ROCHESTER, N.Y., April 21 — Carestream Health’s DRX-Revolution Nano Mobile X-ray System is helping Virginia Commonwealth University Health System’s youngest patients in its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) stay healthy.
An academic medical center, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health installed the DRX-Revolution Nano as a unit dedicated solely to the NICU, in an effort to avoid the possible spread of hospital-acquired infection from adult patients on other hospital floors.
“Having one system dedicated to the floor will help reduce the chances of hospital-acquired infections going from patient to patient and room to room,” said Robert Jarvis III, Diagnostic Imaging Modality Manager at VCU Health.
The CARESTREAM DRX-Revolution Nano sits outside VCU Health’s NICU to fulfill its imaging orders. At only 220 pounds, the mobile system’s compact footprint allows for easy positioning in critical care units, while providing high-quality digital radiography imaging.
“We made the purchase with the mindset that it will support the NICU population in our hospital, and the small footprint makes it easy to get in and out of the rooms,” Mr. Jarvis added.
Special circumstances that surround these patients—it can be challenging to protect infants—made it necessary to have a unit standing by. Portable X-ray units can conduct exams on 20 to 30 patients on any given shift at VCU Health, Mr. Jarvis said. Using the same machine for procedures on both babies and adult hospital patients, who are admitted for various reasons, including serious diseases, could expose babies to other ailments.
Easy access to the DRX-Revolution Nano has helped staff at VCU Health respond to NICU patient needs quickly. Before VCU Health purchased the system, their technologists, like most hospitals, conducted exams based on location, charting routes according to need. A life-threatening page for an urgent exam could disrupt that flow.
“It’s a lot more convenient—and helps us respond better to our patients—with a machine already in place,” Mr. Jarvis said.
VCU Health has a large fleet of CARESTREAM DRX-Revolution Mobile X-ray Systems (see video link) at its location in downtown Richmond, Va., as well as CARESTREAM DRX-Evolution Plus rooms and retrofitted rooms.
Carestream’s X-Factor platform lets facilities share the same wireless detector seamlessly across all Carestream DRX products and allows technologists to move easily between different systems with minimal training time, speeding up workflow and exams.
“The biggest advantage is the graphical user interface with the software,” said Mr. Jarvis, who also praised Carestream’s image quality. “I can train someone on the DRX-Evolution Plus because it’s the same software on the DRX-Revolution and the Nano. They can go to any Carestream system and pick it up right away.”
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About VCU Health System
Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located in downtown Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 30,000 students in 233 degree and certificate programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Twenty-two of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 11 schools and three colleges. The VCU Health brand represents the VCU health sciences academic programs, the VCU Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Health System, which comprises VCU Medical Center (the only academic medical center in the region), Community Memorial Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, MCV Physicians and Virginia Premier Health Plan. For more, please visit www.vcu.edu and www.vcuhealth.org.