Healthcare teams responsible for paediatric care in Ireland are to save significant time in accessing important diagnostic imaging and reports, with the help of a new agreement with medical imaging and cybersecurity company Sectra.
Signed in January 2025, following a four-month procurement, the five-year contract with Children's Health Ireland (CHI) will enable an important part of the organisation's digital transformation. Once deployed, technology provided in the agreement will equip professionals in Ireland's forthcoming new children's hospital with the ability to instantaneously access imaging and reports as they deliver care for patients.
For the first time Children’s Health Ireland will have a single secure repository for all non-radiology DICOM images, reports and other key diagnostic information. Medical images will no longer be restricted to storage on individual devices on which they are captured, but will be consolidated into an accessible vendor neutral archive (VNA) and integrated with CHI's electronic health record. CHI estimates more than a petabyte of non-radiology imaging will be managed with the new system during the term of the contract.
A new picture archiving and communication system, or PACS, specifically for ophthalmology will also be deployed, and will be configured to address discipline specific needs, whilst creating new efficiencies and enhanced worklist visibility.
Dr Cliodhna Byrne O'Shea, applications programme manager in the Department of Digital Health at Children's Health Ireland, said: "Once implemented in our future children's hospital, imaging technology provided by Sectra will be revolutionary for our professionals as they support Ireland's youngest patients, and will be a key enabler of continuity of care.
"The VNA will mean that all non-radiology imaging and key related information will be catalogued correctly going forward, and linked back to the patient record. New interoperability will be a game changer for clinicians, with connected imaging devices providing instantaneous access to imaging during clinics. This will save countless hours for our professionals, who will no longer need to walk across a hospital to find imaging stored on a device or hard drive.
"Additional specialist functionality will also help to move away from disparate systems in ways that will make life so much easier for our staff, allowing full control over worklists, ordering, and scheduling."
Patients and families will also be able to more easily gain access to their own imaging. Whilst parents will be able to securely send images and videos to healthcare professionals - for example footage of stutters and communication issues for review by speech and language therapists.
Sectra is known widely in Europe and in geographies around the world for deploying enterprise imaging solutions that help healthcare organisations to enhance both clinical collaboration and patient access to in-demand diagnostic expertise.
Jane Rendall, Sectra’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, said: "Interoperable technology may be the requirement in this contract, but there will be a very human story to tell in its delivery. Healthcare professionals, patients, and their families will benefit from this initiative at Children's Health Ireland - an exemplar in Ireland's healthcare digital transformation. This is an exciting initiative that expands Sectra’s footprint in Ireland, and we look forward to working with teams to ensure technology delivers against their workflows and needs."
About Sectra
With over 30 years of innovation and more than 2,500 sites managing 152 million annual imaging exams, Sectra is a leading provider to health systems Sectra offers an enterprise imaging solution that provides a unified strategy for all imaging needs while lowering operational costs. The scalable and modular solution, with a VNA at its core, allows healthcare providers to grow from ology to ology and from enterprise to enterprise. Visit Sectra’s website to read more about Sectra and why it’s top-ranked in 'Best in KLAS'.