Kodak focus is image capture, management Sep 25, 2006

Eastman Kodak Company's Health Group has signed a multi-million-dollar order for its industry-leading digital medical image capture and information management solutions - and its new Business Diagnostics Services - with Erlanger Health System (Chattanooga, Tennessee).

Kodak's Business Diagnostics Services will focus on improving productivity and eliminating waste within Erlanger's medical imaging process, so that the health system can realize greater efficiencies than it could achieve by installing new technology alone.

Erlanger Health System ordered a KODAK CARESTREAM PACS for review, storage and distribution of 300,000 patient radiology imaging studies captured each year at its five hospitals and one outpatient imaging center. The healthcare provider also purchased KODAK CARESTREAM Enterprise In formation Management, which will enable centralized management of images and information from radiology, cardiology and other clinical and business areas on the healthcare provider's existing IBM storage area network (SAN).

As part of the agreement, Kodak will migrate images and information from an existing web server, and will integrate the new picture archiving and communications system (PACS) with both an existing radiology information system (to automate data entry for patient medical x-ray exams) as well as the hospital's centralized storage area network.

Eight KODAK DIRECTVIEW CR 950 and CR 975 Systems for digital image capture were also part of the order. Today, nearly two out of five CR systems sold in the U.S. and Canada are from Kodak's Health Group.

"Healthcare facilities are embracing the ability of our CARESTREAM Solutions to expedite connectivity to other image and information management systems. As healthcare providers begin to network clinical and business systems and establish centralized management, this capability becomes critically important to maintaining a cost-effective infrastructure," said R. L. (Vern) Davenport, Chief Operations Officer, Healthcare Information Solutions, and Vice President of Kodak’s Health Group.

After reviewing proposals from 13 vendors, Kodak was selected for several compelling reasons, according to Blaine Morris, Erlanger Health Systems' Administrator of Radiology Services.

"Kodak's system is more powerful and much easier to use than other systems we evaluated, and the platform's integrated 3D and voice recognition tools deliver enhanced functionality and productivity," said Morris. "In addition, our testing showed that Kodak’s EIM solution offers exceptional connectivity with our existing IBM architecture, which facilitates the centralized storage and management of imaging studies as well as other clinical and business documents."

Kodak's comprehensive portfolio of image and information management solutions includes its advanced CARESTREAM RIS/PACS suite, along with CARESTREAM Information Management Solutions that deliver efficient, enterprise-wide management and storage of clinical and non-clinical data and images.

More products from this company

• CAD made for CR digital mammography Dec 20, 2007
• In-vivo imaging system targets early disease Dec 18, 2006
• Kodak enhances CR dosimetry package Jul 24, 2006