PACS to Be Implemented in Finland's Largest Medical Imaging Unit

A first picture archiving and communication system (PACS) upgrade of its size in Europe will provide new clinical tools for radiologists and clinicians in Finland's largest medical imaging unit, with higher uptime and increased system performance.

Agfa HealthCare (Mortsel, Belgium) reported that the HUS (The hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa) will implement Agfa HealthCare's Impax 6.5 PACS at its HUS-Röntgen medical imaging centers. This system will replace the existing Impax 5.3 system, and will provide the hospital with the latest clinical tools for the radiology population, with advanced post-processing tools and integrated reporting. Moreover, Impax6.5 offers a customized image-distribution solution for the clinicians combined with a scalable archiving solution to meet the high performance requirements required by the clinical community to provide optimal patient care.

The hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), in Southern Finland, comprises 22 hospitals across the five hospital areas of HUCH (the Helsinki University Central Hospital), Hyvinkää, Lohja, Länsi-Uusimaa, and Porvoo. HUS is managed by the Joint Authority for the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, based in Helsinki, and provides healthcare for the almost 1.5 million residents of the region.

HUS-Röntgen is a leading medical imaging provider in Finland. It serves the departments and municipalities of HUS by producing medical imaging for specialist medical care and healthcare. It also serves the private healthcare. In total, HUS-Röntgen has 30 imaging centers, with close to 180 radiologists and 500 technicians.

On April 12, 2011, HUS-Röntgen and Agfa HealthCare Finland Oy signed an agreement to upgrade the existing Impax 5.3 PACS to the latest Impax6.5 version. The hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) has always been a pioneer in the use of technology to meet the challenges of medical imaging in a complex multisite healthcare environment. The new solution, which integrates with the center's third party radiology information system (RIS), includes Impax Reporting (integrated speech recognition capabilities), advanced post processing capabilities, ImpaxBusiness Intelligence, Impax Data Center, and Impax Data Center Viewer.

The implementation of the project will start immediately, and it will be completed before spring 2012. Another system previously used at Länsi-Uusimaa hospital district will be replaced with the shared PACS system during 2012. At that time, all of the separate systems in use by HUS-Röntgen will be replaced by a single Impax system.

"The new solution will give us additional integrated imaging possibilities, and even greater system reliability and performance," said Jyrki Putkonen, general manager at HUS-Röntgen. "This is especially important as the system will increasingly be used by treating and referring physicians across our clinical network, and with the Impax, they will all be able to work from the same solution for all their clinical needs."

"This project is a natural evolution for HUS-Röntgen, which has over time upgraded from Impax 4.5 to Impax 5.3, and now to Impax 6.5, with new functionalities," stated Hans Vandewyngaerde, vice president EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) at Agfa HealthCare. "It demonstrates how we can build strong, lasting relationships based on solid solutions, and shows our capability to provide regional care solutions that our customers rely on. This is the first upgrade of its size in Finland. We have already implemented Impax 6 in hospitals in Finland, but the Impax 6.5 version is new on the market, showing our commitment to Regional Health."

Related Links:
Agfa HealthCare
HUS-Röntgen