CAIRO, GA (WALB) -
A south Georgia hospital is celebrating the opening of a new 5,000 square foot imaging center.
Grady General Hospital's addition houses new health care technology including a 64-slice CT scanner, a 1.5 Tesla Magnet MRI scanner, and a digital mammography machine.
"It'll let us serve our patients better from a customer service stand point, from a safety stand point, from an efficiency stand point and most of all we're outcome driven and it'll allow us from early detection to be able to see some things earlier and hopefully have better outcomes for our patients," said Administrator Ladon Toole.
Hospital management says the technology connects to the hospital's picture archiving and communication system (PACS) which replaces hard-copy based storage for managing medical images. PACS provides physicians timely and efficient access to images, interpretations and related data.
One of the major patient advantages is convenience, and an on-site radiologist will interpret the results.
Currently considered the best method of screening for breast cancer, the center's new digital mammography machine uses compression and x-rays to image breasts, but instead of capturing x-ray film as with traditional mammography, the image is sent to a computer as a digital file.
Another new technology available at GGH is an updated ultrasound unit. Ultrasound is used to obtain images of the body's internal organs—the heart, liver, gall bladder, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, blood vessels and bladder. Ultrasound is also commonly used in obstetrics to examine a pregnant woman's uterus and the condition of the embryo or fetus.
Ultrasound images are produced by frequency sound waves that are recorded and displayed real-time on a screen showing movement of internal tissues and organs. This enables physicians to see blood flow and dynamic functions.
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