Carestream Health solutions at the heart of screening project in Albania

Published: 12/20

GENEVA, CH - (HealthTech Wire) - Carestream Health computed radiography solutions, printing systems and professional services are at the heart of a EU-funded screening project between Italy and Albania. The aim is to improve the Albanian public health system, during which Albania and the Puglia Region of Italy will work together for the development of prevention, treatment and epidemiological observations for female tumors amongst the Albanian population.

Key to the project is a large training element for clinicians within hospitals of the Albanian National Health Service. Vincenzo Lattanzio, Director of SARIS, the breast screening service in Bari Province, Puglia Region explains, “Our aim is to screen for cancers which affect women, those of the breast and uterus, by training Albanian radiology doctors and technicians in diagnosis. As it is not possible to undertake pro-active screening in Albania by calling women to appointments, we are creating specialist units for asymptomatic patients volunteering for screening.”

Thirty Albanian healthcare professionals attended two training sessions at the SARIS Centre in Bari, three intensive weeks in March 2007 and a further week in May 2007. During this time they worked on the ward with their respective Italian tutors gaining direct experience with patients and screening technology. Members of Carestream Health Professional Services were on hand during this period to undertake equipment and technical training.

Now that the doctors and technicians have returned to Albanian soil, Italian doctors maintain on-site monitoring with regular visits and future cooperation will involve remote diagnostic consultations with Italy.

Carestream Health computed radiography and printing systems are installed within Albania, the same technology installed at SARIS. Prior to installation the Company had optimised the infrastructure to enable stable operating conditions for the equipment.

“The introduction of this technology now allows Albania to carry out screening programmes which would have been unthinkable until now,” continues Vincenzo Lattanzio. “The project is set to run until the end of 2008 and the information gathered will be useful for future epidemiological analysis and raising standards of prevention.”

Carestream Health, an independent company, has licensed the Kodak brand for use with its own brands—such as CARESTREAM, DIRECTVIEW and DRYVIEW—across its portfolio of leading-edge medical imaging and healthcare IT products.