Agfa HealthCare has won a highly competitive bid for a vendor-neutral archive (VNA) and an enterprise imaging workflow solution, for two major academic hospitals in the Netherlands: the Vrije Universiteit Medisch Centrum (VUmc) and the Academisch Medisch Centrum (AMC). This agreement is the result of a tender for the "EVA" project, a collaboration between the two hospitals for implementing a new electronic health record (EHR). In a first step, VUmc will implement Agfa HealthCare's ICIS comprehensive enterprise-class imaging clinical information system across 28-32 imaging departments.
Consolidated clinical imaging for non-radiology departments
VUmc and AMC are both spread over several sites. VUmc has 733 beds and around 6850 staff, while AMC counts around 1000 beds and 8500 staff. The hospitals will share an EHR program called "EHR VUmc & AMC", or "EVA". As part of EVA, the hospitals released two tenders: one for a VNA and a second for an enterprise imaging workflow solution. Agfa HealthCare won both tenders with ICIS.
The ICIS solution to be implemented includes the following components: ICIS Connect, ICIS Workflow, ICIS Verify, ICIS VNA and ICIS View. The agreement will connect multiple imaging departments, and includes workflow analysis and optimization.
ICIS: image-enabling the EMR
ICIS is the "gold standard" for image-enabling the EHR. It integrates and links multi-facility, multi-departmental and multi-specialty imaging data, providing the ability to capture, collaborate, manage and exchange images generated by a health system, usually directly through the electronic medical record (EMR).
"Our ICIS solution is an integrated and consolidated system, which is more cost effective to manage while also providing greater standardization," comments Hans Vandewyngaerde, President EMEA at Agfa HealthCare. "In terms of clinical functionality, these hospitals will gain not only a VNA; but also a fully customizable, workflow engine-based solution; and an integratable viewer that can be used throughout the entire enterprise as the standard viewer in the EMR."
"We were looking to make a huge step forward in consolidating and digitizing clinical image management. We chose to exclude radiology from the tender to focus on the non-radiology departments," explain Ernest van Beckhoven of VUmc and Walter de Haan of Academisch Medisch Centrum Amsterdam. "Agfa HealthCare was able to bid for both parts - the VNA and the enterprise imaging workflow part - with an integrated solution at a very competitive price. They are a dedicated solutions provider that can deliver both the goods and the services."
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 2,865 million euro in 2013.
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 2013 were 1,160 million euro.