News
PACS system makes diagnostic images available to hospital and
clinics across Blackpool
3 February 2010
NHS Blackpool is providing local healthcare professionals from
Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with access to
the diagnostic imaging records of their patients taken at a new
polyclinic using a picture archiving and communications system (PACS)
system from Agfa Healthcare.
The first primary care facility to benefit from this development is
the brand new Whitegate Health Centre in the centre of Blackpool. The
centre, commissioned by NHS Blackpool houses a GP Practice, a GP-led
health centre, a walk-in centre, dental services and diagnostics,
including MRI scanning, x-ray and ultrasound.
The Centre has been equipped with Agfa HealthCare’s IMPAX PACS,
operating as an extension to the existing 9-year-old acute trust PACS.
The new deployment comprises an additional workflow manager, image
storage and a diagnostic reporting workstation.
Since the nature of services provided by the new ‘Darzi’ Health
Centre means that full integration with the Acute Trust PACS offered the
most appropriate solution for seamless primary and secondary patient
care across the Fylde Coast.
Images acquired at the Whitegate Health Centre are stored onto a SAN
server sited within the centre and then copied to long-term storage and
web servers within the Acute Trust PACS. This makes them available for
viewing at any of the six sites supported by the Acute Trust, where they
can be accessed via 26 diagnostic workstations or any of the 4,500
networked PCs located within the Trust and NHS Blackpool.
The net result is that primary and secondary care imaging is now
available within both sectors, meaning that clinicians have access to
the patient's entire imaging records, no mater which setting they are
working in.
Richard Day, PACS Manager, said, "We are looking forward to providing
the best possible imaging service for patients and welcome the
opportunity to extend our PACS into the Primary Care sector. In addition
to giving authorised healthcare professionals working in the new
Whitegate Health Centre access to stored images, we could also look to
extend this to any other GP surgeries or health centres, should they
request it.”
Stewart Whitley, Radiology Advisor at the Whitegate Health Centre,
said “We are delighted with the new PACS system that Agfa HealthCare has
installed within the unit. It has significantly increased the entire
local area’s capacity and it will help reduce the strain on Blackpool’s
Victoria Hospital and allow NHS Blackpool to develop new pathways. The
image quality of Agfa HealthCare’s PACS system is superb and response is
excellent. With these state of the art systems now installed this is a
tremendous centre for the future of Blackpool.”
NHS Blackpool has plans to build two more super health centres over
the next few years and each will also have access to PACS.
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