X-ray Work Goes High-Tech

X-Ray Work Goes High-Tech

The radiology department at St. Joseph’s Hospital now offers patients big-city technology without the big city. The department recently installed a filmless x-ray system that gives doctors immediate and sophisticated results to patient x-rays.

Miguel A. Gelman, M.D., with Mid-America Radiology, evaluates images on St. Joseph's Hospital's new filmless x-ray system.

The system—Picture Archiving and Communication System, or PACS—digitizes images that used to be viewed on film. That means images of a patient’s bones and organs are available about four seconds after they’re taken.

Those images are available in physician offices before a patient returns from the test. And when a radiologist reads the results, the radiologist’s report is stored electronically with that image and is becomes a permanent part of the patient’s medical history.

Radiologists view images on a bank of 24-inch monitors. They are able to flatten the image and reconstruct it in three dimensions. They can rotate the image, focus tightly on a particular area, or pull out particular features to study and compare. The computer system also assists physicians by calling attention to potential problems.

The imaging system rivals the potential of any imaging system in health care today, said Mel Long, Director of Radiology.