Imaging Protocol Manager

Simplify protocol management across your GE devices, enterprise wide.

At a glance

Consistent

Track and update protocols on your GE CT and MR devices and across facilities to help deliver consistent image quality and optimal patient care.

Traceable

Support improved adherence to regulatory standards. Help satisfy the accreditation process.

Productive

Remotely update and manage protocols between facilities and quickly make needed changes.

Simplify protocol management across your devices

Standardizing and maintaining protocols across a health system has traditionally been an ad hoc process. Protocols have been uploaded manually on each device with a USB drive, impacting uptime, staff productivity and compliance. Imaging Protocol Manager helps simplify this process across your GE devices, enterprise wide to drive consistency across your landscape, to remain compliant with regulations and to contribute to the economic success of your health system.

Challenges in Imaging Protocol Management

Landscape

• Lack of visibility & change management process leads to inconsistent protocols
• Variability in dose and exam quality can pose risks to patient safety & outcomes
• Workflow inefficiencies of modifying protocols per exam and repeat exams result in potential revenue losses
• Consolidation of healthcare systems increases the need for a solution
• Increasing quantity of protocols can be costly to manage without tools

Regulations

• EURATOM Basic Safety Standards Directive establishes rules for justification, patient information, dose recording and reporting, diagnostic reference levels and the delineation of responsibilities of health professionals
• ACR mandates annual protocol reviews as part of CT accreditation
• AAPM Task Group 225: Practice Guideline 1.a: CT Protocol Management and Review
• The Joint Commission: Requires review and maintenance of current CT protocols (77% of US hospitals)

Economics

• $42k is the estimated cost to optimize 30 CT protocols each year¹
• 7.5 hours is required per month, per scanner for each updated protocol²
• The Mayo Clinic discovered 309 modified abdomen and pelvis protocols in a 24-week trial period with 25% containing inappropriate protocol parameter modifications³
• >2% of scans repeated per month are due to wrong/inaccurate protocol related issues⁴

FEATURES

Cloud-based app which helps maintain and standardize protocols through creation of protocol libraries, standardization of work-flow, identification of protocol variation, and potential improved protocol adherence

Pull

Import protocols to cloud library from CT and MR devices

Publish

View protocols and publish them as “Standard Protocol” for the fleet of same devices

Push

Distribute protocols to scanners throughout the hospital network

Verify

Review positioning guidelines, contrast delivery and technologist instructions

Track

Monitor protocol deviation between the device and standard protocols on the cloud

HEAR FROM USERS

See what people are saying about Imaging Protocol Manager

"What I like about IPM is that it gives me the security of not being afraid to grow our business. For example, next year we plan to grow the modality exponentially, but I'm sure on all the equipment that we install, we can work in a standardized way, guaranteeing quality and a diagnosis suitable for the patient."
- José Azael Castro Sánchez, Salud Digna

"From my laptop, I can see and edit the protocols that are on my [fleet of] scanners, just as if I was looking at an individual machine. With this protocol manager, you're able to achieve uniformity in image quality as well as uniformity in workflow."
- Time Szczykutowicz PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Wisconsin

REFERENCES

J Siegelman, “Design, Implementation, Benefits and Costs of a CT Radiation Dose Optimization Committee, in a Medium Sized Community Hospital System”, Published JACR 2013.
MR Supervisor, private hospital with nearly 500 inpatient beds and multiple remote locations.
J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2016 Sep 8;17(5):523-533.
Based on GE HealthCare Customer Value Survey, November 2016.*

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