NIMIS to bypass Tallaght

Despite AMNCH Tallaght being the first hospital in the country to introduce a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) for x-rays in 1998, its legacy system is in danger of being outstripped by solutions at other hospitals involved in the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) project.
The State’s new €40 million digital imaging system is not scheduled for implementation at Tallaght Hospital, despite revelations of ‘design problems, flaws in the software and incompatible software’ — revealed in a review of radiology at the hospital.

NIMIS is due to be rolled out in the majority of hospitals over the next three years.
The legacy system at Tallaght involves a Radiology Information System (RIS) and a separate PACS. Such systems would normally be integrated. However, the Tallaght systems ‘did not have the ability to say how many x-rays were done in a day and how many x-rays were not reported’, the hospital’s Chief Executive Prof Kevin Conlon has stated. NIMIS – which will connect together hospital radiology systems – requires this as standard.
The review found ‘no safety and alert system’ in the Tallaght PACS. “That was a major, major fault,” Prof Conlon confirmed.
NIMIS will make radiological services ‘filmless’ and enable secure and rapid movement of image data throughout the health service. It should also facilitate ongoing monitoring of radiology services.
“Deficiencies in staff have also had to be corrected,” Prof Conlon said, pointing to ‘systems and process failures’. “We didn’t deliver the type of care that was essential to patients.”
Tallaght has commenced a ‘root and branch analysis’ of its radiology problems and will relay the findings ‘to other institutions, to make sure this isn’t happening anywhere else’.
Many of the 57,000-plus x-rays that were not reported on by consultant radiologists at the hospital between 2005 and 2009 related to orthopaedic work, but it appears chest x-rays were also involved.
A HSE group has been set up to establish national protocols on when and who reviews images. Dr Barry White, National Director of Quality and Clinical Care, and Dr Risteard O’Laoide, Consultant Radiologist and National Lead for Radiology, will assist in overseeing the Tallaght inquiry.