VIENNA, March 3 -- Eastman Kodak Company and BUPA, an international health and care organization, today announced an agreement where Kodak will support BUPA's 26 hospitals across the United Kingdom in transitioning to digital medical imaging and information management.

The agreement, announced at the European Congress of Radiology in Vienna, Austria, will involve the deployment of KODAK CARESTREAM Radiology Solution and Enterprise Information Management Solution platforms. These platforms will facilitate the generation and storage of patients' radiology images, as well as the remote reporting of radiology exams within and between the BUPA hospitals. Kodak will support the deployment with a range of professional services including project management, implementation and training.

Kodak's patient-centric platforms will provide transition for the current diagnostic workload, plus a rapidly scaleable infrastructure for future diagnostic service expansion.
A BUPA Data Centre will provide the hub for a clinical repository for long-term image storage and to support image sharing between the 26 BUPA hospitals, plus secure Web reporting across the BUPA Hospitals network. Local picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) will be deployed at each hospital to provide digital image capture from hospital modalities, local diagnostic reporting and Web distribution of images.

"Deployment of KODAK CARESTREAM Solutions throughout the BUPA network will support our company's future growth," said Clare Hollingsworth, managing director, BUPA Hospitals Limited. "The ability to share and display digital patient images between clinical sites will help us to maintain our high-quality patient care and improve radiologist workflow."

"We are delighted that BUPA has chosen Kodak to deliver such an innovative e-health solution to its hospital network," said Ian Marron, Director, e-health Solutions for Kodak's Europe, Africa & Middle East Region (EAMER). "This is a great endorsement for our integrated radiology solution."

Kodak's proven RIS-PACS and storage management solutions are currently successfully deployed at healthcare facilities around the world, including more than 250 sites across the European Union. Kodak has signed more than 70 new customers for these solutions in the past 12 months.

Implementation across BUPA Hospitals will begin upon completion of site surveys at the end of March followed by a phased rollout.

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