Advances in radiation therapy are offering healthcare providers across the country and the world with new treatment opportunities for patients suffering from many different forms of cancer and other illnesses. As new therapeutic options are introduced, it is critical to ensure that radiotherapy treatment is managed properly.
This not only involves making sure the patient receives the right care, but also making sure the record gives researchers valuable data they can use toward developing improved forms of therapy and even possible cures. Ohio State University is using Varian software to properly manage and plan radio therapy treatments delivered on Siemens' ONCOR and PRIMUS accelerators and imaging systems.
Siemens, along with Varian's ARIA oncology information system, have developed and deployed an interface that connects the companies together. The deployment at Ohio State provides a venue in which both companies are able to exercise a new level of cooperation to offer a seamless integrated option for optimizing the technology used to treat patients.
The ARIA oncology information system gives healthcare providers a complete information and image management solution so they can oversee oncology care of their patients. The platform allows physicians to follow the course of treatment of the patient from beginning to end. It combines radiation, medical and surgical oncology information into a complete, oncology specific EMR (Electronic Medical Record).
ARIA will allow healthcare providers to:
- Compare acute responses to treatment and long-term clinical outcomes by evaluating diagnosis specific data
- Facilitate a standard by developing disease specific clinical protocols, thus providing consistent quality of care
- Review treatment images and monitor radiation dose, and make changes accordingly
- Make confident decisions with the aid of embedded rule-based decision support
By implementing the latest advances in radiation therapy and the tools for managing the treatments, clinicians will be able to offer flexible treatment options to the patient with a single delivery system, affordable solutions for providing advanced treatments, reliable performance resulting in consistent patient care and time-saving features that enhance staff productivity.
"Since we launched the global strategic partnership with Siemens last year, we have been steadily working to develop software interfaces that enable clinics with Siemens linear accelerators to manage patient care using Varian software,” said Kolleen Kennedy, president of Varian's Oncology Systems business. “With this new interface, we can connect to about 80 percent of the Siemens equipment in the field. Now the majority of Siemens-equipped sites can choose to adopt ARIA for managing all aspects of care, from initial diagnosis through post-treatment follow-up."
Edited by
Alisen Downey
