Farmville, Va. – Delegate Clarke Hogan along with representatives from the Virginia Secretary of Technology’s office, Southside Community Hospital (SCH), Centra Health, NTELOS and the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC) met today to demonstrate the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) which was recently launched by the hospitals to better serve the health care needs of the area.

“PACS greatly enhances the hospitals’ radiology capabilities by enabling them to store digital x-rays and scans of their patients,” said Gwen Eddleman, Ed.D., FACHE, president and CEO, SCH. “This service allows for more rapid turnaround times of radiology reports by eliminating the need for film production; provides doctors and technicians with higher quality images; and offers savings to the hospitals by eliminating the cost of film and film handling.  It also connects 35 medical facilities in the network and allows for instant access to images at those locations.”

Event speakers included Eddleman; George Dawson, president and CEO, Centra Health; Delegate Hogan, chairman, Virginia Tobacco Commission Technology Committee; Karen Jackson, director, Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance; Dave Maccarelli, executive vice president and president of Wireline Operation, NTELOS; Randall Short, Radiology Information Systems coordinator, Centra Health; and Stephen Haupt, director, Planning and Infrastructure, Centra Health.

“We are all very excited to be here today to show what local partnering organizations can accomplish for the Commonwealth’s residents,” Dawson said. “The new PACS technology revolutionizes our health care system and significantly improves our services for patients in our network.”

In 2004, NTELOS installed a high-speed data network for Centra Health which provided connectivity between Centra’s headquarters, Virginia Baptist Hospital and Lynchburg General Hospital.  This past May, Centra Health representatives approached NTELOS for a cost-effective way to extend their fiber optic network for their PACS services to their affiliate Southside Community Hospital.

NTELOS was able to leverage its existing network and partner with MBC to deploy additional fiber optic within the Farmville area.

With the completion of the fiber optic network, NTELOS and MBC are able to supply SCH and Centra Health with the broadband capabilities for a data network linking them together and ultimately developing a system for more efficient health care for area Virginians.

Southside Community Hospital (SCH)

Since opening its doors November 9, 1927, SCH has operated on a non-profit basis with the goal of helping to heal the ill and injured. The hospital serves the residents of Amelia, Appomattox, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, Lunenburg, Nottoway, and Prince Edward Counties.

Centra Health

Centra Health is a not-for-profit health system created in 1987 with the merger of Lynchburg General Hospital and Virginia Baptist Hospital.  In 2006, Southside Community Hospital in Farmville joined Centra Health as an affiliate.  Centra Health provides a comprehensive array of medical services in a variety of convenient settings.

Centra Health has been named among the top 25 most connected health care facilities in the United States by Health Imaging and IT magazine.  In addition, Centra Health is a recipient of the Governor’s Technology Award for implementing electronic health records for physician access. Centra is one of the number of winners at the Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS).  Its award came in the collaboration and partnerships category.

NTELOS

NTELOS Inc. is an integrated communications provider with headquarters in Waynesboro, Va. The company employs more than 1,200 people statewide and provides products and services to customers in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and North Carolina, including wireless phone service, high-speed DSL (high-speed Internet access) and local and long distance telephone services.  Detailed information about NTELOS is available at www.ntelos.com.

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative

Charged with implementing the Regional Backbone Initiative for Southside Virginia, the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative was established in November 2003 as a not-for-profit cooperative to provide the leadership and technology infrastructure necessary to support the economic revitalization efforts of Southside Virginia. Funded by the Virginia Tobacco Commission and the US Dept. of Commerce, MBC has built an extensive regional fiber optic network providing open-access, wholesale optical transport services to telecommunication service providers. MBC works closely with local, regional and state economic development groups to bring new jobs and investment to the region and to highlight the competitive advantage of doing business in Southside Virginia. For more information, visit MBC on the Web at www.mbc-va.com, or contact them at (434) 483-4303.

Press Release - Printable (Adobe PDF) format