New CT scanner at CHI Carrington

A new tool that promises to deliver accurate, fast and detailed results for patients at CHI St. Alexius Health Carrington Medical Center has been installed.

CHI Carrington's Radiology Department received a new computerized tomography (CT) scanner to replace its old machine which served the community and region since 2012.

The price of the scanner, a Siemens Somatom, was $401,342, not counting costs for installation work and room renovation.

Radiology Technologist (RT) Luke Kutz says that the new machine went online on June 11, and offers new technologies to assist patients in detection of internal injuries and other health issues.

"The decision to replace the CT scanner came a couple years ago," Kutz said. "The plan was to do a remodel of the lab and X-ray to include the new scanner at that time."

However, the COVID-19 pandemic officially scuttled those plans.

Kutz said there was nothing wrong with the 12-year-old machine that the Somatom replaced.

"It was a great scanner that just outlived its purpose," he said. "Parts were becoming obsolete, and our vendor had to search for used pieces, as they weren't manufactured anymore."

He added that hard drives, in particular, were "especially hard to find."

The Somatom, Kutz explained, has 32 detectors with a slower table speed that the radiology department can scan as a 64-slice machine.

"It has such a new operating system that the closest one with this technology is in southern South Dakota," he said.

He says that the Somatom, besides having the benefit of reduced downtime and easier servicing should it malfunction, can scan patients at a much faster speed and reduce exposure to radiation up to 66 percent.

"We used to do angiograms of the neck and brain on stroke patients, and we would spend up to 45 minutes after the scan trying to build 3-D models that we needed to send to the radiologist before reading," said Kutz.

By contrast, Kutz says the new machine does them "almost instantly," which is very important in emergent situations when time is of the essence.

Kutz also added that Medicare patients who qualify can get low dose chest scans as a lung cancer screening tool once the hospital enrolls in the program, since they now have the scanner that meets dosage requirements for it.

"The results get tracked in a database, and the patient can get follow-ups," he said.

With the Siemens Somatom in place, Kutz and his team will be able to provide higher quality, lower-dosed and faster scans to area patients.

"In a small-town setting, we treat all of our patients as friends or family, as they usually are," he says. "We want to keep as many patients here in Carrington as we possibly can, to support our facility and community."

"Between the logistics of getting somewhere else and feeling like a patient rather than a person, they prefer the small local hospital setting," Kutz concluded. "This scanner is just one of the many tools we have to make our residents feel better about their healthcare."

Call CHI St. Alexius Health Carrington Medical Center at (701) 652-3141 to schedule an appointment today.