Success story—Enabling faster image sharing with PowerShare

Background

University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is one of North America’s most renowned medical centers and acts as the centerpiece for the university’s health research, teaching, and patient care missions.

URMC’s clinicians share and access dozens of patient imaging studies every day across specialty areas such as pulmonology, cardiology, and trauma. The center’s imaging volumes exceed 1.2 million studies every year—and previously, most imaging was shared using physical CDs, and wasn’t accessible in the center’s EHR.

“Going outside the EHR to search for images was inefficient and frustrating, and uploading images from CDs was time‑consuming,” says Stacie Barnard, Director of Enterprise Imaging Informatics and Integrated Clinical Systems at University of Rochester Medical Center. “Also, many of the devices our providers use don’t even have CD drives anymore.”

URMC wanted to find a faster, more convenient way to allow providers to share patient images and view them alongside patients’ associated clinical data. And crucially, the center’s solution needed a high‑redundancy cloud to ensure minimal downtime for providers.

Effortless image sharing and access between providers

URMC integrated Nuance PowerShare Image Sharing, a cloud‑based medical image exchange platform, with its Epic EHR to allow providers to easily share and access patient images within seconds. Now, URMC’s providers are connected to an expanding network of more than 300 hospitals, large health systems, medical vendors, and research facilities. Nuance PowerShare is embedded into the imaging tab of patient charts in Epic, which means the center’s providers can bring images up with a single click—without needing to reauthenticate themselves, and without leaving the patient record window. From this window, providers can review images with patients, order follow‑up exams, or nominate the study to the local PACS if the radiology team needs to compare it to a new study or conduct a second read.

“Our providers can now view patients’ images with associated clinical data at any time, and from any mobile device or computer,” says Barnard. “They no longer need to log into other applications, wait for images to load, or spend a long time searching for images.”

A connected network of healthcare providers

During the first three months using PowerShare, URMC clinicians uploaded more than 147,000 studies and shared 88,000 of them. And since then, URMC has connected more than 2,000 providers across its network, giving them the ability to share imaging information effortlessly.

“Nuance PowerShare is a gamechanger for our physician workflows, especially for those in specialties that require them to access a lot of external images,” says Gregg Nicandri, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at University of Rochester Medical Center. “Using PowerShare directly in our EHR allows us to get images in one click, freeing up valuable time for direct patient care that used to be spent searching for images.”

Using Nuance PowerShare, URMC was able to easily move imaging from more than 12,000 CDs in two years—increasing the number of studies available to providers directly through the EHR. And now, the center is expanding its use of Nuance PowerShare to allow patients to access their images.

“Nuance PowerShare is now live in our patient portal, MyChart,” adds Barnard. “This means that if a patient needs to bring images to one of their providers, they can log on and click on the imaging tab in MyChart to see their studies—and they won’t need to carry around a physical CD.”

Soon, URMC patients will also be able to query and share imaging studies directly from MyChart. By harnessing the strength of an ever‑growing network and deep Epic integration, URMC will continue to use PowerShare to support patient engagement, optimize workflows, and deliver better healthcare outcomes.