We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress
Sign In
Advertise with Us
GLOBETECH PUBLISHING LLC

Carestream Health

Provides medical and dental imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions and x-ray film and digital x-ray products for... read more Featured Products: More products

Download Mobile App




Carestream Health Enters Fluoroscopy and Ultrasound Markets

By MedImaging International staff writers
Posted on 14 Jul 2016
Print article
Carestream Health is a company on everyone’s watch list right now as it moves into new fields including ultrasound and fluoroscopy. Medical Imaging International spoke to Charlie McCaffrey, Carestream’s Managing Director, UK and Ireland.

Q: Carestream Health is fast becoming a world leader in the development of new technologies for medical and healthcare IT. What is driving this high level of innovation?

A: We have a reputation for being a very innovative company. Innovation is in our DNA. This is largely due to our success with our DRX detectors and, more recently seen, by our entry into the ultrasound market. Cone Beam CT for extremities is another new groundbreaking piece of technology introduced this year.

With regards to our entry into the ultrasound market, people don’t automatically look at us and say we’re an ultrasound company, but I encourage people to look beyond what we having been doing until now, and beyond their usual two or three ultrasound suppliers because we are bringing customers something different.

Q: Carestream Health gained 61 patents in the U.S. and 64 patents in other markets around the world in 2015. Where are your biggest markets?

A: The United States (U.S.) and Canada are large markets for us, as they are for many medical products, and likewise, the Chinese market and Southeast Asia generally. From a European perspective, our biggest markets tend to be the larger countries such as Germany, France, and the UK. In total, we do business in 151 countries around the world.

Q: What sets Carestream Health products, and the company generally, apart from other competitors and their products in the field?

A: We are a multinational company with all the benefits that brings, but we are still small enough to respond rapidly to customer needs, and gain customer input into our product development. When we look across our portfolio of products, there are benefits of being small and nimble, but also from being a company that is large enough to benefit from economies of scale.

We are in a unique position of being able to respond rapidly to customer needs and to ensure the customer voice is not lost as it might be in a larger multinationals. This responsiveness is especially important right now in the UK with the multidisciplinary management teams for PACS IT, which are undergoing many changes.

Q: MD Buyline (user satisfaction ratings) recognized Carestream Health’s DR systems for their quality of workmanship, well-designed technology, and outstanding customer service. How important is good customer service to you?

A: I was an engineer before entering management. Customer service support is so important, without it how can the NHS function properly? If there’s a car accident in the middle of the night, healthcare professionals need reliable equipment and this means good follow on care is essential. Carestream has a long pedigree in providing good customer service. It’s not just about someone with the spanners to fix a machine, but about being able to talk to somebody who knows what they are talking about.

Q: Carestream Health has also been recognized for innovation focused on value-based imaging that solves real-life problems, and addresses unmet customer needs. What new product innovations is Carestream currently offering in this respect?

A: We’ve just launched our OnSight 3D extremity system that uses cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) technology to capture high-quality, low-dose 3D exams. Conventionally, if someone needs a CT scan on their ankle or knee, using standard scanners, inadvertently other body parts would be irradiated unnecessarily. Also, conventional CT scanners are not optimized for extremities.

The other challenge to CT – especially in the UK – is access, where there are too few scanners per head of population. We have recognized this problem and with the extremity system have brought out a smaller scanner, which operates at a fraction of the cost of a standard CT scanner. Also, because this machine just images the relevant extremity, there will be a dose reduction without compromising image quality. The product will be available later this year.

Q: What does the future hold for Carestream Health?

A: Collaboration is a real buzzword now in healthcare especially with a shortage of doctors and radiologists. So collaboration across enterprises is essential, as is cost effectiveness and productivity. These are the key drivers for us. We hope our technology enables this collaboration, for example through our PACS systems, but also our DR systems increase productivity with high throughput. Our fluoroscopy system, for example, can be used for general X-ray, as well as fluoroscopy. Carestream aims to provide these systems with standard platforms avoiding the need for additional integration.

Related Links:
Carestream Health

Gold Member
Solid State Kv/Dose Multi-Sensor
AGMS-DM+
Gold Member
Radiation QA Tool
Accu-Gold 3
New
Brachytherapy Planning System
Oncentra Brachy
Dose Calibration Electrometer
PC Electrometer

Print article

Channels

Ultrasound

view channel
Image: Structure of the proposed transparent ultrasound transducer and its optical transmittance (Photo courtesy of POSTECH)

Ultrasensitive Broadband Transparent Ultrasound Transducer Enhances Medical Diagnosis

The ultrasound-photoacoustic dual-modal imaging system combines molecular imaging contrast with ultrasound imaging. It can display molecular and structural details inside the body in real time without... Read more

Nuclear Medicine

view channel
Image: PET/CT of a 60-year-old male patient with clinical suspicion of lung cancer (Photo courtesy of EJNMMI Physics)

Early 30-Minute Dynamic FDG-PET Acquisition Could Halve Lung Scan Times

F-18 FDG-PET scans are a way to look inside the body using a special dye, and these scans can be either static or dynamic. Static scans happen 60 minutes after the dye is administered into the body, showing... Read more

Imaging IT

view channel
Image: The new Medical Imaging Suite makes healthcare imaging data more accessible, interoperable and useful (Photo courtesy of Google Cloud)

New Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite Makes Imaging Healthcare Data More Accessible

Medical imaging is a critical tool used to diagnose patients, and there are billions of medical images scanned globally each year. Imaging data accounts for about 90% of all healthcare data1 and, until... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2024 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.