CRAWLEY, England, July 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Varian Medical Systems' medical oncology software for integrated chemotherapy e-prescribing and pharmacy dispensing has performed strongly against rival systems after being benchmarked against a national specification by the UK's National Health Service.
The benchmarking exercise was carried out by the e-prescribing team from NHS connecting for Health in conjunction with the National Cancer Action Team, with a close look taken at the medical oncology software systems of several suppliers.
"The Varian MedOncology system demonstrated the second highest level of functionality during the exercise but has now developed even further," says Steve Laws, Varian's medical oncology sales manager. "We are delighted that although being a recent entrant into a mature chemotherapy prescribing systems market, our software is already considered as providing one of the best fits for NHS requirements, particularly in the areas of safety and scalability."
Due to the potential benefits of electronic chemotherapy prescribing, a capital sum has been made available for UK health trusts to bid against. Trusts can now put together business cases for software-based electronic chemotherapy prescribing solutions at their oncology departments. The business case must be submitted by September and capital funding will be released in early October. Installations need to be underway by March 2007.
Varian's VARiS MedOncology system is designed to improve patient care and departmental efficiency by fully integrating the prescribing, preparation, dispensing and administration of drugs. It significantly reduces the risk of human error.
"This system provides cancer treatment facilities with software that combines and manages information including scheduling, prescribing and clinical information for both radiation therapy and chemotherapy within a single comprehensive electronic medical record for each patient," adds Steve Laws.
"It is inherently designed to support multi-site implementations and is therefore ideally suited for use across complete cancer networks. The technology is well proven as well as it supports much larger installations than cancer networks such as complete Canadian provinces. Regimen libraries for example can be shared across the entire user community."
Varian's medical oncology solution is already in place in a number of UK hospitals including London (St Barts), Norwich, Stoke, Carlisle, Redhill, Truro and Romford. Since the benchmarking exercise was undertaken, Varian has announced a more advanced oncology information system called ARIA, which contains many new features including a number specifically targeted at the UK market.
"ARIA represents a new generation of Varian software systems that furthers Varian's vision of enabling cancer centers to build fully integrated solutions across all functions of the center," adds Walter Frei, head of Varian's Oncology Systems business in Europe.
Editorial contact: Neil Madle, Varian Medical Systems, +44 7786 526068, neil.madle@varian.com
About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California is the world's leading manufacturer of medical technology for treating cancer with radiotherapy and neurological conditions with radiosurgery. The company is also a premier supplier of X-ray tubes and flat-panel digital subsystems for imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 3,600 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 56 sales and support offices around the world. In Europe, the company operates manufacturing and engineering centers in Baden (Switzerland), Crawley (England), Haan (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) and Toulouse (France) and has headquarters for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEA) based in Zug, Switzerland. Additional information is available on the company's web site at http://www.varian.com/
Forward Looking Statements
Statements in this press release regarding future business, events, plans, objectives, expectations, estimates, and other similar matters, including, but not limited to, statements using the terms "can" and "expect," constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements contained in this press release are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, including, but not limited to, the risks described in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other reports filed from time to time by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements represent the Company's judgment as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements because of new information, future events, or otherwise.
SOURCE: Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
CONTACT: Neil Madle of Varian Medical Systems, +44-7786-526068, or
neil.madle@varian.com
Web site: http://www.varian.com/