WAYNE, NJ--(Marketwired - April 18, 2017) - Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. announced today that a new hospital-owned urgent care center has implemented the company's integrated digital radiography (DR) room featuring an overhead X-ray system, elevating table and small footprint upright stand. Used in conjunction with Konica Minolta's OPAL-PACS, the versatile, high-throughput solution will enable Emerson Urgent Care in Hudson, Mass, to meet the diverse and growing need for immediate care of minor injuries or illness more efficiently and cost-effectively.

"After looking at several vendors, we decided that the Konica Minolta Overhead X-ray system with integrated digital imaging technology would optimize our workflow for the radiologic technologists in urgent care," said David A. Woodford, M.S., R.T.(R), CRA, Director of Imaging Services at Emerson Hospital. "By seamlessly integrating with OPAL-PACS, we can quickly send images for simultaneous radiologist interpretation at the hospital and fulfill our goal to deliver timely diagnoses."

With the average cost of an emergency room visit over $1,000, facilities such as Emerson Urgent Care fill an important healthcare need in communities across the U.S. Armed with advanced imaging systems such as the Konica Minolta Overhead X-ray system, clinicians can quickly and confidently assess a patient's injury or condition and provide the quality care needed at a significantly lower cost for the patient than an emergency room visit.
Woodford said Emerson Hospital worked closely with Konica Minolta's authorized dealer, Associated X-Ray Imaging Corporation of Haverhill, Mass., to assess the center's needs and identify a solution that enhanced economic value through high uptime and increased productivity. With the Konica Minolta system, Emerson Urgent Care clinicians have an intuitive user-friendly console, and state-of-the-art, wireless connectivity to enable the most efficient workflow possible.

"The image quality is excellent and we've been very happy with the dose efficiency we've seen since moving away from CR," Woodford explained. "Plus, there is no redundant data entry between the X-ray system and the digital image detectors. Once the orders come across our DICOM worklist, it's very easy to choose the patient's study and perform the appropriate images, then send the images to PACS with a minimum of data entry or mouse clicks."

A February 2016 NPR poll conducted with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston revealed a majority of people sought urgent care because they believed it to be more convenient and less time-consuming than their primary physicians. For Emerson Urgent Care, moving patients swiftly and confidently through the facility demanded the seamless integration and support that only the Konica Minolta DR solution could provide, Woodford added.

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