University College London Hospitals go filmless with Agfa PACS

13 October 2005

University College London Hospitals (UCLH) has installed Agfa's Impax picture archiving and communications system in its new £225 million building. All the sites within UCLH are expected to be fully digital by the end of October.

The high speed links between UCLH sites and the ease of use of the system has resulted in widespread acceptance from clinicians and radiologists. "Both have welcomed Impax because of its overwhelming advantages such as being able to access images anytime anywhere and no longer having to search for films or storage space," said Peter Dawson, Clinical Director of Radiology. Clinicians in nearby specialist hospitals, such as the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, have also found Impax invaluable since they can view a patients images before they arrive for their examination. This helps them reach an accurate diagnosis more quickly.

Following a comprehensive clinical benefit and value for money analysis, UCLH opted for Agfa Impax outside of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT). UCLH is also renowned as a centre of excellence for teaching, therefore it was essential to have digital capture and digital archives. "To be regarded as a centre of excellence for teaching, it is essential to have digital capture and digital archives. We believe Impax will prove remarkably advantageous for clinical research," said Dave Plummer, Head of Strategic Computing.

It is the overall vision of the IT department to go fully filmless. The Trust is predominantly filmless, with the final stage of the project for Agfa to relocate some of the existing equipment to newly refurbished buildings. By the end of October all sites within the Trust will be fully digital. After this, the IDX Carecast electronic patient record system, which will log key patient information, orders and resluts, will be impemented across all sites within the Trust. At this stage Agfa will  then integrate their Web1000 image distribution software fully into the IDX EPR solution. Clinicians throughout the Trust will then have full image access from their EPR desktop.

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