Approval to Operate and Authority to Connect for its leading solutions 

Agfa HealthCare, a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic imaging solutions, announces today that the U.S. Air Force Surgeon General’s office and the Air Force Communications Agency have granted the newest version of Agfa HealthCare’s Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), IMPAX® 6.3, and its IMPAX Data Center, an Authority to Connect (ATC).  This certification and accreditation is based on rigorous guidelines defined by the Department of Defense Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP).  In 2004, Agfa HealthCare was the first PACS solution vendor to receive the Air Force’s Approval to Operate for its existing software.  The company is the first PACS vendor to receive approval under DIACAP, and this new certification allows IMPAX 6.3 and IMPAX Data Center to be installed on U.S. Air Force networks.

“The US Air Force continuously challenges its vendors to deliver the toughest IT security standards within global clinical operations and we take the quality of care, privacy and security of our government customers and their patients very seriously,” said Tim Artz, Global Government Program Director at Agfa HealthCare. “Agfa HealthCare has proven once again that IMPAX achieves the Air Force’s stringent requirements in one of the most comprehensive security test and evaluation procedures in the healthcare information technology industry, and this with a continued drive to deliver clinical performance in a complex healthcare environment.”

IMPAX is a web-deployable application that provides the necessary tools and customizable workflows that help overcome the physical barriers of complex multi-site environments like the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facilities.  IMPAX is a single image-management and storage solution that improves the planning, capture, interpretation, distribution, and archiving of diagnostic images, allowing a virtual view of a patient’s imaging record, from anywhere Internet access is available, all on a single desktop.  The IMPAX Data Center provides multimedia storage to consolidate data from disparate systems into a single point of storage.

To date, Agfa HealthCare has implemented more than $300M USD in PACS and Teleradiology systems and services for the DoD and VA, installing its products at more than 150 DoD and VA facilities worldwide, including more than 30 U.S. Navy warships with onboard radiology suites and the two U.S. Navy hospital ships, Mercy and Comfort. 

About the Agfa-Gevaert Group

The Agfa-Gevaert Group is one of the world’s leading imaging and information technology companies. Agfa develops, manufactures and markets analogue and digital systems for the printing industry (Agfa Graphics), the healthcare sector (Agfa HealthCare) and specific industrial applications (Agfa Materials). Agfa's headquarters are in Mortsel, Belgium. The company is present in 40 countries and has agents in another 100 countries throughout the world. The Agfa-Gevaert Group achieved a turnover of 3,283 million Euro in 2007.

About Agfa HealthCare

Agfa HealthCare, a member of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, is a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic image management solutions, and state-of-the-art systems for capturing and processing images in hospitals and healthcare facilities. Agfa HealthCare has over a century of healthcare experience related to diagnostic imaging and has been a pioneer on the healthcare IT market since the early 1990’s. The HealthCare division has sales offices and agents in over 100 markets worldwide. Sales for Agfa HealthCare in 2007 were 1,392 million Euro, accounting for 43% of total group sales. For more information on Agfa HealthCare, please visit www.agfa.com/healthcare.