Centricity Gets FDA 510(k) Clearance for Mobile Radiology App

There’s lots of interesting things doctors can do when they can access medical data on the road — and the number of options has increased rapidly over the past year or two. Until recently, though, mobile imaging apps were uncommon, for reasons that had as much to do with corporate inertia as technology.

Now, the FDA has approved another such app,  Centricity Radiology Mobile Access 2.0, for DiagnosticCT and MR Image Review. Centricity Radiology Mobile is one of the  first radiology apps to get FDA (510k) clearance. (According to mobihealthnews.com, the first radiology app to get FDA clearance was Mobile MIM, which was cleared in February.)

The newly-approved app, which  available for Android and iOS devices, comes on the heels of GE’s release of the Centricity Advance Mobile app. Centricity Advance Mobile, released this summer, is an iPad EMR app aimed at small-practice primary care docs.

Not surprisingly, Centricity Radiology Mobile works hand in glove with the Centricity PACS system, which stores one-fifth of U.S. radiology exams according to the vendor.

The app’s design makes it practical to view even complex, large images, something that’s held back remote radiology image use. And it’s a commonsense fix. Rather than fill up the mobile device’s data storage device, he system allows users to browse images remotely without having to download the data onto their phones.

Having cleared apps like these is likely to give Centricity a new edge, as few EMR vendors have gotten to this point. While Centricity has the good luck to be part of GE,  a major medical device maker thoroughly familiar with FDA regs, few of its competitors will know how to work with FDA reps or how to keep the process moving. For now, smaller EMR  vendors with no FDA clout may simply be left behind (which is something of a shame, but that’s another story).

Rest assured that we’ll be grilling EMR vendors at the upcoming mHealth Summit (Dec. 5 to Dec. 7) about their plans for new mobile apps.  We’ll let you know what we find out.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

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