Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah, a UAE Ministry of Health & Prevention hospital, has upgraded its Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) capabilities to assure the highest standards in diagnostic services and patient care, with the deployment of GE Healthcare’s award-winning AIR technology and the latest SIGNATM Works PX28 software platform for 3T MRI systems.
As part of the upgrade, Al Qassimi Hospital has installed the latest SIGNATM WORKS AIRTM Edition. This software platform packs Artificial Intelligence based algorithms for better patient comfort, versatility, productivity, and industry-leading image quality.
The hospital will also be the first in the UAE to utilize AIR™ Technologies. AIR™ Coils, awarded Best New Radiology Device of 2019, serves as the foundation of a simply better MR experience. It has the industry’s first truly lightweight and flexible design, making them comfortable for patients to wear and easy for technologists to handle. AIR™ coils enable scans in positions that were historically very challenging like lateral decubitus spine and fetal imaging.
This was accomplished through Unison, the first company in the GCC to introduce the Public-Private Partnership along with the UAE Ministry of Health. The intention is to increase overall patient care in the UAE by decreasing waiting time, improving image quality and accuracy of reporting.
Dr. Hatem Abouelabbass Ghonim, Medical Director of Unison Capital Investment, said: “Since we formed Unison four years ago, we have worked towards enhancing the operational efficiency of radiology departments throughout the Ministry of Health and Prevention hospital network in the UAE. Strengthening radiology competencies is crucial to boost the speed, quality and reliability of diagnostic services in order to help deliver better patient outcomes. Through the upgrade of Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah, Unison once again delivers on its mission to bring the best-in-class technology for UAE’s hospitals that help medical professionals better diagnose and treat disease in our communities.”
Ehab Zawaideh, Commercial General Manager- Middle East, GE Healthcare, said: “AIR Technology empowers radiologists and technologists with the ability to position the patient in the most comfortable orientation. They have complete flexibility and the MRI signal does not degrade, meaning great image quality and the most comfortable patient experience. Al Qassimi Hospital is setting the standard for diagnostic patient care.”
Tamer Akl, General Manager, ADI, said: “The AIR™ advanced technologies of AIR™ is a game-changer in MR that strengthens clinical power and enables radiologists to achieve improved workflow, enhanced patient comfort and reduced exam times. With the introduction of the advanced solutions, Al Qassimi Hospital becomes one of the leading centers in the region in offering world-class diagnostic services.”
AIR Touch™ is part of the predictive and proactive patient recognition solutions. It automatically selects and optimizes element combinations for each patient over the precise area-of-interest. With the anatomical-based protocol optimization per patient, AIR Touch optimizes for anatomy, patient, and scan parameters with a single touch, delivering 59% productivity gain.
AIR™ Recon is GE’s new reconstruction algorithms that can reduce background noise and out-of-FOV artifacts with improving Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR). The result is crisper images and faster scan times.
