Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Manager's Guide to Surgery's Orthopedic Surgery - August 2015

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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3 6 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E A U G U S T 2 0 1 5 improve visualization in difficult-to-view areas and in obese patients. For example, if you're in the spine, the radiation beamed in to image the ribs and shoulder blades is unneces- sary for ALARA purposes and unhelpful for viewing the area of immediate importance. Adjusting the C-arm to focus its energy just on the spinal elements delivers the optimal image. The ability to selectively enhance fluoroscopic images is another advance that's available in some newer C-arms. This feature is achieved through how the system reads the imaging data and presents it to the user, not through how it is captured. Being able to program the system's settings to increase the contrast between items of different densities in the imaging field creates a sharper view of the bony elements in the primary area of focus and reduces the prominence of soft tis- sue. A clearer, easier-to-interpret image decreases the need to take more pic- tures and expose the patient and team to more radiation. Image enhancement features can often be operated via a C-arm's touchscreen interface. Getting the right shot during C-arm imaging can be tricky. Truth be told, many surgeons would rather control the imaging exposures themselves. In smaller centers, in fact, they may not have any surgical staffers who can be assigned solely to handle C-arm operations for them. For those reasons, a pedal system z READY FOR ACTION A full-sized mobile C-arm provides the power necessary to image spines, hips and large fractures. Garrick W. Cason, MD

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