The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Toulouse has become the first French teaching hospital to go-live with Agfa HealthCare’s ORBIS health information system.

The deployment follows an initial installation in the digestive surgery department of the hospital, and over a five year period this is expected to be rolled out across the hospital in a bid to deploy a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR) across Toulouse.

Yann Morvezen, director of information systems at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU), said: “Last year, the EPR Committee, chaired by Franck Boutault, unanimously chose ORBIS as the most suitable solution for our hospital.

“One of the main reasons for this decision is the fact that ORBIS covers the whole patient clinical pathway: admissions, medical record management, integration of medical history, care record management, connections with various technical platforms, and the medico-economic side, which is essential for activity-based management.”

From December, ORBIS will become the central access portal for the hospital’s healthcare units, covering the whole patient clinical pathway in all departments.

Deployment has been planned to roll-out in two phases spread over the five years; the first phase will last until 2009 and will be dedicated to the replacement of the various existing electronic medical records. The second phase will relate to the care record and the electronic prescription.

Philippe Blanco, managing director of Agfa HealthCare France, said: “With over 750 installations of our ORBIS solution across Europe, Agfa HealthCare has established itself as a leading healthcare IT player. As with other installations, the success of this important project is based on a solid co-operation between the CHU and Agfa HealthCare.

“To help assure a smooth operational transition, Agfa HealthCare will also provide the hospital with a high quality training and coaching program as an integral part of its service.”

Elsewhere, the Salzburger Landeskliniken hospital group, in Austria, has successfully installed Agfa HealthCare’s ORBIS solution together with its Agfa IMPAX PACS solution as part of its EPR deployment.

ORBIS serves 350 organisational units within the facility, including hospital wards, outpatient units, operating theatres, and specialist departments and has resulted in a reduction in the number of standard forms from 650 to 50.

"We have selected Agfa HealthCare’s solutions on the basis of three key factors: firstly its holistic, process-based product approach, secondly, the outstanding user-friendliness of the user interface, and finally the positive experience reported by a number of hospitals using ORBIS, which the SALK had consulted," SALK Managing Director Dr. Max Laimböck said.

He added: “With the introduction of the new hospital information system, the SALK has passed a major milestone on the road to establishing itself as a state-of-the-art, process-oriented healthcare organisation.”

Links

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Toulouse (French only)

Agfa HealthCare

Salzburger Landeskliniken (German only)