Impacted by adverse currency effects, Agfa HealthCare's revenue decreased by 11.6 percent. On a currency comparable basis, the decrease amounted to 7.8 percent. A major part of the film revenue decline of the Imaging segment is attributable to the weak performance in the emerging markets. In the segment's digital radiography business (consisting of Computed Radiography, Direct Radiography and the hardcopy business), the DR product range continued its strong growth.
In the IT segment, the Enterprise IT business performed well, whereas the Imaging IT business suffered from the continuously uncertain investment climate in the US healthcare market.
Agfa HealthCare's gross profit margin amounted to 34.4 percent of revenue, versus 35.1 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Profitability was influenced by very strong adverse currency and mix effects and the strike on the one hand, and efficiency improvements and favorable raw material effects on the other hand. Recurring EBITDA amounted to 12.7 million Euro (or 5.2 percent of revenue) and recurring EBIT to 3.7 million Euro (or 1.5 percent of revenue).
One of the most important highlights of the first quarter was the inauguration of Agfa HealthCare's new offices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on March 16. The new offices will ensure a greater presence for Agfa HealthCare in the key Middle East market.
In the field of digital radiography, Agfa HealthCare launched the new mobile DX-D Retrofit solution at the ECR event in Vienna (Austria). The solution allows care centers an easy and affordable way to migrate to Direct Radiography using their existing X-ray equipment. In Belgium, the pediatric radiology department of University Hospitals Leuven chose to in stall a mobile DX-D 100 DR solution from Agfa HealthCare to meet the extremely high requirements typical to pediatric en neonatal imaging. Examples of the many digital radiography wins and installations in the US are the installation of two DX-D 600 systems in the Children's National Medical Center - a prestigious pediatric hospital - and the installation of 6 DX-D 100 systems at Ochsner Health System.
In Imaging IT, Agfa HealthCare teamed with Dell to integrate its ICIS (Imaging Clinical Information System) platform with Dell DRIVE Plus to offer medical image management within electronic health records (EHR). At the HIMSS 2014 event, Agfa HealthCare strengthened its leadership position in enterprise imaging in the Americas region by introducing capabilities to the ICIS platform that further enable image transfer between health systems in Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), Health Information Exchanges (HIE) and other multi-facility networks. The company's strategic alliance with Clevel and Clinic's MyPractice Imaging Solutions consulting was highlighted at HIMSS in a conference education session with approximately 150 Chief Information Officers and healthcare executives. In Belgium, the ZNA hospital network (Antwerp) is extending its existing Imaging Clinical Information System (ICIS) beyond radiology to all other image-producing departments. ZNA was the first hospital in Belgium to implement ICIS. All its image archiving and storage is how handled off-site, at Agfa HealthCare's data center in Mortsel.
Agfa HealthCare also continued to roll-out its new IMPAX Agility medical imaging platform in hospitals around the globe. Introduced in 2013, the solution has gone live or is being installed in over 125 hospitals. The solution is very successful in Brazil and several other Latin American countries. Furthermore, Agfa HealthCare announced that it signed Imaging IT contracts with a number of Belgian hospitals, including AZ Monica (Deurne), Heilig Hart (Lier), Sint-Maria (Halle), AZ Sint-Blasius (Dendermonde) and the Antwerp University Hospital.
At ECR, Agfa HealthCare announced the European launch of its IMPAX REM (Radiation Exposure Monitoring) solution that supports individual patient's radiation exposure tracking and collects radiation exposure information to help measure the use of radiation dose in medical imaging overall. In the US, a number of large health systems - including Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) - upgraded their IMPAX installations to achieve the most recent capabilities designed for the flagship solution. In the field of cardiology IT, a number of US hospitals integrated the IMPAX Cardiovascular image management solution and the IMPAX HeartStation ECG management solution with their EHRs.
In the field of Enterprise IT, Agfa HealthCare's solutions continued their success in the German speaking region of Europe. At the beginning of the year, new ORBIS HIS/CIS solutions were taken into operation at several hospitals and care organizations in Germany. Agfa HealthCare also reported that it successfully installed its HYDMedia solution at multiple sites in France, in Canada and in other countries around the globe. HYDMedia is a healthcare content management system that manages all digital and paper documents for hospitals or regional networks.
- 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.