Agfa HealthCare announces that the Centre Hospitalier Alès-Cévennes (CH Alès) and the Centre Hospitalier Jean Monnet in Epinal (CH Jean Monnet), both in France, are extending their existing Agfa HealthCare solutions with an electronic archiving solution.
Amongst other advantages, CH Alès was particularly attracted by the ability to collect all types of documents to create and share complete archived medical records within the hospital and with other regional healthcare providers, while CH Jean Monnet cites how the solution will support its drive for a paperless environment.
Implementation will begin in Q3 of 2011 and is expected to be completed in Q1 2012.
Share archived medical records regionally
CH Alès is a 724-bed hospital, with 16 associated healthcare facilities. To address the needs of its various activities, it uses a mix of different vendors' IT solutions - including Agfa HealthCare's hospital information system (HIS) and laboratory information system (LIS)[1]. CH Alès is very active in leading innovative projects as part of a regional hospital network (Communauté Hospitalière de Territoire - CHT), which includes other hospitals of the Gard département.
"The HYDMedia solution is 'CHT-ready'," explains Mr. Gil, Deputy Director Finance and IT of CH Alès. "It will support us in sharing medical archive records with other regional hospitals within the framework of the CHT. That, combined with our excellent relationship with Agfa HealthCare, was a key factor in our decision to implement HYDMedia."
Reduce costs and eliminate paper
The CH Jean Monnet in Epinal, together with the Centre Hospitalier Intercommunal de Golbey (CHI Golbey), counts some 696 beds. It is expanding its existing Agfa HealthCare ORBIS hospital information system / clinical information system (HIS/CIS) with HYDMedia, as part of its efforts towards a full electronic hospital and zero-paper environment. "HYDMedia offers us the opportunity to reduce our costs while also creating a paper-free hospital," comments Mr. Gebel, Director of CH Jean Monnet. "With it, we can collect all types of information from all sources in a single archived medical record - and share the information, as well."
HYDMedia1: electronic archiving for healthcare facilities of all sizes
HYDMedia enables hospitals and care facilities of all sizes to create a complete electronic archived of patient records, combining their paper-based and electronic documentation - such as diagnoses, modality print-outs, microfilms and clinical and administrative records - while making it available across the organization.
In this way it partially reduces the need for physical archiving space and time, cuts down retrieval time for information and reduces associated costs significantly. HYDMedia has been specially developed for healthcare environments and is fully integratable with existing hospital IT solutions and workflows.
Improved productivity, with fast access to archived records
"We are very pleased to implement these first HYDMedia solutions in France with our long-term customers CH Alès and CH Jean Monnet," comments Philippe Blanco, Managing Director of Agfa HealthCare France. "With the move towards the CHT framework, supported by the French health ministry, and the increasing demand for paper-free hospitals, HYDMedia clearly meets a growing market demand. Furthermore, it not only helps reduce costs but it increases productivity as well, by making archived medical records quickly available in different places at the same time."
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 2,948 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.
1. Not Available in the US and Canada