Many Breast Screening Services are seeking to introduce a digital reading service in order to deliver improved workflows and reduce the dependency and cost associated with hard copy film.

Individual sites may already possess digital reading workstations which are being used to evaluate digital images. These workstations are stand-alone and receive images either directly from a Full Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) device or via an encrypted USB drive from an outlying site.

Commonly, the National Breast Screening Service (NBSS) is used throughout the service as the day-book for client attendance and also during the reading process to record the results of the readings. Often the NBSS is not synchronised with existing digital reading workstations and needs to be made a priority in order to maximise reporting throughput.

Where FFDM and reading workstations exist the transition to Breast Screening PACS (BSP) is a relatively simple exercise.

Where the Breast Screening Service is yet to go digital, more care needs to be taken to accommodate the change in work practices and also for example, to ensure that the impact on current network resources are understood by all. Insignia Medical Systems have the requisite experience to help guide the Department through the process of the Going Digital to the Digital Screening environment. This is achieved through a combination of presentations and workshops aimed at for example; Risks / Benefits and Workflow analysis.

For those Breast Screening Services that include Satellite sites for imaging clients, Wide Area Network (WAN) connectivity issues need to be addressed from the outset or alternate plans need to be in place to ensure that images can get to the point of reading in a timely fashion. In such instances Insignia make use of our fully AES 256 encrypted USB storage device or can utilise others. The DIMEX system for example, pending future improvements in the wide area network will enable direct transmission.