Agfa HealthCare wins a multi-million Euro contract for implementation of its healthcare IT system

AGFARecent contracts signed in France confirm Agfa's ORBIS as the leading solution in Europe for increasing efficiency in hospital organizations and quality of patient care. In a public tender Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU), the university hospital center of Toulouse, France, has chosen Agfa HealthCare to implement ORBIS, Agfa's leading clinical and administrative information system. The installation is scheduled to be concluded by 2011 and will affect some 10,000 users.

The University Hospital Center of Toulouse, CHU, is one of the five largest hospitals in France and is a pilot site for the establishment of a cluster-based organization as determined in the new French Hospital Governance. CHU counts 2,845 beds divided over five sites and has a staff of about 10,000 and over 1,620 doctors. Some 165,000 in-patients and 600,000 outpatients are treated per year.

During the first phase of implementation, existing management tools will be replaced by ORBIS tools, including Electronic Patient Record (EPR), scheduling, activity management and communication with technical departments. They will allow for one single consolidated database of shared patient records against the 68 segregated databases currently in use. The second phase in the implementation will include ORBIS' Prescription and Care modules, offering a care record and electronic prescription functionality that covers laboratory, radiology and medication.

"We expect ORBIS to significantly increase efficiency" said M. Morvezen, Directeur des systèmes d'information (Chief Information Officer) and Chairman of the Hospital IT Committee at CHU. "Because it delivers real-time clinical and administrative patient information across the boundaries of the hospital departments and sites, the use of ORBIS will eventually result in a competitive advantage in terms of both quality of care and cost."

ORBIS is already today installed in over 750 hospital sites across Europe and is being used by some 400,000 users every day. Although it was only recently officially presented to the French market at Hôpital Expo - Intermedica 2006, the major biennial healthcare exhibition in France, several healthcare institutions in France had already chosen ORBIS as their IT solution, including the hospitals of Annecy (887 beds), Vesoul (727 beds), Annemasse (648 beds), Magny-en-Vexin (360 beds), La Ferté Bernard (306 beds) and Rumilly (261 beds).

"Together with the other recent wins in France, the Toulouse project illustrates Agfa HealthCare's and its customers' common approach in the reengineering of healthcare operations," said Alain Ramon, Managing Director of Agfa's IT Solutions division in France "With ORBIS, Agfa delivers a truly complete and transversal hospital-wide information system at single and multi-site healthcare organizations, both large and small."

Philippe Houssiau, President of Agfa HealthCare added: "Healthcare in France and Europe is in the process of a major transformation, due to socio-economic factors and technological advances. As the leader in Germany, Agfa HealthCare has proven that our comprehensive hospital IT system, ORBIS, considerably improves the quality of care and related costs; necessary in the context of healthcare reform. The decision by the University Hospital Center of Toulouse to select ORBIS confirms our ability to deliver this pioneering IT solution, fully adapted to the nation-specific needs in France. At the same time, we are beginning the implementation of ORBIS in pilot sites in Belgium and preparing entry into other key markets."

Nancy Glynn
Vice President Communication
Septestraat 27
2640 Mortsel - Belgium
tel:+32 (0) 3 444 8000
fax:+32 (0) 3 444 7485
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Most Popular Now

Giving Doctors an AI-Powered Head Start …

Detection of melanoma and a range of other skin diseases will be faster and more accurate with a new artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool that analyses multiple imaging types simultaneously...

AI Agents for Oncology

Clinical decision-making in oncology is challenging and requires the analysis of various data types - from medical imaging and genetic information to patient records and treatment guidelines. To effectively support...

AI Medical Receptionist Modernizing Doct…

A virtual medical receptionist named "Cassie," developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers. Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate...

Using Data and AI to Create Better Healt…

Academic medical centers could transform patient care by adopting principles from learning health systems principles, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. In...

AI Tool Set to Transform Characterisatio…

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has developed and tested a new AI tool to better characterise the diversity of individual cells within...

AI Detects Hidden Heart Disease Using Ex…

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new AI tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to probe through previously collected CT scans and identify...

Human-AI Collectives Make the Most Accur…

Diagnostic errors are among the most serious problems in everyday medical practice. AI systems - especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4, Gemini, or Claude 3 - offer new ways...

Northern Ireland Completes Nationwide Ro…

Go-lives at Western and Southern health and social care trusts mean every pathology service is using the same laboratory information management system; improving efficiency and quality. An ambitious technology project to...

Highland Marketing Announced as Official…

Highland Marketing has been named, for the second year running, the official communications partner for HETT Show 2025, the UK's leading digital health conference and exhibition. Taking place 7-8 October...

MHP-Net: A Revolutionary AI Model for Ac…

Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer globally and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Accurate segmentation of liver tumors is a crucial step for the management of the...

Groundbreaking TACIT Algorithm Offers Ne…

Researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a novel algorithm that could provide a revolutionary tool for determining the best options for patients - both in the treatment...

The Many Ways that AI Enters Rheumatolog…

High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the standard to diagnose and assess progression in interstitial lung disease (ILD), a key feature in systemic sclerosis (SSc). But AI-assisted interpretation has the potential...