Agfa HealthCare announced yesterday it has been chosen to provide the St.-Jozef hospital, a medium-sized healthcare provider in Izegem, Belgium, with its ORBIS hospital and clinical information system, which manages the entire patient flow through all hospital departments. After the implementation is completed in 2008, the authorized users of St.-Jozef's departments will be able to access a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR), connect to medical patient data and report on data from wherever they are in the organization, or the world. The hospital's medical archives are also scheduled to be included in ORBIS, with future integration planned for anesthetics, patient administration, invoicing and laboratory data.
Dr. Geert Luyckx, one of St.-Jozef's decision makers, said: "The number of outpatients that visit our hospital is increasing. Real-time consolidated information across departments gives us a considerable competitive advantage, because fast access to information helps us improve treatment and care for these patients. Especially now, when our relatively small-sized hospital is experiencing increasing pressure from new major facilities in the immediate area, smooth information flows will help us to provide the best possible care to patients in the region."
The hospital-wide workflow- and process-based approach of ORBIS was decisive in Agfa HealthCare's favor. Dr. Geert Luyckx commented: "At St.- Jozef, our departments have gradually made the step to digital during the past couple of years. Although most patients are treated at several departments, their information does not follow them freely. As a not-for-profit organization, we feel Agfa HealthCare's solution and integrative expertise will help us to speed up our information flows and offer superior care in a competitive environment."
As part of the review process, St.-Jozef hospital staff visited the Saint Johannes hospital in Troisdorf (Germany), where ORBIS is currently implemented and authorized medical staff have direct access to information, from wherever they are located. "This tour, during which we could speak freely to doctors using ORBIS, convinced our team of the benefits of Agfa HealthCare's solution," said Dr. Geert Luyckx.
About Agfa
The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world's leading imaging and information
technology companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems for the printing industry (Agfa Graphics), the healthcare sector (Agfa HealthCare) and film related products and specific industrial applications (Agfa Materials). Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is present in 40 countries and has agents in another 100 countries throughout the world. The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 3,308 million Euro in 2005.
Agfa HealthCare supplies hospitals and other healthcare centers with state-of-the-art systems for the capturing, processing and managing of diagnostic images and with IT solutions that integrate information and imaging workflows into the overall hospital operations across departmental disciplines. In addition, Agfa is a leader in the fast growing market of IT systems that span the entire healthcare enterprise and through which healthcare facilities become more efficient and effective, with improved patient outcomes. For more information on Agfa, visit www.agfa.com.
About ORBIS
ORBIS enhances the quality of patient treatment and provides fast and complete availability of patients' histories, including all images and data. Accurate patient data and histories will be available to authorized nursing, technical and medical staff, allowing for quicker and better diagnoses and treatments.
About St.-Jozef Izegem Hospital
VZW St.-Jozefkliniek Izegem is located in the center of Izegem, offering a
comprehensive range of healthcare services to the city and its surrounding region in the southwest of Belgium. The organization reinvests its entire surplus back into health services: improved facilities and services as well as modern technology and equipment. The hospital's 45 doctors serve a total of 211 hospital beds, accounting for an annual 147,000 patient contacts, including 120,000 outpatients.