Belgian hospital extends PACS to satellite locations
- 10 October 2007
The Saint Luc Bouge Hospital in Belgium is extending its Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) and computed radiography (CR) systems from Carestream Health to serve three satellite locations in the Province of Namur for the first time.
The 360-bed hospital has been using Carestream Health’s technology for seven years and wanted to extend the scope of the project to three remote sites, using the built-in streaming capabilities of the Carestream Health PACS system.
Ignace Wautier, country operations manager for Carestream Health Belgium, told E-Health Europe: “Saint Luc Bouge had not upgraded their PACS system since 2003 and felt it was the right time to look into extending the capabilities of their Carestream Health systems to create a fully digitized health service for the Province area. Using the satellite capabilities, the system can store data in a centralised server, which can then be accessed by any authorised user in a compatible image distribution site.”
Installations at each of the three satellites consists of Carestream Health PACS platforms with full mammography reading software, linked to the central PACS with web access for secure image distribution and Kodak Directview CR systems for digital capture.
The sites are also fitted with Crestream Health Direct CD systems to burn CD copies of the images and Kodak Dryview Laser Imagers for hard copy external distribution.
The solution also includes optional integrated orthopaedic surgical templating, a digital planning solution that supports specialised surgical templates for trauma cases, in addition to native 3D imaging.
Wautier said that by using the satellite capabilities, clinicians in the area would see many benefits.
“With the extended systems, the users will see a new more powerfull and user-friendly workstation, enabling them to undertake more tasks, including the 3D imaging. They will also now have one integrated complete patient studies overview, providing them with the best possible quality medical image in the fastest possible time.
“The streaming technology will enable them to see patients wherever they are in the region, just by logging into the web-based system and bringing up the images from central storage. Access to these will be much faster helping make diagnosis more efficient, and the system will take care of all the compression requirements for them ensuring they get the right amount of detail that they consider necessary.”
The Carestream Health solution is set to become operational in the hospital by the end of this month managing a total workload, including mammography exams, of over 6.2 Terabytes across the main hospital site and the three satellite locations at Andenne, Ciney and Perwez, which are due to be fully deployed by 15 November.
Dr Jean-Paul Joris, head of the medical imaging department and medical director at Saint Luc Bouge Hospital, said: “We are committed to being on the leading edge of healthcare technology and patient care so when we decided to upgrade our current systems and extend the reach of PACS to our three satellite sites, we felt that Carestream Health continued to offer the best enterprise-wide solution to meet our goal.”
Victor Sacré, IT manager at Saint Luc Bouge added: “The Carestream PACS platform offered a high degree of flexibility that allowed us to design not one, but three data repositories, a configuration that best suited our needs.”
“The PACS fully integrates with the RIS and EPR and intelligently automates each radiology department, which will lead to financial savings from improved efficiency. Patients will benefit from this improved efficiency with reductions in waiting times, a faster diagnosis and confidence in the knowledge that the system is at the cutting edge of technology.”
Claude Husting, major account manager, at Carestream Health Belgium, told EHE: “ Saint-Luc Bouge is the first site in the Belgium French Community to be fully digitized including Mammography PACS & Capture Solutions. They have worked with us since we were Kodak’s Health Group and continue to be pleased with the service we are able to provide them with for digital medical imaging.”
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