FACED with a growing demand for diagnostic imaging services, but with a shortage of professional radiologists to conduct case readings for patients, Philippine startup Lifetrack Medical Systems (LMS) Inc. has come up with an enhanced software.
In a statement, LMS touts its software called “Lifesys” as the first fourth-generation radiology software designed to handle enterprise-level usage and wider distribution globally. “This development is in line with the company’s founding mission to address the shortage of radiologists and provide a technology platform that provides hospitals, clinics and even the remotest medical facilities access to radiologists anywhere in the world,” the company said in a statement.
The global demand for radiologists is dire as up to two-thirds of the world’s population has no access to diagnostic radiology, LMS said, citing international public health agency Pan American Health Organization. In the Philippines it is estimated that for every 100 million Filipinos there are only about 1,500 radiologists.
In this kind of challenging scenario, LMS credits its information-technology (IT) infrastructure built on the cloud technology of Amazon Web Services for the flexibility to scale up quickly as needed and the agility to introduce innovative features instantly, the company said. LMS said it has relied on AWS cloud computing platform since starting operations in 2012.
Through the cloud infrastructure, LMS is capable of rolling out updates and new features within 30 minutes across multiple geographic locations, something that used to take at least six months on traditional on-premise hardware setups.
The company’s software thus facilitates radiological diagnosis and speeds up radiologists’ response time to doctors and patients anywhere in the world. Further speeding up the process is the use of Amazon CloudFront, which accelerates delivery of content to end users in any specified location worldwide.
Since the software operates on the highly secure AWS cloud platform, medical institutions can collaborate with LMS anytime, anywhere for diagnostic consultation. The company has a team of in-house radiologists to provide diagnostic services and can also tap a network of experts worldwide. In contrast to having on-premise data servers that are expensive and maintenance-heavy, the use of AWS cloud computing enables LMS to reduce its monthly operational costs. This results in lower service fees that make its solutions more affordable to clients and benefit a wider market.
“Being able to access and manage our services anytime at a low operating cost with the highest security standards, as well as scale according to our needs, are some of the key benefits in using AWS cloud services,” Dr. Eric Schulze, founder and CEO of LMS, was quoted in the statement as saying.
LMS is a Philippines-based start-up that provides professional radiology services as well as a cloud-based radiology information system, picture archiving and communications system.