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Echo Cardiograms Go Digital
Your doctor is concerned about a heart murmur that you have. He orders an echo cardiogram to evaluate the medical concern. You don’t have to go far for the latest technology. You can come to Newberry County Memorial Hospital.
In the hospital’s continuing pursuit of excellence in technology and patient care, Newberry County Memorial Hospital recently installed a new digital echo cardiogram lab. Echo cardiograms are used extensively in the diagnosis and management of heart disease. Internist Dr. Mark Davis, Internist Dr. Alan Paysinger and visiting Cardiologist Dr. Stuck read these studies locally.
Internist Dr. Alan Paysinger, who recently joined Newberry Internal Medicine, is very pleased at this advance in technology. “It makes a difference for my patients. The clarity of the images is excellent. In addition, we can now magnify a section of the study, such as an artery, and look even more closely. This means our diagnosis and the information that we need to better manage our patient’s condition is even more accurate and is more in depth. We could not do that with the former technology. This is a big step forward for patient care.”
In addition to enhanced clarity of the images and improved functionality, such as magnification, there are other positives about this new standard of care.
 One of the most important is the speed and ease with which the physician can read the study. Speed of diagnosis is always an important factor for patients and physicians, especially for critically ill ICU patients.
Digital archiving also makes the portability of individual studies to specialists much easier and more private. The digital studies can be retrieved and reviewed as needed.
New advances in vascular imaging called BFI or blood flow imaging provide a new way for doctors to look at blood flow within the vessels. For example, the digital imaging differentiates the color of the blood and the walls of the arteries more clearly. This allows physicians to see much more accurately the plaque buildup on the walls of the arteries.
The ultrasound imaging wands for various functions, such as viewing carotid arteries, is smaller and lighter weight providing not only better imaging, but is also less stressful for the technologists using the instrument. (YES, NCMH does carotid artery studies!)
The final step in the improvement of this process is the installation of a report system which will allow the physician to put his report directly into the system rather than dictating the report to be then typed into the system. This speeds the critical diagnostic information to the patient’s chart, where it can impact patient care in a timelier manner. This important improvement is expected within the next year.
Your heart murmur? After getting a very timely report from your echo cardiogram done at NCMH, your doctor recommends that the condition be monitored. He wants you to get an echo every year to chart the progress of the condition. Perhaps one day you will have to have a valve replacement, but not today. And, you are still close to home.
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