In this case study you’ll learn about the implementation of Enterprise Imaging at Valle d’Aosta and the benefits it brings to the delivery of high-quality patient care in the region.

In 2020, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and subsequent confinement measures, Azienda USL della Valle d’Aosta needed to replace its existing radiology information system/picture archiving and communication system (RIS/PACS). “Our system was about 15 years old, so it was time for a new one,” explains Giuseppe Giglio, IT manager.

The hospital followed the public tender process required to source the new equipment. “The tender covered both quality and economic criteria; the former including the system architecture, the integration, functionality – with a special focus on nuclear medicine, services, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, etc.,” describes Dr. Poti.

Six vendors took part in the tender process. Agfa HealthCare’s joint proposal with Lutech SpA included the Enterprise Imaging for Radiology and Nuclear Medicine platform, the Elefante RIS¹ and the XERO Universal Viewer. Lutech provided servers, storage and workstations.

“We didn’t have experience with Agfa HealthCare, so we were a bit surprised when its Enterprise Imaging solution came out ahead, performing strongly in all categories.”

“We also arranged demo presentations for each tender participant, and Agfa HealthCare really impressed us. When we would see, touch, and try the system, it made the criteria in the written tender more concrete for us. But just as importantly, at the demo we could meet the people from Agfa HealthCare who would be working with us, and we were very pleased with them and their approach.” In the end, based on the global evaluation, Agfa HealthCare’s proposal was selected.

¹ Solution only available in Italy

With the tender completed, and the contract signed in September 2020, Agfa HealthCare had only three months to implement the system and go live by mid-December – all while respecting the COVID-19 hygiene requirements.

Working groups with all stakeholders were set up, comprised of the Agfa HealthCare representatives, Dr. Carlo Poti, Giuseppe Giglio, the integration manager, the technician manager, and the administration manager. All activities for the project were assigned an ‘owner’, and the group met, either virtually or in person, once a week. This robust project management approach created a close relationship between Agfa HealthCare and Azienda USL della Valle d’Aosta and ensured the engagement of the hospital staff in the project.

Despite the tight timeframe, the go-live went very smoothly, thanks in large part to the careful preparation work, explains Giuseppe Giglio.

“During the pre-go-live phase, the teams analyzed and discussed in depth the specific workflows for radiology and nuclear medicine, in order to match the configuration to the hospital’s real way of working.”

“We also had a demo of the Elefante RIS, in order to understand all the features, and to determine which functionalities fit in which departments.

The Elefante RIS was very flexible to our needs: it adapted to our routine, rather than requiring us to adapt our way of working,” comments Dr. Poti.

The integration of Enterprise Imaging with the hospital information system (HIS) and electronic medical record (EMR) was straightforward, because the teams worked closely together and followed a precise plan. Agfa HealthCare also communicated directly with the third-party vendors. “For example, when it was time for the integration with our radiopharmacy software, we arranged to have the vendor there, and everything was carefully monitored by all parties,” Dr. Poti describes.

Although the hospital has only been using Enterprise Imaging for a few months, some advantages are already clear. “The entire solution is very user-friendly and the workflow matches a logical patient flow,” Dr Poti starts. “As soon as an exam is evaluated and approved by a radiologist, an order is created. The subsequent process is largely automated, for inpatients and outpatients. Manual data entry is limited to a minimum.”

For the radiologists, he specifies, the reporting workflow is very easy, and the ability to access and compare both current and prior images is proving a big benefit in particular. “All of this has strengthened the adoption by the users: they were all pleased when the system went live, and have welcomed the new functionalities.”

Both Dr Poti and Giuseppe Giglio agree that a major factor in the successful implementation and adoption has been the support and professionalism of the Agfa HealthCare team. “With a project like this, the technology is only part of the story: you cannot underestimate the importance of people to the overall results! Agfa’s team was dedicated to working closely with us to make sure everything went well with the implementation and adoption, despite the short time-frame and the COVID restrictions,” says Dr. Poti.

“With the implementation complete, we now have a very good resident engineer from Agfa HealthCare who works on-site. He is passionate and dedicated: wherever we have an issue, he is there to solve it,” adds Giuseppe Giglio.

“We have quite a few plans for the future with our Enterprise Imaging platform. You can’t always know what you will need, but I am confident that Enterprise Imaging will be able to handle our evolving requirements, and that the Agfa HealthCare team will be there to support us; we have the goal to collect all the images coming front different departments and in the next months we are planning the extension of our Enterprise Imaging platform with the VNA Pillar. Our vision is to have a unique multidisciplinary imaging archive with a universal zero footprint viewer integrated within our EMR to have a comprehensive patient history” Dr. Poti.