Essex hospital installs teleradiology system

Oldchurch Hospital part of Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust, Essex, is installing a teleradiology system in its neurology and radiology departments which will receive images transferred over NHSnet from local sites.

The LifeWeb OnNet system, supplied by Ferrania, will replace the existing technology used by the trust and will allow images to be stored and shared within the site and other locations.

Kelley Page, from the trust’s IT department, explained that the system would enable them "to receive images from other centres and store them on the central server to make them available to the trust’s staff."

The system represents Ferrania’s second installation in Essex. Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, part of Mid-Essex NHS Trust, has LifeWeb already installed. Once the system is put in place in Oldchurch Hospital by the end of the year, it will be possible to transmit images between the two sites, and to allow referrals.

Broomfield’s installation, which is on the point of being upgraded, has eight radiographers working with twin flat-screens across a variety of areas including MR and ultrasound. A storage network and 50 more 19" monitors are to be installed by the end of the year.

Gareth Hammond, PACS manager at Broomfield, said: "We are greatly increasing our image storage capacity and extending the system across the Trust, giving users in all areas including those outside of radiology access to the PACS.

"The move to a completely filmless system means that staff can achieve improved efficiencies in patient care allied to revenue for the trust as a whole, key factors in our decision to expand the Ferrania installation."

This news article replaces an earlier report which wrongly described the Ferrania teleradiology systems as a PACS. We hope the report above makes clear this is not the case. Barking Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust is in the process of implementing the NHS London Cluster PACS solution provided by BT. Apologies for any confusion.