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European healthcare group Carestream Health has reached the midway stage of its installation of the picture archiving and communications system (PACS) system in Scottish hospitals.
There are now 21 Scottish hospitals connected to the PACS in just seven months, with the remaining 39 due to be online by the end of the financial year.
This represents 10,000 general clinical users and 20 radiologists already registered.
The PACS system is a network dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of images.
Although only half-way through the systems roll out there are more than one million images stored.
PACS allows clinical staff to view images such as CT scans or X-rays off-site, often involving multiple users in different locations.
Carestream’s UK & Ireland territory manager, Charlie McCaffrey, said: “We will continue to roll out the programme over the coming months and aim to complete installations by the end of 2008, with final acceptance formalised in the first quarter of 2009.”
The company is also one of the provider of the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework throughout the UK and is preparing to deal with health boards and hospitals throughout the UK
Mr McCaffrey added: “NHS trusts will be able to approach us for business and we would hope to make available the products we are providing for NHSScotland and other European products which could integrate with existing NPfIT solutions.”
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