Winkler County Memorial Hospital Case Study—Radiology PACS System

On-Site Radiology PACS System and Affordable Cloud Image Storage Helps Hospital Improve Patient Care

Each year, more than 4,500 people rush to the Winkler County Memorial Hospital (WCHM) for emergency medical help. And whether it’s a broken bone, a torn ligament, or other injuries, radiology images clarify and help provide an accurate diagnosis for effective treatment. Patients need their X-ray, CT, and ultrasound images quickly accessible and easily shared among physicians and medical staff for timely radiology results and diagnosis.

With 19 beds and approximately 200 admissions per year, WCHM is a general medical and surgical hospital in Kermit, TX. It serves oil fields and several counties in Western Texas, including the community of Wake, best known as the birthplace of Roy Orbison. WCHM was founded in 1947 and has an updated facility that was built five years ago. The hospital provides a variety of radiology services and are dedicated to excellent care.

Overcoming Networked PACS Reliability Pitfalls

Prior to FreedomPACS™, Winkler County Memorial Hospital didn’t have its own Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) in-house. Instead, WCHM was networked into a PACS located an hour away at a medical center in Odessa, TX. Through this arrangement, WCMH was able to access its radiology images electronically via the Internet, but had no local in-house access or decision-making power over the PACS. In addition, WCMH was paying tens of thousands of dollars each year in radiology image storage fees.

“It was a challenge being networked into another hospital’s PACS system,” said Jose Mancha, Director of Radiology at WCHM.

“If their PACS system went down—because of power failure or weather problems—we were unable to access our radiology studies. This happened several times, and they never told us they were down, so we were left struggling to get images, leaving our patients waiting for their radiology test results,” he said.

Increasing Access and Usability with FreedomPACS

When WCMH discovered the affordability and flexibility of FreedomPACS, it decided to make the switch. The hospital is using FreedomPACS’ server edition on-site with the cross-platform diagnostic viewer. WCMH also replaced its slow and expensive off-site storage with FreedomPACS Cloud, which provides HIPAA-compliant and secure image storage.

“Now that we’re using FreedomPACS, our images are onsite, and we always have access to them,” said Jose Mancha, Director of Radiology.

“And, when we need to access our archived images in the cloud, we can just pull up the image. It is much faster and affordable than the off-site storage we had previously,” he said.

In fact, FreedomPACS’ speedy retrieval of images is saving physicians’ time and improving patient care.

“FreedomPACS is a lot faster than our previous system. Now our images are instantaneous. Whatever we’re doing, it’s right there. It’s saving a lot of time for our physicians across the street at the clinic. On our old system, they had to come over to the hospital to physically look at the images. Now, no more waiting. By the time the patient gets back to the clinic, the images are on the PACS and the physicians can access the images in their office instantly on their computer, phone, iPad, or anything with an Internet connection. They can just log on,” said Mancha.

Improved Productivity & Less Frustration

While improving workflow at the hospital has a powerful impact, Mancha’s favorite aspect of FreedomPACS is summed up in one word: easy.

“The PACS we were networked into before was very complicated, unlike FreedomPACS, which is very easy to use,” said Mancha.

“There’s no confusing navigation. FreedomPACS is very user-friendly. You just log on, and there’s all the information you need, without having to go through a lot of steps to get to the image,” he said. “Even the most computer illiterate people can run it. One of our doctors didn’t want to change, but after a few minutes of training, he ended up loving it.”

An Affordable, Effective Solution

With FreedomPACS, WCMH has a more reliable and convenient way to access, share and securely store its radiology studies. The hospital is also seeing significant financial benefits: gaining an estimated 75% in savings on its off-site image storage alone through FreedomPACS Cloud.

“FreedomPACS is more convenient and saves us a lot of time. We’ve been very happy with FreedomPACS in the Radiology department and the doctors are pleased too,” said Mancha.

“In fact, we’ve been bringing in our archived images to FreedomPACS’ off-site image storage from our previous provider’s storage,” he said. “FreedomPACS Cloud provides better access for our physicians when they want to pull up our old studies and reports, plus it’s more affordable.

For more information, call 855-740-1130 or contact us online for a demo.

Download the case study PDF

About FreedomPACS™
FreedomPACS (https://freedompacs.net) is a cost-effective medical Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) that provides convenient access and archiving of images from multiple modalities using cloud technology. This radiology PACS system is HIPAA-compliant, incorporates DICOM standards and can be accessed on PC or MAC as well as mobile platforms like iPad and Android.

About FreedomPACS Cloud™
FreedomPACS Cloud (https://freedompacs.net/cloud) offers secure, HIPAA-compliant off-site storage for radiology images. Available with or without a PACS system, this affordably priced solution harnesses the protection and efficiency of the cloud. It provides instant access and can integrate with other medical, equipment or PACS systems.

About MN Systems
FreedomPACS is owned by MN Systems, headquartered in Southfield, MI, a joint venture between a medical software development company and a group of practicing physicians. MN Systems brings technology and medical expertise to its customers, combining software development knowledge and physician experience to provide affordable, efficient, and leading-edge medical software solutions to ultimately improve patient care.