Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

While many C-arms are versatile across a variety of applications, shopping for the best system is still not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Depending on what your budget and specialty are, the refurbished market has a number of systems to offer.

Among the refurbished makes and models you'll find are the Siemens Arcadis Varic and the OEC 9800. While the models certainly have some overlap in functionality, there are areas where each shines in contrast to the other.

To help you know the pros and cons as you shop for your next C-arm, view the clip below to see how the 9800 and the Arcadis Varic stack up in terms of:

• Generator power

• Rotating vs. stationary X-ray tubes

• System size

• Cost

Traditionally, studies for dysphagia, aspiration, esophageal modality disorders, and other suspected swallowing disorders have been performed on R/F rooms in a hospital setting. Now, some practitioners are finding advantages to performing these studies using C-arms. The following are just a few of the diagnostic scenarios where a C-arm could be the fluoroscopy tool of choice.

We've had a lot to say in recent months about the benefits of upgrading analog rad rooms to digital rad rooms with wireless DR panels. We've talked about saving money, time, and space. We've talked about improving images and serving patients better. What we haven't talked about, is using DR panels to upgrade R/F rooms. As anyone with one of these systems knows, half of any R/F room is a rad room and, in most cases, these rad rooms are analog. This means that they are perfectly suited to going digital with a wireless panel.

We see it all the time- a facility puts off shopping for their next R/F room until the current system is on its very last leg, or worse, already failing. Reimbursement rates being what they are, coupled with the technological leaps in other imaging modalities over the last 15 years, this procrastination is somewhat understandable. For some facilities, it can seem like the only reason to replace their R/F room is to placate their accreditation organization.