Agfa HealthCare announced today that the St. Bernward Hospital in Hildesheim, Germany is extending its ORBIS hospital information system (HIS) with a cath lab information system. In addition, the hospital will replace its picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and radiology information system (RIS) with IMPAX EE and ORBIS RIS. "Our goal is to achieve the benefits of an integrated, end-to-end solution. To do this, we are calling upon our long-term partner Agfa HealthCare," explains Andreas Weidinger, CIO of St. Bernward Hospital.
The 532-bed hospital, some 30 kilometers southwest of Hannover, Niedersachsen, has 17 clinical departments and 4 sites as well as a medical service center with four specialist practices and an outpatient surgery center ("AOZ"). In total, the medical and nursing staff care for more than 26,000 inpatients and 60,000 outpatients annually.
The hospital first implemented the ORBIS HIS in 2001. Used throughout the site, it handles the workstations as well as OR documentation, materials management, the central pharmacy, the DRG workplace and medical controlling.
Reliability, innovation and integration
Over the next two years, St. Bernward will consolidate its IT landscape. "We have embraced Agfa HealthCare's concept for some time, replacing more and more systems with its solutions. We want to improve support for our cross-department processes, while avoiding unnecessary interfaces. The next step is to add the ORBIS cath lab system," summarizes Weidinger.
This strategy also calls for implementing a powerful PACS in the cardiology department, based on which the hospital decided to restructure its image management and implement IMPAX EE in 2014, followed by ORBIS RIS. "Extending IMPAX into the radiology department and replacing the RIS were really necessary, especially as the reporting software for our existing PACS is being discontinued. And Agfa HealthCare made our decision easy, by working with us as a partner, offering constructive input," continues Weidinger.
High speed, intuitive handling, ease of operation and stability all played a critical role in the choice of IMPAX and ORBIS RIS. "Our radiology department in particular requires multidimensional reporting," highlights Weidinger. The tight integration of the HIS and RIS will enable seamless order and report transmission as well as rapid access to a harmonized scheduling calendar from multiple user workstations.
The St. Bernward Hospital is convinced that with its new system it will be well prepared for future challenges. "Over the past years, Agfa HealthCare has developed a powerful IT system for hospitals. Not only have they integrated innovative elements, but they have also adapted it to a changing legal framework. They have continuously proved themselves to be a reliable and innovative," concludes Weidinger.
- 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.