We truly value customer-requested enhancements to GE software. The enhancement process for GE Healthcare Imaging Solutions was designed with customer input to meet goals that you set out for us! These goals include your increased involvement in product direction, improvements in product and workflow, visible requests and status checks, and your smaller market requests are not overlooked.

Going forward, the process is easier to use and our enhancement commitments are firmly being kept. Representatives from each customer organization access the Centricity Imaging Enhancement Portal from the Customer Web and are allowed to enter enhancement requests as well as review and comment on requests from other customer organizations. Requests are categorized by Product (Centricity RIS-IC and Centricity PACS) and by Process Area, which is defined as a group of functionality that encompasses a user's workflow.

Periodically, we focus on one Product and Process Area to improve. By focusing on one area, we improve our ability to make deeper improvements in a user's workflow as well as providing better focus for our development team. Every customer representative may vote on the enhancements that their organization would like to see implemented within that Process Area. Voting happens nine times a year for Centricity RIS-IC and six times a year for Centricity PACS - once per year per Process Area.

After voting is complete, the enhancement team including engineers and product managers review all the top vote getters, requirements are written and engineering estimates are gathered. Since voting cycles happen continually, and there are a fixed number of engineers on the enhancement project, there is a fixed amount of time given to each Process Area. The Enhancement Project team will review all the estimates and time available to determine which enhancement(s) can be completed within the time frame.

A focus group is assembled of customers that entered, commented and/or voted for the selected product requests. Once our requirements have been confirmed, we post our plan on the Customer Web and the requests are put into development for a future release.

Comments are added to the original enhancement to keep customers updated as to the status of the request and availability. The status and comments are available at any time from the Enhancement Portal on the Customer Web.

To get involved, or to find out the representatives for your organization, please contact the enhancement team at imagingitenhancements@ge.com. Please indicate which product (Centricity PACS or Centricity RIS-IC) and include your name, email address and phone number.