BRMC is first state hospital to purchase new CT scanner

Baptist Regional Medical Center in Corbin announced Tuesday that it is the first Kentucky hospital to purchase and install a state-of-the-art 40-slice Brilliance Computed Tomography (CT) scanner.
The scanner, manufactured by Phillips Medical Systems, is located in the center’s Outpatient Diagnostic Center and will allow doctors to see much more highly detailed images of the human body than ever before.
“Basically, it takes thinner slices than the old machine does which allows for higher definition images,” said Mark Steely, Radiology Coordinator at Baptist Regional Medical Center. “If a patient has a mass or area of concern, there’s a lot better chance to see it. We are able to see smaller masses with this technology.”
A CT scan produces a cross-sectional view of the human anatomy and allows doctors to rule out or confirm the presence of certain disease like arterial blockage or cancer. It is also used to evaluate injuries suffered by trauma patients, like someone involved in an automobile accident.
Steely said the new scanner takes more “slices” of the portions of the body being scanned than the old machine, allowing for better images. The result is the ability to do a “virtual” colonoscopy and cardiac imaging – procedures that are normally very invasive.
“That’s the key, it’s less invasive,” Steely said. “There is no recovery time and some patients can do these procedures a lot easier and a lot faster.”
The scanner uses significantly lower levels of X-ray energy than many other CT scanners on the market and has built in limits on the amount of X-rays used to scan children.
“While we need the critical anatomical information we get from a CT scan, we always want to limit the X-ray dose to the patient to the absolute minimum possible, especially for children,” Steely said. “Our new Brilliance scanner features unique technology that ensures we get exceptional images with significantly lower dose to the patient.”
The scanner also is able to accommodate larger patients than most equipment can handle.
Steely said doctors in the area expressed an interest in the new CT scanner. Baptist Regional Medical Center bought the scanner, along with some other equipment for its cardiology department, for about $1.5 million.
The center’s old CT scanner will be taken to the main hospital building and still utilized.
The scanner was installed Tuesday and Steely said technicians will spend the rest of the week calibrating it and testing it before using it on patients next Monday.
Steely said the scanner is part of the hospitals dedication to providing high quality health care locally.
“We want to keep our community here,” he said. “We want to provide better health care service here so they don’t have to go to Lexington or Knoxville and be away from their family while they are getting these tests. If it’s available, we want to be able to get it. We want to grow and provide what our patients need.”