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New ultrasound machine arrives
Equipment upgrade will mean better, clearer images

Samantha Stokell
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, May 12, 2011

INUVIK - There's excitement in the diagnostic imaging department of the Inuvik Regional Hospital as the technologists get used to a new ultrasound machine that produces clearer images and has new gadgets.

NNSL photo/graphic

Marion MacInnis, the chief technologist in diagnostic imaging at the Inuvik Regional Hospital, displays the brand new ultrasound machine received at the end of March. The new machine replaces a 10-year-old ultrasound machine. - Samantha Stokell/NNSL photo

Marion MacInnis, chief technologist in diagnostic imaging at the Inuvik Regional Hospital, has worked at the hospital since 1983. She and the hospital have lobbied for the past three or four years for a new ultrasound machine to replace the now-retired one that was ten years old.

"Although it was a superb machine and it was top of the line for the money we paid, it was old and five years past its prime and the images were getting degraded," MacInnis said. "[The new machine] has an astounding exposure in the images. You can see so much you almost have to relearn anatomy."

The machine, a Toshiba Aplio XG, arrived at the hospital on March 29. It's used for obstetrics, and also to check gall bladders, kidney stones and other bumps and to look for calcifications in breasts, which could lead to cancer.

Ultrasound machines use sound waves, similar to sonar in submarines. The transducers or scanning probes send sound waves into the body which bounce back once they hit a solid structure, like a baby or kidney stone. The machine then sorts the received signals into a live video feed technologists are trained to decipher. The new machine has improved frequency options, which allow for clearer images.

Particular aspects of the new machine that have impressed MacInnis are the size of the new screen, the different sizes of transducers, the ability to freeze and hold an image on the screen before sending it to the PACS machine which transfers the images into a database, and the increased clarity when adding colour to the black and white image that enhances the sparkle of calcifications.

"It's a bit more of a button-pushing unit, but it's really nice," MacInnis said. "Ultrasound is in high demand. The young doctors are used to having it at their beck and call."

The diagnostic imaging department sees between five and 10 patients per day, for all different reasons. MacInnis said doctors like using ultrasound because it's a non-invasive diagnostic tool that doesn't involve pins or tubes.

The hospital received its first ultrasound machine in 1984. Before that, patients would travel to Yellowknife for an ultrasound scan. Although appointments would take only a half hour, the trips often took three days, due to flight schedules.

The machine alone cost $179,000, but shipping, installation and instruction for the new machine brought the cost to $385,000. Since the machine is in the regional hospital, residents of Inuvik won't be the only ones benefitting from the updated technology.

"We've been advocating on behalf of the whole region to get this ultrasound machine," said Deborah Tynes, CEO of the Beaufort Delta Health Authority. "We're very blessed to offer ultrasounds to everyone in the region. Not just Inuvik, but all the communities, too."

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