SWMC installs new ultrasound units

January 15, 2016

Southwest Medical Center introduced technology upgrades for patients this month with the installation of two Ultrasound Unitnew ultrasound units in the Diagnostic Imaging department.

Patients receiving ultrasound imaging at Southwest Medical Center will have higher quality images available through this new equipment, in addition to many other benefits.

“Patients entering our department are cared for by highly skilled members of our team who have excellent imaging technology available,” SWMC’s Diagnostic Imaging director, Kelly Denton, explained. “Installing these two new ultrasound units will improve the comfort of our patients, as these faster ultrasound units will reduce the amount of time our patients spend holding their breath or body positioning during a scan.”

Ultrasound units send high-frequency sound waves through a patient’s body to capture real-time, moving images of organs and blood vessels to diagnose for a number of conditions. The two identical units installed recently feature “Superb Microvascular Imaging” software, which can be used to record images of a patient’s smallest blood vessels for better detail of blood flow. This improvement in image quality also better assists with guide procedures, such as needle biopsies.

“Having two fast, high-quality units also means patients will have a shorter wait time before their scheduled ultrasound appointment,” Denton added, “This allows us to better serve patients and their providers who depend on these images for an accurate diagnosis.”

The addition of these ultrasound units followed installation of a 64-slice CT scanner in 2015 and a dual-head nuclear imaging camera during 2014 inside Southwest Medical Center’s Diagnostic Imaging department.