Agfa HealthCare announces that the University Hospital of Cologne, the Children's Hospital Auf der Bult in Hannover (both in Germany) and the University Hospital of Basle, in Switzerland, have successfully implemented and are working with version G5 of Agfa HealthCare's HYDMEDIA Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution.
University Hospital Cologne creates safe and highly available system
"We are highly satisfied with the changeover. With the already large volume of data, it took longer than originally expected, but it is working excellently in all respects. HYDMEDIA G5 is a significant step towards the future, in particular due to the similarity of the user interface to the GUI of our Agfa HealthCare ORBIS EMR, which is already very familiar to our users. The system allows us to comply with legal requirements, and offers us both availability of multimedia information and a patient record which is, to a large extent, complete," summarizes Dr. Werner Schneichel, Head of the Medical Applications Department and Project Leader for the HYDMEDIA migration at Cologne University Hospital. "We have also succeeded in reducing costs: with most documents being fed into HYDMEDIA digitally, we have eliminated more than 50 percent of our previous expenses for scanning services."
In addition to the archiving of paper records, which are digitized in the hospital's scanning center, HYDMEDIA also serves as a fallback solution for the hospital information system (HIS); a comprehensive model has been developed to handle emergencies. In addition, the relevant documents are saved in versions, and time-critical documents, such as temperature charts, are saved into the archive every 10 - 15 minutes. The hospital also makes use of the solution's ability to generate all types of data from the workflow processes, and to integrate the data into other workflows.
Basle University Hospital installs HYDMEDIA as a central platform for data
"The new solution has helped us to connect our diverse applications, our image data and our paper records," outlines Dr. Urs Genewein, Head Physician and Medical Project Leader Hand Surgery. Prof. Dr. Hans-Florian Zeilhofer, Head of Maxillo-facial Surgery, adds: "Tasks that used to take a lot of time - such as searching and querying in subsystems and requesting paper records - are now handled very quickly. From our clinical workplace, we can access all information seven days a week, 24 hours a day." Nearly all of the hospital's information systems are connected to the archive, in which reports, images, video sequences, and scanned documents are stored. In addition to the benefits to the daily workflow, the hospital can reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Basle University Hospital uses the capabilities of HYDMEDIA G5 to go beyond digital archiving. The solution also connects information from various systems that have differing access right structures, and makes them available on a central platform within the context of the workflow.
Children's Hospital Auf der Bult benefits from integrated end-to-end solution
"The increasing volume of records meant our archive shelves continued to fill up. In total, we had several kilometers of stored patient records in various archive locations. Renting further space would have resulted in some 30,000 Euros of additional charges. It was clear that we had to find a solution that would cut costs," says Gunther Seute, CEO, Children's Hospital Auf der Bult, recalling the hospital's situation before the introduction of HYDMEDIA.
Thanks to the close integration of the HIS, PACS and ECM from Agfa HealthCare, reports are now available quickly, together with previous images, anywhere on the hospital campus, with just a mouse click. This contributes significantly to improved delivery of care. For example, two clinicians can view a patient's images from different locations at the same time, and consult via telephone. In addition, there is no longer any need to search for and retrieve documents, so staff can focus their full attention on the patient. Last but not least, duplicated date entry is eliminated; together with the any-time availability of patient information, this has led to increased staff satisfaction.
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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.