Manipal Hospitals, one of India's biggest hospital chains, has entered into a long-term partnership with Fujifilm India for the deployment of a large-scale PACS.

Based on their agreement, Fujifilm's RICS PACS will be rolled out in 23 hospitals and 45 teleradiology facilities under Manipal Hospitals' network across India. 

The scalable system, which covers three million studies per year, is now available for its radiology and cardiology specialities.

WHY IT MATTERS

Based on a press statement, the Fujifilm-powered PACS eliminates their need to manually store, retrieve, and send sensitive information, films, and reports. It also enables the storage of medical documents and images in secure off-site servers while ensuring secure access to such sensitive records from anywhere.

For patients, the system will allow them to access digital reports "as and when required" and receive diagnoses from their preferred Manipal Hospitals radiologist and cardiologist anywhere in the country. 

THE LARGER TREND

In a comment, Dr Dilip Jose, CEO of Manipal Hospitals, said that their partnership with Fujifilm offers interoperability that will "accelerate our progress toward digitisation."

The hospital chain, which serves over 4.5 million patients annually in 28 hospitals, has been digitising its assets and processes over the past years to deliver high-quality care and expand its reach across India, targeting underserved communities in lesser-tier cities.

In November, it tapped Google Cloud to implement the Amwell telehealth platform to enable virtual visits. Manipal Hospitals is now also using Google Cloud's conversational AI tools in appointment booking and doctor searching.

Their partnership also aims to create a digital platform for ordering medicines and build its remote patient monitoring capabilities. 

In its effort to promote remote health monitoring, Manipal Hospitals sought partnerships last year, one of which is with UK-based Isansys Lifecare for the deployment of the Patient Status Engine wireless device to continuously track the conditions of critical patients out of the ICU. Singaporean health tech company ConnectedLife has also delivered its virtual platform at Manipal Hospitals to assist in the remote monitoring of post-surgery conditions of their patients.