ELLINWOOD — Ellinwood Hospital and Clinic is one of the first hospitals in the nation to install a newly FDA-approved type of CT scanner, the Siemens Somatom go.UP scanner. On Nov. 15, 2017, Siemens, the company that makes the scanner, announced its first U.S. installs of the model in two Missouri hospitals, making Ellinwood’s hospital not too far behind. Siemens announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance in April of last year.
The brand-new, state-of-the-art CT scanner was installed in January, reports Kile Magner, hospital CEO.
“It’s leading-edge technology. This new scanner is the first of its kind in the state of Kansas, and we are so excited to be able to provide this to our patients and providers,” Manger said.
“This new model of CT scanner provides multiple benefits,” he said. “With the mobile platform and new technology, it helps us get clear, crisp images in less time with lower doses of radiation.”
The SOMATOM go.Up delivers the low-dose scanning through the use of SAFIRE technology and a new design of the patient table. It allows for scans of large parts of the body in one breath while maintaining high image quality. The table is thin and allows x-rays to penetrate the material more easily, thus minimizing the radiation needed for each scan.
The scanner allows more freedom in movement for the imaging technicians to help patients. With a completely mobile platform, the workstation can be placed anywhere — in the room, in a control room, or outside the room. This allows technicians to stay with patients longer, help ease fears in patients being scanned, and solve any positioning problems quickly.
The scanner also includes a special detector and filter to avoid “noise” — the artifacts left in images. An artifact is similar to a camera lens flare — it obscures part of the image and makes it harder to read. This flare is often caused by medical devices and implants, such as pacemakers and replacement joints. The filter means that images are clearer and easier to read, allowing providers to more easily diagnose and treat patients.
“This CT scanner is a great asset for our patients, for our providers, and for our technicians,” said Magner. “It allows us to improve each patient’s experience by getting great images for their providers, and fixing any issues that lead to poor images quickly.”
The new CT scanner is the Siemens SOMATOM go.Up, a 32-slice computerized tomography (CT) scanner and it uses computer-processed combinations of many X-ray measurements taken from different angles to produce cross-sectional (tomographic) images, or virtual “slices,” of specific areas of a scanned person, allowing the provider to see inside the body to diagnose without invasive procedures. The scanner includes a patient table that can scan a range of 160 cm and can accommodate larger patients, up to 500 pounds.
The installation process started Jan. 8, with the previous CT scanner decommissioned and removed and the new CT scanner delivered Jan. 22.