Why move to ARIA and Eclipse

[Scott Dube]

​"​

Would you care to elaborate on your decision to move from Mosaiq to Aria and also your decision to move from Pinnacle to Eclipse?  To more specific, did you find functionality improvement, cost savings, better service,

​e​

ct?  I'm very curious as I see this trend to be popular now.   Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

​"

​> Once upon a time, MOSAIQ was far better than ARIA and Pinnacle was far better than Eclipse.  But that is no longer the case.  They both get the job done.  Part of the reason is Varian could learn from the pioneering work of IMPAC so knew what ARIA had to do.  Another factor is VMAT has taken much of the creativity out of treatment planning.

In my experience, here are some major reasons to consider a switch to an all Varian environment.

1. Customer support - Whether I need help with Eclipse, ARIA, or the Linacs there is one number to call.  And I have been truly impressed with the caliber of the Support line staff.  They all seem to know everything!  

2. No more finger pointing - Did you ever get stuck between Philips and IMPAC or IMPAC and Varian when you are trying to resolve a problem?  That does not happen in an all Varian environment.

3. Unified database - Let's say you run a plan on Pinnacle.  Next you need to transfer it along with the DRR, OBI, and CBCT images to MOSAIQ.  When it is time to treat the patient, you must transfer all that to the linac.  After the treatment is complete, the results must be transferred back to MOSAIQ,  While an all Varian environment is not entirely seamless, it is much more unified than the alternative.

4. Package purchasing.- During the annual capital equipment budget season, it is much easier to propose a single vendor package which includes all the items you need for treatment planning, "record and verify", and treatment delivery including IGRT.

5. One service contract - Again, it is easier to negotiate and manage a single comprehensive service contract rather than a three vendor solution.

6. Future hands off computer management - I am not sure of the correct title but eventually Varian will be able to manage all the software and database for you in the cloud.  I can imagine the day when they say, "Running a comprehensive radiation oncology center?  We have an app for that."

[Bryan Murray]

Nice summary Scott.  We are making the same switch this fall.  I sometimes question the transition myself, but those points make it hard to argue.

Also appreciate the dialogue on data transfer.  We are somehow going to run each side by side during the Mosaiq/Aria transition.  Didnt even think about demographic data!  Was just focused on treatment history.

Jeff (Garrett), looking forward to corresponding with you during the transition.  You move first though.  Ha!

Hope to see this list become as great as the Mosaiq listserv.  I will contribute whenever possible.

Bryan Murray
Dallas, TX

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Varian ARIA Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to varian-aria-us...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to varian-a...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/varian-aria-users/CANBedgqYcpuESX_0L-Z4K8VsUm6vOiY2c7hVe1eaWe47bpO6iQ%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Scott Dube]

Another consideration is recruitment.  We have a new radiation oncologist joining us soon who is fresh out of residency.  She only knows Eclipse-ARIA.  I suspect the majority of new radiation oncologists, physicists, dosimetrists, and therapists entering the workforce are trained on Varian products.  

Hmm, sounds like a good survey!

[Brad Pollard]

Hi Scott,
 

Very good summary.  Having been trained in an Varian Linac/Impac/Pinnacle environment, I can attest to the many hours spent on the phone trying to draw my own conclusions about the finger pointing going on.  As a side note, I always felt that Impac was much quicker to play the blame game than they were to help troubleshoot a problem.  Now I'm in an all Varian environment and life is good.  It allows me to be so much more efficient with my time and I have grown to love Eclipse as a treatment planning system.   

Looking forward to many good discussions on this forum.

Regards,

Brad Pollard