Carolinas HealthCare System Selects Medcon for Cardiac Image Management and Archiving.

Business Editors & High-Tech/Health/Medical Writers

WHIPPANY, N.J.--(BW HealthWire)--Feb. 20, 2002

Carolinas HealthCare System (Charlotte, North Carolina), one of the nation's leading healthcare providers, selected Medcon to provide cardiac image management and archiving for its Cath labs after a thorough evaluation of more than ten competing brands.

The multi-step vendor assessment process was an illustration of the Carolinas HealthCare System's (CHS) reputation of service excellence and constant search for the best of breed solutions available on the market. The CHS engaged information system specialists, Cath lab technicians, physicians, administrators, and other decision-making hospital staff in an active review of the products during all-day presentations and simultaneous weeklong on-line hookups. These live comparisons included evaluation of the systems from contending vendors in Cath labs in two hospitals and their DVD archival jukebox at the central IS department. The evaluated features included the transfer time of data exchange, time to download studies from a central archival jukebox with simultaneous requests, and -- regarded as the sole most important deciding factor -- image quality. Medcon's TCS System outperformed its competitors on all dimensions.

"Medcon's technology appeared to be superior to that of the other competitors," said Alan Smith, Vice President of Clinical Applications. "The system is network-friendly, the user interface -- very intuitive, and the image quality -- outstanding. Our physicians were very satisfied with the technology and functionality of the system. The retrieval time of an image from an archive to a desktop under our current network infrastructure was superior to the other vendor's products." Alfred Schuls, the Administrative Director of Cardiac Cath Lab added, "Medcon staff was very knowledgeable and answered all our questions. They were able to customize the software to meet our needs and specific archiving requirements. I was impressed with their ability to move the images and studies across our existing network with great speed."

Medcon will connect its TCS Cath Acquisition and Review Workstations in nine Cath labs, across three distinct facilities, at the CHS. The stations will be connected to central archival DVD jukeboxes at the IS Data Center. Carolinas Medical Center-Mercy will also incorporate Medcon's new ACC-NCDR(TM) compliant Cath Reporting and database module. For cardiac Intranet connectivity, the CHS will use Medcon's MDWeb(TM), a product enabling the Web publication of images, reports and data generated in the labs.

Medcon Telemedicine Technology, a global leader in its field, develops and markets a complete line of turnkey solutions for cardiac image and information management. It addresses a full spectrum of needs, from diagnostic filmless image management and archiving for Cath and Echo labs, as well as the exchange of cardiac images and information (telecardiology), to their distribution on the Internet/Intranet. Medcon has extensive experience installing and servicing cardiac network and telecardiology sites. Its solutions are implemented in more than 200 cardiac centers across the U.S., Europe, Far East and South America. For additional information, visit www.medcon.com.