Hospital

St. Mary Medical Center opened in Langhorne, Pa., in 1974and now staffs more than 600 physicians, 2,400colleagues and 900 volunteers. The366-bed hospital is part of Catholic Health East, which includes hospitals from Maine to Florida.

MR Department

The Department, which serves suburban Bucks County, boasts both inpatient and outpatient diagnostic services. Between the St. Mary location and a MR satellite MRI and CT imaging center in Richboro, Pa., more than18,000 MRIs are performed each year.

Why did you choose Hitachi's High-Field Oasis?

When the patients are in the magnet, they are significantly more comfortable, particularly if they are claustrophobic.Patient comfort is key in MR imaging. MR imaging takes a certain amount of time to get a good quality study. If the patient is comfortable, especially in a nice open high field MRI environment, they have the ability to hold still a little bit better.

How is Oasis impacting your MR department

What’s been so exciting about this open magnet is that we can do all kinds of MRI examinations. On an open magnet with the open environment there’s comparable image quality to a high-field closed magnet. When it comes to patient workflow in high-field open magnet, we’re able to do comparable examinations as on a high-field closed magnet in the same amount of time. Previously, exams took a lot longer and so it would take longer per patient.