The Situation
Since 1984, LaGrange Internal Medicine, PC has been focused on providing the best primary care to patients in and around LaGrange, GA. Privately owned, LaGrange Internal Medicine's focus is on helping their patients get healthy and then stay healthy through preventative medicine and good habits through their eight physician providers.
In 2014, LaGrange Internal Medicine was moving from analog to digital with their Mammography and X-Ray machines. As the majority of their facility’s gantries, including X-Ray, 3D Mammo and Ultrasound, are all from General Electric (GE), the GE staff recommended upgrading to the Candelis PACS system since GE and Candelis are partners and the transition would be easy and seamless. LaGrange purchased a simple 1.8TB PACS system and it changed their business efficiency immediately. That was 10 years ago and LaGrange has been with Candelis since.
The Opportunity and Solution
LaGrange Internal Medicine sees 45,000 patients per year in office visits and their patient load is 14,000-15,000 patients per year, in addition to the mammograms scheduled.
In May 2014 when Candelis installed the ImageGrid PACS, LaGrange Internal Medicine was able to transition from a tedious, manual process to a digital, modernized workflow. With the Candelis PACS system in place, their EMR was able to send orders directly to the modality worklist. Before this, LaGrange Internal Medicine had a very manual process of going to the processing room to organize every case.
“[Now], populated orders went straight to the modality so [our staff] was able to do what they needed to do from the worklist. We didn’t have to reshoot film. Instead of going in and out of the processing room on a consistent basis, it was right there,” explained Eddie Knowlton, Executive Director, LaGrange Internal Medicine.
Candelis' routing capabilities and logging tools provided visibility into the accurate routing of studies and allowed for LaGrange Internal Medicine's clinical team to easily perform diagnoses. Using solid state disk hard drives and an ultra-fast network card (10 GbE), LaGrange was able to transfer images and data extremely fast and gain a competitive advantage from a clinical, security, financial, and operational perspective.
ImageGrid's archive can also be partitioned for multiple AE titles. This feature allows their multiple physicians to use the same ImageGrid system, while keeping their respective data completely segregated.
Finally, Candelis also provided LaGrange Internal Medicine an ASTRA cloud storage subscription for the back-up of their ImageGrid PACS and to maintain HIPAA compliance. ASTRA allows for the Backup/Restore, Archive/Retrieve, and Disaster Recovery functionality while being quick, secure, and easily scalable.
“It brought us to a different level. We are an independent practice. We’re little guys but Candelis upgraded our business,” said Knowlton.
“Moreover, Candelis has been easy to work with. We’ve been pleased with our relationship and service we get from Candelis. They respond in a timely manner to help us run our business, added Knowlton.
The ImageGrid PACS, has allowed LaGrange Internal Medicine's entire healthcare system to run even more effectively and efficiently, so the doctors can continue to provide the most accurate diagnoses and provide comprehensive medical imaging services with advanced technology,” said Robert Van Uitert, Candelis Vice President of Marketing.
After using the ImageGrid PACS for several years, LaGrange Internal Medicine continued to grow their practice and chose to upgrade to a larger Candelis PACS system in 2021. LaGrange Internal Medicine upgraded to an ImageGrid PACS with 10.9 TB of storage and increased the ASTRA cloud back-up of their patient data. The larger PACS system has allowed LaGrange Internal Medicine to conitnue to grow their practice.
“We’ve had a nice ride. We’re pleased with everything and have been with Candelis for 10 years,” Knowlton added.
