Fujitsu stores 100 millionth patient image in UK data centre
19 December 2006 London, UK. Fujitsu Services, has recorded the 100
millionth patient image stored in its southern England data centre as part
of the rollout of picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) under
the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
The 100 millionth image was stored by Weston Area Health NHS Trust.
Fujitsu’s PACS data centre in the south of England was the first to be
established within NPfIT and commenced storage of images and reports in
April 2005. As PACS is rolled out to hospitals across the country, medical
images and reports are stored at each hospital and archived for future
retrieval in the data centre. This facility allows radiologists to access
images either via the PACS workstation for diagnostic reporting or via web
browsers for general viewing by other clinicians.
Use of digital images avoids the need for film development processes and
delivery by post or hand, and therefore significantly reduces costs in wet
film processing and speeds up patient image acquisition workflows, diagnosis
and therefore treatment. The number of images is set to grow at a rate of
over 2 million per week as the use of PACS continues to increase. Peter
Hutchinson, managing director UK public sector, Fujitsu Services said: “100
million patient images stored is a real milestone and it illustrates the
scale of deployment achieved by the new technology. The new system is good
news for patients and clinical staff alike as it improves workflow
efficiency in hospitals and delivers tangible savings for the NHS as well.
This is a clear demonstration of a Government IT programme being delivered
on time and to budget”. “83% of all PACS systems are now live in NHS
Trusts in the South of England which are part of the National Programme and
all are now using PACS deployed by Fujitsu. Work is already underway at the
remaining Trusts, which will go live in the coming months.” Simon Eccles,
a national clinical lead for NHS Connecting for Health said:
"Congratulations to Fujitsu for this fantastic achievement. An end to lost
X-rays and the ability to find images wherever and whenever they are needed
helps patients and NHS staff alike. Clinicians are happier and patients are
safer and getting better care." To top
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