For a comprehensive list of all the benefits of DR over CR please see our post from July 8th, 2011. Mobile x-ray businesses have, in general, been slower to pick up on DR technology and for a variety of good reasons, but many of the issues that have held them back in the past have been addressed; making now the perfect time to reconsider a purchase.

One of the main concerns that mobile x-ray companies often express is how heavy and cumbersome the DR panels can be. By shopping around a bit, you can find panels they weigh well under ten pounds and have form factors that are only slightly larger than a standard cassette size.

Consider looking for a panel that has a slim case around it that can support the weight of a patient lying directly on it for abdominal, hip and other shots that could a put a strain on an unprotected panel. Also make sure that the cover has a good, sturdy handle for easy portability.

Inexpensive but powerful touchscreen tablets have reduced the bulk and complication of having to haul a laptop into the x-ray rooms. These tablets can be mounted directly on to the portable x-ray machines and can be easily removed for security when the machine is not in use. When these systems are manufactured properly all of the cables are completely hidden.

Using mobile DR has some serious advantages over using CR or film. A quality mobile DR will cut back on the amount of time required for a tech to be on-site with patients. The x-rays can be reviewed for quality just seconds after acquiring the image. Compare this with the CR where the tech has to take the cassettes out to the vehicle for scan and review. This time savings alone can mean one tech can pack more visits into a single day.

Alara’s CrystalView systems are useful for the veterinarian who is looking for a veterinary digital x-ray imaging system for the home office that is both affordable and can handle a low volume of digital images. The CrystalView conveniently fits on top of a desk. One convenient feature is that you can share the CrystalView reader through the use of workstations that are networked.

Kodak offers its Point of Care imaging system along with a mini-PACS component suitable for veterinary x-ray needs. This is a complete system that allows you to not only take digital images, but also view and store them using the mini-PACS.

Many veterinarians who want a mobile Veterinary digital x-ray system find this to be a great fit.

CR solutions offer one of the most cost-effective digital imaging options currently available. If you have film x-ray equipment at your home office, you can retrofit it with suitable CR components and turn it into digital imaging equipment. There are also mobile CR systems that are compact and lightweight, making them perfect for a portable solution when you need to diagnose veterinary patients on a farm, or human patients on a cruise ship, at a sports stadium or at a nursing home.

What makes the home-office CR digital imaging equipment compatible with the mobile CR solutions is the computer language that both speak. DICOM is the common format used in the translation of digital images taken in a variety of modalities. Because of this, the CR digital images that you take out on the road can also be read by other x-ray equipment back at your home office, such as the PACS system.

You can also use CR solutions in a totally mobile environment, as might be the case for the veterinary practice or an urgent care unit. The CR imagers are portable via a wheeled cart, making them easy to maneuver. You can add a laptop computer that has access to your home PACS, or a web-based PACS, which will then allow you to view digital images, send and receive them while on the road, and then store the digital images that you take to a server back at your home office. Printers can also be added to the laptop computer, so that you can print out hard copies of your CR digital images as needed while in the field caring for patients.

Because you can visit and treat a wider number of patients that might not otherwise have access to your services, you can see that this will help to improve your cash flow while at the same time bringing needed health care to your patients.

Archiving of patient digital records can happen in a number of different ways through the use of a radiology PACS system. If a patient needs to take a hard copy of digital images with him or her to a specialist’s office, for example, hard copies can be printed out on a digital printer, but copies can also be saved to a CD or DVD, making it more convenient for the consulting physician and patient.

With a PACS in place at your medical office, you can also set it to automatically save copies in seconds of patient digital medical images to the patient file as well as to both on- and off-site servers. The off-site server functions very well for many medical facilities that must keep within compliance of HIPPA rules for disaster recovery of patient medical records.

Another important way that you can save money is to use a radiology PACS that is web based. Because the PACS system is online, any number of associated medical offices and imaging centers in your local area network, wide area network or virtual private network can all use the same PACS system simultaneously.

Hospitals find other uses for their radiology PACS besides just as an excellent way to store digital images. Hospitals and other medical facilities that typically process a high volume of digital medical images find that a PACS can also function well as a dedicated router. With hundreds and thousands of digital images being sent through a medical network, the PACS as router makes sure that every digital image gets to its proper destination promptly and accurately.

At Dicom Solutions, we have PACS appliances that will work for the largest hospitals through to smaller specialty medical facilities, and all offer affordable options for the important storage needs that your medical office requires consistently.

Many medical facilities and hospitals rely on a large variety of digital imaging components that make up their entire radiology suite of diagnostic tools. This is also the case with mobile x-ray systems. Most have a digital imager, often in DR or CR mode, to capture the raw digital image data. However, the digital image information then needs to be put into the proper format so that the image can be saved, stored, viewed and distributed electronically. This is where having a PACS system connected to your mobile x-ray unit helps tremendously.

