Central storage of diagnostic imaging for 33 Ontario hospitals
11 April 2008
Agfa HealthCare and Canadian firm Teranet are to provide and host a
new diagnostic imaging data centre and virtual private network (VPN)
service for 33 hospital sites across Ontario.
This will allow central and secure storage of patient images and
reports and enable staff to have real-time access to relevant patient
images from across the different hospital sites, regardless of the point
of origin.
Agfa HealthCare will implement the diagnostic imaging data centre
which will centrally store the patient information in Teranet's secure
data centres.
The Hospital Diagnostic Imaging Repository Services (HDIRS) PACS
project is a joint initiative involving 23 hospital corporations that
want to share diagnostic images and reports across 33 Ontario hospital
sites.
It is part of the Canadian Health Infoway initiative to accelerate
the implementation of reliable and secure health information systems,
leading to the eventual goal of an electronic patient record (EPR) for
every Canadian. Formed in 2001, Canada Health Infoway is a
federally-funded, independent, not-for-profit organisation whose members
are Canada's 14 federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers of
health.
In addition, the project will provide disaster recovery, business
continuity services and network management to improve hospital services
and the delivery of patient care.
"Today's Canadian health system requires a more secure and efficient
method to process increasing amounts of medical data," said Pat Ryan,
General Manager, HDIRS. "We are looking forward to extending this
partnership with both Agfa HealthCare and Teranet to work to make Canada
Health Infoway's national e-health initiative a reality."
According to Michael Green, Regional Manager IT Business Division,
Agfa HealthCare, Canada, "the Ontario-based HDIRS project is a vital
undertaking as shared electronic patient information is a huge piece of
the ehealth puzzle. This project is a massive leap forward toward
achieving Canada's EPR goals, and will help healthcare organisations
improve the delivery of patient care while improving the security of
medical records."