FLORENCE — Physicians, nurses and other health care professionals were schooled Thursday on how the devices many of them use every day work during the GE Healthcare Professionals Day.
Health care providers were given a tour of the Florence facility, which is responsible for manufacturing the world’s supply of GE premier MR systems, said Mike Eggleston, general manager for GE’s Florence operations.
MR systems are used daily in hospitals and medical offices to produce detailed MRI images of the human body.
“It’s all made here,” he said. “If somebody buys a MR in Sydney or Shanghai or Toyko, it came from Florence, S.C.”
The 380 personnel who staff the facility were particularly excited about showing off two of GE’s most recent MR system creations: the Signa Vibrant and the Signa MR750.
The Signa Vibrant is used primarily for breast imagery and in the treatment of breast cancer, Eggleston said.
The Signa MR750, one of the most powerful MR systems ever produced for clinical use, contains a magnet that is 60,000 times more powerful than the earth’s magnetic field, said Scott Ramsey, region modality leader for GE.
“Because of its strength, you can go faster or do high-resolution images,” Ramsey said. “If you have patients that do not tolerate the (imaging) process well, then you can make the procedure faster.”
While the machine can produce crisper images in a shorter time period, most physicians are more interested in the quality of the images than the length of the procedure, he said.
After the tour, Chris Cunningham, head of vascular surgery at McLeod Regional Medical Center, said he’s impressed with the GE MR systems.
“We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before in the human body,” he said. “As someone who orders MRIs, it’s nice to see all the technology, that way you know what to look for in the next generation (of imaging).”
Cunningham said he routinely asks for MRIs of arteries and blood vessels, which are generally hard to photograph because of the blood moving through them.
It’s nice to know strides are being made toward making that process easier, he said.
Cunningham was one of some 120 professionals who saw firsthand how the life-saving piece of equipment comes together.
“I was amazed at how much of the process is done by hand,” said Tricia Floyd, a representative of McLeod’s Occupational Heath Services. “I’ve always imagined these big machines doing all the work. It was very helpful.”
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