St. Luke’s University Health Network recently announced a $30 million investment in CT technology from GE HealthCare that will give St. Luke’s patients access to some of the most sophisticated, cutting-edge technology on the market, no matter where they access their St. Luke’s care.

According to a news release, this approach taken by GE HealthCare and St. Luke’s will help provide St. Luke’s with access to the latest CT technology, helping to extend the life of these devices and helping ensure a more consistent experience for patients no matter where they go for their St. Luke’s care.

Patients now can have additional benefits during their CT exams including: faster scans and sharper images (when compared to previous CT systems), a potential reduction in radiation dose from advancements in technology, the capacity to better detect lesions or tissue abnormalities and to map vascular structures, and the ability to capture fine detail in the head and neck, which is critical in stroke diagnosis.

These scanners are also expected to be helpful within St. Luke’s pediatric patient population, trauma cases, and especially in advanced cardiac exams by using GE HealthCare’s SnapShot Freeze technology.

That technology, combined with fast rotation speed and wide coverage provided by the GE HealthCare scanners, provides the ability to image the heart with any heart rate in just one beat, which reduces the motion artifacts significantly, thus decreasing the likelihood for additional scanning.

This new technology allows for a quicker, more informed and more accurate diagnosis, with less inconvenience to patients, according to Dr. David Furman, medical director of Computed Tomography, SLUHN.

The full deployment of the fleet of advanced CT scanners across the network is expected to be fully complete within four years.

The investment is strengthened by the inclusion of GE HealthCare’s Smart Subscription, which will provide updates in software and Artificial Intelligence technology advances as they are available, helping to extend the life of the CT scanners, according to GE HealthCare’s Tina Checchia, the St. Luke’s-based expert in multiple GE CT systems and software.

Dr. Robert Fournier, vice chair of Radiology and Medical Director of Nuclear Medicine for St. Luke’s University Health Network, said that there is “a great deal of enthusiasm about what this technology can bring to our patients.

“It’s a true network initiative that brings us up to global speed,” he said.

The investment represents not only the most expansive for the St. Luke’s network, but also for GE HealthCare.

“This is a massive project for both St. Luke’s and GE HealthCare - one of the largest GE HealthCare ever embarked on with CT scanners in both the U.S. and Canada,” said J. Anders, vice president for Computed Tomography at GE HealthCare. “Many others have made significant investments, but this type of holistic approach is extraordinary.”