Fuji News

Nearly 400 New Synapse Sites Added World Wide

Chicago, IL - November 26, 2006 - FUJFILM Medical Systems is pleased to announce a number of notable new Synapse PACS installations around the globe. While experiencing steady Synapse growth in Fuji PACS strongholds such as the United States, Canada and Japan, Fuji has also added first time installations in a number of developing PACS markets such as South America and the Middle East, resulting in nearly 400 new Fuji Synapse PACS sites over the course of the last year.

"In the last year alone Fuji enjoyed a global PACS increase of nearly 60 percent. This is a remarkable achievement in this industry," said Bob Cooke, Fuji's Executive Director of Marketing and Product Development. "The PACS market today is very different from the one we saw just a few years ago. Today's PACS market is diverse in the size of facilities, the needs of customers, and the regions in which PACS are being deployed. We believe Fuji's continued success is a testament to our ability to better deliver a scalable and adaptable product, as well as to understand and meet the individual needs of each customer," affirmed Cooke.

Some of Fuji's most notable wins this year were in the United States, Australia, Israel, Singapore and Italy.

United States
These major PACS decisions exemplify the growing demand for large scale PACS conversions from a previous PACS vendor.

• Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia - Considered by many to be a centerpiece of U.S. Department of Defense medicine, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) is a 292 bed facility performing nearly 250,000 radiological procedures annually. A longtime user of Fuji Computed Radiography (FCR) systems, NMCP is replacing its current PACS with Fuji's Synapse. Radiologists here will now be able to review studies from any corner of the globe using Fuji's unique CommonView™ technology. They will also benefit from Fuji's advanced image processing capabilities which can be fully utilized at the Synapse workstation when Synapse and FCR are jointly installed.
  
  
• Memorial Health System, Colorado Springs, Colorado - A 477-bed general acute care hospital performing 250,000 exams annually, Memorial Health System selected Synapse as they expand their enterprise with the opening of a new hospital and additional outpatient locations and update their all-digital infrastructure with 4 Fuji high-throughput DR rooms. The unique architecture of Synapse will enable studies to be read at a number of clinical locations. Additionally, patients' studies acquired at two hospitals, a major multi-modality outpatient imaging facility, and at least five other locations will be sent to Synapse. Radiologists will benefit from Obliquus, an integrated 3D software package providing diagnostic MIP (Maximum Intensity Projection) and MPR (Multiplanar Reconstruction) from anywhere on the network that Synapse is available, even remote locations.
  
  
• U of L Health Care, Louisville, Kentucky - With an imaging department that performs nearly 215,000 imaging studies per year, U of L Health Care at the University of Louisville selected Fuji as its replacement PACS to help the facility improve department-wide productivity and enable enterprise access to information. With its Web-based architecture and scalability, Fuji's Synapse readily integrates with the facility's existing RIS, and can also easily accommodate the facility's growth as they add additional sites.
  
  

Australia
FUJIFILM Australia has won an estimated $28 million Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) five year contract to provide PACS to at least nine Victorian public health care agencies, each of which may have several hospital sites within its region that will collectively connect to a central system. It also includes FCR (Fuji Computed Radiography), DryPix laser printers, and support and maintenance. This is not only one of Australia's largest PACS health care contracts but also one of the biggest global deals for FUJIFILM Medical Systems.

Israel
Comprised of approximately 40 imaging centers generating an exam volume of 500,000 procedures a year, United Kupat Holim (UKH) is the third largest and fastest growing healthcare provider in Israel. They have recently selected Fuji as their exclusive PACS and CR provider - a strong indicator of Fuji's growth in this region. Fuji's PACS is also being installed at a number of other facilities across Israel, where Fuji's CR penetration is close to 90%.

Singapore
KK Women's and Children's Hospital is the premier Women's and Children's hospital in Southeastern Asia, and the first of its kind to transition its breast center to a fully digital department. The KK Breast Centre has purchased the FCR PROFECT One (known as the FCR ClearView-1m in the United States), along with Fuji's Synapse PACS and ICAD to enable a completely digital workflow for the 30,000 screening and diagnostic exams performs each year. KK Breast Centre becomes Fuji's second Synapse customer in Singapore.

Italy
Fujifilm Italy experienced its largest PACS install growth yet this year, with more than 40 sites installed, the largest of which was a 17 site win in the North-West area of Livorno, expected to generate 850,000 exams per year.

In addition to Italy, Fujifilm Europe as a whole had a very successful year and now boasts more than 130 Synapse sites, with a number of important installations coming this year in:

• France: University Hospital Angers, 200,000 exams per year
• Portugal: Hospital Distrital Figueira Da Foz, high availability solution, 60,000 exams per year
• Spain: Grup Sagessa, a multi-site project, 150,000 exams per year

Additionally, Synapse will soon be successfully installed for the very first time in Israel, Pakistan, Argentina, Columbia and Venezuela, where PACS penetration by all vendors is less than 5 percent of their study volume.

According to Naoya Yamakawa, Fuji's Manager of Global Network Systems, "This year was by far the most significant growth we've seen globally to date. Synapse is a well-established PACS product that offers a breadth of key technologies supported by a solid team of integration and service professionals which is critical when deploying PACS in new regions. As we rapidly approach our 1000th install milestone, we will continue to leverage the strength of the core Synapse technology to take advantage of additional new market opportunities," said Yamakawa.

About FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA, Inc.
As one of the FUJIFILM Corporation family of companies with 70 years of imaging experience and almost $25 billion in sales, FUJIFILM Medical Systems is a leading provider of diagnostic imaging products and network systems to meet the needs of healthcare facilities today and well into the future. Fuji's Synapse® PACS (picture archiving and communications system) provides a seamless solution for managing, storing and distributing images and information throughout the entire healthcare enterprise. Its Web integrated design and hardware-independence provide a technological infrastructure and deployment model that can be expanded upon in a myriad of ways to adapt to evolving technologies. Fuji is headquartered in Stamford, CT.