News at Chino Valley Medical Center
The sooner, the better
Published: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 5:06 AM PDT
http://www.championnewspapers.com/articles/2010/04/28/news/doc4bd21c19e1f48139342547.txt
Patients and radiology technicians both stand to gain from new equipment in the radiology department at Chino Valley Medical Center. Diagnosis is being delivered hours sooner and increased efficiency allows quicker turnaround for patients in every area from emergency room to surgery.
Quicker, more accurate X-rays and less exposure to potentially harmful radiation are among the benefits. With the former film-based system, not only was it costly and time consuming to load the bulky film cartridges, then carry them into another room to be developed, it was hard on technician’s bodies, said Lucy Gariador, head of radiology at CVMC.
“After a day of running those film cartridges down the hall, wearing the lead apron, it was hard on your back,” Ms. Gariador said. “You can have an image in 30 seconds now, and if it’s not right you can do it again instantly, instead of waiting for the film to develop. Twenty minutes seems like a long time to us now.”
Three years ago, Ms. Gariador said X-rays taken of ER patients could take one and a half to two hours to diagnose, but now images come up on the ER computer screens as they are being processed. Turnaround time for the ER is two hours on average, where 10 years ago it was more than three hours. “The doctor is often looking at it before the patient makes it back to the exam room,” said Karen Lund, an X-ray technician at CVMC for 13 years.
The hospital’s cardiovascular lab or “cath lab,” which opened in May 2007, enables heart patients to receive on-site care instead of being transported to another hospital. Special procedures include diagnostic arterial angiograms of the heart, lower extremities, abdomen, kidneys, head, neck, arms and shoulder area and any area that receives blood flow. Angioplasty, the opening of restricted vessels by inserting small balloons, can be performed in the lab.
“The ability to diagnose right away is critical — we have a limited window to get oxygenated blood flowing,” said Bryant Hill, lead radiology technician in the lab. “That can mean a faster recovery time. Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been doing this kind of diagnosis or procedure at this hospital.”
The equipment in the cath lab is hooked in with a technical support program called iLink.
“If we are having trouble with the equipment, we can press a button and type out the problem we are having and a support person will call back within 15 minutes,” Mr. Hill said. On the old equipment, a service call was placed and the hospital was put on the schedule, which could take anywhere from an hour to two days for the issue to be resolved.
The implementation of the new machines has had an effect on employment, Ms. Lund said.
“Our service person was such a great guy, and we never see him anymore,” she said.
Some of the older technicians in the department had a hard time adjusting to the new technology, Ms. Lund said, because it’s all computerized. “But once you get used to it, it’s so much better,” she said. “You can manipulate the image on the screen, and you don’t have to keep exposing the patient to radiation — which we try to limit.”
Older technicians also had to have sharper skills, Ms. Lund said, whereas new students don’t have as much pressure to be well versed in anatomy and get the image right the first time. “Many of them are learning on this new equipment, so they are learning ‘ballpark’ areas, where we had to be more exact with the old equipment,” Ms. Lund said. “We do want them to use the old equipment sometimes, because the next hospital they go to might not have this technology.”
As for further technological advancement, Ms. Gariador said that for now, CVMC has the gold standard.
“Other hospitals are just now starting to catch up to where we are now,” Ms. Gariador said. “I can’t imagine what might be coming along next.”
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