Heidelberg vs Zeiss vs Topcon: Round 1

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:19:16 GMT

We are a smaller retina practice (10 doctors/1 main office/9 satellites) and are currently using Forum as our primary image review software, Cirrus OCTs, and Topcon 50DX/EX fundus cameras. The impending Windows 7 sunset has us looking at other possibilities in regards to our image acquisition hardware and review software. The two primary contenders that we are considering are Heidelberg and their Heyex system or Topcon and their Harmony software.

My question is: are there any small practices like ours out their utilizing any of these systems and if so, what is your preference and why?

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 16:34:34 GMT

We still have a TRC 50X and 50EX running on windows XP if it helps any. While the cameras no longer are able to connect to an EHR and we've removed their computers from the network, we're able to transfer files from the computers via USB. Since they're not connected to the internet they're not a security risk, and they're still working fine, slow, but otherwise fine. I would love if my current practice would upgrade these systems, but when we looked at upgrading them 4 years ago the EX would have been given about a 10k discount for a trade-up to a new system, and the X would have just been dead weight, nothing gained by trying to trade-up with it.

It's a hard thing to sell technology upgrades to my current physicians most times. I've realized though, they appreciate the reality that they don't have a 20 year old car, a 20 year old desktop computer, and the software from 20 years ago doesn't cut it for todays needs. That's been a big factor in getting them to move from HEYEX 1 to HEYEX 2 with our Heidelberg systems. The massive data loss we had from Windows Defender treating E2E files as viruses and immediately deleting them while archiving from a windows 10 computer helped push that too. The HEYEX 1 database language is written in Access 1998, which is why even the HEYEX conversation has been relative in our own conversations about this issue.

This is coming from a practice with 3 physicians, 3 clinics (one main office, 2 are less busy but almost daily used), 3 rural (once a month) clinics. 2 photographers, 5 heidelbergs, 2 topcons.

Fri, 7 Feb 2020 18:01:10 GMT

At the practice I'm at now (started here January 6th) we're using the HEYEX software also to view our color fundus images from our Canon CF-1. I simply export the images to a shared folder, which is done automatically by our CF-1 software, then manually import then into HEYEX using the Heidelberg Image Capture Module, it creates a new tab for the day, you can assign OS/OD to the images, then select save and quit and it does the rest for you.

Fri, 7 Feb 2020 18:48:59 GMT

The canon software has fairly robust DICOM capabilities, as does HEYEX. Depending on how accessible your Spectralis "server" is, you might be able to execute a DICOM push directly to HEYEX and eliminate some of the manual steps.

Haven't tried it, but I certainly investigate it, depending on your volume and tolerance for manual importing.

j-