Aguirre Nezman

Kodak’s Enterprise Information Management Platform Helps Imaging Center Chain Handle Impressive Growth

Cover photo: Hemant Maru, director of purchasing and operations. Near right: CIO Lyle Backenroth Far right: Maru with Doshi’s storage area network.

This can only be called extreme growth. DOSHI DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING SERVICES PC expanded from 11 sites to 42 sites and now captures, views andstores more than 200 gigabytes of imaging exams a day.
The company’s secret to dealing with this challenging environment is the mindset of their management team and the implementation of a fully featured enterprise-wide storage management solution that is flexible enough to handle the load. The Hicksville, N.Y., firm installed KODAK CARESTREAM Information Management Solutions two years ago. Atthat time, the firm operated 11 multi-modality imaging centers in the New York City/Long Island area but was positioning itself for future expansion in both imaging volumes and locations. DOSHI’s Director of Purchasing and Operations Hemant Maru and Chief Information Officer Lyle Backenroth selected KODAK CARESTREAM Enterprise Information Management because it is designed for scalability andfacilitates communication with existing and future storage devices. Its ability to accommodate a variety of storage systems and technologies has enabled the company to not only manage its growth but install cost-saving new storage technologies without any downtime. “We constantly expand storage to meet our requirements. The ability of Kodak’s EIM Solution to support new drives and technologies isessential to keeping up with our continued growth. We are now installing 500 gigabyte ATA drives instead of 146 gigabyte fibre channel drives.

We are always looking for new technologies that deliver greater storage capacity at a lower cost,” notes Backenroth. Kodak’s EIM Solution is based on the company’s innovative, hardware-independent KODAK CARESTREAM Versatile Intelligent Patient Archive(VIParchive) software. “Our company has experienced a 25 percent annual growth in imaging studies over each of the past five years. So we are very focused on solutions with infinite scalability,” Maru reports. “Since Kodak’s EIM solution uses an Oracle database, there is virtually no limitation on the number of files that can be managed. An industry-standard database was a priority because we did not wantto be limited in terms of capacity or the availability of personnel to service the database.” New Regional Networks Serve New Jersey, Florida DOSHI recently acquired imaging centers in New Jersey and in Jacksonville, Fla., and Miami, Fla. The company is in the process of mirroring its equipment configuration and workflow design at the new sites.

“The ability of Kodak’s EIM Solution to supportnew drives and technologies is essential to keeping up with our continued growth.” — Lyle Backenroth, CIO

“Fortunately the information management model we built to handle growth in New York has proven successful and we have chosen to duplicate it,” Backenroth reports.

Each region has its own network managed by Kodak’s EIM Solution that includes a KODAK picture archiving and communicationssystem (PACS) together with a radiology information system (RIS), imaging modalities and PACS components from a variety of vendors. Within each regional wide area network, imaging centers can quickly and easily route studies to radiologists at other locations as needed.

“Since Kodak’s EIM solution uses an Oracle database, there is virtually no limitation on the number of files that can bemanaged.” — Hemant Maru, Director of Purchasing and Operations

exams. The six New Jersey centers are linked with a frame relay T1 network to handle a volume of 12 gigabytes a day. “We are extremely pleased with network performance. It meets or exceeds our expectations even during our peak periods, which is really saying something given our workflow,” Maru says. Information is stored locally and sent...