Welcome to our final eNews for this year. 2011 has been a very exciting time for Kestral, our staff and our products. With new clients migrated successfully to Karisma and others to PLS, Kestral has also expanded our internal support and development resources.

Throughout the past year, the Development team have maintained their excellent track record of improving our core product offerings to keep step with the changing needs of the market. In this edition of eNews, we take a closer look at the features and functionality that have been added to our products. You can read all about it, here.

The most recent inclusion of customers in Singapore has provided the essential momentum for Kestral to grow our presence in Asia. Part of this growth has been the forging of vital technical and project management relationships with international organisations such as Philips Healthcare.

In 2012, Kestral will continue to develop leading-edge healthcare solutions for medical imaging and pathology organisations in the Asia Pacific region. In addition, the company will expand its social media presence to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to give our customers and ourselves another way to communicate, share our progress on major projects, inform users with videos and more.

On behalf of all of us here at Kestral, we would like to wish our clients, colleagues and partners and their families the very best for an enjoyable festive season and a successful new year.

Kestral's dedicated team of experienced software developers are tasked with keeping our products at the leading-edge of healthcare information technology. Products we release are continually tested and improved to give our clients the very best in workflow efficient features. 2011 has been no exception, with a number of important features added to Kestral's main software solutions.

Karisma
In 2011, a number of convenient improvements and features were added to Karisma. These included:

• An enhancement to Scheduling that allows the user to edit the occurrence of a recurring resource condition for a selected day, all future occurrences or all occurrences.


• An option added to the Business Reports Studio which provides a choice of format for data extract export – Excel or CSV.


• The implementation in PACS of the ability to send a scanned request from Karisma to iSite PACS via HL7 message and DICOM.


• "Maximum Out of Pocket" functionality added to Accounting.
• Recall letter functionality implemented in Patients to allow automatic distribution of recurring appointment reminders.


• Server monitoring has been implemented for Support to ensure the very best performance from all Karisma systems.


• Implemented Search functionality to allow users to search for patient information using either a comma or a slash. For example, some users will search for Smith, John while others prefer Smith/John.

PLS
In 2011, a number of exciting developments and implementations have been put in place for Kestral’s Pathology Laboratory System (PLS), including:

• Live implementation of order entry for a Victorian site with a CERNER front end; vastly streamlining episode entry for the site.

• Developed and implemented changes which allow collation of printing for a patient episode – interface driven and configurable by script. Please contact your account manager for details.

• Several interfaces for PLS to third party systems have been developed, including:

  • Cobas 4800

  • Roche AmpiLink

  • QUANTA-Lyser

  • Innova enGen (Laboratory Automation)

  • Surity Image Scanning
    

In 2011, CIS development included enhancements for compatibility with the Safari web browser. CIS users can now access and utilise programs such as PLS and RMS from iOS devices carrying Safari - including iPhone and iPad.

Future Developments
Attachments, data forms and order entry will all be implemented in Karisma v3 in 2012.

On the cards for the first half of the new year, Kestral will announce the arrival of Karisma Mobile for iOS. Karisma Mobile gives you everything you need to view, modify, and authorise clinical reports on your Karisma system, on any iPhone or iPad over the Internet from anywhere in the world.

Kestral will continue to develop and expand all of its product offerings to best service the needs of its clients and the wider healthcare community.

Pacific Healthcare Holdings (PHH) is an integrated healthcare provider offering a comprehensive range of services from specialist medical care to wellness services as well as operating nursing homes, day surgery centres and a compounding pharmacy. The medical imaging services at PHH include General X-rays, Ultrasound, Mammography and Computed Tomography (CT Scan) as well as more specialised examinations such as coronary CT angiography and virtual colonoscopy.

Kestral’s first major site in Asia, PHH recently implemented Karisma at a location in the heart of Singapore. The Kestral project team employed Karisma along with active database mirroring and a comprehensive Disaster Recovery solution to ensure the highest level of data integrity for this important site. 

The head doctor at this very latest Karisma client has already made mention of the improved reporting workflow, while staff have taken quite easily to the program. Kestral implementation manager for the project, Dominic Noone reports that staff at PHH learned quickly and easily - a testament to their talent and dedication. 

The integrated, holistic approach to healthcare employed by Pacific Healthcare Holdings provides patients with first-class treatment across a wide range of curative disciplines, supported by a team of more than 100 dedicated healthcare professionals. Kestral is pleased to bring the comprehensive capabilities of Karisma to the essential work of PHH.

Geelong Medical Imaging (GMI) in Geelong, Victoria is the latest in a growing list of Kestral customers to implement Karisma.

GMI, established in 2005, is an independent private practice delivering the highest quality patient care through founding local radiologists Dr Maurice Goodear and Dr Peter Carman. The organisation strives to provide exceptional service to referring practitioners, accurate and informative medical imaging reports and an extensive range of medical imaging studies with same day reporting.

Previously a legacy RMS user, GMI was moved across to Karisma in October this year. System Implementer Asim Jaleel reports that some issues were originally experienced with PACS integration in the early stages of the installation, but that the team was determined to get everything right.

"In keeping with our tradition of doing what it takes to keep our clients happy, the Kestral team addressed the PACS issues as quick as possible."

We would like to thank Practice Manager Mandy Bishop, Dr Goodear, Dr Carman and all the staff at Geelong Medical Imaging for their invaluable assistance during the Karisma implementation project. We were delighted for the opportunity to help GMI maintain its well-deserved reputation with referring practitioners as the preferred regional provider of high quality medical imaging services. 

From November 27 to December 2 this year, Chicago, IL played host to the Radiological Society of North America’s (RSNA) annual meeting where medical imaging professionals from all over the world gathered and discussed the latest innovations in radiology. For almost 100 years, RSNA has stimulated and helped to advance the highest standards of radiology and related sciences through education and research.

At the 97th RSNA Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, a number of educational courses, scientific presentations, lectures and exhibits were on show from more than 700 international companies showcasing innovative technology and healthcare services.

Kestral CEO Kevin Moynihan was on hand at RSNA to present Karisma in conjunction with iSite PACS. This exhibit was a cooperative effort between Kestral and our respected colleagues at Philips Healthcare.

Tightly integrated at the back end according to the HL7 standard and the relevant IHE profiles, Karisma and iSite together offer Patient Demographic updates (ADT) including patient merges; exam ordering updates (ORM) and exam result messages (ORU) including report texts. Collectively, this all means the contents of the databases of Karisma and iSite are automatically synchronised while the systems are capable of functioning independently from each other. For the user, Karisma and iSite will appear as one harmonised and integrated application with bidirectional integration.

Kevin, along with key members of the Philips team demonstrated the benefit of this systematic integration at RSNA 2011 and caught up with industry peers and clients old and new.

On his return, we will be talking to Kevin about his experience at the Chicago forum and you'll be able to view the interview online. Stay tuned for the full story.