CHU de Liège and Agfa to Advance Information Sharing

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège (CHU; Belgium) and Agfa Healthcare (Mortsel, Belgium) have launched an innovative Portal project to promote greater information sharing with external caregivers. The Portal is intended to provide easy, authorized access to images and reports, replacing the current CD distribution system with a more accessible, secure way to share information with caregivers outside the hospital that is in-line with the CHU high level, long term CAP 2020 strategy.

“CD burning technology has become more outdated compared to other innovations in the digital age, and it no longer answers our needs or the needs of the referring physicians and patients we serve,” said computer scientist Gregory Canivet, RIS/PACS/ cardio application manager at CHU Liege. “We wanted to replace all CD-burning activity in the radiology department with a patient & referral portal that would give easy, fast access to the patient’s images using the most up-to-date technology. But it would need to be a solution that could scale up in the future to include more and more information.”

To implement the new Patient & Referral Portal solution, CHU de Liège and Agfa HealthCare installed the XERO Viewer, which was directly connected to the hospital’s existing Agfa HealthCare picture archiving and communication system (PACS). XERO converts images and content for display without requiring any client software installation. Very intuitive to use, it includes advanced clinical tools for the referring physician and is based on up-to-date web technology. Importantly, the single platform and direct connection allow access to the patient’s complete image history, from all five of the hospital’s sites.

“We have a very positive relationship with Agfa HealthCare and their team worked in close collaboration with our own team on this project. “They were able to offer us a unique technology concept: putting the PACS backend and the XERO Viewer on the same platform,” continued Gregory Canivet. “This means we don’t need an extra cache, saving us storage and hardware costs. With a single cache there is no risk of error due to synchronization, while a second cache is also slower. So this unique platform set-up is more effective and faster.”

The project team and Agfa HealthCare also worked closely with the CHU IT department to develop and implement an e-ID based security system for secure authentication, without making the login process too complicated for users. To access their images, patients need a standard e-card reader, a Belgian electronic ID card, and their PIN number for the ID card. For referring physicians, their unique identifier (INAMI code) was mapped to their national ID number, so they are automatically identified as such when they connect.

When a patient checks in at the reception, the secretary indicates in the system whether a Portal access code must be generated on the report, and prints out a unique access code for the patient. The validated report automatically includes the access code, and it is printed on a centralized printer. The reports are then sent to the referring physician by post or by a secure messaging system; additional specialists or GPs who need to receive the report and access the images can be easily included in the email.

Patients and referring physicians also receive a link for each request, allowing them to connect any time they wish to the Portal webpage, which is integrated directly into the hospital’s website. The referring physician can access both images and reports, while the patient can see images only; this enables patients to get a proper explanation of images and results from their own doctor.

“The patients have been very positive about the Portal. Being able to access, download and share their images makes them feel part of a more transparent process. In the first week, between 10 and 20 patients logged in each day. By week four, that number had reached 100 per day,” concluded Mr. Canivet. “The referring physicians are also quickly adopting the Portal; in the first four weeks following the launch, 96 had already connected. And even our internal clinicians appreciate the DICOM export functionality, which allows them to use the images for other purposes, such as conference calls, case studies, and more.”

The Portal is also complementary to the “Réseau de Santé Wallon,” which allows sharing of digitalized images and other patient information across the region of Wallonia (Belgium).

Related Links:
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire
Agfa Healthcare