Scanner brings world leading CT capabilities to Northland

The GE Revolution CT scanner brings world leading CT capabilities to Northland

Reducing wait times and providing a wider range of scans are just two of the benefits Northlanders will experience with the arrival of the new GE Revolution CT Scanner at Whangarei Hospital this month.

The first in New Zealand, the CT scanner is a vital tool in the diagnosis of disease, trauma, or abnormality and for planning, guiding, and monitoring therapy.

Reducing unnecessary wait times for patients is critical to providing a high level of patient care says Andrew Potts, general manager surgical services.

“CT scanning is now a standard triage tool for medical staff attending patients in the Emergency Department. For clinicians it is now as vital in terms of patient management as laboratory tests and chest x-rays”.

Revolution CT helps enable clinicians to deliver uncompromised image quality for some of the most challenging clinical applications. This opens the door to more exams, including high heart-rate cardiac, stroke, trauma and paediatric patients.

Another important benefit is reduced radiation exposure than from a comparable scan on the previous scanner.

The 512 slice CT scanner with its 16cm detector (replacing the 8-slice model) is capable of all routine diagnostic work as well as examinations in cardiology, neurology and oncology.

A scanner with more slices allows significantly faster acquisition and makes it easier to examine the variety of patients including children, frail older patients as well as trauma According to Steve Attkins, Regional Sales leader, New Zealand the Revolution CT will now allow clinicians to diagnose even the most challenging patients such as those with erratic or high heart beats and provide paediatric patients with sedation free ad low-dose scanning capabilities.

“The wide coverage of Revolution CT allows clinicians to scan entire organs such as the brain, heart, liver and pancreas, in a single 0.28 sec rotation reducing breath hold times for patients. Equipped with low dose technology the scanner is also 50% quieter than previous generation CTs and is more comfortable for patients,” he said.

The Revolution CT will also assist in managing the volumes of colonoscopy and barium enema tests and meet the future demands of a national bowel screening programme. 21 per cent of all current outpatient referrals are from the oncology service and the Revolution CT will help improve faster cancer treatment targets and increase tumour streams in the near The arrival of this new scanner means that Northland DHB will now have two CT scanners on site with the existing scanner being upgraded in the next month or so. Cancellation due to breakdowns and other technical difficulties will now be a thing of the past as we will have a backup scanner in place.

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