to this, we’ve also learned that it is essential to have a PACS administrator who has an intrinsic
curiosity about radiology and technology. A PACS administrator who has a fairly flexible understanding of
their job description is great as well. When you’re interviewing a candidate for this position, I’d suggest
looking for a “jack-of-all-trades” personality. That is, someone who wants to understand—in a holistic way—
how a solution works and how interdependencies between users and different components of the solution
interact.
In addition, it’s critical that your support staff understands technology and the intrinsic efficiencies and
inefficiencies of technology that impact the end user: the radiologist.
An Agile, Flexible PACS Vendor
Here’s the deal: In general, PACS vendors just don’t want to deal with a disparate reading environment. So
long as you stay within the four walls of a hospital, everything hums along well enough. You sit at your
workstation and provide interpretations, and the results are communicated to referring physicians so they can
provide diagnoses for their patients.
However, if you step outside of those four walls, that’s when you run into problems. If you’re looking for a
PACS that allows you to read remotely—and efficiently—then you have to find a PACS vendor that’s going to
want to work with you to understand your practice’s unique needs.
Take our practice, for example. We don’t have a RIS, which can be a huge problem when you’re using a PACS
system. A problem because if you don’t have the RIS sending the order into the PACS, then the PACS system
doesn’t know what to do with it.
This is one example of where understanding a solution holistically comes into play. It isn’t just whether your
PACS will accept an exam without an order from a RIS.
To understand some of the important issues involved, you have to consider the following:
z Are you able to work with your preferred dictation or voice recognition system without an order?
z How do you get results back into PACS without a RIS?
z How do you distribute results to referring physicians?
Coming up with smart answers to these questions requires a partner that can help you think about all of this in
advance—a partner that has the flexibility to come up with a solution that meets your needs. We found that
partner in AMICAS (Boston).
Cost-effective Remote Reading Again, most PACS vendors simply don’t want to deal with a distributed reading environment. The ideal
solution should be one that allows you to provide optimal patient care without constraints, such as network
speed or radiologist location.
We searched for a solution that would allow us to staff hospitals and imaging centers with fractional
radiologist requirements. For example, let’s say that one hospital does more studies than a single radiologist
can read but fewer than two would typically read. Or a site has many procedures every day that would prevent
the radiologist from reading on-site on a daily basis due to interruptions.
Given that this was our reality, we had to ask ourselves: How could we efficiently staff this type of site and
ensure excellent patient care—without sacrificing radiologist efficiency?
The historical answer has been that you’d either need two radiologists on-site or have a radiologist commute to
the site to handle the additional workload. But both of these options are economically inefficient. Having two
radiologists on-site means that one of them isn’t going to be busy for half of the time. Having a second
radiologist drive to the site means that they have “downtime” while driving around, and there could be ebbs
and flows in the volume at the site that could impact patient care.
A more efficient staffing model is to have a single radiologist on-site who can be supplemented with a virtual
team that’s available for overflow reading. With this scenario, it is important to consider the challenge of
network latency between locations. So, you’ll need to find a solution that works well in a low-bandwidth
environment.
This is precisely what we’ve done at Radiology of Huntsville. We have a unified worklist for a substantial
portion of our practice that allows us to balance workload across facilities. This gives us the opportunity to
take on contracts with fractional radiologist requirements in a manner that’s good for the patient and makes
sense for us economically.
PACS: An Investment in the Future
Over the years, I’ve noticed that many practices are hesitant to make an investment in technology. I suspect
there are many reasons for this, most of which fall into one of two buckets: political and economic.
The traditional model is that PACS is provided by the hospital or imaging center. While this may be workable
in many instances, some facilities may not provide a solution that’s feasible for the needs of the radiologist.
This may be due to many factors. Sometimes it’s not economically feasible to provide a better solution,
sometimes what a radiologist needs isn’t understood, and sometimes the decision was made years before the
facility needed a new group to provide services.
The key to success is to work as a team with your customers to provide the best care for your patients and
referring physicians. Give and take is critical on both sides of the equation.
The second, and more obvious, challenge is an economic one. Many radiology
practices measure their own success by their radiologists’ take-home pay. The fact
is, making an investment in technology creates short-term pressure on take-home
pay. Despite the fact that the long-term payoff is hopefully substantial, it’s difficult
to get many practices to make these investments.
Having a strong leader with a vision for the future of your practice is the best way
to address these challenges. There are always mechanisms to address short-term
economic issues. A political issue, such as providing services at unaffiliated
hospitals, is an important one, but one that can be addressed with technologies that allow your practice to create a unified worklist across broad geographies.
Back to the Chair
Let’s return to that chair analogy. By their very nature, radiology practices are
complicated businesses. These practices have intense IT needs, yet their principals
are often hesitant to adopt and drive technology that has an end goal of improving
patient care while driving efficiency.
Clearly, Radiology of Huntsville has been a success story. Our investments in
technology have helped stabilize our practice in an uncertain time—perhaps like
the support a chair provides. Certainty and stability are both very good things.
Darrin Johnson, MD, joined Radiology of Huntsville in 2004 after completing a fellowship in nuclear
medicine at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the Radiological Society of North America, Society of
Nuclear Medicine, American College of Radiology, American Medical Association, and other professional
organizations. He has written several publications and made presentations on radiology topics.

