Radiology

Ontario DI clinics acquire Direct Radiography technology

Imaging Dynamics Corporation (IDC) of Calgary, an innovative developer of digital radiography (DR) systems – has announced the sale of three DR units to a private medical-imaging organization in Mississauga, Ont. While IDC has been experiencing rising demand for its technology in western Canada, the United States and abroad, it’s the first multi-unit installation for the company in Ontario.

The Ontario sale was made to Trillium Imaging Inc., which has purchased three Xplorer 1600 DR machines, one for each of the company’s three clinics – Radiology Associates Clarkson, Radiology Associates Mississauga and Six Points Diagnostic Imaging.

“We really liked the IDC image quality,” said Dr. Murray H. Miller, president of Trillium Imaging. “And while price was definitely a factor, image quality is much more important. We purchase things based on quality.”

The IDC product line uses a high-density charge couple device (CCD) camera, the same technology used to power the Hubble telescope. IDC says the Xplorer’s single detector delivers over 16 mega pixels digitized at 14 bits per pixel with 100 percent fill factor in each pixel.

According to the company, the IDC technology is user-friendly and relatively inexpensive to maintain. As such, the company offers an industry-leading three year warranty or five year extended warranty.

The general benefits of DR are many. Unlike standard X-ray and film, where it can take several minutes to process just one image, and where staff members are exposed to hazardous chemicals, Direct Radiography is chemical-free and images are ready for viewing in six seconds or less.

“It’s a huge benefit to not have to do film anymore,” said Dr. Miller. “There’s no more waiting for film to be processed and no storage to deal with. It’s very significant.”

There are also impressive productivity gains, Dr. Miller commented. “We’ll probably increase our throughput by as much as 50 percent, thereby reducing wait times.”

Radiology Associates and Six Points Diagnostic Imaging provide general radiography, ultrasound, nuclear medicine and mammography. All modalities at the clinics are now filmless except for mammography, which will stay the course until, as Dr. Miller explained, digital mammography becomes more affordable.

On a similar note, in early February, IDC announced that it’s begun the R & D phase of using Xplorer technology for the digital mammography market. For more information, see www.imagingdynamics.com.