EMC, GE Cater to Medical Storage

EMC Corp. and General Electric Co. are rolling out scaled-down medical imaging offerings to enable smaller community hospitals to keep in step with cutting-edge storage technology used by larger enterprise health care providers.

To simplify digital online archiving and diagnostic imaging workflow in cost-conscious health care environments, EMC last week joined GE Healthcare, a Waukesha, Wis., business unit of General Electric, to launch Centricity PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) SE, featuring integration with EMCs Clariion AX100 networked storage system.

Centricity PACS SE is a preconfigured product designed to boost image processing speeds and accessibility, as well as provide remote access through the storage network to allow cross-enterprise collaboration and communication, said EMC officials in Hopkinton, Mass.

Targeted at small- and midsize-business customers, the AX100 incorporates 12 Serial ATA drives for data capacity of up to 3TB of raw storage and features a single rack-mountable 2U (3.5-inch) cabinet. The slimmed-down product takes snap copies of data for backups and mirrors the data integrity and performance capabilities of EMCs higher-end Clariion CX300 and CX700 offerings, which GE Healthcare already resells.

According to Peter McClennen, global general manager of imaging and information systems for GE Healthcare, price point, installation time and resources are major deterrents for many small health care facilities to institute proper medical care.

“Smaller community hospitals did not have the same technologies [as larger facilities] mostly due to cost,” said McClennen. “That meant that testing took longer.”

McClennen said Centricity PACS SE makes available to a new audience state-of-the-art medical imaging products that are consistent with those customers financial means.

Centricity PACS SE is offered in three flavors: a version that combines Centricity PACS SE software and the AX100, a version that also includes Centricitys enterprise archiving application software, and an alternative offering that adds a combination of Centricity PACS SE and Radiology Information System, said officials.

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