19 Jul Australian company will sell TeraMedica's medical imaging software
MILWAUKEE — TeraMedica has announced that Australian-based Intelligent Image Management will license its software for managing data from health care imaging systems.
TeraMedica’s Intelligent Image Manager, or TI2m software, on which the Australian company based its name, is TeraMedica’s archival software. It is designed to capture data directly from imaging devices or to work with picture archiving and communication systems to then make data available across an enterprise.
The Australian I2m will be authorized to sell the software to health care providers in Australia and South Asia, according to Paul Schmelzer, executive vice president at TeraMedica.
“The big difference in applying the TeraMedica model in Australia is that there is a large proportion of health care managed by the state governments. I2m envisages that each state will install a data center and make it available to serve as a clearinghouse for the governmental health systems,” Schmelzer said. “This agreement positions TeraMedica to be a significant component of the modernized health care infrastructure of Australia and South Asia. We’re going to be solving the medical image management problem on a very large scale”
Brendan Hannelly, now I2m’s chairman and a former president of the Foundation for Information Technology at the University of Sydney, heard about the software package at a conference in Sydney earlier this year. The experience lead to a discussion with Schmelzer and a partnership with executives experienced in Australia and South Asia to form I2m.
“The challenge of managing medical image data that is growing exponentially is not a problem unique to the United States,” Hannelly said. “The problem is absolutely mirrored in Australia caused by increased imaging procedures due to an aging population, more images per procedure, and more data per image.”
I2m may also resell the software to independent health care providers who could set up their own data centers. Milwaukee-based TeraMedica is aiming to become Australian health care if this new startup is successful.
Based on Sun server technology, TeraMedica’s image storage mechanism is one of many efforts to make large health care providers more efficient. Digital viewing of images avoid film production and transportation costs, and a good underlying network can allow health care providers to access the data at any point it is needed.
TeraMedica says its software can search using defined rules to deliver relevant images from the database based on the type of study, origin, organization policy, outcome or any combination of these.
“We’re going to be solving the medical image management problem on a very large scale,” Schmelzer said.