by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | May 30, 2014
Unfors RaySafe’s X2 Prestige
From the May 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Biomedical engineers often have to slip in and out of rooms unobtrusively in order to avoid interfering with the flow of patients, and smaller, lighter more user-friendly testing equipment can help with that.
Both Unfors Raysafe and Radcal Corporation launched several new X-ray quality assurance systems in late 2013 and they each assist biomeds in their own, unique way.
Outside of the X-ray testing equipment world, two new, faster and more accurate infusion pump analyzers recently hit the market and a ventilator tester that will help facilities meet new International Organization for Standardization standards and two phantoms that assist in achieving American College of Radiology ultrasound accreditation are set to launch soon.
Slick like a smartphone
Unfors launched the RaySafe X2 in November 2012, but this past November the company released an updated version, the RaySafe X2 Prestige. The main difference between the two products is that the X2 can only be used for radiography and fluoroscopy but the X2 Prestige has sensors for mammography, CT and light measurements.
The design of the X2 and X2 Prestige almost resembles a smartphone, complete with a touch-screen and home button.
“We believe that there is a convergence between the devices that our customers choose to use at home in their personal lives and what they expect in the workplace,” says Kelly Fitzgerald, marketing director at Unfors RaySafe. “If they’re using a slick smartphone at home, they don’t want to go to work and use a device that is archaic in its design and function.”
According to RaySafe, they are the only vendors with a touch-screen X-ray quality assurance system. Their competitors use Windows platforms and they sync the device to the computer with a blue tooth.
“We intentionally avoided having a PC as a base unit for a quality assurance device,” says Fitzgerald. “PCs are open systems and as such, they’re subject to a world of potential problems like viruses, crashes and boot-up issues.”
The X2 Prestige does use an Android platform, but it’s still a closed system that’s kept separate from the PC.
Other than its smartphone-like appearance, the device also saves clinical engineers a lot of time. The detectors for mammography and radiofrequency are orientation independent, which means that as long as they are placed in the center of the beam, it doesn’t matter what direction they face.
For other systems, the engineers have to make sure to aim the detectors in a certain direction or even take a position exposure to make sure it’s correct before taking the real exposure.
