Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

From early on, 2020 proved to be a year unlike any other. Many, many aspects of everyday life have changed, some temporarily, others for good. The healthcare and medical imaging fields are no exception. As a result, many of us connected to medical imaging; owners, users, and providers alike, are wondering what the near future will look like for core modalities like CT.

After long deliberation, observation, and conversations with my colleagues in the CT space, the following are four predictions of what we expect to see happening in the CT market over the next 12-18 months.  

Installing any piece of medical equipment is a challenge, but few modalities match the highly-involved process of installing an interventional cath lab. Because there are so many steps, the process is the subject of many, many questions. So, during a recent install, we decided to document the process for all to see. While there are elements outside an installer's control, such as delivery conditions, the difficulty of electrical runs, or the hours the building is available to them, most floor-mounted cath lab installations take place along a schedule similar to the one below. Keep in mind that several additional days should be expected if your inbound system has a ceiling-mounted gantry.

Keep reading to see a pictorial, day-by-day walkthrough of a floor-mounted cath lab installation.

If you are not yet familiar with The Critical Medical Infrastructure Right-to-Repair Act of 2020, “Right to Repair” for short, here’s some quick background. The bill was introduced on August 6^th by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Yvette Clark of New York in response to concerns that repairs and maintenance on medical equipment were being hampered by restrictive contracts and copyright laws during the COVID-19 crisis.

A statement from Senator Wyden’s website describes the bill’s specifics, saying that, for at least the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would:

• Protect equipment owners, lessees, and servicers from liability under federal copyright law for creating an incidental copy of service materials or for breaking a digital lock during the course of equipment repair in response to COVID-19;
• Allow equipment owners or lessees to fabricate patented parts on a non-commercial basis and as needed for repair or maintenance in response to COVID-19;
• Invalidate provisions in equipment contracts to the extent that they prohibit or restrict the repair or maintenance of critical medical infrastructure in response to COVID-19; 
• Require manufacturers to provide, on fair and reasonable terms, access to information and tools used to diagnose problems and service, maintain, or repair equipment; and
• Require the Federal Trade Commission to evaluate the bill’s impact and effectiveness on innovation and competition in the critical medical infrastructure market.

The bill has garnered praise and support from rural healthcare systems, independent engineering groups, and many civil interest groups but, unsurprisingly, has come under fire from OEMs and their partner lobbying groups.

We've said it before, but it bears repeating: purchasing is not the only (or always the best) option to get the equipment you need into your facility. To help those of you who may be considering renting a C-arm, we want to share some of the places we've seen C-arm rentals work better than purchases, or as well-timed options leading up to future purchases.

Keep reading to see if your facility type might be a good fit for renting a C-arm system. 

Philips cath labs come loaded with a wide variety of hardware and software options. As a result, there are a lot of tech terms and proprietary names that get thrown around when the equipment is discussed; things like FlexVision XL, FlexVision Pro, FlexArm, EP Cockpit, and Clarity. While these terms can sometimes be confused or, worse, overlooked altogether, they represent important items that can make a big difference in the cost, performance, and user experience of the lab. To clarify the function and value of Philips cath lab options, let’s take a closer look at the terms that come up the most when we talk with cath lab buyers who are considering Philips.