Physician Practices and Outpatient Clinics Become the New Battleground in Computed Radiography

    CHICAGO, IL, November 29, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- While no longer an integral part of many large imaging centers, computed radiography (CR) equipment is finding new life outside of traditional imaging departments in physician practices and outpatient clinics, according to a report from KLAS released today at the 2009 Radiological Society of North America conference.

The new report, "Computed Radiography: Digital Imaging Reaches the Physician Practice", is the result of nearly 400 provider interviews relating to CR vendors, their products and performance. The study notes that the vast majority of recent CR purchases have been for single-plate equipment, which is well-suited for lower-volume, lower-cost deployments at point-of-care settings and physician offices.

"In the past four years, Agfa, Carestream, FUJIFILM, Konica Minolta and Philips have all released new single-plate compact digitizers intended for the outpatient locations," said Kirk Ising, KLAS director of medical imaging and medical equipment research and author of the CR study. "These single-plate investments have far outpaced the investments that these vendors have dedicated to multi-plate digitizers."

In contrast to outpatient organizations, the KLAS report notes that the hospital market for CR is flat. Large hospitals continue to move to digital radiography (DR), and community hospitals are in replacement mode for CR equipment and probably will not expand their CR footprint.

However, despite its lack of growth in some areas, provider satisfaction with CR equipment remains high - in fact, it is one of the highest-ranked imaging market segments KLAS tracks. In particular, Konica Minolta, Carestream and FUJIFILM all scored above 90 (out of 100) in the multi-plate section of the report. A group of vendors scoring this high is atypical for KLAS research.

The KLAS report divides the vendor performance ratings into multi-plate and single-plate categories. Konica Minolta Xpress Dual Bay was the highest-rated multi-plate product, with a performance score of 91.4, followed by Carestream DirectView 975 and FUJIFILM FCR XG5000. The Agfa CR 30-X product took the top spot among single-plate products, with a score of 89.8, followed by Konica Minolta REGIUS Nano and Philips PCR Eleva S. The report also contains early data on CR products from iCRco and Radlink.

To learn more about the CR market, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of participating vendors, the report "Computed Radiography: Digital Imaging Reaches the Physician Practice" is available to healthcare providers online for a significant discount off the standard retail price. To purchase the full report, healthcare providers and vendors can visit www.KLASresearch.com/reports.

About KLAS

KLAS is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors. KLAS' mission is to improve delivery, by independently measuring vendor performance for the benefit of our healthcare provider partners, consultants, investors and vendors. Working together with executives from more than 4,500 hospitals and over 2,500 clinics, KLAS delivers timely reports, trends and statistics, which provide a solid overview of vendor performance in the industry. KLAS measures the performance of software, professional services and medical equipment vendors. For more information, go to www.KLASresearch.com, email [email protected] or call 1-800-920-4109 to speak with a KLAS representative.

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