Carestream Health named market leader

Carestream Health has been named a leader in healthcare imaging based on its strategy for digital radiography and imaging informatics.

The accolade came from industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, which says Carestream Health has gained share over its competitors by being quicker, as well as more effective, flexible and proactive in adapting to the changing radiology and healthcare IT landscape

Frost & Sullivan say Carestream Health has achieved healthy organic growth while expanding its presence in the global market.

“Carestream Health has gained share over its competitors by being quicker, as well as more effective, flexible and proactive in adapting to the changing radiology and healthcare IT landscape. Throughout a challenging year, Carestream Health continued to develop solutions that are more innovative and more affordable, while still maintaining high-quality customer service,” said the analysts.

Carestream Health achieved the pole position in the highly competitive U.S. medical imaging market by capturing an impressive 14% combined DR/CR market share in 2009. The company owes a large part of this success to the timely introduction of the DRX-1 detector panel, which a cost-effective and rapid upgrade path to DR, without the cost of replacing an x-ray room,

The company followed this up with the launch of a series of integrated equipment, the DRX-Evolution product line, which augmented Carestream Health’s rich radiology portfolio.

Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst senior industry analyst Nadim Daher, commented: "Carestream Health has also created healthy synergies between its imaging equipment and imaging informatics groups, which are accelerating the company’s progress in medical imaging."

The company’s modular RIS/PACS offerings come loaded with value-added features such as native 3D imaging capabilities, navigation tools, voice recognition, results reporting and enterprise communications. They support various deployment and financing models such as the hosted imaging IT solutions and data centre services offered through its eHealth Managed Services solution.

A notable recent product launch in the imaging informatics space is the highly flexible SuperPACS architecture, a powerful solution for distributed and multi-vendor imaging environments seeking to aggregate or federate the imaging IT platform to drive cross-site productivity.

SuperPACS caters to otherwise under served niche and emerging customer segments such as radiologist groups, physician practices, teleradiology, as well as hospital-based specialists and rural healthcare facilities.

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.