A new cloud-based network called “teamplay” from Siemens Healthcare has been developed to help connect hospital staff and healthcare experts worldwide, providing them with the ability to exchange data and pool their knowledge. The intention, according to Siemens, is to help radiologists, imaging managers, and referring physicians make timely, well-informed decisions by connecting them in the cloud as “a virtual imaging team” so they can access current data, compare benchmarks, and collaborate more efficiently.
Siemens says that with its teamplay cloud-based imaging solution, imaging professionals will get a better grasp of their performance, because it provides them with a thorough and comprehensible overview of their data. In addition to more transparency in their own organization, they can compare their numbers to real benchmarks obtained from others: values accumulated from data of other organizations linked to teamplay.
According to Siemens, an easy-to-install DICOM application connects to the teamplay user network. Data relevant for an evaluation is anonymized and encrypted for HIPAA-compliant, secure transmission to the teamplay cloud, where it can be accessed at any time with the appropriate authorization.
Once in teamplay, clinicians can reportedly monitor dose levels of every modality and observe institutional or self-set dose limits. Clinicians also can gather data relevant to their devices, such as the number of patients examined, average exam length, and time between exams, as well as the capacity utilization of the various modalities or individual scanners. Siemens believes this capability helps facilities operate their devices more efficiently, and helps them rapidly determine whether there is sufficient CT capacity available to perform the expected additional number of scans required for some cases.
For more information about teamplay, visit the Siemens Healthcare website.
