Agfa announces new product and technology developments and a string of major contracts at the radiology trade fair in Chicago

At the Agfa's RSNA booth, the spotlight will be on new evolutions in Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). To meet the needs of the North American hospitals and academic centres, Agfa has developed a fully integrated RIS/PACS solution that will help organisations to minimise cost and maximise clinical workflow efficiency. Thanks to its continued development efforts, Agfa has again strengthened its global position as one of the frontrunners in PACS and RIS.

 

In Europe, Australia and South America, Agfa has successfully released MediWeb, a network solution that makes reports and images generated in the radiology department available to any authorised user inside and outside of the hospital via a web browser. Still in the field of PACS, the new release of Agfa's web server IMPAX WEB1000 5.0 ES will boost the power and flexibility of hospital networks, shorten report turnaround times and improve efficiency.

 

In order to help customers maintain business continuity and reduce the administrative effort to manage complex PACS and information systems, Agfa launched its advanced Systems Management and Reporting Service. This new service manages and monitors hardware and software throughout the enterprise and prevents problems before they occur to drastically reduce downtime.

 

Another RSNA highlight is TalkStation 3.0, Agfa's next generation of voice recognition technologies for medical reporting that speeds up the workflow of medical departments.

 

Agfa's new family of Computed Radiography (CR) devices was completed by the CR 75.0 and the CR 25.0 digitisers. CR 75.0 is a high-speed multi-user digitiser that allows a continuous workflow within the department, eliminating waiting times and enabling the radiology technologist to invest more time in patient care. CR 25.0 is the ideal solution for any decentralised CR environment. This fast, versatile digitiser can be used right inside the X-ray room and is fit for mobile use in vans, ships, etc.

 

In the field of women's health, Agfa introduced the new IMPAX MA3000 mammography diagnostic workstation. The workstation enhances the way digital mammography images are retrieved, displayed, archived and distributed and gives access to other general imaging exams.

Five site university hospital group CHU Liège has contracted Agfa for the implementation of the largest RIS/PACS project ever in Belgium, with a value totaling almost 8 million Euros, including Professional Services over a period of 5 years. With 955 beds and 240,000 examinations per year, CHU Liège generates yearly about 12 Tb of data over its five sites in the Liège region. The RIS/PACS solution is slated for installation in the coming two years.

In Sweden, Agfa has been awarded the implementation of a major PACS project for the five hospitals of the NU-sjukvården group. The project totals a value of over 4.1 million Euros of which almost 1 million Euros is for Professional Services. The NU-sjukvården group counts some 5,500 employees and 995 hospital beds in five hospitals north of Göteborg, which combined perform some 140,000 radiology examinations annually. Agfa will install CR (Computed Radiography) solutions and version 4.5 of its IMPAX PACS. The project is slated for implementation early next year.

Máxima Medisch Centrum (MMC), The Netherlands, has decided to replace its existing RIS with Agfa's RIS and to extend its IMPAX server infrastructure to both hospital sites of the group. The order, valued at 1.2 million Euros, represents the final step in the merger between the Imaging Technologies Departments of MMC, integrating PACS, RIS and speech recognition at the desktop.

The medical centre will now be able to use a single planning module in Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and other functional departments that perform diagnostic examinations, resulting in a considerably faster and more efficient workflow.

In this pilot project, Agfa is developing a unique digital screening mammography solution for use in mobile vans for the Breast Cancer-screening Program Northern Netherlands (BBNN). The solution, which integrates the BBNN's RIS with Direct Radiography mammography, reviewing and reporting stations, features customized digital interfaces that mirror documents and image workflows of the previous analog organization, for ease-of-use and familiarity, while delivering all of the efficiency benefits of digital.

 

In the Netherlands, nine regional screening organizations arrange and implement the national breast cancer-screening program, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Health. Every two years, all women between 50 and 75 are invited to have a free mammogram taken in one of the 62 screening points, of which 56 are mobile vans. With nine vans, including the new digitally equipped van, BBNN is responsible for the northern part of the Netherlands. About 80% (84 % in the BBNN region) of all women have registered at one of the screening points in their neighbourhood.

After intensive competitive benchmarking, Dutch hospital Stichting Oosterscheldeziekenhuizen Goes (SOG) has chosen Agfa for the installation of its medical imaging and radiology information management solution.

SOG has commissioned Agfa to install its Computed Radiography and PACS solutions in both of its sites. Agfa's PACS solution, IMPAX(TM), with 3D Voxar volume rendering for MRI and CT images, will be extended with the IMPAX for Orthopaedics OT3000 workstations, designed to meet the orthopaedics' planning needs.

Agfa will integrate its solutions with the existing RIS (Radiology Information System), train hospital staff to be able to support the system and provide further services on a long-term basis.

Agfa has landed a seven-year, multi-million euro managed service contract with Galway Regional Hospitals, Ireland. After a three-year selection process, Agfa was selected on the basis of its proven ability in delivering one of Ireland's largest radiology digitization projects. Rollout of the project will commence in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The managed service contract, under which Agfa will provide both Galway Regional Hospitals with infrastructure and related services against a contractually fixed fee, includes Agfa's RIS and IMPAX(TM) PACS, a third-vendor DR (Digital Radiography) solution, Agfa's CR (Computed Radiography) solution and a radio network between both sites of the hospital group.

The Northern Ontario Digital Radiology (NORrad) PACS project, the largest regional multi-site PACS installation in North America, chose Agfa's IMPAX MPI (Master PATIENT Index) to unify the identification and management of patient imaging studies.

This combined solution provides users with the tools they need to help minimize errors, reduce costs, increase efficiencies, manage diverse patient data and, via access to all of the patient images and information, have a solid foundation to improve the delivery of patient care.

The NORrad/Agfa IMPAX MPI installation is scheduled for completion in early 2005. IMPAX MPI is commercially available in North America, and is planned to be expanded into Europe and Asia/Pacific.

The Swiss Departmental Hospital Winterthur has contracted Agfa for the deployment of its PACS solution. Together with the University Hospital Zürich and the City Hospital Triemli, the hospital participates in the TriPACS Zürich project, launched in an effort to intensify the exchange of examination data between them.

The electronic exchange of examination data from the PACS solutions between the hospitals, planned as of 2005, is to improve the efficiency of their workflows.

The electronic transfer of examination data between the TriPACS hospitals will also considerably reduce patient exposure, as radiologists in all hospitals will be able to retrieve images of previous exams from the PACS system instead of doing a new examination. Eventually, the three hospitals will link up to 90 modalities to their PACS systems. More than 1,100 users will access the PACS data through the IMPAX WEB1000 interface.

Two hospitals in India have contracted Agfa to install a RIS/PACS solution. The Dr. L. H. Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai and the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) in Kerala view their recently-signed RIS/PACS commitments with Agfa as major steps forward in moving their hospitals from analog to digital radiology. The contracts mark a major breakthrough for Agfa in the region.

 

The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world's leading imaging companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems, intended mainly for the graphics industry and healthcare markets.

Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is active in 40 countries and has 120 agents throughout the world. Together they achieved a turnover of 4,215 million euros in 2003. Product and company information can be found on Agfa's home page on the World Wide Web at: www.agfa.com.

Johan Jacobs

Corporate Press Relations Manager

Agfa-Gevaert

+32 (0)3 444 8015

johan.jacobs@agfa.com