Agfa HealthCare Integrated Care Suite and viewer will enable cross-border radiotherapy service, to enhance patient comfort and care between Saolta University Health Care Group (Republic of Ireland) and Altnagelvin Hospital (Northern Ireland).
Agfa HealthCare Integrated Care Suite offers a gateway to integrated care, facilitating imaging information sharing across borders, without having to send data.
- Clinicians have immediate ‘anywhere, anytime’ access to patient data located in another hospital.
- Providing treatment closer to the patient’s home reduces their travel time from 7 hours to 40 minutes.
- The initial phase of the project went live just six months after project initiation.
Agfa HealthCare has announced that its health management platform, including the XERO universal image viewer, has been selected to support the joint Radiotherapy Treatment Project of the Saolta University Health Care Group and Altnagelvin Hospital, part of Western Health and Socal Care Trust. This cross-discipline, cross-border project will enable patients from County Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland, to access radiotherapy services at the nearby Altnagelvin Hospital, located in Derry, Northern Ireland.
“The ability to integrate and interoperate with other systems has always been important to the Galway University Hospitals radiology staff,” comments Gina Naughton, RIS/PACS System Administrator, Galway University Hospitals. “We have witnessed an increasing demand for cross-border and even worldwide data sharing between public/private hospitals. We continue to move forward with technological advancements to create integrated care solutions that assure the availability of the patient’s clinical data at the point of care, when required. This project, including the Integrated Care Suite, is a prime example of what can be achieved when hospital personnel collaborate with the technology available to them. The project took less than six months from project initiation to Stage 1 go-live.”
“The Integrated Care Suite has given Northern Ireland clinicians real-time access to patients’ most up-to-date images of patients from Donegal,” highlights Dr David Stewart, Lead Clinician in Oncology, Altnagelvin hospital.
“It is reassuring for patients to know that the clinician has their scans, even on their first visit to the clinic. Dual monitors let the patient see the images, as well. The image access is especially important for radical radiotherapy treatment: fusing diagnostic images such as MRI to treatment-planning CT scans on Varian’s Eclipse Treatment Planning System enhances the radiotherapy contouring process, for improved target volume delineation. This access may result in more informed care and reduced toxicities for patients.”
“We are very proud that our Integrated Care Suite was chosen by the Saolta University Health Care Group and Altnagelvin Hospital for this important cross- border project,” comments Grant Witheridge, Managing Director UK and Ireland, Agfa HealthCare. “By offering a gateway to integrated care, we are supporting healthcare organisations to deliver their strategies and objectives for a model that provides clear, value-based benefits to patients, their families, carers and clinicians.”
