INDUSTRY WATCH of whether the machine is 100 or 500 miles away , as it ’ s often a software problem . Our engineers , in conjunction with our call centre , promptly log into these machines when a customer reports an issue preventing their operation . We aim to troubleshoot and resolve the problem swiftly , and outside of logging and attending to it , we ’ ve achieved an impressive success rate of about 90 %. So , prioritising efficiency , we ’ re continually setting and striving to exceed targets for improved performance in the future .
Do you feel it helps to have such a vivid experience in the NHS machine ?
You ’ d hope so . It ’ s said that it would be unique to have been in this space , but for others , it ’ s a bit like trying to run a Formula One team when you ’ ve never driven a car , it ’ s easier to have breathed and felt the frontline experience to understand how it is for patients and staff and identify the optimal areas desperate for a breakthrough . Yeah , it ’ s an advantage .
With over a century of medical imaging expertise , how does Canon Medical ensure its team stays updated on the latest advancements in technology and healthcare practices for continuous improvement ?
One thing that is for sure is our space is so complex it ’ s very difficult to do anything alone . You always need three or four partners for any project to deliver a full solution .
We strive to stay topical , with many of us attending educational events , for example , the Radiological Society of North America meetings with the European
Congress of Radiology . Many of us attend these lectures , to see what ’ s going on clinically and understand the challenges doctors are trying to solve .
We can now go to patients who might have been told there ’ s nothing more that can be done for them medically , and offer another step forward , armed with new technology . One example of this would be the X-ray C-arms we provide to cardiac ‘ cath labs ’ providing real-time X-ray screening . A heart attack can be fatal , and a stroke can be life-changing but with devices under the X-ray control of these big complex rooms that we provide you can go in and retrieve the clot and that patients avoided a major catastrophe .
Looking ahead , what emerging trends or technologies do you foresee playing a pivotal role in the future of diagnostic medical imaging ?
Artificial Intelligence , everybody ’ s talking about it , and we ’ ve been delivering it on our machines for five years to improve image quality . We can use a lower radiation dose in CT scanners , for example , because the AI removes the noise from the image , resulting in the image always looking amazing .
Then there ’ s AI that manages workflow . Has this patient got a serious disease that needs urgent attention ? If so , AI can prioritise workflow to the doctors spread across a multi-1,000-bed hospital .
Then there ’ s AI that supports decision-making , which is programmed to look for certain diseases from scanner images , bringing it to the attention of the doctor who will make the final decision . This also potentially reduces error rates .
That ’ s the tech in the headlines but other areas are also really important , such as easier-to-use machines . There ’ s a paradox that as machines become more complicated with extra functions , they should become easier to use . In the same way that 10 years ago an SLR camera , you might want to go on a course to learn how to use it and now you can point your iPhone at something and make you look like a pretty good photographer straight off the bat . We want to get to the stage where the machine can work out what settings you should be using and it ’ s for you to agree or disagree with it .
That ’ s something that we ’ ve started to deliver with the Instinx platform and user interface , with the first utilisation in Bournemouth Hospital , UK , being extremely well received . p
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