Siemens retools Sienet into multiple RIS/PACS solutions

Product family offers discrete products

Siemens Medical Solutions has reengineered the existing Sienet PACS and added a midrange system to create a family of products that can meet the needs of low- , medium-, and high-volume practices. Sienet Cosmos, the mid-tier offering, was introduced at the RSNA meeting along with revamped versions of Sienet Magic, the high-end offering, and Sienet Sky, a value-oriented solution for private practices and community hospitals.

"What we offered before was one PACS solution that could be configured to include a mixture of workstations and servers," said Frank Reid, manager of IM product management for Siemens. "Here, we've created three separate and distinct PACS solutions targeted at very specific segments of the market."

Designed for academic medical centers, large hospitals, and large radiology practices, Sienet Magic includes components for planning exams, postprocessing, reporting, archiving, and image and report distribution. It is scalable to nearly unlimited data volume.

Sienet Cosmos, which the FDA cleared for marketing on Dec. 16, was created as a gap-filler: a system capable of handling the workflow at large radiology practices, but flexible enough to be scaled to meet the needs and budgets of community hospitals. Cosmos includes components for planning exams with reporting, archiving, and image and report distribution. The system is scalable up to 100,000 procedures annually.

Sienet Sky was designed for private practices and hospitals with a "focused" data volume, and is scalable up to 50,000 exams yearly, Reid said. Sky's components facilitate reporting, archiving, and distribution of images.

Siemens will begin shipping the revamped product line in the spring, according to Henri "Rik" Primo, manager of marketing and strategic relationships for Siemens. Marketing will revolve around conferences and trade shows. Several reference sites will be open for visits from prospective customers.

"Every one of these systems is an integrated radiology suite," Reid said. "We've integrated the RIS/PACS workflow for each."

This integration provides several distinct advantages for both the radiologist and the department. First is enhanced workplace efficiency, resulting in varying levels of cost savings to customers, according to Reid.

"Workflow enhancements within the department and at the reading workplace go beyond anything that's in the standards organization," he said.

No competitor has a system comparable to the Sienet family, whose workflow engines drive the complete PACS, Primo said. He describes the storage interfaces as "agnostic," allowing the installation of any storage infrastructure the customer wants or already has installed. Multiple redundancies have been built into the product line to prevent any failure, even a server crash, from bringing down the entire system.