DCH has new radiology equipment

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Daviess Community Hospital is pleased to announce our newest expansion in Radiology Services.  In March 2017, installation of our new Siemens Luminos Agile Fluoroscopy/Radiography system took place at the hospital’s main campus. The Luminos Agile is the first patient-side controlled system with dynamic flat panel detector technology, height adjustable table and true dual-use capability for fluoroscopy and radiography.

 

Dr. Kavita Erickson, Radiologist at DCH remarked, “This new equipment is a great benefit for patients.  The table height can be lowered to almost ground level to make it easy for patients to get on and off the table with ease. We can also image small children without the need to have the child stand on a stepstool.“

 

Fluoroscopy is used to take “live images” of a body part. Radiology Technicians use the fluoroscopy table to perform joint and spine injections to guide the needle for the injection into the appropriate space with 100% confidence.  They watch the needle advance into the appropriate joint. Moreover, they can inject a tiny amount of x-ray dye through the needle to confirm that the needle tip is indeed in the joint space, rather than just near the joint space. This is a major advantage of having any injection procedure done with fluoroscopy – there is no guess work involved in where the needle is positioned with fluoroscopy. Fluoroscopy is also used to put PIC lines (venous catheters that stay for several days or weeks) in patients who need long course of intravenous (IV) antibiotics or chemotherapy.

 

We also use fluoroscopy to evaluate the gastrointestinal tract for swallowing problems, hiatal hernia and gastroesophageal reflux which are common causes of heartburn or chest pain, stomach for ulcers or obstruction, and the small and large intestines for polyps or other masses, obstruction, cancer, and diverticular disease.

 

The fluoroscopy unit utilizes pulsed radiation rather than continuous radiation, which significantly reduces radiation exposure/dose to the patient and the staff.

 

The x-ray unit is state of the art and can image small body parts such as a finger or toe or a large area such as the entire abdomen and pelvis and tailor each exposure to the size of the body part to minimize radiation dose.  In many hospitals, the x-ray rooms are too small to allow a full 70 inch xray distance and x-rays are often taken at distances of 40 inches or even less. Our room is large enough to allow for the 70 inch distance, which significantly reduces doses/radiation exposure to the patients.

 

Some exams require both fluoroscopy and radiography, and our new equipment allows us to do both in the same room. At many hospitals, patients have to be taken to 2 different rooms for these exams, with one room having fluoroscopy, and the other room used to take regular x-rays. As an example, for many of our gastrointestinal exams such as Upper GI or a Barium Enema exam, having an x-ray of the area of interest before administering oral or rectal contrast is performed to look for foreign bodies that have been swallowed or calcifications in the abdomen or pelvis, and then the patient undergoes the fluoroscopy exam. With our new machine, we can do both in the same room, and not have the patient go to one room for the x-ray and to another room for the fluoroscopy exam.

 

For more information about Radiology services available at Daviess Comminty Hospital, please call 812-254-8851 or go to www.dchosp.org.