Remote Capabilities Extend Agfa HealthCare’s IMPAX Cardiovascular Suite throughout the Hospital Enterprise

IMPAX Cardiovascular Review Station Remote enables access to cardiovascular images and reporting tools from any Windows device

Mortsel, Belgium / Toronto, Canada - Agfa HealthCare, a leading provider of diagnostic imaging and healthcare IT solutions, today demonstrated remote capabilities that expand the accessibility of its IMPAX Cardiovascular Suite throughout the hospital enterprise. IMPAX Cardiovascular Review Station (CRS) Remote is being introduced at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2010 Annual Scientific Session, held March 14 - 16 in Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center.

The IMPAX Cardiovascular Suite is an enterprise-wide, feature-rich cardiology image and information management solution that connects with the leading modalities and enterprise information systems to provide a longitudinal view of cardiovascular patient data from a single point of access. Leveraging Citrix XenDesktop desktop virtualization technology, IMPAX CRS Remote now enables Microsoft Windows devices within the hospital enterprise to become virtual cardiovascular review stations that allow clinicians to access modality-specific toolkits, and interact with programs via a single point of access. IMPAX CRS Remote is intended for secondary image review.

“Providing full functionality of the IMPAX Cardiovascular Suite at an enterprise-wide level is consistent with Agfa HealthCare’s overall vision and strategy,” said Michael Green, Vice President North America, Agfa HealthCare. “By offering a full desktop review station experience from any Microsoft Windows device in the hospital enterprise, IMPAX CRS Remote frees clinicians from the confines of the cardiology reading room, to improve the timeliness and delivery of healthcare.”

Powered by Citrix XenDesktop, the process of accessing resources is transparent to the end user, who accesses IMPAX Cardiovascular remotely by navigating to a secure web page using one’s browser. Upon authentication, the end user sees the virtual desktop for IMPAX Cardiovascular. IMPAX CRS Remote helps facilitate its users’ compliance with security regulations by allowing for role-based access. Once authenticated, each user’s desktop provides access to different capabilities based on pre-assigned roles and responsibilities.

IMPAX CRS Remote was designed to provide high-fidelity imaging for cine loops used in cardiovascular imaging. For example, via Citrix XenDesktop technology, IMPAX CRS Remote streams video at more than 30 frames per second for angiography images. Because of the size of digital cine loops, hospital LAN/WAN and client device network connections must meet the minimum bandwidth requirement for each end user device, and client viewing devices must have sufficient data rates, fault tolerance, and screen size and resolution to safely and effectively perform the intended task. ( In the event of intranet connection issues, an IMPAX Cardiovascular Review Station should be used.)

IMPAX CRS Remote supports multimodality image review and reporting for cardiac catheterization, echocardiography, vascular ultrasound, and nuclear cardiology. Nuclear cardiologists will also benefit from enterprise-wide access to Invia’s Corridor4DM software for the quantification, review and reporting of cardiac perfusions, function, and anatomy. Corridor4DM’s advanced tools for visualization, quantification and reporting will enable nuclear cardiologists to efficiently process and review nuclear cardiology studies from any Microsoft Windows device in the hospital enterprise.

“Agfa HealthCare has a heritage of compatibility and interoperability with third party applications. We’ve long shown our commitment to bringing together multiple vendor applications on a single review station and allowing clinicians to experience their full functionality,” Lisa Braunreuther, Global Business Manager, Cardiology IT, Agfa HealthCare said. “With IMPAX CRS Remote, we’re reinforcing that commitment throughout the hospital enterprise.”

IMPAX CRS Remote will be available for shipment in the second quarter of 2010.