Image source: Peter May (centre) and colleagues at the NIPACS+ launch; fromni.gov.uk, Open Government Licence v3.0
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health (DoH) has unveiled a new regional digital image archiving system.
Named NIPACS+ (Northern Ireland Picture Archiving and Communications System+), it will cover a wide range of medical specialities for the region’s hospitals and is forecast to support approximately two million examinations per year.
DoH said the launch builds on over a decade of work, and an investment of £50 million, in the original NIPACS digital archiving programme, which has made it possible to digitise and connect radiology and pathology services.
The new system will enable every health and social care trust in the region to break down silos of imaging information to support diagnoses of patients.
Interact with images
Permanent secretary of the DoH Peter May said: “This software will enable our HSC healthcare professionals to access and interact with patient images from a wide range of disciplines, including radiology, cardiology and oncology.
“The fact that images from any hospital within Northern Ireland will be available throughout the region for secondary consultations, will provide massive opportunities to provide enhanced patient care.”
Dr Cathy Jack, chief executive of Belfast Trust, said: “This programme signals a major step forward in medical diagnostics for Northern Ireland. Moving to one imaging system will mean that from a single point of access healthcare professionals can instantly see all the imaging they need to support patient care”
The NIPACS+ programme has come in response to recommendations made in 2018 in the DoH Strategic Framework for Imaging Services, which called for NIPACS to be expanded into new clinical areas and for single systems for radiology information and picture archiving to be available across all acute care sites.
