Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

The Block Imaging team invites you to join us in welcoming long-time healthcare entrepreneur and thought leader, Tom Spees as our new Vice President of Strategic Development. Many of you have worked with Tom personally over the years or with organizations he’s been a part of shaping. From AID, to Dunlee, Philips, to Richardson Electronics, you know the value he brings to any project. Beginning in August, Tom will work alongside Block's current leadership, using his years of experience in equipment sales, independent imaging service, and replacement parts sourcing to continue improving and expanding the way Block Imaging serves healthcare facilities around the world.

If your facility is in the market for an extremity MRI scanner, one of the first questions that probably came to your mind was, "How much does an extremity MRI machine cost?" Considering that these systems come in four different categories that can range widely in price this is an excellent question- one that we'll answer in our 2020 update to the extremity MRI machine pricing chart below.

Have a model in mind? Click here to view our current extremity MRI inventory.

If you use a Hologic Selenia manufactured between January 19th, 2007 and December 7th 2012, you may remember the day the letter from Hologic's field service arm came to your mailbox with the dreaded news: your system was declared end of life (EOL), and Hologic would no longer support it after May 3rd, 2019. Or- maybe you heard about the end of support through the grapevine instead. In any case, time has long been up, and if you've spent the last year cobbling together a service regimen for your EOL system while thinking about how you're going to pay for an upgrade, we're here to tell you about a solution that will work better for you, save you money, and allow you to keep your Selenia.

There's no debating it: from the II-based days of the Advantx to the digital transition first embodied in the Innova 2000, the GE line of cath labs has enjoyed an incredible run of success over the years. Much of this success is due to GE's understanding of the tension for users between being grounded in what's familiar and adapting to what's coming down the pike.

The mainstays of the line of labs have included the table and gantry – designs that, at their core, go back at least to the early 90’s and still remain today, with the remaining components adapting around them as technological advancements grow.

The advancement that we want to focus on today is the move from the Innova IQ, to the IQ Plus naming structure. There is often confusion about what exactly was involved in this transition. This blog will break down the differences between GE Innova IQ and Innova IQ Plus cath labs.

If you've used a GE MRI scanner for even a few months you've undoubtedly changed coils, disconnecting one and connecting another, over and over again. You've probably done it so many times it's become second nature. But, have you ever stopped to note what kinds of connectors your coils have? If not, it might surprise you to learn that there's a not-so-obvious, but extremely practical reason for knowing the difference between the various types of connectors GE MRI uses. 

We'll share with you below the four types of GE MRI coil connectors, which systems you'll find them on, and why it's important to know what you have.