Sectra joint-owner in new teleradiology company for reading of X-ray images

Sectra joint-owner in new teleradiology company for reading of X-ray images The Swedish IT and medical technology company Sectra is forming a new teleradiology company, PaxLink AB, in cooperation with Orebro Innovation Center and a group of Swedish radiologists. PaxLink AB will have its headquarter in Örebro, Sweden. The business concept is to receive and read X-ray images from Swedish and Norwegian hospitals where there is a shortage of radiologists and thus hard to manage to read all incoming X- rays. The images and patient-data will be sent digitally which means responses from PaxLink need not take longer than responses from the same clinic. The reading of the images at PaxLink will among others be done by qualified radiologists from the Orebro Medical Centre Hospital. The Scandinavian markets have a significant shortage of radiologists. "Through our cooperation with PaxLink we can offer our Swedish and Norwegian PACS customers an additional service", says Torbjörn Kronander, President of Sectra Imtec AB. "Our Sectra PACS customers in Sweden and Norway can now get a very easy-to-obtain assistance with shortage of staff. "This is in itself not a primary business for Sectra and we only have a part of the ownership in the new company. But by the combined offer of services and Sectra's best in class medical IT-systems, we can increase the customer benefits from a PACS partnership with Sectra even further. We intend to make the service very easy to use, by completely integrating service and IT-systems in order to provide a very effective service for our customers in Scandinavian hospitals," concludes Torbjörn Kronander. PaxLink AB will be able to receive occasional radiology examinations from hospitals that temporarily have shortage of staff, but will also work with long-term contracts, where all or some of the examinations from a certain hospital are sent to PaxLink for a longer period. Transfer of data will use state of the art data security and patient integrity. Sectra has a large competence within secure communications and provides IT security to both the Swedish and the Norwegian Military. In countries outside of Scandinavia Sectra is interested to provide similar services in partnership with local Radiology groups and Sectra's local sales partners. This new start up is intended for Scandinavia only however. Sectra is one of today's major PACS providers with more than 200 PACS installations worldwide. The Swedish based company operates through partners in most of the world, and delivers directly to end customers in Northern Europe. The core business is to deliver top-of-the-line high- availability, robust enterprise PACS for 24/7 operation. In Sweden, which is currently the country with the largest penetration of PACS in the world, Sectra holds a dominant market leadership with more than 60% of all film free installations. The company has its largest number of installed systems in Sweden and in the US (through partners), but has also an installed base in Germany, Norway, Finland, UK, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and the Far East. For further information, please contact: Sectra Imtec AB, Torbjörn Kronander, President, +46 705 23 52 27, to-kro@sectra.se or Sectra AB, Jan-Olof Brüer, President and CEO, +46 13 23 52 09, job@sectra.se or PaxLink AB, Frank Christiansen, MD, President, +46 19 602 10 06 Visit our website http://www.sectra.com Sectra's operations Sectra has its roots in Linköping Technical University and is one of Sweden's fastest growing high-tech companies in the IT area. Since the mid-1980s, Sectra has successfully conducted development and sales of high-technology medical IT and telecommunications products. Today, the business includes products in medical systems, secure communication systems and wireless information systems. Sectra's medical business is conducted in Sectra Imtec AB, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sectra AB. Internationally, Sectra PACS is marketed and sold through different partners. Business is conducted in six countries with a total of 195 employees. Sales for the fiscal year May 2000-April 2001 reached SEK 292 million. Since March 1999, Sectra's shares have been quoted on the O list of the OM Stockholm Exchange. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/10/01/20011001BIT00500/bit0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/10/01/20011001BIT00500/bit0001.pdf