United Imaging's Emergency Radiology Departments Support Mobile Cabin Hospitals, Facilitate 5G Remote Diagnosis

United Imaging donates medical equipment worth $14M to help fight coronavirus outbreak

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Feb 25, 2020, 08:00 ET

SHANGHAI, Feb. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- At the center of the epidemic in Wuhan, many sports centers, exhibition halls, and schools have been turned into mobile cabin hospitals (MCHs) to treat tens of thousands of coronavirus patients with mild symptoms. During the epidemic, fast and accurate CT diagnosis plays an increasingly critical role. Imaging is also essential to track the development of patients' conditions and evaluate whether they have reached the standard for recovery. MCHs face an urgent problem: how to quickly adapt CT to provide efficient diagnosis while avoiding cross infection during scanning.

To meet these needs, United Imaging created a flexible and intelligent solution customized for MCHs called Emergency Radiology Departments (Emergency RD). The Emergency RD at the MCH located in Wuhan International Conference & Exhibition Center was the first put into service, with nearly 200 scans performed on the first day. United Imaging has also completed installations at Hongshan Stadium, Hanyang International Exhibition Center, and Tazi Lake Sports Center, and the company is actively working toward installing another six units in other locations.

United Imaging and its shareholders announced a donation of devices and services worth $7 million to MCHs in Wuhan, with plans to donate a further $7 million worth of devices and services to Henan Province.

According to Qu Feng, United Imaging's head of Customer Relationship Management for Hubei, the Emergency RD provides a perfect solution to the current challenges, with all the necessary equipment contained within an independent 20 square meter scanning room and operating compartment. The modular design enables fast assembly/disassembly and transportation, with plug-and-play compatibility. Furthermore, the Emergency RD is waterproof, with built-in insulation and thermostatic features that make it possible to deploy the solution in extreme environments during emergency or disaster relief efforts.

With scanning workflow fully empowered by the AI-based uVision technology, the Emergency RD enables automatic patient positioning and scanning from the operation room. Technologists operate the scanner from outside of the scan room, reducing the risk of cross-infection between healthcare professionals and patients. In addition, streamlined workflow allows for high-load and efficient scans each day.

In the absence of on-site radiologists at the temporary MCH sites, remote diagnosis is essential. The Emergency RD at Wuhan International Conference & Exhibition Center is connected to Wuhan Union Hospital (WUH) through a 5G network, four times faster than traditional networks. Once patients are scanned at the MCH, their CT images are transferred to WUH, where the images are read remotely by radiologists.

In order to offload the diagnosis and treatment work of frontline healthcare professionals, UIHCloud, United Imaging's cloud services, has been deployed at many hospitals in Wuhan. It connects community service centers to upper level hospitals that provide diagnostic services utilizing the advanced AI applications deployed on UIHCloud. At Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and Wuhan No. 7 Hospital alone, more than 4,300 cases were diagnosed remotely through UIHCloud by now.

SOURCE United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd.