1. Discovery & normalisation
Map modalities, local identifiers, worklists, routing rules and reporting responsibility before changing infrastructure.
Northstar Health Network had imaging capacity distributed across six hospitals, but specialist reporting, image access and operational oversight still behaved like six separate services. The prototype story shows how V3C could turn that fragmentation into one connected imaging environment.
Project summary
Local imaging stayed local. Specialist capacity became shared.
Northstar Health Network is a fictional private hospital group operating six hospitals across three Nigerian cities. Each location had its own radiology workflow, local imaging archive and mix of CT, X-ray, ultrasound and MRI services. The sites worked, but they did not work as one network.
The business problem became visible after hours. One facility might have a radiologist available while another had an urgent study waiting. Previous examinations were difficult to retrieve across locations, central management had little view of backlog, and studies occasionally moved between sites through manual exports and phone-based coordination.
The fictional V3C engagement reframed the requirement from “centralise the PACS” to “create one imaging operating model without making local care dependent on the wide-area network.”
Challenge
The network had imaging systems. It did not yet have an imaging network.
The six hospitals had grown at different times. Modalities were configured differently, naming conventions varied, and local workflows had been optimised around the staff at each site. A single central system could simplify visibility, but it could also turn a network outage into a clinical outage.
Northstar therefore needed a hybrid model: local acquisition and continuity at each hospital, central access to completed studies, a common reporting workflow for radiologists, and enough operational visibility to understand queues across the network.
Operating environment
Six hospitals, fourteen modalities and a radiology team that worked across locations.
The prototype environment includes local PACS capability at each hospital, a central archive and RIS service, a shared radiologist worklist and secure access from approved reporting locations.
The key design decision is that acquisition, local viewing and immediate site workflow continue even when the wider network is degraded. Completed studies synchronise to the central layer for wider access and reporting.
- 6 hospital locations
- 14 connected imaging modalities
- Shared RIS and radiologist worklist
- Local continuity during WAN disruption
- Central operational visibility
V3C approach
Design the service around three layers: facility, network and specialist.
At the facility layer, V3C preserves the local clinical workflow: patient context, modality worklist, acquisition, immediate review and local continuity.
At the network layer, the architecture handles study synchronisation, identity matching, central archive, RIS state and monitoring. At the specialist layer, radiologists receive a consolidated worklist, access the relevant study and clinical context, and return an approved report into the shared workflow.
The result is not simply a bigger PACS. It is a clearer operating model for where work happens, where information is authoritative and how specialists contribute across locations.
Architecture
Distributed imaging with shared specialist access
Modality
Local PACS / MWL
Secure network
Central PACS / RIS
Radiologist worklist
Approved report
How it connects
The highlighted shared layer creates network-wide visibility and specialist access while local PACS capability protects site-level continuity.
Prototype architecture showing modalities feeding local PACS, synchronising through the network to central PACS/RIS, shared radiologist worklist and approved reporting.
Implementation
The programme was organised around operational cutover, not a single technology switch.
2. Site readiness
Validate connectivity, local storage, modality configuration, identity rules and downtime behaviour at each hospital.
3. Shared services
Introduce the central archive, RIS state and consolidated radiologist worklist without removing local acquisition capability.
4. Controlled cutover
Move sites into the shared model in waves, monitor exceptions and train radiographers and radiologists around the new operating flow.
Prototype outcome snapshot
What the finished story could quantify.
All figures below are invented for this prototype and demonstrate the level of specificity a published case study should aim for when verified evidence exists.
6hospital locations connected
14modalities in the prototype network
93%studies centrally available within 10 minutes
38%after-hours reads completed by a radiologist at another site
Operational effect
The biggest change was not where images were stored. It was how the network could use its clinical capacity.
Radiographers no longer needed to know which radiologist was physically attached to their site before an urgent study could enter the reporting workflow. Radiologists worked from a consolidated queue rather than waiting for cases to be forwarded manually.
For management, the central layer created a view of study status and backlog across the network. For clinicians, prior studies became easier to access across locations. For local teams, acquisition could continue even when the wider network was temporarily unavailable.
The prototype outcome illustrates the kind of case-study evidence V3C should publish: changes in workflow, service continuity and specialist capacity, supported by verified operational data rather than generic statements about “digital transformation.”
“Before the change, six hospitals meant six radiology queues. After the change, we could run them as one service while keeping each site clinically independent.”Fictional Group Clinical Operations Director, Northstar Health Network
Fictional prototype quotation
Related capabilities
Technology behind the prototype.
Healthcare Imaging
PACS, RIS, teleradiology and multi-site imaging architecture.
Systems Integration
Connect imaging, clinical identity, reporting and downstream systems.
Multi-site Operations
Define what remains local and what becomes shared.
Managed Services
Monitor the connected environment after deployment.
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Read the next story →Story standard
Specific enough to be useful.
Strong V3C stories connect an institutional problem to architecture, implementation and a measurable operational effect.
See the pattern behind the story.
The strongest V3C case studies show the operating problem first, then the system design, implementation choices and verified result.