AT&T Selects Acuo Technologies for Cloud Based Healthcare Storage Solutions

AT&T has selected Acuo Technologies, a provider of comprehensive software solutions to the medical imaging industry for archiving, collaboration and migration services, for cloud-based healthcare storage solutions, a press release revealed.

Acuo is the latest technology ally to join the AT&T (News - Alert) ForHealth portfolio of mHealth, cloud-based, and telehealth products and solutions.

As part of the the agreement, AT&T would utilize Acuo Technologies Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Services Grid, combined with AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service, to create a cloud-based offering for storing, accessing and sharing medical images.

Officials with AT&T said that the solution will feature a vendor-neutral platform that supports disparate picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) on an as-needed, pay-as-you-go model, avoiding costly capital investment in storage infrastructure.

"Medical image management is one of the biggest challenges in healthcare today, as the amount of storage required will only increase in the coming years," said Randall Porter, assistant vice president of AT&T ForHealth Solutions, in a statement.

Porter said that the company looks forward to working closely with Acuo to enable access, viewing and storage of any medical image for any patient at virtually any time.

“As with AT&T Healthcare Community Online, our cloud-based health information exchange offer, AT&T brings scale to our cloud-based solution for medical imaging that is unsurpassed in healthcare today," he added.

Jeff Timbrook, CEO of Acuo Technologies said, cloud is a natural solution for managing medical images, as the pay-as-you-go model is a very attractive cost model for today's healthcare IT consumer.

"We are thrilled to work with AT&T, and healthcare customers will benefit from the latest generation of vendor-neutral storage systems. AT&T's proven expertise in highly secure cloud storage will quickly become a leading offering to manage medical images," said Timbrook.

TMCnet recently reported that in an attempt to dissuade its customers from making the move to Verizon, AT&T announced a new WiFi (News - Alert) connectivity offering and made some aggressive changes to its pricing model.

The carrier said that on Feb. 13, it will launch a new mobile hotspot application that will enable subscribers to connect multiple devices to the Web using their smartphones. The new service will launch alongside theHTC Inspire 4G, but will soon be offered to iPhone owners as well. However, AT&T did not give a timetable on when the app will be released for their hallmark handset. 

Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend the Cloud Communications Summit, collocated with TMC’s (News - Alert) ITEXPO East, taking place Feb 2-4, 2011, in Miami. The Cloud Communications Summit will address a growing need of businesses to integrate and leverage cloud based communications applications, process enhancement techniques, and network based communications interfaces and architectures. To register, click here.