Blessing Health System has added a GE HealthCare Omni Legend PET/CT scanner at Blessing Hospital in Quincy. The system says physicians can use the scans to detect and monitor cancer, neurological disorders and heart disease.
Blessing is framing the addition as a travel fix. Some advanced PET imaging, the health system said, has required patients in west-central Illinois, northeast Missouri and southeast Iowa to travel up to two hours to larger metropolitan areas, and the new program is intended to reduce that burden on patients and families, the Herald-Whig reported.
What A PET/CT Scan Actually Shows
PET/CT combines two types of imaging to show how organs and tissues are functioning, not only how they are shaped. Physicians use those scans to detect and monitor cancer, neurological disorders and heart disease, so one machine can land on schedules that otherwise have little in common.
Blessing describes the Omni Legend as one of the most advanced imaging systems available. It says the scanner captures more information during each scan, which can reduce the time many patients spend being imaged.
A Scanner Already On Broadway
Blessing said the system will let patients in the region get specialized scans without traveling to larger cities. The wording is narrower than a blank map. Some advanced PET services, the system said, were the ones still tied to that metro drive.
Quincy Medical Group performs PET/CT scans at its Cancer Institute at 3301 Broadway. QMG said it added the technology in summer 2020 and that patients no longer had to receive those scans on a mobile truck unit. The group also says the institute has American College of Radiology accreditation for its PET/CT services.
Those are neighboring facts, not one program. Blessing is talking about specialized studies that still pointed people toward larger cities, and about an Omni Legend meant to take more of that work at the hospital. QMG's account is a fixed scanner on Broadway since summer 2020, with a national accreditation attached.
Other community hospitals have been parking the scanner on site, too. Columbus Community Hospital in Nebraska was set to open its Mead Family Cancer Center on Nov. 9 with an in-house Siemens PET/CT scanner available multiple days a week, after a mobile service that came once a week. Hoodline reported the center as a 26,500-square-foot facility bringing infusion therapy, radiation oncology, medical oncology, PET/CT imaging and patient navigation into one location.
The Wait Before The Scan
Patients can relax in recliners in private uptake rooms before the scan. The imaging area includes illuminated nature scenes, calming artwork and a lighted scanner opening, a softer perimeter around a test that still asks people to hold still.
Positioning is where the software comes in. The system uses artificial intelligence to help technologists position patients, and Blessing said that assistance improves consistency and efficiency and supports staff safety.
What Is Available Now
The program currently offers whole-body, skull-to-thigh and brain imaging, as well as imaging to evaluate prostate cancer. Those are the studies Blessing is describing as available.
Imaging for neuroendocrine tumors, amyloid brain imaging and cardiac PET imaging are plans. A general statement that physicians can use PET/CT to monitor heart disease is not the same thing as an open cardiac PET appointment. That study is still on the add list, with the tumor and amyloid brain studies.
Ribbon Cutting On Nov. 17
The public is invited to see the new imaging system on Tuesday, Nov. 17. A ribbon cutting will be held between 4 and 6 p.m. at Blessing Hospital, followed by tours of the new area.
Visitors should use the main entrance at 11th and Spring streets.
