By Healthcare Facilities Today

CHICAGO - GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company GE is committed to developing new products and improving current offerings to ensure the highest standards in patient care for billions of patients around the world. At the 2013 Radiological Society of North Americaannual meeting, GE Healthcare built on that commitment with innovative offerings focused on improving the patient experience, such as dramatically reducing the noise from an MRI scanner with Silent Scan and allowing patients to customize their environment for a mammography with SensorySuite.

"Quite a lot of things have changed in MR. But one thing that hadn't changed until Silent Scan was an impactful reduction of scan noise," said Dr. Alibek, associate professor of Radiology and head of radiology at MVZ Radiologie & Nuklearmedizin in Furth, Germany. "I always ask patients, 'How was your wide bore MR scan experience?' Before Silent Scan, most said it was very spacious but extremely loud. I always answered the patients with, 'Well, that's physics, we can't change that.' So I didn't believe it when I first heard, or didn't hear, Silent Scan. If you'd like your patients to feel as comfortable as possible during MR scans, GE's DV24.0 Continuum Pak with Silent Scan is enormously important."

GE Healthcare MRI is showcasing Silent Scan, a revolutionary technology introduced last year that is designed to reduce MR scanner noise to near ambient (background) sound levels. Conventional MRI scanners can generate noise in excess of 110 decibels, roughly equivalent to rock concerts and requiring ear protection. GE's exclusive Silent Scan technology is designed to reduce MR scanner noise to ambient (background) sound levels and improve a patient's MRI exam experience. To hear for yourself, click here.

"GE is putting patients first with Silent Scan," said Richard Hausmann, president & CEO of GE Healthcare, MRI. "This is a major breakthrough for the industry and patients worldwide. We look forward to expanding Silent Scan to more sequences at this year's RSNA."

This unique and first-to-market technology is one of many ways GE MRI is putting patient first. For example, clinicians can now scan patients with Silent San using T1, PD, as well as a PROPELLER motion-insensitive-based implementation of T2 and FLAIR as part of the Silent Neuro exam package - truly driving a new patient experience.

GE Healthcare's SensorySuite customizes the mammography patient experience

At RSNA this year, GE Healthcare is also showcasing its SensorySuite "cocoon" experience. This 3D fully-immersive video simulates SensorySuite by plunging participants into the overall SensorySuite patient experience. SensorySuite surrounds a woman with an interactive mammography experience designed to simultaneously stimulate three senses; sight, smell and hearing, helping to distract the patient from the perceived discomfort, pain and anxiety of a mammogram.

"Sensory Suite exemplifies our vision by capturing the essence of a woman's sense of serenity through a calming, surreal environment while facilitating the completion of her exam with the most state-of-the-art mammography unit," said Dr. Kathy Schilling, Medical Director and Shakira Sarquis-Kolber, Director, Women's Imaging Boca Raton, FL. "It is the perfect combination of high-tech and high-touch."

"During the mammogram, our patients are generally stressed and tense," said Dr. Andre Crevecoeur, CEO of Center of Senology, Liege, Belgium. "They fear in one hand that it will hurt and in the other hand the result. We acquired SensorySuite seven months ago, and we had very positive feedback from our patients."

A recent study performed with 250 patients in two different SensorySuite sites showed that 64.4 percent of women felt relaxed during the mammogram examination, and 99.6 percent of all the patients were likely to return to the same facility for their next mammogram(1).

"Mammograms play an essential role in the early detection of breast cancer and therefore, survival rate - and yet, statistics show that 1 out of 4 women avoid getting mammograms," said Prahlad Singh, general manager of Women's Health at GE Healthcare.

By giving women the control to choose from one of three environmental ambiances - seaside, garden or waterfall, SensorySuite aims to encourage better overall mammography, cooperation and compliance. SensorySuite is available for use with existing or new Senographe* Essential, Senographe Care or Senographe DS* systems.