Mortsel / Belgium, 1 March, 2006
The Isala hospital group in Zwolle, the Netherlands, has chosen Agfa HealthCare for the installation of an extensive RIS/PACS/Speech solution which will integrate medical patient information flows between its two sites. The decision is the result of a stringent tender procedure that followed European Union (EU) regulations that govern tenders received by public institutions.
The Isala hospital group's order marks one of the largest RIS/PACS (Radiology Information System/Picture Archiving and Communications System) solutions to be contracted in the Netherlands. The new system will integrate the Isala hospital group's radiology and nuclear medicine systems, replacing its different RIS solutions with a single RIS from Agfa HealthCare, linked to the central hospital appointment scheduling program. At the core of the solution is Agfa HealthCare's new IMPAX(TM) 6.0 PACS solution, featuring a high availability Windows cluster server set-up spread over two hospital sites. This web-based, smart client solution will be linked to the existing Hospital Information System (HIS) and Electronic Patient Record (EPR).
"As the second-largest hospital group in the Netherlands, our needs are quite sizeable," explained Wim Huurnink, one of the Project Managers for the Isala Klinieken. "We benefit from Agfa HealthCare's persona-based design, which provides a unique access point to the RIS/PACS solution for different roles in the hospital. Agfa HealthCare's web-based IMPAX solution will be available in all departments, with workstations tailored to the needs of each department. In Radiology we have fifteen IMPAX diagnostic display stations with floating Volume 3D software licences; Nuclear Medicine has access to IMPAX with an integrated functionality for multi-modality fusion and viewing with the best lesion tracking and quantification options; and in the conference rooms we have IMPAX radiologist workstations with conferencing function connected to medical beamers. Our labs and clinical departments also have specific enterprise access to IMPAX 6.0 at their disposal."
To facilitate an objective choice between vendors, Isala Hospitals decided to follow the EU tender procedure, which entails a completely paper-based process, including verification in a large Dutch hospital. Said Wim Huurnink: "We asked a team of radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, technologists, application specialists, a purchaser and the head of the IT department to independently score the anonymous proposals on a series of criteria, such as functionality, technicality, price and maintenance. Agfa HealthCare emerged as the vendor with the best score. Isala expects a longterm partnership with Agfa HealthCare."
About Agfa
The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world's leading imaging and information technology companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analog and digital systems for the graphics industry, the healthcare sector and specific industrial applications. Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is active in 40 countries and has agents in another 100 countries throughout the world. The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 3,762 million euro in 2004.
Agfa's HealthCare business group supplies hospitals and other healthcare centers with state-of-the-art systems for the capturing, processing and managing of diagnostic images and with IT solutions that integrate the imaging workflow into the overall hospital operations across departmental disciplines. In addition, Agfa is a leader in the fast growing market of IT systems that span the entire healthcare enterprise and through which healthcare facilities become more efficient and effective, with improved patient outcomes.
For more information on Agfa, visit www.agfa.com.
1US$ = 0.804281 Euro
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Contacts:
Geertrui De Smet
Global PR Manager HealthCare
tel.: +32 (0) 3 444 73 06
fax: +32 (0) 3 444 72 85
e-mail: geertruidesmet@agfapress.com
Johan Jacobs
Corporate Press Relations Manager
tel.: +32 (0)3 444 80 15
fax: +32 (0)3 444 50 05
e-mail: johan.jacobs@agfa.com
