LINKÖPING, Sweden, Oct. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/
-- International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity
company Sectra (STO: SECT B) has signed
an enterprise imaging contract with Greater Manchester in the UK.
NHS trusts across Greater Manchester will thus take an important
step in a new region-wide imaging approach that will enable faster
diagnoses and better outcomes for millions of patients.
Eight NHS hospital trusts in Greater Manchester are to benefit
from a medical imaging solution that will transform how doctors and
other NHS healthcare professionals access and review images from
patient scans that are crucial to identifying illnesses and
delivering effective care. For the first time, x-rays, CT scans,
ultrasound, MRI scans and an extensive range of other diagnostic
images will flow seamlessly and immediately to appropriate
healthcare professionals across Greater Manchester, meaning better
access to the right radiologists and appropriate specialists and
faster diagnoses for patients.
The new region-wide PACS solution is being deployed in the cloud
alongside a vendor neutral archive (VNA) and will replace an ageing
system in the region's hospitals.
Once live across the trusts, this will allow specialist NHS
radiologists and diagnostic professionals to more easily access and
report on patient images captured at any hospital in the region.
Clinicians at the point of care will also be able to access images
at the click of the button through their own organization's
electronic patient record systems, and through a regional
integrated digital care record. And the system will provide the
foundations to transform patient pathways, deliver a new seamless
model of care in Greater Manchester, and to take advantage of
emerging technologies - including artificial
intelligence.
The clinically led programme is expected to support every person
living in Greater Manchester requiring imaging and will cover the
3.2 million people in the geographical reach of the Greater
Manchester Cancer program, making it one of the largest imaging
programmes of its kind in the NHS and anywhere in Europe.
Raj Jain, executive senior responsible owner for the program
that is managed by the Greater Manchester Provider Federation
Board, and who is also chief executive of the Northern Care
Alliance NHS Group (NCA), said: "This program for a collaborative
approach to imaging in Greater Manchester has required a high
degree of cooperation and trust. It will lead to significantly
improved outcomes for our patients and significantly improved
work-life balance and satisfaction for our staff, as well as
productivity and financial benefits that will help us sustain great
care going forward.
"Our vision wasn't for a PACS system - this is a means to an
end. The real vision is about how we want to take forward patient
care. Our new approach will enable clinical communities and
multi-disciplinary teams to come together around the patient in a
way we presently can't do. The PACS platform is an essential
component to taking forward a new model of care in Greater
Manchester, allowing digital images to form part of the core
patient record and to create a holistic persona for the patient
that our clinicians can use much more effectively than we have ever
done before."
Dr. Rhidian Bramley, a clinical
lead for the program and consultant radiologist at The Christie NHS
Foundation Trust, said: "This agreement represents the culmination
of many years of work. A single, unified record will help to avoid
delays that come with manually transferring images between
individual hospitals. It will help us to reduce variation in
waiting times and improve equity in access. For cancer, this will
help us to meet our objective to diagnose more patients at an
earlier stage to help to save thousands more lives. And the
platform itself will make a significant difference to
professionals, providing modern tools to report images whilst
allowing us to embrace emerging artificial intelligence and to
support important programs of research."
The contract was signed during October
2020. The new platform will be used to process up to four
million examinations per year and will be deployed across the eight
NHS trusts at different stages, with the first going live in 2020.
Trusts involved include:
- Bolton NHS Foundation Trust
- The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
- Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
- The Northern Care Alliance NHS Group - which brings together
hospitals in Salford, Oldham, Bury and Rochdale across Salford
Royal NHS Foundation Trust and The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS
Trust
- Stockport NHS Foundation Trust
- Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust
Dr. Rizwan Malik, a clinical lead
for the program and interim divisional medical director at The
Royal Bolton Hospital, said: "We will have a modern imaging system
deployed region wide that will enable us to liberate the geography
of patient management, in keeping with how we practice medicine,
where patients move from one site to another. In any
multidisciplinary setting we can have a more informed meaningful
discussion about a patient. And if they present out of hours, we
don't need to wait until the office opens in the morning to access
their imaging.
"New capabilities mean we can think more openly about delivering
care for patients at sites convenient for them. And it will allow
us to quickly access second opinions from colleagues across Greater
Manchester whilst having greater access to peer review, and being
able to make far more of the human resource available to us within
the NHS."
The program hopes to join together more than just radiology
imaging. In the future, it is expected to bring together imaging
for disciplines including nuclear medicine, orthopaedics and
medical photography. And the program has also been future proofed
so that imaging from specialisms including endoscopy, cardiology
and pathology can eventually be added into the Sectra imaging
solution.
Ray Timmins, the systems lead for
the initiative, said: "This is not about a new system for
radiology. The test will be making sure that an emergency
department doctor can quickly access imaging to inform an important
decision, or that a consultant can use imaging to determine in
minutes if a patient has had a stroke. It's about more than
hospitals too - with community access also important. And whether
its COVID-19 or other emergencies - this should put Greater
Manchester in a stronger position to respond."
Chris Sleight, the program's
director, said: "With other programs on pause during the COVID-19
pandemic, this procurement has advanced at pace and will be crucial
in enabling hospitals to meet diagnostic demands. The new platform
will take us to a place where we can really transform services,
where clinicians can work across organizational boundaries, where
we can reduce outsourcing, and where patients might get scanned in
their locality but get reported by a professional on the other side
of Manchester.
"State-of-the-art technology will give the Greater Manchester
region a springboard to catch up and overtake what colleagues have
done in other parts of the country. We have an aggressive
implementation plan to get the benefits to everyone in the shortest
possible timescale. This will allow us to reduce mortality and
morbidity through faster diagnosis and reduce the need for patients
to attend multiple hospitals and face repeat scanning. And in
choosing Sectra we have a collaborative partner that shares our
vision and that will help us to drive forward our
ambitions."
Jane Rendall, Managing Director
UK and Ireland at Sectra, said:
"Working with the NHS in Greater Manchester is one of the most
exciting things we have ever done - not just because of the size
and complexity of the initiative - but because of the ambition.
This is about changing pathways and the diagnostic process so that
outcomes are likely to be more successful for patients. This is not
just an opportunity to deliver a clinical system but to make a
difference by working in partnership with Greater Manchester as a
social and health body that is improving prevention, treatment and
diagnostics for patients."
Sectra's enterprise imaging solution provides a unified strategy
for all imaging needs while lowering operational costs. The
scalable and modular solution, with a VNA at its core, allows
healthcare providers to grow from ology to ology and from
enterprise to enterprise. Read more about Sectra's enterprise
imaging solution and why Sectra PACS is ranked "Best in KLAS" for
seven consecutive years at medical.sectra.com.
About Sectra
Sectra assists hospitals throughout the world to enhance the
efficiency of care, and authorities and defense forces in
Europe to protect society's most
sensitive information. Thereby, Sectra contributes to a healthier
and safer society. The company was founded in 1978, has its head
office in Linköping, Sweden, with
direct sales in 19 countries, and operates through partners
worldwide. Sales in the 2019/2020 fiscal year totaled SEK 1,661 million. The Sectra share is quoted on
the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. For more information, visit
sectra.com.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Torbjörn Kronander, CEO and President Sectra AB, +46 (0)705
23 52 27
Marie Ekström Trägårdh, Executive Vice President Sectra AB and
President Sectra Imaging IT Solutions, +46 (0)708 23 56 10
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SOURCE Sectra