by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | March 07, 2022
From the March 2022 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
PeaceHealth in Oregon has had similar success using installations from PDC, which provides what it calls the Caring MR Suite, with HD ceiling, wall and portable in-bore viewing video displays that can showcase the patient’s choice of nature videos, movies, lighting and music.
“The kids can walk right up to it and we can change things right in front of them, pick scenery, change lighting color,” said Adam Mellott, director of radiology at PeaceHealth.
The environment also helps the parents, which in turn helps the young patients.
“The parents’ anxiety drops because they're kind of looking around, they’re smiling a little bit, taking their mind off of everything that's going on,” Mellott said. “And then you can see the kid follow suit. They're not so scared. They're not so anxious.”
Many portable X-ray units can be “dressed up” with child-friendly decals. Carestream’s portable X-ray units, the DRX-Revolution and DRX-Revolution Nano, can have a variety of whimsical images affixed to the system. Images of sunflowers and butterflies, aquatic images and even an image to make the system look like a race car, said Jill Hamman, worldwide marketing manager for global X-Ray solutions at Carestream.
“The images are fun and engaging and help make pediatric patients feel more comfortable and more at ease when they see this big machine rolling up to them to take the images,” Hamman said.
Screen time
Manufacturers have also developed more advanced entertainment systems to help distract from medical procedures and tout technology that helps shorten exam time.
In early summer, Resonance Technology is planning to launch an upgrade of its goggle-based entertainment system that will be lighter and have higher-resolution, 4K video.
Manufacturers have also developed more advanced entertainment systems to help distract from medical procedures and tout technology that makes the exam feel shorter.
NordicNeuroLab, which manufactures hardware for functional MR, developed software that turns the screens that stimulate patients during a scan into a patient entertainment system.
Christoffer Endresen, marketing manager for NordicNeuroLab, says that the 40-inch screen is one of the largest MR-compatible screens on the market, and it allows more content via a Microsoft Surface tablet that can connect to various streaming services.
While some vendors don’t have free-standing mirrors, NordicNeuroLab developed its own.
“That opens up the opportunity for a lot of different MR sites to have a complete solution,” Endresen said.
