Europe PACS 2022
Technology & Partnership Crucial in Evolving Market

Europe-Based Agfa HealthCare, Philips, Sectra & VISUS Have Broad, Growing Footprint; Philips & Sectra Most Proven to Scale

Of the vendors measured in this report, Agfa HealthCare, Philips, Sectra, and VISUS have the most energy in terms of considerations and growth in the Europe PACS market. Agfa HealthCare has one of the most expansive footprints, with strong customer bases everywhere outside of France and DACHL (where they don’t currently operate after selling a portion of their HIT business to Dedalus in 2020). Philips has a similarly broad customer base, thanks in part to their 2019 acquisition of Carestream that significantly expanded Philips’ presence across Europe. Both Agfa HealthCare and Philips have been actively migrating legacy customers to newer go-forward platforms. Sectra has seen some of the most significant new growth in recent years, strengthening their presence across most regions. VISUS—who was acquired by CompuGroup Medical in 2021—has successfully leveraged country-specific resellers to expand from their home region of DACHL. GE Healthcare also has a footprint to match these other broadly deployed vendors; however, GE has experienced more customer attrition than growth in recent years.

Philips and Sectra have the most validated large-volume clients (500,000+ studies per year). Philips and Agfa HealthCare were validated for the largest imaging volumes—each supporting at least one customer handling around 4 million studies per year. Most other vendors in this report have one or two interviewed customers with large imaging volumes between 500,000 and 1 million studies per year.

Other vendors in this research, especially those based outside of Europe, have more region-specific footprints. Information about these vendors is covered in greater detail in the regional overviews below.

UK, Ireland, and Channel Islands

Sectra, Agfa HealthCare, Philips & Intelerad (Insignia) Deliver in the UK; Fujifilm & GE Healthcare Customers Looking Elsewhere

Multiple high-performing vendors have large deployments in the UK. Sectra has seen significant growth in recent years, throughout which they have continually delivered top-tier relationships and technology. At least one consortia of trusts is currently live with Sectra’s cloud PACS. Agfa HealthCare has provided strong implementations and training in this region throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have also improved their partnerships and proactivity. As in other regions, Philips delivers top-quality technology in Vue PACS, but that quality is not always matched on the support side. In 2021, Intelerad acquired UK-based Insignia, whose functionality-rich Insight PACS and understanding of UK hospital operations have driven high satisfaction. Customers were interviewed for this report before the acquisition, and how it will impact the customer experience remains to be seen.

US-based Change Healthcare, Fujifilm, and GE Healthcare also have deployments across large groups of public hospitals. Three interviewed Change Healthcare customers report that the PACS is rich in information but hindered by persistent technical issues. The issues are cushioned by the vendor’s helpful support team, but customers feel the vendor is too busy fixing issues to deliver functionality. Fujifilm supplies a generally reliable PACS to UK customers, though roughly 75% of the vendor’s customers in the region—most of whom are on older versions of Synapse—are actively considering other options due to slow support and drops in delivery quality. All interviewed GE Healthcare customers are also looking elsewhere and report significant dissatisfaction due to high downtime, poor product development, and declining support quality. IBM Watson Health recently entered the UK market, but KLAS does not yet have enough data to share performance information.

DACHL

VISUS Leverages Market Knowledge to Drive Strong Customer Experience; High-Performing Sectra Is Close Competition

In the DACHL region, Germany-based VISUS leverages their deep understanding of their home market and strong local team to drive high satisfaction and close relationships with customers. Respondents appreciate the vendor’s innovation, not only in keeping JiveX aligned with regulations but also in developing new functionalities to meet current and future market needs. Sectra’s performance in this region closely rivals VISUS’. As in other regions, Sectra’s customers are very satisfied with the vendor’s technology, development focus, and responsive support team. However, respondents feel that Sectra is less focused on DACHL than other markets, resulting in a perception of lower executive involvement. As in other regions, Philips Vue PACS customers are highly satisfied with the technology, but the support experience tends to vary, ranging from positive to poor. INFINITT’s main strength in DACHL is their support; all three interviewed customers (who represent a small fraction of the vendor’s large, long-standing customer base in the region) speak highly of the vendor’s support team. INFINITT PACS has most functionality customers need, though they would like an updated user interface that can be used across more operating systems than Windows. Customer feedback for GE Healthcare is polarized—one of the three respondents is highly satisfied with and optimistic about GE, while the other two are highly dissatisfied. Dedalus’ DeepUnity PACS has a strong presence in the DACHL region, but there is insufficient data to report on its performance.

Benelux

Agfa HealthCare Improves & Philips Facilitates Smooth Carestream Transition in Home Region 

Regarding customer satisfaction, both Agfa HealthCare and Philips have strong showings in their home region of Benelux. Agfa HealthCare customers report that the vendor has not only stabilized Enterprise Imaging for Radiology but also improved their regional management, resulting in better relationships with customers. All Vue PACS customers interviewed for this research were longtime Carestream customers when Philips acquired the solution in 2019. These customers report the smoothest post-acquisition transition of Carestream customers anywhere in Europe. Though there was a noticeable change in support as they moved from close relationships with Carestream to more procedural support with Philips, customers feel the Philips team is competent, skilled, and able to resolve concerns.

Sectra is the highest performer in Benelux (for similar reasons as in other regions), and customers see the vendor as focused on improvements that will help customers. In the past, VISUS’ reseller partnership caused greater variation in the customer experience in the Netherlands due to slower support and implementation issues. Recent feedback suggests that the vendor has smoothed out bumps and improved operations with their reseller. KLAS has validated customers in Belgium for both GE Healthcare and IBM Watson Health but has insufficient data to report on their performance.

Other European Regions

Sectra Delivers Inconsistently in Northern Europe but Excels in Western Europe; VISUS Drives High Satisfaction in Southern and Eastern Europe

Sectra holds a large portion of the PACS market in their home region of Northern Europe. The customer experience there is generally positive but less consistent than in other European regions; Northern Europe customers feel Sectra has not scaled their resources proportionally with their recent growth and is prone to overcharging for services. The experience variability is exacerbated in Norway due to the support being handled by the country’s third-party IT team, barring individual trusts from getting the same direct attention other Sectra clients get.

In contrast, Western Europe^† is Sectra’s highest-performing region—all respondents (most of whom are from Portugal) are highly satisfied across all customer experience measures. Siemens Healthineers provides their Western Europe customers with quality relationships and functional PACS technology. The vendor sometimes struggles to keep promises around delivering new functionality, and in recent years, a perceived lack of commitment to developing syngo.plaza has led various customers across Europe to leave the vendor.

VISUS’ customer satisfaction is highest in Southern and Eastern Europe. Although VISUS works through different resellers in each of the six countries where respondents are present, the vendor has managed to create a consistently positive experience. Additionally, Philips is a high performer in Southern Europe (which for the purposes of this report includes Israel)—all interviewed Vue PACS customers report high satisfaction due to the vendor’s strong technology and support.

† KLAS’ visibility into Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe is limited. This report discusses vendor performance in these regions in cases where there is sufficient customer feedback, but we acknowledge that the report is not a comprehensive overview.

About This Report

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. For this report, interviews were conducted over the last 18 months using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare software, which is composed of 16 numeric ratings questions and 4 yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. The questions are organized into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.