Doernbecher Children's Hospital Opens Filmless With PACS Network From Agfa.

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.--(BW HealthWire)--July 14, 1998-- Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, Oregon moved into a new home this month. Located on the Marquam Hill Campus of Oregon Health Sciences University, the $73 million, 250,000 square foot facility has been designed to provide the best in state-of-the-art health care to its patients.

One of the many examples of this is the new PACS network from Agfa. DICOM-compatible so as to work seamlessly with the hospital's new CT, MRI, and ultrasound capabilities, the system also uses an Agfa ADC Compact CR system. According to Doernbecher PACS Coordinator John Hanada, the installation is the first and only full-scale PACS in Oregon, and one of the largest in the northwestern United States.

When the hospital first opened its doors in 1926, it was the only children's hospital in Oregon. Throughout its lifetime, the old facility always used film as an imaging medium. An Agfa Drystar Dry digital imager is on hand in the new building if a hard copy of an image is needed, but such a need will at best be minimal. The new facility has been filmless from day one. Images at Doernbecher are stored in a digital archive occupying no more than about seven square feet of floor space.

For ease of evaluation and interpretation, an RIS interface enables a radiology report to appear on screen at the same time as its corresponding image. Workflow management software enables prior reports and images to be pre-fetched so both can be viewed side-by-side with the results of a current exam.

To speed up access to radiology information, and to more quickly and efficiently get that information to the doctors who need it, the radiology imaging system at the new Doernbecher Children's Hospital uses no film. Instead, all images are created electronically, accessed in seconds whenever they are needed, and displayed on high-resolution workstation monitors. These are located not only in radiology, but also in Pediatric and Neo-natal intensive care units. Alternatively, images and reports can be retrieved at any of 17 PC-based clinical review stations in clinics throughout the hospital.

The system can be readily expanded if and when the need arises. For example, more (or all) of the hospital areas that make up Oregon Health Sciences University could be linked to the digital archive and equipped for viewing images on workstations. Another possibility is installation of a Web-based system that would enable images and reports to be accessed at any authorized desktop computer in the University, and even to referring physicians off campus.

The Agfa-Gevaert Group is a leading worldwide manufacturer of imaging products and systems with annual sales of $5 billion. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany and Mortsel, Belgium, Agfa-Gevaert manufactures and markets products and systems for the photographic and digital graphic communications, medical and technical diagnostic, and amateur and professional photographic markets. In the United States, the Agfa Division, with headquarters in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, is a part of Bayer Corporation. Bayer, headquartered in Pittsburgh, is a research-based company with major businesses in health care and life sciences, chemicals and imaging technologies. Bayer had sales of $9.3 billion in 1997 and employs 24,000 people. Capital expenditures totaled $746 million, and $639 million was spent for research and development. Bayer Corporation is a member of the worldwide Bayer Group, a $32.4 billion chemical and pharmaceutical company, also based in Leverkusen.

  CONTACT: Thomas E. Colucci
            Director, Marketing Communications
            Agfa Division, Bayer Corporation
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