Agfa HealthCare has introduced its Global Remote Incident Prevention (GRIP) services to provide state-of-the-art electronic monitoring of all IMPAX Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) worldwide, as well as linked devices from other suppliers. GRIP's ultimate goal is to prevent unsettling downtime surprises in the healthcare environment.
The services, available worldwide, are initially based at the company's central monitoring center in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague in the Netherlands. Other regional GRIP facilities are planned to open soon. "From Rijswijk, we have a continuous overview of all connected customer sites through each one's main PACS server and other data sources," says Ron van Zonneveld, Regional Service Manager, Agfa HealthCare. "Constant oversight by our technical team allows them to quickly spot potential issues and take action, ranging from calling a local technician to, in many cases, intervening remotely to correct the situation."
Monitoring is performed using highly specific system dashboards providing color coded warnings that let technicians access the details of an alert for greater accuracy.
Essential building blocks enhance availability of all connected solutions
GRIP consists of three key building blocks - Remote Monitoring of the complete infrastructure; Event Management, a unique feature that facilitates fast action remotely when issues arise; and Event Reporting of all warnings with instant graphical displays and historical records of past events. "Fast responses fostered by GRIP will prevent many disruptions from happening, providing greater overall system availability, which positively impacts the provision of high-quality healthcare," adds Frits Paauw, Global Service Design & Transition Manager, Agfa HealthCare. "It's one less thing busy doctors, clinicians and administrators have to worry about, and that is exactly what our service vision is about: providing peace of mind to our customers resulting in better delivery of patient care."
GRIP supports Agfa HealthCare's radiology IT and integrated cardiovascular solutions, and interfaces with select products and systems from other suppliers.
The services are also "future-ready" to accommodate new technologies and system developments as they are introduced, to easily grow within the customer's ever-changing environment.
Related news articles:
- Agfa HealthCare's Profile
About Agfa
The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world’s leading companies in imaging and information technology. Agfa develops manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems for the printing industry (Agfa Graphics), for the healthcare sector (Agfa HealthCare), and for specific industrial applications (Agfa Materials). Agfa is headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is present in 40 countries and has agents in another 100 countries around the globe. The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 2,948 million euro in 2010.
About Agfa HealthCare
Agfa HealthCare, a member of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, is a leading global provider of diagnostic imaging and healthcare IT solutions. The company has nearly a century of healthcare experience and has been a pioneer on the healthcare IT market since the early 1990's. Today Agfa HealthCare designs, develops and delivers state-of-the-art systems for capturing, managing and processing diagnostic images and clinical/administrative information for hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as contrast media solutions to enable effective medical imaging results. The company has sales offices and agents in over 100 markets worldwide. Sales for Agfa HealthCare in 2010 were 1,180 million euro.