Toshiba and McKesson Announce Distribution Agreement

McKesson (San Francisco, CA, USA) has signed a distribution agreement with Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. (Tustin, CA, USA). The agreement calls for Toshiba to provide McKesson's Horizon Medical Imaging picture archiving and communications system (PACS) with Toshiba's innovative diagnostic imaging devices, including the Aquilion line of computed tomography (CT) scanners.

The agreement is designed to provide imaging centers and hospitals under 200 beds a turnkey system that is cost-effective, easy to implement, and easy to support. In a joint statement, McKesson and Toshiba noted that they believe this agreement is the best way to offer the community market affordable, easily installed, best-of-breed diagnostic imaging systems.

Customer satisfaction combined with broad and deep product capabilities have been strong drivers for McKesson's continued PACS growth. Horizon Medical Imaging holds the category leader designation for the community clinical systems and community PACS category in the Top 20: KLAS 2006 Mid-Year Report Card issued in June 2006. It also is ranked among the top three systems in the PACS category for general market systems in the same KLAS report. KLAS (Orem, UT, USA) is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of information technology vendors in the healthcare field.

Horizon Medical Imaging is modality-independent, helping hospitals to integrate images from multiple modalities with clinical patient data for more comprehensive electronic health records (EHRs). The system also is designed to streamline radiology department workflow and to promote improved radiologist efficiency.

Toshiba's CT business has installed more than 17,000 CT systems in hospitals, imaging centers, and medical group practices worldwide. The company's Aquilion system provides sophisticated features and capabilities that provide clinicians with a powerful tool that is suitable for applications requiring precise clinical information. The Quantum detector produces high-speed, high-resolution imaging with an extremely low contrast system at a very low dose. KLAS's 64-slice CT perception report, released in October 2005, ranked Toshiba's Aquilion 64-slice CT system at the top in overall vendor ratings.



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