Australian diagnostic services company, Resonance Health, is taking its breakthrough FerriScan® service to the world - with the help of a unique internet based system known as FAST.

Resonance Health's FerriScan service involves measuring the body's liver iron concentration via a complex analysis of a set of MRI images. Iron overload is among the most common genetic diseases but has previously been difficult to diagnose and monitor non-invasively. Now FerriScan is able to replace liver biopsy as a safe, accurate and non-invasive procedure to assist in iron overload diagnosis and improve health outcomes.

MRI Centres around the world are now able to lodge an analysis Job via Resonance's internet-based FAST (FerriScan Analysis Service Tracking) system. The centre then arranges to route the MRI images to Resonance - typically via the industry-standard DICOM protocol for secure transmission of medical images.

Resonance Health retrieves the images, performs their unique analysis and prepares a report for the clinician. Resonance operates a comprehensive quality assurance process to guarantee accurate and reliable results.

The FAST system tracks Jobs from inception, through analysis and quality assurance, to completion. By using a secure online system, both Resonance and the MRI Centres are able to monitor Job progress and have instant access to current and past Jobs.

The FAST system is designed to provide benefits to both Resonance Health (Resonance) and the customers of Resonance Health (Customers).

Goals included:

• Resonance to be able to respond quickly to Customer requests;
• Resonance to be able to operate the business with minimal data entry overheads;
• Resonance to enable a diverse Customer base to access the system without need for specific or specialist software or hardware;
• Customers to obtain operational benefits in addition to those provided to Resonance;
• For both Resonance and Customers, provide a globally available facility in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Benefits include:

• Comprehensive online Jobs database with ability to extract for billing processing;
• Customers derive a historical reporting and data access facility, reducing the need for Customer support;
• Customers can see status of work-in-progress 24x7;
• Streamlining the transfer of information between Customer and Supplier, resulting in timely and efficient communication;
• Automation of business process within Resonance Health, resulting in minimal staff effort to manage the business processes;
• Provision of accurate summary statistics in real-time, resulting in simplified management control.

The FAST system executes on the IBM e-business infrastructure - using IBM WebSphere Application Server; IBM DB2; Java; and Java Server Pages. The use of the IBM technology infrastructure provides enterprise-standard performance, reliability and robustness.

The following is an excerpt from a customer reference:

"The FAST system built by Elk Software Group is a crucial part of our service and enables us to provide a quick and accurate turnaround on analysis from centres around the world. Customers can log on and are able to easily lodge jobs, track them and access data which streamlines our customer communication and enables our service centre to operate at maximum efficiency."

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