Case Study: AltaPACS achieves cost-effective interoperability and expanded teleradiology across Western Canada with NextGen Healthcare

Cost-effective interoperability drives teleradiology across Western Canada

AltaPACS, a Calgary-based provider that implements and operates IT systems for large radiology partnerships, needed a flexible, robust way to route and consolidate radiology data across 20+ imaging centers, 10 acute-care hospitals and multiple security domains while also passing records to Alberta’s electronic image repository. With more than 100 radiologists interpreting roughly 1.3 million exams a year, the organization required a single integration solution to connect disparate RIS, PACS and reporting systems and scale teleradiology services.

They chose Mirth Connect (starting with open source, then commercial support), deploying 80 channels across two clusters to process tens of millions of messages annually. The platform centralizes reporting, feeds Alberta Health Services’ EHR portal (accessible to 18,000+ clinicians), populates a real‑time data warehouse for analytics, and underpins a teleradiology program that delivers 100,000+ remote reads per year — a solution the team says has paid for itself many times over and enabled expansion into underserved regions.

AltaPACS

Joe Moreau

President and CEO