Base Ten to sell majority stake in PACS software development unit

Base Ten to sell majority stake in PACS software development unit

Company to offer multimodality PACS software to OEMs

Former defense firm Base Ten has decided to sell a majority stake in its PACS software development unit, a move designed to focus the company on its core businesses. Although it plans to concentrate its efforts on order execution systems and services for the pharmaceutical, chemical, and medical products industries, Base Ten of Trenton, NJ, will retain a financial interest in the PACS unit, called Health Imaging Development Company, which has developed a multimodality PACS software package called Imaging Diagnostics and Archiving version 2.0.

IDA 2.0 represents a considerable upgrade to uPACS, Base Ten's previous PACS offering, said Michael Elser, president of HIDC. An ultrasound miniPACS product, uPACS was employed primarily in Europe as part of the European Random Trial for Ovarian Cancer Screening (ERTOCS) program. The product only reached the beta testing phase in the U.S., however.

Base Ten and HIDC executives plan a bigger role for IDA, a product that was developed in-house and features a high level of integration of medical images and other clinical information, Elser said. An OEM distribution model is planned for IDA, although no agreements have been signed yet. The company expects to receive Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance for IDA in the first quarter of 1999. No determination about product distribution outside the U.S. has been made, Elser said.

The Windows NT-based IDA server provides file, database, and archive management. It utilizes the Microsoft BackOffice server products, which confer important scalability advantages, Elser said.

"A facility could begin with an ultrasound miniPACS, and as they become more comfortable with digital imaging, they can scale their IDA system to support digital modalities, increase the depth of the archive, and add remote sites without having to install a completely new system," Elser said.

On the workstation side, the Windows 95 or NT-based IDA workstation can support resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. A 2K display is in development.

With the IDA workstation software, users can configure forms for information management that can integrate directly into the application, Elser said. This enables physicians to track patient information for research or outcomes management. In addition, data entry reports can be configured to meet the specific needs of the hospital department in which it is deployed. IDA also includes a video digitizer unit.

While Base Ten will sell a majority stake in HIDC, its management will play key roles in the unit. Base Ten chairman and CEO Thomas Gardner will become chairman of HIDC. Gardner will also retain his roles with Base Ten. Invest-ment bank Wm. Sword & Company has been retained to raise the equity capital for HIDC.

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