Siemens, Philips win VA CR contract

In a move that brought two major multimodality vendors into collaboration, the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Center this month awarded Siemens Medical Systems and Philips Medical Systems North America a joint contract to provide computed radiography equipment and connectivity to seven VA hospitals. The $7 million contract is part of the Veterans Integrated Network System project, and includes six Southern California VA hospitals and one in Las Vegas.

Shelton, CT-based Philips will provide CR equipment, including RIS interfaces as well as film digitizers and printing capabilities. Iselin, NJ-based Siemens will supply workstations for CR review as well as archive servers with database management. The two firms expect the systems to be installed by the end of May.