Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, part of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), is to be opened in Birmingham. The new facility has been built incorporating latest imaging innovations from Siemens Healthcare.
It is a primary receiving hospital for British military casualties and is a regional trauma centre for the West Midlands. The multi-million pound investment in diagnostic imaging solutions is expected to broaden the range of procedures offered to patients and deliver diagnostic confidence for clinicians.
Siemens Healthcare has worked in partnership with UHB to install four MRI systems: a Magnetom Verio 3T, two Avanto 1.5T and Espree 1.5T; four CT scanners: two Somatom Definition AS+, a Definition AS and a Definition Dual Source; and gamma camera systems: a Symbia S SPECT, Symbia T TruePoint SPECT•CT and a Symbia T16 TruePoint SPECT•CT combining a variable angle dual detector SPECT with 16-slice CT.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital said that the Definition AS+ CT system is situated in an emergency department and is tasked with performing triple rule-out scans to speed up diagnosis for chest pain of unknown origin. The Symbia T systems in the Nuclear Medicine Department will give UHB hybrid imaging capabilities with SPECT for the first time and will be used for cancer management, including lesion localisation and disease assessment.
The Symbia T16 system will also be equipped with IQ•SPECT, Siemens’ new technology for comprehensive cardiac evaluation including perfusion, attenuation correction and calcium scoring in five minutes. IQ SPECT technology will be used to improve the UHB’s myocardial perfusion service.
Paul Brettle, imaging X-ray group manager at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The installation of these imaging solutions marks a huge leap forward in our capabilities, allowing us to do so much more for patients and placing us at the forefront of many clinical techniques. The new hospital facilities are world-class and the suite of imaging solutions adds to the provision of next generation healthcare for the city of Birmingham and surrounding areas.”
Chris Boivin, head of nuclear medicine at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “What is really important to us is improving the scope and quality of our service. SPECT•CT will give us increased diagnostic confidence and the ability to localise abnormalities on SPECT scans, as well as improved quantitative information for radionuclide therapy dosimetry.
“The IQ SPECT system will greatly reduce patient scan times and make the experience much more comfortable for them. The ability to perform simultaneous calcium scoring will improve diagnostic accuracy. We are looking forward to expanding the scope of our diagnostic offerings with the new technology and giving patients a faster, more efficient service.”