To provide the latest in MR technology to its patient community, St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash. installed the Vantage TitanTM from Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. to offer comprehensive MR patient exams. The new 80-bed St. Anthony hospital is the only full service facility in the area and needed a workhorse MR system to conduct a full range of exams. The industry leading clinical capabilities of the Vantage Titan 1.5T MR large open-bore system allow St. Anthony to conduct a full range of MR exams at its facility. For example, St. Anthony conducts advanced neurological exams, including brain and spine studies, as well as orthopedic imaging on knees, lumbar, hands, ankles and feet.
The patient-focused features of the Vantage Titan improve exam efficiency and accuracy while mitigating issues around imaging claustrophobic and bariatric patients. The Vantage Titan features a large 71-cm aperture and open bore and offers the industry’s largest clinical field-of-view (55×55×50 cm). The bore’s diameter enables St. Anthony to scan bariatric patients with greater ease and reduces the feeling of claustrophobia. Toshiba’s patented PianissimoTM technology, which reduces acoustic noise by as much as 90 percent, is also increasing the comfort level of patients during exams.
St. Anthony MRI Technologist Gary Leslie has experienced these benefits first hand. “The Toshiba Titan has been the workhorse MR system for us and is able to accommodate the wide variety of MR exams we perform each day. We are imaging approximately 10 to 12 patients a day and have received direct patient feedback that the system is quieter and feels less claustrophobic than other MR systems. This has helped us to greatly improve exam efficiency and department throughput.”