Customer Testimonial
Children’s Heart Clinic,
Children’s Hospital
of Minnesota
A unified cardiology ecosystem, delivering true flow
“As a pediatric echocardiographer, I look at echocardiograms all day, every day. Often, the first step for our patients when they come to us is an echocardiogram. AGFA HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology is my ‘homepage’. It has everything I need in one place, which is both efficient and useful,” starts Dr. Bradford Chu, Pediatric Cardiologist at the Children’s Heart Clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota. An affiliate of the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota, the clinic runs a cardiovascular program offering a full range of services, with 20 cardiologists.
The Children’s Heart Clinic has both the first certified pediatric echocardiography program in the region, and the only dedicated pediatric cardiac catheterization lab in the Upper Midwest. It produces some 15,400 cardiovascular images each year.
Bradford J. Chu, MD
Medical Director of Echocardiography
The Children’s Heart Clinic, Children’s Hospital of Minnesota
Seamless workflow, with advanced tools at hand
Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology offers the Children’s Heart Clinic a unified imaging environment for its cardiovascular specialties. It supports a wide variety of catheterization and echocardiology lab procedures, while enabling a smooth, well-organized workflow that lets cardiologists stay in the flow. “Going from the echo lab on the echo machine to the Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology workstation is seamless. And Enterprise Imaging is easy-to-use: a simple right-click of the mouse gives us access to the advanced imaging and echo tools we need,” Dr. Chu describes.
Flexible interoperability
Vendor-neutral, Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology brings together all patient data and images from different devices, systems and tools, and can be integrated with third-party cardiovascular imaging systems.
“One of the huge benefits of Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology is its interoperability with other standard imaging platforms. For example, TOMTEC is one that really mirrors what we do on the echo carts. The incorporation of TOMTEC with Enterprise Imaging is a real benefit,” says Dr. Chu.
Near-real-time images, for a faster report turnaround
Embedded reporting tools and templates make it easy for cardiologists to deliver consistent, detailed reports, in less time. “With remote image transfer, within minutes of images being done, they are available in Enterprise Imaging. We can immediately start the report while still in our lab, then finalize it, and get it back to the referring physician or institution very quickly.”
All in a single workspace
Across specialties and modalities, Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology improves the cardiologist’s work experience, with image viewing and access, powerful advanced analysis applications, structured reporting, flexible workflows and more, all in a single workspace.
“With AGFA’s platform, everything is in one place. That’s a real advantage.” concludes Dr. Chu
About the hospital
Children’s Minnesota is a nonprofit Level 1 Trauma provider, with two hospitals, 14 clinics and 508 staffed beds.
The hospital has a cardiovascular collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Children’s Center; this collaboration has been ranked as top performing in pediatric cardiology and heart surgery in the U.S. News & World Report Best Children’s Hospitals for 2023-2024.*
With AGFA HealthCare Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology everything that I need is in one place. That’s really efficient and helpful.