Cobalt Health goes live with RIS to support PETCT

Cobalt Health has gone live with Soliton IT’s Radiology+ RIS. The scanning centre based in Cheltenham sees more than 75,000 patients a year at its imaging centre, the Institute of Translational Medicine, Birmingham, and at its mobile MRI scanners. Along with MRI, CT, x-ray and ultrasound imaging, Cobalt also offers specialist PETCT scanning across Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

In February 2019, Cobalt Health nominated Soliton IT to support its imaging services with clinical workflow applications Radiology+ RIS and Share+, especially configured to support PETCT functionalities and specialist workflow.

Soliton IT started the implementation in March last year during a difficult period in healthcare, which tested the team and called on its prior experience in clinical IT project management. For example, data migration needed added diligence when migrating from a non-RIS legacy application. In addition, the nature of Cobalt’s healthcare offering meant that a finance module needed to be incorporated into the workflow, which would allow users to link each attendance with a customer’s record, apply charges to each study, create invoices and receipts, and run corresponding statistical reports to capture financials.

COVID-19 legislation meant that Cobalt staff time was already limited; fewer on-site implementation periods and postponements due to the national lockdown resulted in both Cobalt and Soliton IT having to be flexible.

Soliton IT project manager Traci Dean said: “This project, although smaller than a large NHS trust, was still demanding due to the additional workflows required for private work. The RIS meant many changes to workflows and processes; however, everyone welcomed the change and participated in in-depth workflow analysis resulting in a system that was configured to requirements.”

Picture: PETCT radiographer Danielle Bennett, IT manager and project lead Nick Thompson, head of PETCT bookings Catherine Dixon and finance manager Jennifer Piff.

Published on page 2 of the May 2021 issue of RAD Magazine.