The DICOM format also helps with equipment compatibility. Having imagers, PACS, printers and other components made by different digital imaging manufacturers could spell trouble in terms of all of the different digital pieces being able to read and communicate with each other, but because DICOM is the common digital image format, all of that hassle is eliminated.

When you are traveling and working in a mobile x-ray unit, you want to have many of the same features in your digital imaging equipment that you are used to having at your home office. You can set up a clinical workstation using a laptop computer, for example, in order to view the DICOM images that you take in the field. With wireless capabilities added to the mix, you can also have access to your servers back at home so that digital images can be quickly and efficiently saved for further reference. You can also connect to your network as well, allowing you to send the digital images that you take while traveling to consulting physicians, to the patient’s file at your home office, as well as to an archive for safe storage.

We offer a wide variety of options for hospitals and medical facilities both large and small when it come to DICOM-format mobile x-ray systems, as well as used equipment at affordable prices.

Radiology PACS run on the nearly universal DICOM platform. Your PACS system will accept digital images taken in a variety of modalities, such as PET, CT, Mammography, Ultrasound, MRI and others, and will convert them to DICOM format. In this format, they can then be used by the PACS system to allow you to view, distribute and store the digital images that you take.

PACS systems are also designed for use in clinical specialties, such as an orthopedic PACS.

Podiatry x-ray that takes advantage of digital technology speeds up every imaging transaction that you process throughout your work week. When a suite of podiatry digital x-ray tools are used in tandem, additional benefits are reaped as well.

Many podiatry offices utilize podiatry DR digital imaging systems. This type of imaging unit allows you to take the fastest digital x-rays currently available, as well as images with the highest resolution values. Clear digital images help to provide you with the raw data you need for accurate diagnoses, and the fast digital imaging times made possible with a DR system mean that you can have a high throughput of digital images yet still maintain the high quality needed in the medical environment.

Along with the podiatry DR imager, your podiatry specialty practice can also connect to a PACS system. This will give you the ability to not only view your digital images taken, but to also store and distribute them as needed.

Viewing the digital x-rays is enhanced through a PACS that runs on a clinical workstation with a diagnostic-quality monitor. From here you can edit your digital medical images by changing the brightness or contrast, can take detailed digital measurements, and can zoom, pan, or rotate to get a better view.

There are also several options for storing Podiatry x-ray digital images. You might want to save digital x-rays to CD or DVD, so that patients can take the images with them to a consultation, for example. You can also store digital images on a server. The PACS system can be programmed to save a copy automatically, freeing up your valuable time. The server can be located on site at your office, or off site, in order to ensure that you have sufficient disaster recovery in place.

Electronic distribution of digital x-rays varies depending upon your needs. Your PACS may be associated with a local area network, wide area network, or even a virtual private network, to facilitate sending and receiving digital images quickly and accurately.

All of these advantages help to cut out repetitive tasks and wasted time, so you have more time to focus on delivering excellent patient care.

Using a digital image acquisition unit such as the Fujifilm CR system, along with a radiology PACS, gives you the most versatility in digital imaging. A web-based PACS system allows you to send and receive digital images in the DICOM format, along with text that is saved in DICOM format. This in itself means that you can use the speed of the internet to enhance your consultation ability automatically.

You can send digital images on to colleagues via a local-area network, wide-area network

Although we started out small, our company has expanded over time and we are proud of the fact that it is now included in the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies in the United States. The business began operations in 2003, primarily to resell Dicom to CD digital imaging programs.

All of that changed in 2004, however, when we began to focus on our online presence. This year also brought with it an expansion to the types of digital imaging equipment that we make available to hospitals, medical facilities and clinics. We were able to add more than a dozen new vendors to our portfolio of products offered, enabling us to reach our goal of providing medical facilities with a single place to find everything needed to utilize digital imaging in the medical environment. We expanded once again in 2010 with the inception of RadiologyBuyer.com, which offers a plethora of digital imaging products available for instant purchase online.

Today, we are pleased to offer a full range of digital imaging system components. These include CR and DR image acquisition systems, as well as related document scanning, image conversion, portable x-ray, bone density and RIS system equipment. Archival capabilities of medical facilities was greatly improved in 2009 when we began to offer RemotePACS as a cost-effective as well as HIPPA-compliant means for offsite digital image storage.

For archival purposes, we also make available a router system, PACS, as well as a mini-PACS system and a combination PACS with RIS and billing components. The viewing of digital medical images is widened with our line of dicom viewers, diagnostic monitors as well as clinical workstation packages. The dicom viewer selection includes the eFilm Workstation, Web Viewers and Omni Vue. The web-based dicom viewer enables online consultations, a huge benefit in providing affordable and better patient care for medical facilities utilizing our digital imaging products.

Many medical facilities take advantage of our distribution components. They include printers compatible with your digital imaging components, the PACSImage units that allow digital images to be stored to CD, as well as our burgeoning teleradiology solutions.