Leading hospitals require premium diagnostic imaging equipment to image patients faster, with the best possible diagnostic accuracy. PinnacleHealth, a leading health care system in Harrisburg, Pa., has installed Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.’s Aquilion® Premium multi-detector CT at its Community Campus to enable them to meet these needs while improving patient care. The Aquilion Premium features 160 detector rows to image up to eight cm of anatomy in a single gantry rotation (as fast as 0.35 seconds).
PinnacleHealth will use the Aquilion Premium at its Community Campus, making them the first hospital in the country offering this advanced technology. The Community Campus, while offering a complete range of services, specializes in neurology, rehabilitation, orthopedics and general surgery. It is home to an acute care hospital, rehabilitation hospital and new Regional Cancer Center opening in 2010.
“The Aquilion Premium allows patients to be imaged with low radiation and little-to-no sedation, which is particularly important when imaging pediatric populations or patients of any age who might require sequential, follow up CT scans,” said Dr. Brian Harris, medical chair, Department of Imaging, PinnacleHealth. “Another significant benefit of the Aquilion Premium is its spectacular image quality and ability to reconstruct images to be viewed in multiple planes, including 3D.”
The Aquilion Premium was designed to not only improve clinical accuracy, but also to make procedures safer and more efficient while increasing patient comfort and operator convenience. It features a 660 lb. patient weight couch to accommodate larger patients; front and (optional) rear table footswitches to facilitate workflow; and a single push button enabling the gantry and couch to return to the home position automatically. It also comes standard with the 72 kW generator and advanced features like iStation display and eight cm dynamic scanning capability.
“Toshiba is committed to listening to its customers and providing the right technology mix for the community,” said Doug Ryan, senior director, CT Business Unit, Toshiba. “Toshiba developed the Aquilion Premium to meet the ever-changing imaging needs of the medical community by making it field upgradable to the Aquilion ONE, enabling them to have access to advanced technology today, while allowing physicians and administrators to plan for their future needs.”
The Aquilion Premium adds to PinnacleHealth’s current suite of Toshiba Aquilion CT systems, which includes one Aquilion ONE dynamic volume CT system, two Aquilion 64 multi-detector CT systems and one Aquilion 16 multi-detector CT system. This extensive line of CT systems helps PinnacleHealth streamline operations and increase efficiency, allowing the hospital to image about 3,000-to-3,500 CT patient cases monthly.
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