SPINE AND NEURO CENTER selects FINAO Solutions for PACS

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:42:19 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, AL—MARCH 26th, 2009— FINAO Solutions (FINAO) announces the SPINE AND NEURO CENTER has selected FINAO to provide a PACS solution. FINAO’s solution is a combination of the AMICAS PACS, FINAO PACS administration, and FINAO developed enhancement utilities.

Experience, technology and trust are the benchmarks of care at the Spine and Neuro Center www.spineandneuro.com. The Spine and Neuro Center is a specialty private practice that is dedicated to providing the highest quality neurosurgical and spinal care to the people of the Tennessee Valley. The Spine and Neuro Center team has more than 50 years of combined experience coupled with state-of-the-art technology to assure the most effective treatment. The Spine and Neuro Center utilizes a DR system where all X-rays are acquired and stored digitally, and available for examination within a matter of seconds.

With the use of the DR system to capture X-rays, the Spine and Neuro Center needed the ability to store and view these studies. The Spine and Neuro Center chose FINAO as its PACS solution mainly because of the technical expertise, ease of us, and accessibility both inside and outside the office.

“The PACS system offers convenient 24-hour access to high-resolution imaging studies from any computer expediting our patient care process.” said Dr. Jason Banks of the Spine and Neuro Center.

The FINAO solution enables the Spine and Neuro Center physicians to:

Use a sophisticated web and instant messenger type technology that enables physicians to securely access images and patient information when they want, wherever they want – thus eliminating frustration and wasted time spent tracking down information.
Use personalized workflow management making it possible to create a vast number of custom workflows for everyone involved.
Access to images, priors and all relevant patient information are available within powerful Web-based interface that provide the physician with the right tools for their review – no matter where they are located – with a common user interface.
Track & distribute patient exams in real-time, thus giving all constituents visibility into where their patients are in the imaging workflow.
VIEWING Capabilities that include:
- Web-based accessibility
- Study and user level hanging protocols
- Standard image review and manipulation tools (window/level, zoom, pan, magnify, stacking, etc.)
- A variety of measurement and annotation tools
- Automatic display of scout lines
- Identification of key images
- The ability to automatically or manually link series
- 3-D Cursor, MIP, MPR, Color Volume Rendering, Presets, and 3D image capture
- Compare previous studies

FINAO provides additional services & tools that:

Provide 24 x 7 support & management of the PACS.
Maintain fluid flow of imaging studies through imaging workflow.
Provide access and training to all physicians.
Allows for future enhancements of information distribution via FINAO HL7 messaging.
Scan patient paperwork or history directly into the study

Clearview Cancer Institute selects FINAO Solutions for PACS

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:45:58 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, AL—MARCH 13th, 2009— FINAO Solutions (FINAO) is proud to announce that Clearview Cancer Institute (CCI) www.ccihsv.com selected FINAO to provide a PACS solution. FINAO’s solution is a combination of the AMICAS PACS, FINAO PACS administration, and FINAO developed enhancement utilities.

