Spotlight ON TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUE

Web-based Access to All of Your Images

By Leslie Goldberg, Associate Editor

Topcon's EyeRoute imagemanagement system is a Web-based software product that integrates images and reports from many types of ophthalmic instruments into a single, secure digital environment that is accessible via a Web browser.

“The system is all about efficiency,” says Lon Dowell, director of marketing for imaging products at Topcon. “Doctors are used to looking at images in a hard-copy report or going to a diagnostic device to pull up individual reports, or they spread out a number of paper charts on a desk to make a clinical determination. EyeRoute puts all these images in one spot. This shaves time off of a doctor's day and help increase patient volume.”

EyeRoute Options

EyeRoute is offered in two ways. First is “Software as a Service” under the name EyeRoute-on-demand. “What this service means to the doctor is that he doesn't have to purchase any hardware at his clinic and doesn't have to install any software either,” explains Mr. Dowell. “He merely has to access a secure Web page that Topcon hosts.” Topcon plugs his existing equipment into a capture station gateway and the service is managed through secure servers that Topcon houses.

The second option, housed and maintained locally, is called the EyeRoute Web. It includes scalable servers, all capture-system gateways to connect to the practice's diagnostic devices, and it allows software to operate through a Web-browser interface. Doctors can use any computer with Web capabilities to securely access EyeRoute.

User Feedback

Jared Nielsen, MD, in practice at the Wolfe Eye Clinic in West Des Moines, Iowa, began using the EyeRoute while he was doing his training at Northwestern in 2005. He says that EyeRoute's biggest advantage is that it is a Web-based system that allows him easy access to patients' records anywhere at any time.

“Patients see me at multiple satellite sites and I can pull records up immediately from any of those sites,” says Dr. Nielsen. “Because we are a retina practice, we have a high percentage of patients with imaging. EyeRoute allows me to show patients their OCTs, angiograms, visual fields and ultrasounds in side-by-side comparisons. This way they can see their progression and view historical images immediately.”

Dr. Nielsen also says it is easier to collaborate with other doctors not at the practice site, because the system is Web based. He says that once doctors become used to viewing images this way, it is difficult to go back to reviewing images on paper. “Paper takes a lot of extra time and effort. You also have to have the physical chart in hand to review the case,” says Dr. Nielsen.

EyeRoute: There's an app for that.

EyeRoute also allows Dr. Nielsen to compare images taken from different imaging equipment, even if they are different vendors. He can compare images from a Cirrus OCT directly with a Spectralis OCT and no additional software is needed. He looks forward to using the software's new EyeRoute Mobile iPhone app.

Libba Affel, chief diagnostic technician at Wills Eye Hospital, says EyeRoute makes it much easier to find results for all of their physicians. “I think for us that the greatest benefit is that as doctors become more used to the software, we will get less calls for results since they will be reading their reports right off of the computer,” says Ms. Affel. “Additionally, doctors outside the building are seeing more referral-based patients based on their ability to receive images from EyeRoute. Images can be sent to a doctor at another location and that doctor can access a patient's images if given the proper rights.” OM

For more information on EyeRoute, visit http://www.topconmedical.com/products/eyeroute.htm