December 26, 2012 — Agfa HealthCare has launched the IMPAX Data Center (IDC) 3.0. This new version of Agfa HealthCare’s enterprise medical imaging repository, also called a vendor neutral archive (VNA), is picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and storage vendor agnostic. New to IDC 3.0 is support for VMware virtualization to deploy the IMPAX Data Center on any VMware compliant platform. With its conformance to medical standards such as digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) and HL7 and the IHE technical framework, IDC 3.0 makes it possible for hospitals to distribute clinical data from different departments through any electronic medical record or electronic health record (EMR/EHR), using the facility’s existing solutions.
Consolidation and collaboration
By providing a single point of storage for patient imaging data, IDC 3.0 enables hospitals of all sizes, as well as hospital groups, to consolidate imaging data from radiology PACS, cardiology PACS and multidisciplinary imaging solutions into a single, centralized DICOM repository. Tightly integrated Agfa HealthCare XERO viewer software technology provides unified clinical viewing of images and reports across the enterprise and beyond via popular browsers, without any additional client download. XERO is an integrated zero download universal clinical imaging viewer with conformance to the IHE technical framework.
The VNA solution also supports collaboration within healthcare communities, by offering real-time access to a patient’s complete medical record — including diagnostic imaging — regardless of the facility in which the patient was treated. As part of the health information exchange (HIE), IDC 3.0 consolidates hospitals’ archives, enabling cost-effective management of patient data in a secure and controlled environment.
Supporting improved delivery of patient care
By allowing seamless sharing of data from different departments and facilities, IDC 3.0 enables improved continuity of care and more informed clinical decision-making. Eliminating the need for repeated and unnecessary exams through greater information sharing allows healthcare providers to reduce both cost and the amount of radiation to which a patient is exposed.
Data ownership
“Hospitals today are very concerned about vendor lock-in, and the risk of having their data essentially held hostage by their vendor,” comments Koen Meeusen, Global Solution manager IDC, Agfa HealthCare. “IDC 3.0 follows Agfa HealthCare’s philosophy that patient data belong to the patient, and that the healthcare institution is the ‘gatekeeper’ — not the informatics vendor! That’s why we added new archival storage plug-in features to our PACS-agnostic solution. IDC is highly conformant to DICOM, HL7 and the IHE technical framework, so not only can we preserve our clients’ existing systems — we can actually enhance them.”
For more information: www.agfahealthcare.com
April 03, 2024 
