Cleveland Clinic expanding EMRs with diagnostic test images

The Cleveland Clinic is taking the next step in developing its electronic medical records system by allowing its doctors to see X-rays, laboratory tissue samples, photographs and any other image related to a patient's care. Eventually, all Clinic doctors will have systemwide access to this centralized visual repository. At MetroHealth Medical Center, patients' electronic health records provide doctors access to radiological images, such as X-rays, CT and MRI scans, and to written reports—but not images—of trauma and pathology tissues. The ongoing project at the Clinic started about six years ago with radiology, said Lannum, and it has grown to include 20 departments and a 650-terabyte disk data center.