Agfa to launch modular Orbis at EHI Live

Agfa HealthCare will launch a modular version of Orbis, its hospital-wide clinical and administrative information system at eHealth Insider Live 2010, 8-9 November, NEC, Birmingham.

The launch represents a shift for Agfa HealthCare, which in the UK has focused on the digital imaging market. The company says the move creates additional choice and competition in the electronic patient record and clinicals product market.

Orbis was first launched in the UK back in 2007, but Agfa stresses that the new modular launch is backed by significant new investment.

It says Orbis now integrates with a hospital’s existing infrastructure and can be rolled out at a hospital’s own pace.

The company is pitching Orbis a proven product suite as being based on a core platform that can be implemented in a modular fashion and integrate with existing systems, enabling trusts to address specific needs.

The Belgium health IT and health imaging giant has committed investment to Orbis to the NHS market, including recruiting sales, support and implementation teams.

"Agfa HealthCare has decided to launch Orbis onto the UK market at this point in time because we strongly believe that not only our solution, but also our approach to EPR implementation and roll-out, is significantly different from what has been done in the past," said Volker Wetekam, executive vice president of the IT Division at Agfa HealthCare.

"Agfa HealthCare has designed Orbis to meet the specific needs and demands of hospitals and healthcare organisations, with a strong focus on enabling the design of workflows around clinicians and administrative staff, and not the other way around," added Grant Witheridge, general manager of Agfa HealthCare UK.

"That also means that we have gone to great lengths to design a very extensive EPR solution which covers a majority of hospital needs, both clinical and administrative, but can be implemented in a piece-meal fashion."

Orbis is Agfa’s proven EPR solution, deployed at over 900 sites in Europe, and over 500,000 daily users. Agfa have anglicised the Orbis product and are now looking to identify reference customers.

Agfa says Orbis addresses the needs of the entire healthcare enterprise, including registration, scheduling, order management, e-prescribing, results reporting, synopsis and clinical documentation including electronic discharge letters.

The company says the new suite of Orbis solutions for the UK will include ancillary clinical disciplines such as therapy services, nursing management, A&E, theatre management and logistics all within a single solution.

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Agfa

EHI Live 2010 is an essential two day conference and exhibition for anyone in the e-health community.

Online registration for the event, which will be held at the NEC in Birmingham from 8-9 November, is now open.