by
Joanna Padovano, Reporter | January 23, 2012
From the January 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
In order to make X-ray tubes last longer, they should always be warmed up according to the manufacturer’s suggested procedure prior to usage. “It’s important to get the tube warmed up properly before hitting it with full power,” says Kuehn.
On the company’s official website, Imaging Affiliates offers
X-ray tube image courtesy
of C&G Technologies, Inc.
several tips on how to extend the life of X-ray tubes. Suggestions include minimizing filament boost time, using lower tube current, following rating charts and anode heating/cooling curves, limiting operation to 80 percent of maximum single exposure ratings, avoiding long spot-film holdovers, and limiting rotor start/stop operations, among others.
“[For] the image intensifier, there’s not really a lot that you can do to make it last any longer than its normal life,” says GE Healthcare’s Ferguson. “Don’t bang it into the wall.”
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Current challenges
One of the struggles currently faced by the sector is that many facilities are deciding to get by with less equipment instead of paying for repairs. “The economy is making it so that they’re actually deciding to deactivate equipment versus getting it fixed,” says Ruth. “When necessary, [they’re] forcing their personnel to double up on patients for one CR, whereas they might have in the past had two.”
According to Probst, another challenge is that some manufacturers have been finding ways to keep their tubes proprietary, making it difficult for them to be resold in the used market. “The OEMs are becoming more proactive on keeping their glassware only in the systems that they’ve installed, and not making them available to be reinstalled in the third-party market.” The way some are doing this, he says, is by storing system information on the circuitry of the tube, making it nearly impossible for a different system to boot up using that tube. “It seems to be that the OEMs are trying to protect their install-base by having a very expensive piece of glassware at the heart of the system,” he adds.
Keeping up with technology is an ongoing struggle for vendors in the sector. “New tubes are very difficult to build, not everybody has the technology to build them,” says Kuehn.
