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Agreement enables Agfa HealthCare to complement its healthcare IT portfolio with cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) components for HIE solutions.

- Agfa HealthCare to market Forcare’s technology solutions for HIE (*)
- Enables Agfa HealthCare to offer its leading IMPAX Data Center solution with cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) components to address the broad range of HIE infrastructure needs, both for centralized and federated configurations.
- IMPAX Data Center customers benefit from expanded solution capabilities enabling fast access to clinical data, inside and outside the care facility.

( RSNA-2010 Booth #8336) Agfa HealthCare , a leading provider of diagnostic imaging and healthcare IT solutions, announces  that it has signed an agreement with Forcare, a leading provider of interoperability solutions. The deal facilitates Agfa HealthCare to market Forcare's solutions for Health Information Exchange s ( HIE ), which will enable customers to share clinical data and support key clinical processes amongst healthcare institutions. Specifically, it will enable Agfa HealthCare to offer its leading IMPAX Data Center solution with cross-enterprise document sharing (XDS) components, tightly integrated into its solution.

IMPAX Data Center 2.0 supports XDS with a Document Repository and XDS-I with an Imaging Document Source and an Imaging Document Consumer proxy, but Agfa HealthCare works with other companies to provide best-of-breed HIE components.

Expanding the power of IMPAX Data Center

IMPAX Data Center customers will benefit from the expanded solution's capabilities, enabling fast access to clinical data, inside and outside the healthcare institution, effectively improving efficiency in care processes, saving time and cost. IMPAX Data Center, launched by Agfa HealthCare in 2007 and currently serving customers across Europe and North America, provides large-scale multimedia storage of all types of native DICOM 3.0 and/or DICOM 3.0 encapsulated medical images and diagnostic results for hospital groups, regional healthcare organizations and national medical archives. The solution consolidates the data from disparate systems into a single repository to fulfill the needs of all enterprise users. IMPAX Data Center brings diagnostic imaging into a unified, tightly-integrated and centrally-managed system. It serves a key role in creating a longitudinal imaging-enabled electronic medical record ( EMR ) or electronic health record ( EHR ).

High standards and expectations for future growth to support changing customer needs and healthcare trends

" Agfa HealthCare is continuously seeking to team with companies that can meet our high standards and support the ongoing changes in customer needs and healthcare trends. We are committed to leading innovation in data consolidation, data sharing and shared workflow, with both our Imaging IT and our Enterprise IT portfolio," states Georgios Spitadakis, Head of Marketing Healthcare IT Europe at Agfa HealthCare. "This agreement shows our dedication to this approach. Agfa HealthCare , with its leading radiology information system (RIS)/ picture archiving and communication system (PACS), cardiovascular information system (CVIS) and Data Center solutions, and Forcare, with its HIE components, will offer end-to-end solutions for healthcare institutions that want to meet high standards in patient care."

"The complementary knowledge and expertise of both companies is a fruitful basis for developing new, innovative HIE solutions, respecting standards compliance and the security and privacy needs of patients and healthcare institutions," affirms Geert Claeys, Manager Technology and Innovation at Agfa HealthCare .

Harm-Jan Wessels, CEO Forcare comments: "We are very pleased with this new OEM relationship with Agfa HealthCare. It is an exciting and strategic expansion of our market reach. Being selected to provide Agfa HealthCare with our Health Information Exchange product portfolio shows our commitment to innovative, standards-based interoperability and underlines our leading market position."

Andries Hamster, Chief Marketing Officer Forcare adds: "Combining Agfa HealthCare 's impressive RIS and PACS product portfolio with our IHE XDS-based interoperability suite will bring value to its customers, by providing a standards-based solution for clinical data sharing."

The overall agreement enables Agfa HealthCare to non-exclusively resell software products from Forcare on a global basis.
(*) Work In Progress for North America

Source: Agfa Healthcare