Mortsel / Belgium, 7 September 2004 -
Agfa HealthCare has won the Frost & Sullivan 2004 Business Development Strategy Award for European telemedicine for its secured IT platform for telemedicine, which in a unique European cross-border milestone project has been chosen to link a number of hospitals in Northern Germany and later also Poland.
"This is a remarkable win", says Frost & Sullivan when citing the reasons for the Award, "in that Agfa is perhaps not thought of primarily as an IT company, even though it's clearly a leader in the medical imaging market. The cross-border project is a business development opportunity that reflects the growing role of Agfa in the healthcare informatics field." Frost & Sullivan also confirms that Agfa "has widened its position from purely an interest in medical imaging to being an IT provider".
The project links the hospitals of Greifswald, Stralsund, Bergen, Pasewalk and Ueckermünde in the northern part of Germany, with two Polish hospitals scheduled to join the project later this year, underscoring Frost & Sullivan's view that Poland is the main opportunity amongst the new East European EU member states.
"We are proud to win this prestigious award", says Marketing Manager HealthCare Europe, Marcus Ostländer, commenting on the Award. "By securing this key project in the Pomerania region, which has the support of the EU Interreg Programme, we have not only demonstrated the value of telemedicine, but we have also indicated once more that Agfa is the leader in the healthcare field where it matters most."
The Pomerania region is a low population area by the Baltic Sea, bordering Germany, Sweden and Poland. The project aims at improving cancer patient care and is co-ordinated by the "Tumorzentrum Vorpommern" with the University of Applied Sciences of Stralsund as technical partner.
At each of the five hospitals digital images from MRI and CT can be viewed and locally stored with Agfa's IMPAX(TM) CS5000 clinical review workstation. When there is the need for a second reading or consultation with doctors at the other hospitals, DICOM images are sent to the other hospital's IMPAX CS5000 workstation or to a shared central web server located at the Stralsund University. In both cases, the patients must give their formal consent to do so. Moreover, image transfer takes place through a secured transmission, safeguarding the integrity and authenticity of the patient's images. When accessing the central server, authorized users must go through an authentication procedure before being able to view images.
Workstations at all five hospitals have also been equipped for teleconference, thus enabling two or more physicians at different hospitals to discuss the shared images in a comfortable and user-friendly manner. This way, the physicians can focus on the patient's images rather than on complex technology.
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Editors' note
Previous Frost & Sullivan awards include 2003 European Frost & Sullivan Competitive Strategy Award, the 2003 Frost & Sullivan Growth Strategy Award and the 2004 Healthcare Imaging Industry Product of the Year Award for IMPAX(TM). Press announcements can be found at www.agfapress.com
About Agfa
The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world's leading imaging companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems, intended mainly for the graphics industry, healthcare, micrographics, motion picture and photography markets.
Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is active in 40 countries and has 120 agents throughout the world. Together they achieved a turnover of 4,215 million euros in 2003.
Product and company information can be found on Agfa's home page on the World Wide Web at: www.agfa.com.
Agfa, the Agfa rhombus, IMPAX, Point of Knowledge and See More. Do More. are trademarks of Agfa-Gevaert N.V., Belgium or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
