From the November 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


On the refurb side of the spectrum, Metropolis’ Gugel notes that while more customers are shopping around for used digital equipment, only about 10 percent of them actually purchase it due to the high cost and low reimbursement rate. “When they see what the prices are, they get gun shy and they realize, ‘OK, we’re going to have to make do with what we have as far as an analog rad room goes,’” he says. “Think of it this way, if you’re going to buy a car and [the price of] gasoline keeps going up, why would you buy a gas guzzler if you don’t get pay increases?”

Another ongoing trend has been the rising prevalence of wireless equipment.


“There’s a huge boom going towards the wireless product,” says Geyzer, who explains that in the past, facilities would typically only have a single DR panel fixed to one room. “Now they have the ability to take four or five detectors, use them throughout their entire department—more or less depending on the size—and not have to worry about having one detector tied to one room,” he says.

The sector has also been moving towards the uniformity of dose documentation.

“All the vendors have a different name of this number that represents a DR exposure that was done correctly,” says Ybarra. “Every vendor has different numbers and different names, so there are a lot of organizations that are pushing to standardize this and they’re going to call it the Exposure Index.”

Siemens’ Niepel has noticed that more radiographic and fluoroscopic products are adapting to accommodate the nation’s shift in demographics, such as the increased presence of obese and elderly patients. One example of this would be the implementation of height-adjustable tables, which makes it both easier and safer for bariatric and geriatric patients to get on and off the table.

Tableside versus remote-controlled
Despite the fact that the majority of the world uses remote-controlled fluoroscopy systems, conventional tableside units are still dominant in the United States.

“Many of the doctors we speak to say they just like having their hand on the patient while they’re doing fluoro,” says Lobree.

Shimadzu’s Serrao suggests that this trend began decades ago because our country is a litigious society that has a higher occurrence of medical malpractice lawsuits.

The benefit of a tableside system is that many patients feel safer knowing that a medical professional is in the room in case something goes wrong. The downside, however, is that the technologist is being exposed to ionizing radiation.

November 2011 Magazine

Read more stories from the November 2011 issue

More Industry Reports