Banner Thunderbird’s new wireless X-Ray providing faster results to patients

GLENDALE, Ariz. (April 5, 2010) – Wireless technology might seem ubiquitous these days and it is no different for a hospital in Glendale, Ariz. Banner Thunderbird Medical Center has recently acquired a portable digital x-ray system that offers both wired and wireless connectivity within the facility. 

With this new device, high quality digital images can now be acquired at the patient’s bedside and the pictures can be immediately uploaded to the hospital’s digital imaging system, making them available to physicians within a few minutes of the picture being snapped in the patient room.

As a result, the images can be evaluated and a diagnosis can be made more quickly, meaning faster treatment and, potentially, better medical outcomes for the patient.

Called the FujiFilm FCR Go, the portable digital X-ray system provides the same functionality and sophisticated image processing features found in dedicated x-ray rooms with fixed equipment. Having this level of technology available in a portable unit allows medical imaging professionals in the hospital to come to the patient versus having to remove the patient from their room and transport them to the medical imaging department.

“It helps us provide our patients the highest quality of care regardless of where they are in the hospital,” said Norlien Ashing, senior clinical manager in Banner Thunderbird’s Medical Imaging department.

Additionally, those images can be uploaded to the hospital’s digital imaging system, referred to as a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), through a secure wireless uplink that makes the high definition images available for evaluation by a radiologist almost immediately.

Banner Desert and Banner Del E. Webb Medical Centers have also received this new technology.

About Banner Thunderbird
Banner Thunderbird is the largest, full service hospital in the West Valley with 513 beds, 2,900 employees and 1,200 physicians representing a variety of specialties.  Banner Thunderbird is part of Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the largest, nonprofit health care systems in the country.