GENEVA, November 25―Carestream Health has begun the rollout of an integrated RIS/PACS and Information Management Solution to the network of 32 independent hospitals operated by Australian-based Ramsay Health Care throughout the UK. The first site, Oaks Hospital in Colchester went live in July 2008, followed by the Springfield Hospital, Chelmsford and the Horton NHS Treatment Centre, Banbury, in October 2008. Equipment training is currently underway at the Berkshire Independent at Reading with full rollout across all 32 sites anticipated to be complete by the end of 2009.
“Our staff are adapting very well to the changes,” said Sasha Burns, General Manager Mobile Imaging, Ramsay Health Care UK. “Many of them would have considered themselves computer illiterate prior to the implementation but are now working with the technology with confidence. Already we are experiencing the advantages of no lost films, prior images always available and reports on hand at the click of a mouse.”
KODAK CARESTREAM Radiology and Information Management Solutions will support the transition to an all-digital operation for the current diagnostic workload combined with a rapidly scaleable infrastructure to enable future diagnostic expansion. The solution will facilitate image generation, archiving and reporting from across the Ramsay enterprise—including remote reporting—and be fully compliant with the requirements of the NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) initiative to ensure full integration.
“The relationship between Carestream and Ramsay is proving to be a great success in the rollout of RIS/PACS across the Ramsay Group,” added Sasha Burns. “It has been demonstrated at the pilot sites that the huge changes in workflow are benefiting the patient journey and leading to quicker diagnosis.”
The KODAK CARESTREAM RIS/PACS platforms at each site will efficiently manage local image capture from a variety of modalities and support the diagnostic reporting process. Radiologists will report from integrated workstations at each site using voice recognition software with the ability to burn results direct to CD should patients require hard copy images. A single KODAK CARESTREAM RIS will integrate with the PACS to facilitate enterprise-wide referrals, scheduling, worklist generation and diagnostic reporting. KODAK CARESTREAM Information Management Solutions, powered by Carestream Health’s powerful software platform, will manage a central clinical repository for long-term image storage and retrieval and to support image sharing between the Ramsay hospital group.
“Carestream Health is currently delivering advanced radiology and IT solutions to many of Europe’s largest eHealth initiatives including R-Bay, the Scotland National PACS and RIS projects, Baltic e-Health project and the Uppsala region of Sweden,” added Charlie McCaffrey, Managing Director Carestream Health UK. “Our powerful digital solutions can help healthcare providers dramatically improve the quality and cost of care."
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About Ramsay Health
Ramsay Health Care is the leading Australian private hospital operator, listed on the Australian stock exchange with a market capitalisation of approximately £730m. Established in 1964, the company operates 65 hospitals in Australia and 3 in Indonesia, with over 7,000 beds and employing over 24,000 staff.
About Carestream Health, Inc.
Carestream Health, Inc., is a leading provider of dental and medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions; molecular imaging systems for the life science research and drug discovery/development market segments; and x-ray film and digital x-ray products for the non-destructive testing market. The company was formed in 2007 when Onex Corporation (TSX: OCX.TO) purchased Eastman Kodak Company’s Health Group. For more information about Carestream Health, contact your Carestream Health representative or visit www.carestreamhealth.com.
CARESTREAM is a trademark of Carestream Health, Inc.
KODAK is a trademark of Kodak used under license.
2008