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Learn about Agfa HealthCare at www.agfahealthcare.com Based on more than 140 years of imaging expertise, Agfa HealthCare is your trusted radiology partner for the future. Today, only a small number of patients receive the lowest X-ray dose technically possible, our digital radiography upgrade program, “Fast Forward”, drives dose down with 50% and more. The radiologist is the diagnostician of the future: by providing the clinician with actionable knowledge about the patient treatment, the radiologist will be at the center of the patient’s care. Radiology for the Future. C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Agfa_ad_Radiology.pdf 1 6/10/14 17:10 www.european-hospital.com RADIOLOGY Radiology around the world Adopting intelligent foreign practices Report: John Brosky Responsible on a global scale for sales and marketing development with Carestream, Todd Minnigh does a good bit of travelling around the world. ‘It all happens out there, in clin- ics and hospitals. This is where you find the people who are responding to patients’ needs, and who tell us what they need so we can develop products to help,’ he said. ‘We like to get out there, to talk to these people, to see what they are doing, how they have solved problems and the challenges they continue to face in their work.’ Minnigh explained that there are common issues for every radiology operation, but there are also specific solutions to these shared problems, approaches that are unique, and often sometimes specific to a region or a culture. In August 2014, at the annual meeting of Association for Medical Imaging Management, he shared what he calls a radiology travelogue in a presentation entitled ‘Patient Care Over There: What We Can Learn from Radiology Practices Around the Globe’. Examples of clinical practices were drawn from visits in the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, Germany, France and Russia, all illustrated in true travelogue form with snapshots. ‘I’m not a clinical expert, so I am not going to tell people this is what they should or shouldn’t do,’ said Minnigh. ‘Yet there are distinct differ- ences in radiology practice that pro- voke ideas, that may speak to health care providers about how they might do things differently.’ At the highest level, people every- where want to help the patient, he pointed out. ‘They all have a shared concern and try to use the least amount of radiation exposure. Some are more meticulous about how they manage dose.’ As an example he cites visits to German radiology clinics where he found a greater concern for what is called scatter radiation, or second- hand dose. Where it is common in North America to use mobile X-ray units in the emergency department, in Germany emergency patients who are able to move are taken to the protected area of the radiol- ogy department for the X-ray exam. Trauma patients not able to be moved are directed to a dedicated CT scanner rather than undergoing an X-ray. The travelogue then moved to South America for a fresh look at another shared problem of patient scheduling to maximise the use of imaging equipment. Noting that it can take three times as long for a patient to undress and dress again during an exam than it does to actually shoot an X-ray, Minnigh said, ‘This clinic asked the question: What if we create three dressing rooms? If we add three times the capacity for patients to change, can we then make the X-ray unit three times more productive?’ ‘This is exactly what they did in Argentina to make the fullest use of their digital radiology room,’ he said. ‘The dressing rooms cost very little to build compared to the cost of an X-ray machine and the space required,’ Some people might call this a mass-production approach, he acknowledges, but he counters that clinics are confronting a grow- ing demand for radiology servic- es. In many Western countries, this demand is coming from the increas- ing medical needs among an aging population, many of whom are over 65 and typically require 15 times greater service on average than peo- ple just 45-55 years of age. Beyond imaging equipment, clin- ics need to consider that, as this senior population swells, the num- ber of younger people available as employees will shrink, requiring fewer people to do even more by being more productive. ‘Rather than be overwhelmed, the challenge to radiology opera- tions is to prepare for a potential increase in business in a way that assures the same safety and quality of service,’ Minnigh advised, adding that the benchmark he shared from Argentina is a way of teasing this question. In a ‘travelogue’ of clinical practices, Carestream turns up some unique solutions to shared challenges Todd Minnigh, VP Sales & Marketing Development at Carestream Health 13 Agfa_ad_Radiology.pdf 16/10/1417:10

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