Accelarad, is another emerging player. Executives at both eMix and LifeImage tell me they expect to have a dozen or more competitors within the next year.
A major goal for eMix is for customers to be able to use it without requiring them to load any software onto their own computers. So eMix designed the system to be Web-based, other than client software that eMix gives users to move downloaded images to their local systems. The digital medical images are uploaded to and downloaded from eMix’s secure cloud. For now, the eMix system is designed solely for transferring medical images like CT scans or radiology exams, and each record is wiped clean from the system after 30 days. Yet Saint-Clair says that use of the firm’s cloud could be expanded to include long-term storage services for healthcare customers.
The strategy to make eMix an online service is appealing to customers because there’s very little they need to do to adopt the service and manage it, according to Saint-Clair. Since the service was introduced late last year, he says, the number of medical centers that have signed on to at least try out the service has grown to more than 20 hospitals. A few notable initial users of the system include Seattle Children’s Hospital, Imaging Healthcare Specialists, of San Diego, and St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences, in Missoula, MT. Meantime, eMix is in the process of expanding use of its technology in Asia, Europe, and other international markets.
Still, eMix’s competitors are making a dent in this market as well. LifeImage, for example, has developed software to enable hospitals to easily transfer medical images from patient’s CDs onto their own systems, and the firm has recently launched a service to allow trauma units and other clinics to exchange medical images over the Internet. The company built the service onto EMC’s “Atmos” cloud storage and computing platform. And Seemyradiology.com revealed last month that its service enables physicians to access medical images from the service’s cloud with their mobile devices.
A theme among these firms is to maintain neutrality among vendors of picture archiving and communication systems, more commonly known by the acronym “PACS,” which are used to store and manage medical images. DR Systems, an 18-year-old PACS provider, designed the eMix system to easily transfer images from PACS systems from a variety of vendors, using a digital imaging standard called DICOM.
While eMix is a separate corporate entity from DR Systems on paper, the new business operates in DR Systems’s office in San Diego, primarily under the management of employees of the sole owner, according to Saint-Clair. Saint-Clair, who spends most of his time on the eMix venture, has been an employee of DR Systems since he joined the company early last year to work on its business dealings with the U.S. Department of Defense, he says. Early in the last decade, he was a president at RadVault, a developer of PACS technology that eventually flamed out.
A big test for eMix and its competitors is whether they will survive these heady days of their industry to become established players—like DR Systems was able, and RadVault was unable, to do in the PACS game.
