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Alexandria VA Pineville Healthcare System Becomes First VA Medical Center to Offer Unique Philips Ingenia MRI with in-bore Ambient ExperienceAlexandria VA Medical Center (VAMC) and Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHIA) announced today that the VAMC's Pineville, LA facility will be the first VA site to adopt the Philips Ingenia 1.5T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with in-bore Ambient (News - Alert) Experience technology. The state-of-the-art clinical suite offers a soothing patient experience with imagery, sound and light, helping to put patients at ease. The Alexandria VAMC offers comprehensive acute and extended healthcare in areas of medicine, surgery, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, oncology, dentistry, geriatrics and extended care. The VAMC serves a potential veteran population of over 100,000 veterans, including community-based services at Fort Polk, Jennings, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Natchitoches, as well as an active patient roster of over 32,000 patients. Unlike traditional X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging does not use ionizing radiation to provide high quality images of the body, and includes contrast detail of soft tissue and anatomic structures like gray and white matter in the brain. While this has allowed applications of MRI technology to expand in the areas of neurology, oncology and cardiology, thus increasing demand for this modality, patient anxiety and motion still remain challenges. An MRI scan takes about 30 minutes, and nearly 35% of patients have claustrophobia or some considerable level of anxiety about the machine itself1, with about 20% requiring repeat scans due to motion during the scan2. The Philips (News - Alert) Ingenia 1.5T in-bore Ambient Experience MRI installation includes innovative elements to improve the patient experience:
"At Philips, we want to build a healthy society and achieve our goal of improving the lives of three billion people by 2025, and in order to do this we need to work with key organizations like the VA on improving the patient experience, giving our veterans the care they deserve and access to key diagnostic technologies like the Philips Ingenia 1.5T MRI," said Joe Robinson, head of enterprise and government solutions at Philips. "Through our long-standing relationship with the VA we are looking at ways we can help them to address veteran's health issues, helping to take care of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country." Also key for organizations such as the VA is the fact that the Philips Ingenia 1.5T offers upgrades such as ScanWise Implant6, the industry's first MRI guided user interface to simplify the scanning of patients with MR Conditional implants like knee and hip replacements, spine implants and pacemakers. The software helps users streamline exams in this expanding healthcare area and complements Philips' suite of diagnostic imaging solutions, helping to improve hospital workflow and enhance the patient experience.
About Royal Philips
1 Meléndez, J. Carlos, and Ernest McCrank. "Anxiety-related
reactions associated with magnetic resonance imaging examinations." Jama
270.6 (1993): 745-747.
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