Sectra has been awarded a contract to deliver an IT infrastructure for regional radiology information exchange and cooperation among hospitals to the Swedish county council Region Skåne.

The new IT infrastructure will support automatic sharing and distribution of radiology information to all departments involved in the radiology workflow.

The county council of Region Skåne covers 10 hospitals, which perform more than 900,000 radiology examinations annually. In Sweden health is the responsibility of local county councils

The new agreement builds on an existing partnership between Sectra and Region Skåne. The IT solution has been in operation in the region’s image and function diagnostic departments. Under the new agreement Region Skåne has now ordered additional functionality that will enable improved distributed radiology cooperation within and outside the region.

Using Sectra’s radiology information exchange infrastructure, hospitals and clinics can exchange radiological patient information independent of the supplier of the radiology image and information processing system.

Benefits claimed include enhanced security for the patient, by ensuring that all relevant information is available to the physician when needed, regardless of the hospital at which previous treatments were carried out.

Only authorised clinicians are provided access to information, ensuring patient confidentiality is maintained.

“With the Sectra system, we have the possibility of information exchange and cooperation within and outside the region,” says Eva Hansson, strategist in the management group – Program Office in Region Skåne.

“Through this solution we gain IT support that is geographically and organisationally independent and that provides a seamless handling of care processes between private and public care providers. The information is uniform, coherent, accessible and correct, which will contribute to improved and more efficient care.”

“The trust placed in us by Region Skåne through this order is confirmation that we can deliver future-proof products and meet the high demands our customers place on us,” says Marie Ekström, president, Sectra Scandinavia.