Agfa has had an exciting month. In late June the company announced FDA clearance of its XERO mobile diagnostic viewing solution. Since then it has announced a multimillion dollar contract with Prime Healthcare Services through which the company will provide at least 50 of its DX-D 100 mobile DR solutions.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the annual meeting of the AHRA in Las Vegas, the company has also announced a few innovations that will make the DX-D 100 even easier to operate for hospital technologists. HCB News spoke to Ueli Laupper, Agfa's director of DR business, to find out more details regarding the AHRA announcements, as well as the arrangement with Prime Healthcare.

HCB News: It seems like there are two big things happening with Agfa this month, and they both revolve around the DX-D 100. To start us off can you tell me a bit about what the DX-D 100 is, and what sets it apart from comparable DR systems?

Ueli Laupper: Well, the DX-D 100 is our mobile DR solution and currently already enjoys a large market share. When you look at the different segments – retrofit DR, room DR, and mobile DR – mobile is the fastest growing of the three segments. We have had great success with our existing technology because it has the same advantages we offer with all of our DR solutions — better image quality thanks to Musica, 60 percent lower radiation dose compare to other systems on the market, and better connectivity to RIS or PACS workstations to improve workflow and productivity.

HCB News: At AHRA this year you’re going to be unveiling some solutions to further improve the performance of the DX-D 100. What will those improvements be?

UL: What we’re introducing is something called FreeView technology which will make the DX-D 100 even more user friendly. It is essentially a telescoping column so that a technologist can lower the column while driving the system through hospital hallways with an unobstructed view.

When you look at competitive mobile DR systems on the market they have fixed columns so you have to look to the left or right of the column to see where you’re going. With FreeView we are minimizing the risk of accidentally driving into anything — or anyone — en route to the examination.

HCB News: Is there anything else like this on the market?

UL: One competitor has a similar solution, but their collapsible column is electrically driven. That creates a few disadvantages. One, it takes away battery and operating power from the system; Two, it requires more maintenance. There have been incidents where the electric motor stopped functioning.

Our approach is a mechanism that requires no battery power, is faster to position, and has no maintenance or reliability issues.

HCB News: Are you unveiling other new features for the DX-D 100?

UL: We are changing the DX-D100's battery technology to crystal lead battery, which will improve the life of a single charge. When you look at the user requirements for a mobile system, the battery life is very important, and that's another thing we will be discussing at AHRA.

Agfa’s existing DX-D 100 already had a duel battery system so we already had the ability to power the unit and the X-ray generator separately, but now those batteries will keep the system running even longer. The systems already in the market will also be upgradeable to the new battery.

HCB News: Prime Healthcare has signed up to install 50 or more DX-D 100s at its 34 acute care hospitals. Can you tell me about how that agreement was developed and why Prime chose Agfa for the contract?

UL: They wanted to replace existing GE AMX systems and since June of last year they've undergone a very thorough due diligence, looking at all mobile DR technology out there. At the end of the day they decided Agfa would be the vendor of choice. So we are thrilled to be working with them on that.

To us, it underlines our claims that when it comes to mobile imaging we have the best value proposition at this point. Agfa has invested a lot of money to become a leader, and Prime Healthcare looked at very company in the market and chose us as an exclusive partner.

We have already started delivering the first systems.

HCB News: Was anything included in the agreement besides the systems themselves?

UL: Absolutely. We offer a turnkey solution — that was also part of our value proposition; a complete package including technology and user training and five years of service and financing with our Agfa finance decision. Everything is covered including detector insurance. We put together a package covering any aspect of mobile DR for Prime Healthcare for the next five years.

HCB News: Looking towards the end of summer and fall, can we expect any big news from Agfa?

UL: I don’t want to say too much but in general, our business grew by more than 300 percent over the last three years. We are the fastest growing DR brand in North America and we are committed to being a dominant player in DR technology. To do that we continue to bring out new products and new product lines.

We introduced automated exposure retrofit products that allows us to retrofit any X-ray system in the market very simple. Within one hour we can upgrade any x-ray system from CR or analogue to DR, we are continuing to add additional formats to our automated exposure technology, we are also continuously introducing additional DR rooms to further expand our line of DR solutions, so there are quite a lot of new things coming soon in addition to the FreeView.