During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, O3 Enterprise embarked on a very meaningful project for the company: we are talking about a collaboration with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), the biggest hospital of Barbados, a public structure which receives patients from the whole country through 14 clinics and 7 others hospitals, focused on the execution of imaging exams.
O3 at Barbados
A challenging Project
For us the collaboration with BMT, our representative of the ZEEROmed brand in the caribbean region, has been essential. BMT has got a lot of experience in the health technology sector and involved us in this hospital digitisation project, a priority and a very important issue for the Country.
Our technology is internationally available since many years, but for the first time a complete suite has been installed abroad under the ZEEROmed brand, and not as a white label product by our partners.
This experience differentiated itself from others in many ways, carrying new challenges.
Besides being our first project in Barbados, we got our first ZEEROmed Imaging Cloud and SaaS mode (Software as a Service) client outside of Europe. This modality involves the workflow dematerialization, making it completely paperless, as well as a remarkable reduction in capital expenditure by the client in IT infrastructures, thanks to the hosting of both the applications and exams on remote data centers.
Suite ZEEROmed Imaging Cloud
The ZEEROmed Imaging Cloud suite includes our PACS, Universal Viewer, the Patient Portal and our RIS, which was implemented for the first time outside of Italy.
In fact, one of the first addressed activities concerned its localization.
Although other systems – the Viewer and the PACS – were already translated in English, Spanish, French and Russian, the RIS system was entirely translated and adapted for the first time. The translation was made by our team in Italy, and finalized later with more accurate and suitable terms with the help of the hospital staff.
In fact, one of the first addressed activities concerned its localization.
Although other systems – the Viewer and the PACS – were already translated in English, Spanish, French and Russian, the RIS system was entirely translated and adapted for the first time. The translation was made by our team in Italy, and finalized later with more accurate and suitable terms with the help of the hospital staff.
Working from home
A major issue was determined by external circumstances: the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thanks to our partner BMT, and to our team’s technical ability to manage the installations and the configurations remotely, that didn’t substantially affect the initial process.
Despite this, our company felt the need to be near the client, to provide ad-hoc training and then be present at the Go Live.
Respecting the international rules and especially the Barbados ones, we got the possibility to carry out the second part of the project in an hybrid way, with a local team and a remote one.
Our Sr. Project Manager Barbara Saule, tells us:
“Personally and professionally speaking, I consider on-site kick-off to always be very formative, both for the PM and the staff that accompanies them, as only then you do really realize how our systems are used in everyday life.”
Barbara with Randal, from our partner company BMT and the team from QEH.
On the way to Barbados
So, after a swab, the project manager Barbara Saule and the Marketing Manager Gabriela Carminatti, headed towards Barbados, where they had to be quarantined according to strict security protocols imposed by the Country, performed anyway very fluidly and with very clear digital and remote control. After 5 days of quarantine and another swab, finally, the job and the collaboration pursued live. Our marketing manager says:
“The paradise view makes up for the days of quarantine.”
With the installation and configuration parts already remotely executed, the next step concerned the final choice of the workflows and the integrations between several internal and external stakeholders. BMT was a huge support alongside QEH which was always really collaborative and proactive: not only our partner dealt with the on-premises configuration of our server, but also with that of the software, with the management of the final client and with the training and Go Live organization. BMT has been an essential support for a correct start of the project and they worked in perfect synergy with our team.
Our partner Randal says: “During the implementation, Gabriela, Barbara and the O3 team in Italy, were beyond helpful, full of solutions and willing to work until midnight most nights to ensure the correct changes were made to the customer satisfaction.”
During the period of stay at Barbados, several training sessions had been organized for all the actors involved, such as radiologists, technicians and system administrators. At the same time the configurations of diagnostic modalities, already begun remotely, had been executed by configuring all the reporting stations.
Training on the ZEEROmed Imaging dedicated to the team
After the conclusion of these activities, we were ready for the Go Live.
Barbara says:
“It’s always a pleasure to see the start of a project you worked hard on, regardless of its dimension or its geographic location. But I had never seen a radiology director dancing and singing when the first exams officially arrived at our PACS.”
But the project did not present challenges only to us and our partner: there were complexities for our client as well, which kept its medical service active even during the new system implementation.
This was possible thanks to its resilience in managing different types of unexpected occurrences and also thanks to our experience, that allowed us to be able to handle this kind of situation.
The moment when the emergency room moves to ZEEROmed paperless system.
Gabriela says: “What struck me most was seeing the emergency room team of the hospital leaving quickly the requests recently made on paper and adopting right away the requests in digital form. Time optimization in this kind of situation is crucial and it was clear during the first minutes of activation, with a team that was ready to quickly change to offer the best to its patients.”
For the first time we found a strong integration with the territory, having the need to share also with external doctors the access to the softwares. In this case they are the ones to insert directly in the system the requests and to see the reports later. That reinforces both integration, allowed by our software, and the distribution of the images at the enterprise level.
Overall, the project required three months to be completed after the kick-off, including the month in which the pandemic stopped us. Now QEH has a paperless system for the management of internal radiological workflows available, and with the upcoming activation of the patient portal, the digitization process will be 100% completed.
We are very proud of the final result and we are ready for the next challenges.
What makes us happier is the satisfaction of the client, that notices improvements:
“(…) ease of use of the system, the increased efficiency brings to the clinicians who now can order their own exams and schedule the follow up visits after the exam being completed, reduced errors from legible orders, and the ability to access the studies and reports within the cloud. The radiology department has been labelled the most improved in terms of IT Services due to ZEEROmed, O3 and BMT. So thank you team for your support and we look forward to building more with you all” – Team Queen Elizabeth.
Randal, from BMT, Dr.. Sookoo and Dr. Gil from QEH, Gabriela and Barbara from O3 Enterprise..
What’s next?
Besides the Patient Portal, the client expressed the wish to expand this system also to its cardiology department, which makes us very happy and satisfied.
With this option the exams integration will reach another level: a really important hospital sector , not only will become digital, but thanks to our Universal Viewer the cardiology and radiology exams may also be easily compared.
For O3 this has been a unique project in terms of complexity and importance, it brought us a lot of learnings and a lot of satisfaction.
We thank our partner BMT and our client QEH for their great collaboration.
ZEEROmed technology has had a tremendous impact on the workflow in Radiology. It has significantly improved the patient experience. They no longer have to come to the department to make appointments- wasting of time- the imaging spinner is made and the clinic follow-up appointment is made at the same time so that everything is synchronized. With the advent of Covid-19 social distancing is maintained. The isolation facilities which are about an hour’s drive away are able to remotely order their imaging and have a timely response.
Patient management has improved. Both patients and referring physicians are quite happy
Telemedicine has also taken off and the doctors in medicine look forward to the expansion for Cardiology.
Dr. Venice Gil, Senior Radiographer at Queen Elizabeth Hospital
© 2023 – O3 Enterprise s.r.l. is the Zucchetti Group company specialized in medical imaging solutions – All Right Reserved
Area Science Park | Padriciano 99 | 34149 Trieste (Italy) | +39 040 9828200 | info@o3enterprise.com | VAT, Fiscal and Trieste Company Register Number: 01137150320 | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy
Website developed by MaxiVsr10 • Original Pictures by Roberto Pastrovicchio Photography