PR Newswire
Date: 2015-07-12

TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan, July 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center (KF-SYSCC) has established an entirely paperless and filmless clinical process in radiation oncology, designed to enhance patient safety as well as operational efficiency.  Using the ARIA® oncology information system from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR), the clinical team has automated essential tasks, built in safety-checks, and centralized patient information for easier access by staff members.

ARIA combines a comprehensive, oncology-specific patient electronic medical record (EMR) with numerous tools for managing clinical, administrative and financial operations in multidisciplinary cancer care settings.

“We were using both Varian and Siemens information management software, but we standardized on Varian’s ARIA platform.  Within three months we had removed all paper charts from the department,” said Yeh-Chi Lo, Ph.D., chief of the Department of Medical Physics.  “Varian and its local agent, Cooperative C.L. Enterprise Co., provided us with valuable assistance, helping us to configure the ARIA software to manage different types of treatment, and to reflect our preferences in terms of clinical work flow.  The software is set up to interrupt the clinical workflow at critical junctures unless specific safety checks have been completed and documented.”

“Conversion to an electronic process actually made our workflow more efficient, and potentially safer due to careful automation of essential steps,” added Skye Hung-Chun Cheng M.D., chief of the Department of Radiation Oncology.  “Our goal was to become a fully paperless and filmless department. ARIA has also enhanced the communication between our clinical team members.”

The KF-SYSCC Radiation Therapy Department is a mixed-vendor environment, treating patients on three Varian linear accelerators including a TrueBeam® system plus a Primus-M machine from Siemens.     [FULL  STORY]