pdfPro Medicus Gains Momentum in US with Three New Orders Totalling $2.5M – Acrobat pdf 31k

7 September 2011

Leading e-health company Pro Medicus

[ASX: PME] today announced its wholly-owned subsidiary, Visage Imaging Inc. (“Visage”), has signed three new orders in North America which will generate revenue of $2.5 million over five years for the company.

The newly signed customers will implement the company’s Visage® 7 enterprise viewer that leverages ultra-fast, thin-client streaming technology with native advanced visualisation in a single desktop.

“Each of our new North American customers is using Visage imaging technology to solve a different, but equally valid problem, which demonstrates the versatility of the technology,” said Dr Sam Hupert, Chief Executive Officer, Pro Medicus. One radiology group is using it for imaging results distribution to referrers, the second to read cases remotely from over 15 hospitals and the third for medical research. When we acquired Visage in 2009, our intent was to broaden the reach of the product portfolio from a specialised, niche 3D application to one that addresses a significantly larger percentage of the diagnostic imaging market. I’m confident we have done that with Visage 7.”

Center for Diagnostic Imaging, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) is a one of the largest operators of outpatient imaging centres in the US. After an extensive evaluation process, CDI selected Visage 7 for web distribution of images to their referring physicians. Visage’s ultra-fast, thin- client streaming solution will be fully integrated with CDI’s web-based physician portal to provide instant access to examinations performed in any of CDI’s 59 imaging centres throughout the country.

“Most web-based image viewers do not provide our specialized referring physicians the speed and advanced tool sets required to support larger image volumes,” said Jeff Jahn, CDI’s Clinical Imaging Director. “Visage 7 provides us the ability to customise display protocols and toolsets to the needs of individual referrers, which allows us to offer a more tailored level of service than would otherwise be possible using standard web-based technology.“

Central Illinois Radiological Associates, Peoria, Illinois

Central Illinois Radiological Associates (CIRA), a large Illinois-based practice comprising 72 radiologists, provides diagnostic interpretation services to 15 hospitals in their region. A central challenge has been working with disparate PACS systems, from seven different vendors, that are spread across the hospitals they service. CIRA’s goal was to have a single, enterprise viewer for remote primary interpretation across all of these institutions. Their situation is not unique, as many radiology practices across the globe face similar challenges servicing their customers today.

Patrick Ward, CIRA’s Chief Information Officer, said, “Our tests confirmed that with Visage’s streaming technology, not only do we no longer have to push DICOM files to the radiologist’s desktop, it is the only product that offers us the unique combination of speed, performance and fully integrated advanced visualisation tools, all in one thin- client viewer.”

Imaging Endpoints, Scottsdale, Arizona

Imaging Endpoints, a US-based, core medical imaging laboratory, focused on accelerating the clinical trial process for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, will use Visage technology to accelerate its’ clinical trial process. More specifically, it will use the Visage 7 solution for faster access to data via thin-client, web- streaming technology to optimize workflow efficiency.

“This revolutionary thin-client technology allows us to reach our network of highly specialised experts, wherever they may be,” said James T. Whitfill, MD, Chief Information Officer for Imaging Endpoints. “Now we can get the most accurate and consistent readings out even faster. Visage 7 works on a variety of operating system platforms, and uses bandwidth so efficiently, that we can instantly bring the highly technical tools to analyse our core lab images to the radiologist, rather than waiting to bring the radiologist to the workstation.”

Dr. Hupert continued, “These new US deals signify that we are starting to gain traction as radiology groups are increasingly realising there are powerful, inherent advantages to our technology that other solutions simply cannot match. The problems we are solving for these groups are common to many of the large radiology providers in the US. Once implemented, these new customers will provide reference sites on which we intend to gain further business.”