What You Should Know
- Epic has officially released Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange, enabling clinicians at Epic-connected health systems to retrieve diagnostic-quality CTs, X-rays, and MRIs with a single click.
- The technology bridges a long-standing interoperability gap by applying open image-sharing standards across Epic’s Care Everywhere network to transport full-resolution files directly between PACS/archiving systems.
- Prior to this release, clinicians were limited to viewing written radiology reports and lower-resolution reference images, requiring manual retrieval or physical CDs for diagnostic-grade scans.
- The system integrates with Epic’s duplicate-order checks—which already prevent over 21,000 repeat scans annually—allowing providers to pull existing prior images immediately to prevent unnecessary radiation and care delays.
Tackling Healthcare’s Physical Media Bottleneck
Despite years of EHR digitization, diagnostic medical imaging (CTs, MRIs, X-rays) has largely remained trapped in standalone Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). As a result, millions of patients still physically transport DICOM files on CDs between specialist appointments, while providers face manual transfer friction, delayed care, and redundant imaging.
Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange bridges this architectural gap by connecting external PACS databases natively through Care Everywhere’s existing data exchange pipelines:
- One-Click Diagnostic Retrieval: Allows clinicians to identify necessary studies via reference previews and pull complete, high-fidelity diagnostic DICOM series directly into their local PACS viewing environment with a single click.
- Open Standards Transport: Built on open image-sharing protocols (such as DICOMweb and FHIR resources) to allow seamless data courier movement between external image archives without requiring proprietary vendor plugins.
- Duplicate Scan Prevention: Integrates directly into Epic’s duplicate-order algorithm—which already prevents over 21,000 redundant scans annually—allowing physicians to retrieve existing prior studies immediately upon ordering rather than re-imaging the patient.
- TEFCA Alignment & Federal Push: Aligns with federal “ditch the disc” initiatives (including CMS’s diagnostic imaging acceleration workgroup) while advocating for TEFCA to adopt these open image standards nationwide.
“Care Everywhere Diagnostic Image Exchange empowers clinicians to deliver faster care and eliminates administrative burden,” said Matt Doyle, Director of Interoperability at Epic. “We’re the first to embrace open image-sharing standards at scale, and we’re advocating for TEFCA—the federally sponsored interoperability framework—to embrace these standards so that any health system in the United States can exchange diagnostic images.”
