Candelis, Inc. Plays Pivotal Role in Helping OB/GYN Practices Offer Mammogram Screening by Breast Imaging Specialists to In-House Patients
(PRWEB) November 30, 2017 -- Candelis, Inc., a leading company in women’s healthcare IT, recently implemented the technological infrastructure to create a remote reading situation for Southwest Contemporary Women’s Center, an OB/GYN practice based in Phoenix, Arizona with California based MemorialCare Breast Cancer, to improve the odds of breast cancer screening.
MemorialCare Breast Center at Saddleback Memorial in Orange County, California, a national leading breast center, wanted to offer its services for OB/GYN practices, but needed the technical infrastructure in place. A facility devoted to winning the battle against breast cancer, the center is equipped with state-of-the-art imaging equipment including digital mammography and is recognized as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiology.
The center is strictly dedicated to breast care, employing breast imaging specialists, who by definition are radiologists who define their primary specialty as breast imaging. Led by Dr. Gary Levine, who is the Medical Director of MemorialCare Breast Centers, and is an Associate Clinical Professor of Radiology at USC Keck School of Medicine, he and his other two fellow radiologists are fellowship trained in breast (only 21% of breast imaging specialists) and spend all of their clinical time doing breast imaging (only 59% spend more than half of their clinical time doing breast imaging).
Only 10% of all radiologists are “breast imaging specialists.” 61% of all radiologists interpret mammograms, while the majority of screening mammograms are read by general radiologists (70%) with no subspecialized training in breast mammography. This lack of specialized training often leads to greater likelihood for misdiagnosed cases.
The Candelis infrastructure enables prefetching from other affiliated institutions. Candelis’s PriorExpress allows a different facility to get prior images from a different one, automatically. Now, the opportunity to provide more convenient and higher quality breast care and diagnosis for patients is now available.
“It is a win-win for both patients and for OB/GYN practices because breast care specialists can now interpret your studies, not general radiologists,” said Dr. Levine. “It also allows an outside/rural community to benefit from high quality dedicated breast radiology,” he added.
From the patient perspective, health care is even more optimized since it is more convenient to have a screening mammography done at the OB/GYN’s office on the same day a patient gets her pap smear done, rather than schedule another day to visit an outside radiology facility.
“Because we are producing high quality images and these images are being interpreted by experts in the field, we know we have optimized breast care for our patients and in our community. All of this improves and raises the quality and standard of breast care provided to the patients in our community,” added Dr. Kim Balk, Executive Director of Southwest Contemporary Women's Care.
With 230,000 new cases of breast cancer every year in the United States, Candelis hopes its technology will help women’s healthcare specialists to identify breast cancer at earlier stages to better treat patients.
About Candelis, Inc.
Candelis, Inc. is a leading provider of innovative and cost-effective solutions to hospitals and imaging centers. These solutions significantly increase practice efficiency and quality of service provided to referring physicians and specialists. From Artificial Intelligence driven, enterprise class image and modality management learning machines, to fully-featured visualization services, to seamlessly integrated workflow products – all augmented by ASTRA™, our state-of-the-art cloud services - Candelis is revolutionizing healthcare.
Tricia Buenvenida, Candelis, Inc., http://www.candelis.com, +1 (949) 798-8105, [email protected]
Share this article