ADAC builds on RIS experience to enter PACS market with Envoi

ADAC builds on RIS experience to enter PACS market with Envoi

Envoi evolves from QuadRIS to provide low-cost PACS

ADAC Laboratories is seeking to break out of its niche in radiology information systems and explore wider pastures in the PACS segment. At last year's RSNA meeting, the Milpitas, CA, company debuted a new image management system called Envoi that should help the company grab a piece of the rapidly expanding PACS market.

Although ADAC is best known for nuclear medicine systems, the company's HealthCare Information Systems division in Houston maintains a strong RIS business, centered around its QuadRIS product line. QuadRIS is installed at 44 sites, with another 30 being implemented. RIS sales make up about 12% of ADAC's revenues, which totaled $282.3 million for the company's 1998 fiscal year (end-September). ADAC is also a member of IBM's DIN-PACS team and is participating in three orders received under that program.

ADAC's horizons in the RIS market are limited, however, due to the slow growth of that sector. At a presentation on Jan. 13 at the Hambrecht & Quist investor conference in San Francisco, ADAC CEO Andy Eckert pointed out that the RIS market is worth about $130 million, a level at which it has been stuck for the past several years.

The PACS market, on the other hand, is much more promising. Eckert cited statistics collected by market research firms Frost & Sullivan of Mountain View, CA, and RL Johnson & Associates of Danville, CA, indicating that the PACS market was worth $369 million last year and is growing at an average annual rate of 20%.

Envoi is ADAC's attempt to target that market. The product builds on QuadRIS, but adds the ability to view and distribute images using Web-based technology, Eckert said. Images are available across an enterprise, and the system is based on industry standards such as DICOM 3.0.

Envoi is not designed to go head-to-head with sophisticated PACS offerings from companies like Agfa, Siemens, and GE, however. Envoi doesn't include some features found in full-scale PACS, such as a long-term archive. But it provides an entry point to PACS for hospitals that want to move into digital image management without spending millions on a digital network. And Eckert did not rule out the addition of more features to Envoi in the future.

"(Envoi) is an evolutionary approach for customers who are interested in getting into the image management realm," Eckert said. "We believe that products that can more simply integrate on top of the radiology information system and provide simpler, less expensive, less proprietary hardware and software solutions will provide a little bit less of a risk profile for customers."

ADAC is taking orders for Envoi and should begin installations in the next several months, Eckert said.

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