Siemens, Dell Partner for Image Archiving Solution

Siemens and Dell are partnering to provide a cloud-based image archiving and sharing solution for radiology, which they are highlighting at HIMSS this week in Las Vegas.

Siemens will deliver a cloud-based vendor-neutral Image Sharing and Archiving solution, using Dell’s Unified Clinical Archive management software. Dell will manage the ingestion of imaging and clinical data into the archives and provide disaster recovery back-up in their secure data centers.

The partnership is an example of a trend toward modular components, combining the most effective elements into a single solution, or what Dell officials called a “best-of-breed” approach. This is a shift from relying on a single-vendor solution, as with a PACS, to meet all the requirements.

“A big part of what we are trying to accomplish with this best-of-breed model is to facilitate collaboration and sharing data across multiple applications to provide stakeholders a better picture of their patients,” Dan Trott, worldwide strategy and business development executive for Dell’s Unified Clinical Archive Solution, said in an interview. The single-vendor solution model is evolving, he said. Customers might like their PACS, but want another viewer or work flow tool.

Dell will begin offering this platform as part of its UCA solution in the UK this year.

“By turning to Siemens and Dell for these solutions, administrators can switch from being system ‘maintainers’ to system ‘optimizers,’” Kurt Reiff, vice president, business management, syngo Americas, said in a statement.

The cloud-based solution allows organizations to reduce capital expenditure associated with maintaining on-side image archiving, as well as easily share imaging data across departments. Many organizations are often unable to cover their capital budgets each year, nor do they have the resources to provide a sophisticated level of security for medical images and data, said Dell’s chief medical officer Andrew Litt.

“We think this is something that will really change how radiology is practiced,” he said.