Download as a PDFPukka-j’s PACS system part of new 4.5 million pound Healthy Living Centre in East Anglia
Pukka-j recently delivered a Picture Archiving and Communications Systems to the multi-million pound, new Community Healthy Living Centre in Thetford, East Anglia.
Pukka-j specialises in tailored solutions using web-based technology. In the case of the new centre, the aims were to increase the workflow and benefits from PACS without deploying an over-specified enterprise-wide solution. Pukka-j was able to provide the required technology at a fraction of the cost of the major PACS providers.
The new Centre was built at a cost of £4.5 million under the LIFT scheme and is owned by Norlife who will lease the building back to Norfolk PCT over the next 25 years. It replaces the Victorian Thetford Cottage Hospital and brings together a wide range of health professionals under one roof. Services include a digital X-Ray department, diagnostic ultrasound, speech and language therapy, a minor surgery unit, family planning, occupational health, phlebotomy, community dentistry, Suffolk Mental Health Services, drug and alcohol abuse service, plus hospital outpatients services, chiropody services, general practitioner, physiotherapy and rehabilitation services.
Leslie Eddowes, Advanced Practitioner Radiographer of Norfolk PCT Diagnostic Imaging Service comments,
Pukka-j came highly recommended by an industry insider, and the service provided has certainly lived up to expectations. They came up with just the right solution for a small department, and worked with us to implement the system in a quick and efficient way.
The Pukka-j archive provides immediate access to patients’ images and GP referrals locally, and is backed up with a robust, near-line mirrored copy data archive, which housed at the Norfolk PCT’s St. Andrew’s House, approximately 34 miles from the Centre. For in-house reporting, Pukka-j delivered a high performance, triple display, diagnostic workstation; the in-house reporting is performed by an advanced practitioner radiographer, qualified to diagnose hands and feet extremities. All other images are sent out on the day of acquisition, to either West Suffolk Hospital or Norfolk & Norwich Hospital
Leslie Eddowes continues,
At present the images are distributed on CD to referring sites, however, the Diagnostic Imaging Service is in discussions to automate the service via a DICOM push or a web browsing facility. With Pukka-j’s DICOM and HL7 services, there is also an option to fully automate image sharing seamlessly with a hospital’s existing PACS. The important things for us are to be able to provide service for legacy referral pathways as well as develop new ones. Pukka-j has provided an excellent IT platform for our current needs and one which will allow us to develop our service flexibly to provide patient focussed service in Primary Care.
Pukka-j is scheduled to deliver the second phase of the project in the next few months. The upgrade system will feature GP referral packs containing report and original referral document, DICOM modality worklist to a Fuji CR and an embedded patient management user interface to improve reporting flow.
The new facilities are predicted to become a flagship model for the county and even East Anglia with an anticipated yearly throughput of some 20,000 people. The purpose-built Centre, which had been in the pipeline for 20 years, finally opened its doors in early January this year.
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