Frimley, UK, 2014-Mar-20
Spire Alexandra Hospital, part of the Spire Healthcare Group, has recently upgraded its MAGNETOM® Avanto MR system from Siemens Healthcare.
Spire Alexandra Hospital, part of the Spire Healthcare Group, has recently upgraded its MAGNETOM® Avanto MR system from Siemens Healthcare. One of the first hospitals to install the previous-generation system seven years ago, Spire Alexandra has opted for the Avantofit upgrade to benefit from new advanced and routine applications. It has also received the latest generation of integrated coil technology. The hospital anticipates the new technology will enhance abdominal, orthopaedic and prostate procedures, and will provide the capability to extend its MR and angiography remit in the future.
The Avantofit is helping to improve levels of comfort for hospital patients, with clinicians at Spire Alexandra citing the faster acquisition, improved examination times and heightened internal lighting as key benefits, especially for claustrophobic patients. The system’s ease of use has also been valuable in terms of new procedure training and case preparation for staff new to the department. The speed of the project – 18 days from delivery of the system to applications training – also kept operational downtime of the MR service to a minimum, reducing the need for major investment of enabling works.
The Avantofit’s inclusion of ‘Dot’ (Day optimising throughput) imaging technology allows the clinical users to personalise procedures according to patient needs, build in step-by-step user guidance, and automate MR examinations. This is further supported by ‘Tim 4G’ (Total imaging matrix), integrated coil technology. With its new RF architecture, Tim locates all transmit and receive components at the magnet, resulting in excellent image quality, a high signal-to-noise ratio and rapid acquisition times.
“We regularly carry out breath-hold scanning, which can cause difficulties due to patients moving, so it is important for us to be able to speed up examinations for patients and increase comfort in the process. Five minutes saved on a scan is of huge benefit to both the patient and clinical workflow,” states Angela Rowett, Senior Radiographer at Spire Alexandra Hospital. “The Avantofit’s diffusion weighted imaging capabilities, coupled with the applications on offer, have helped in the evaluation of prostate cancer and have received praise from radiologists, urologists and neuroradiologists alike. We anticipate that the system’s ease of use will make procedural training far easier for staff new to MR.”
“The Avantofit upgrade will assist Spire Alexandra’s expansion of its procedural capacity through the integrated coil technology and the range of advanced applications available, such as syngo RESOLVE’s anatomy-true diffusion imaging for areas including the prostate and CAIPIRINHA’s volumetric 3D imaging,” states Paul Vaughan, Regional Sales Manager at Siemens Healthcare. “Designed to fit the changing needs of dynamic healthcare environments, we are confident that the Avantofit’s flexibility, accuracy and speed will meet the high standards expected by staff at the hospital.”
Contact for journalists:
Siemens plc
Laura Bennett, phone: 01276 696374
E-mail: laura.bennett@siemens.com
Media Safari
Marc Gossage / Ben Veal, phone: 01225 471202
E-mail: benv@mediasafari.co.uk
For further information and press pictures, please see: www.siemens.co.uk/press
Follow us on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/siemensuknews
The Siemens Healthcare Sector is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry and a trendsetter in medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, medical information technology and hearing aids. Siemens offers its customers products and solutions for the entire range of patient care from a single source – from prevention and early detection to diagnosis, and on to treatment and aftercare. By optimising clinical workflows for the most common diseases, Siemens also makes healthcare faster, better and more cost-effective. Siemens Healthcare employs some 51,000 employees worldwide and operates around the world. For further information please visit: http://www.siemens.co.uk/healthcare.