As a regional leader in cancer treatment, Clearview Cancer Institute is committed to bridging compassionate, comprehensive care with leading-edge research. With this commitment, Clearview has an imaging center whose technologists have specialized education in performing imaging studies such as CT scans, PET scans, X-Rays, nuclear medicine studies, MRI and ultrasound. CCI’s PACS goal was to have a comprehensive PACS solution that allowed for secure web-access to all physicians involved.

FINAO was able to provide CCI the ability to migrate their legacy imaging data and allow web-access to this legacy data and current studies for referring physicians. FINAO is a value-added reseller of the AMICAS PACS and has expertise on how to deploy, manage, develop and support PACS systems.

“The AMICAS PACS along with FINAO support has been seamless. It is the closest I have seen to a community wide PACS and has enhanced Patient care in the community.” states Dr. Marshall Schreeder of Clearview Cancer Institute.

The FINAO solution enables CCI and referring physicians to:

Use a sophisticated web and instant messenger type technology that enables radiologists and referring physicians to securely access images and patient information when they want, wherever they want – thus eliminating frustration and wasted time spent tracking down information.
Use personalized workflow management making it possible to create a vast number of custom workflows for everyone involved in the radiology round trip. For the radiologist or local physician, this means optimized reading patterns and enhanced communication. For the referring physician, this means quicker results and better service.
Access to images, priors, reports, and all relevant patient information are available within powerful Web-based interface that provide the physician/clinician with the right tools for their review – no matter where they are located – with a common user interface.
Track & distribute patient exams in real-time, thus giving all constituents visibility into where their patients are in the imaging workflow.
VIEWING Capabilities that include:
- Web-based accessibility
- Study and user level hanging protocols
- Standard image review and manipulation tools (window/level, zoom, pan, magnify, stacking, etc.)
- A variety of measurement and annotation tools
- Automatic display of scout lines
- Identification of key images for referring physicians
- The ability to automatically or manually link series
- 3-D Cursor, MIP, MPR, Color Volume Rendering, Presets, and 3D image capture
- Compare previous studies

FINAO provides additional services & tools that:

24 x 7 support & management of the PACS.
Maintain fluid flow of imaging studies through the CCI defined workflow.
Route radiology reports directly to the local EMR.
Provide access and training to all referring physicians.
Allows for future enhancements of information distribution via FINAO HL7 messaging.
Scan patient paperwork or history directly into the study

Radiology of Huntsville chooses FINAO to Manage TeleRadiology/PACS

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 20:47:44 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, AL—November 16th, 2005— FINAO provides IT expertise in the process of receiving, reading, dictating, transcribing, reviewing, and approving (signing) studies and corresponding reports. The studies are managed through an easy to use work-list enabling radiologists from remote locations to view, diagnose, and sign reports. The transcribed reports are available on the web in a secure environment allowing the radiologists, transcriptionist, and imaging centers to follow the progress and distribution.

“FINAO’s expertise in managing information allows Radiology of Huntsville to focus on Radiology instead of technical issues.” stated Dr. Darrin Johnson of Radiology of Huntsville.

“Radiology of Huntsville is a very progressive group who look to technology to provide high quality patient care with quick turnaround. Managing the receiving of studies from six different imaging centers and distributing studies to 20+ doctors in six remote locations required not only technical expertise, but expertise in how to manage a workflow. FINAO has that experience from our many years of corporate information management.” stated Gene Cathey, President of FINAO Corp. “FINAO continues to provide leading edge solutions and services to the medical community. We are very pleased to have Radiology of Huntsville as a customer.”

FINAO Corp. provides easy to use, open and integrated solutions that can virtually link to any type of system, add any type of functionality, and become a repository for information. Our corporate experience gives us an edge not found with any other medical system provider. The very nature of our design allows for an open system without limiting your functionality or access to your data.

FINAO Corp. is a software company that develops content and process management software products and solutions for customers in the healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, transportation, and utilities markets. FINAO Corp. has aided practices and companies in moving from paper-based solutions to complete electronic solutions.

Radiology of Huntsville currently consists of 23 doctors with subspecialty training in interventional radiology, musculoskeletal radiology, neuroradiology, interventional neuroradiology, mammography, nuclear medicine, and pediatric radiology.