NHS Scotland has further strengthened its strategic partnership with Carestream Health by signing an amendment to the long standing contract between the two organisations. The company will supply CARESTREAM Vue Mammography PACS to all of Scotland's Breast Screening Centres located at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee and Irvine. These centres provide breast cancer screening to more than 175,000 women each year.
The new agreement builds on the success of Carestream's Vue PACS System installed in all NHS hospitals in Scotland that has improved access to radiology images and patient information across the country's highly rated healthcare system.
The agreement also includes Vue Mammography PACS for the fleet of mobile breast screening units run by NHS Scotland as well as the Pathology and Medical Physics departments at each site. Carestream will install its system during 2013 and early 2014, commencing with Edinburgh and Glasgow which are the two largest sites.
"Currently all our breast screening centres are either completely film based or have digital modalities with no universal method of viewing, reporting and distributing images," said Liz Blackman, Senior Programme Manager, NHS National Services Scotland. "Carestream Mammography PACS will solve this issue as images will be immediately available for review and reporting and our clinicians can have immediate access to specialist advice across Scotland regardless of where the screening was carried out."
The new system from Carestream will provide convenient access and synchronisation of all patient information, procedures and status across Scotland’s entire breast screening network to streamline reading workflow and accelerate the delivery of screening results.
"This latest development for Mammography PACS across all Breast Screening Centres in Scotland will transform the Breast Screening Service from a film based system into a digital enterprise that will improve the speed and access to screening images, information and results," said Charlie McCaffrey, Managing Director, Carestream in the UK. "The success of CARESTREAM PACS across the country has streamlined care and enabled faster diagnosis and treatment for patients. This next step to include the Breast Screening Service is a logical progression and further deepens and strengthens the strategic relationship between NHS Scotland and Carestream."
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About Carestream Health
Carestream Health is a worldwide provider of dental and medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions; X-ray film and digital X-ray systems for non-destructive testing; and advanced materials for the precision films and electronics markets.