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· FUJIFILM Acquires Cardiology PACS Vendor ProSolv
· Thermal Guarantee Equipment Program Protects High-Density Data Centers
FUJIFILM Acquires Cardiology PACS Vendor ProSolv
By Cat Vasko
FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA, Stamford, Conn, acquired cardiology PACS vendor Problem Solving Concepts Inc (ProSolv), Indianapolis, in January. The company now will be known as ProSolv CardioVascular, a FUJIFILM Company, and will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary under the leadership of president and CEO Aaron Waitz, former director of engineering at Fuji. Medical Imaging spoke with both Waitz and Bob Cooke, executive director of marketing and product management at FUJIFILM, about the merger.
MI: How will the companies’ product lines be integrated?
Cooke: At this point, we are obviously very early in the acquisition, although we have developed an integration strategy that allows the radiologists to continue to use the application that they’re familiar with while accessing data contained within the ProSolv system. Because the applications share a similar architecture, we are able to do the same thing for the cardiologists. So, cardiologists who use an integrated system will be able to access data stored within the Synapse system, whether that be radiology results or images. In effect, we’ve maintained the same familiar tools for each of the clinical specialties—because they have different kinds of workflow and needs—while improving the level of data access through a robust integration at the desktop level. Since the products themselves already share a common philosophy of using off-the-shelf components, we’re also able to achieve an economy of scale, because both applications can use the same set of server infrastructure and common backup strategies. So, despite the fact that we’re only a short period of time into the acquisition, we’ve provided substantial clinical benefits and done what we feel to be really relevant clinical integrations very quickly.
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| Aaron Waitz |
Waitz: The key to that integration is that each of the users in their respective departments won’t have to learn any new interface in order to be able to access the reports in the other department.
Cooke: I think that’s an important distinction, and, of course, there will always be situations where ProSolv will deploy their application with someone else’s PACS, and similarly Synapse with someone else’s cardiovascular system. Obviously, we understand the need to do an integration with those systems as well, and we retain that ability.
MI: Where is Fuji’s cardiac imaging line headed?
Cooke: As far as the overall medical business for Fuji, it’s a very important part of our portfolio. It’s a very rapidly growing area. And I think one of the key trends happening in radiology and cardiology is that there’s a significant crossover that is in the process of occurring, particularly in the area of cardiac CT. So we feel that, obviously, this is going to be an important area for the future, while we merge Fuji’s capability at dealing with CT data with ProSolv’s experience in the cardiovascular department. That’s going to be an important strategic area for us.
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| Bob Cooke |
MI: What are some immediate goals?
Cooke: There are several goals. From the commercial standpoint, our number one goal is to make sure we provide improved access to technology to each of our customer bases. Similarly, ProSolv customers will be able to take advantage of Synapse. And we’re taking advantage of Fuji’s global distribution strength to help enhance the global footprint of the ProSolv product line.
MI: What drew Fuji to ProSolv?
Waitz: When I was brought into the company, we did extensive due diligence on the field out there, and the strength of the ProSolv product, both in technology and in customer satisfaction—as indicated by the #2 KLAS ranking last year for cardiology PACS and highest numerical score for cardiology reporting last year—drew us to the company. Also, there’s a very novel architecture for allowing easy customization of reporting data in the ProSolv system, which is key to workflow.
Cooke: As we discussed already, cardiology solutions is an area of the market that’s growing very rapidly, and that is a by-product of the need to have good outcomes data in that segment. Information technology (IT) is the ideal way to start to capture data so that you can measure outcomes. So, people are adopting these systems quickly.
MI: What’s next for Fuji in the cardiovascular arena?
Waitz: We’ll be expanding the portfolio that we have with our multimodality PACS, diving deeper into the new field of cardiac CT angiography, as well as expanding cardiac MR and expanding our offering with ECG.
Cooke: We have begun to move our product from being just an imaging-based solution to being a solution capable of comprehensively covering the entire clinical system of radiology. If a radiology department today decided what kind of IT solution it would require, it would be unlikely to determine that it needs a RIS and a PACS. We intend to take that same approach in the cardiology department by leveraging our experience and moving beyond just the images into information as well.
Cat Vasko is associate editor of Medical Imaging. For more information, contact .
Thermal Guarantee Equipment Program Protects High-Density Data Centers
American Power Conversion Corp (APC), West Kingston, RI, recently launched a Thermal Guarantee Equipment Protection Program, offering financial compensation for properly protected and certified installations damaged by a thermal event, a growing risk in the high-density data center. Deploying APC’s InfraStruXure Hot-Aisle Containment System and Rack Air Containment System in new or existing environments ensures the repair of or reimbursement for up to $150,000 of protected hardware damaged by a thermal event.
“Although events like power surges and blackouts are well known in the IT and facilities communities, many customers are just now comprehending that IT equipment also has a thermal envelope specified for proper operation,” Aaron L. Davis, chief marketing officer at APC, said in a press release. “Exceeding high or low temperature thresholds too quickly can create thermal surges, and complete loss of cooling—called cooling blackouts—can lead to immediate and unintended server shutdown in the exact same manner as during power blackouts. A key difference is that power blackouts give ample notice through loss of lighting, but loss of cooling may go unnoticed until it’s too late.”
To earn the Thermal Guarantee certification, a customer must work with a team of APC professionals to design a customized plan that reaches IT system availability targets and provides substantial total cost of ownership savings. The customer also must agree to five steps:
- Assessment: creating a comprehensive analysis of a customer’s existing capacity, with consideration of current and future power and cooling objectives.
- Design: using assessment results to develop a high-density InfraStruXure solution.
- Implementation: deploying and certifying the InfraStruXure solution using APC’s Hot-Aisle Containment System or Rack Air Containment System.
- Postimplementation Monitoring: continuous physical and environmental monitoring of the customer’s network-critical physical infrastructure environment.
- Periodic Review: undergoing semiannual assessment and preventive maintenance of a customer’s power and cooling, along with next-day on-site service.
The InfraStruXure Hot-Aisle and Rack Air containment systems use InRow design to ensure cooling predictability, capacity, and efficiency; an array of monitoring options enable the industry’s best solutions for thermal management.
“With APC’s new Thermal Guarantee, customers can rest assured that their hardware is protected by APC if damage results from a thermal event,” Davis said. “There are many confusing and conflicting claims about the right approach to data center power and cooling, and this latest certification continues our history of providing not only innovative technology but also maximum clarity and peace of mind to our customers.”
For more information, visit www.thermalguarantee.com or call (800) 877-4080.
—C. Vasko
