Birmingham Heartlands Hospital recently acquired two Canon Aplio 500 ultrasound scanners as part of the Heart of England’s NHS Foundation Trust’s equipment replacement programme. The Trust purchased in total five Aplio 500 systems, with Solihull Hospital receiving the other three units.
Ryan Carr, Clinical Lead Sonographer at Heart of England NHS Trust says, “We reviewed a number of machines from different manufacturers and decided that Canon was best for our clinical needs. The image quality has greatly improved and we are now in the early stages of introducing fusion scanning. There is a large selection of probes to choose from and we have invested in a 3D transvaginal probe to improve our capabilities within this area.”
Canon’s Aplio 500 delivers high quality performance. Based on its innovative High Density Architecture, users can obtain clinical images of exceptional resolution and detail. It comes with a wide range of tools and options for advanced imaging and interventions.
Correlating different imaging modalities in real-time, Canon’s Smart Fusion allows the user to locate difficult lesions faster, to navigate complex anatomy securely, and to improve confidence when carrying out invasive procedures. For a comprehensive pre- and post-interventional evaluation, Smart Fusion enables the sonographer to work in any ultrasound imaging mode, including colour Doppler and contrast-enhanced ultrasound.
In addition, Smart Fusion reads 3D DICOM datasets from all major imaging modalities and shows the corresponding images contained in real-time, adjacent to the live ultrasound display.
Commenting on the installation and training supplied by Canon, Ryan adds, “We found the whole process, from our trial runs with the machines, to completion of the project to be seamless and the applications specialists have been tremendously supportive. We often asked Canon, sometimes at short notice, to provide training and they have always been accommodating. Overall, we have been impressed with Canon’s ability to provide high quality scan machines, as well as a first-class support system.”
Shown here (left to right) at the handover of the equipment is:
Donna Holdcroft, Ultrasound Clinical Specialist, Canon Medical Systems, with Registrars, Dr. Qazi Jahenzeb; Dr. Laura Davies and Dr. Hayder Al-Assam. Kamaljeet Nagra, Clinical Lead Sonographer and Dr. Ben Miller, Consultant Radiologist
Canon Medical Systems has a carbon-zero project in place. We have calculated the carbon footprint for each of our products to include manufacturing, shipping, delivery and average hospital energy used for the standard lifetime of the equipment as follows:
Ultrasound equates to 1 stove and 3,415 litres of water