Libby hospital shows off equipment additions

With a decorated tree greeting visitors in the lobby, employees donning holiday hats and a table filled with treats and punch awaiting at the end of a quick tour, St. John’s Lutheran Hospital celebrated on Thursday last week what it dubbed as “Christmas in July.”

Although a fun open house theme for all, the event served an important purpose. It allowed the Libby hospital to showcase two new imaging equipment acquisitions that improves diagnosis and treatment … in a nutshell, save lives.

“It’s improved accuracy. It’s instant consults. It means never losing films,” Dr. Steve Becker said. “Referrals are better and consults are quicker so it’s just a lot better patient care.”

A steady stream of visitors turned out for the open house to get an up-close look at the new bone density and digital mammography equipment.

“There are several real advantages to it,” Betty Textor of the hospital’s imaging department said about the digital mammography process. “First of all, the pictures are really crisp and beautiful. We might be able to detect breast cancer years earlier than we could before.”

Formerly, the hospital had to wait approximately three weeks for a diagnosis. Now, it can take as little as 15 minutes.

“We used to have to pack the things up and send them to Kalispell,” Textor said. “It would take a week to get over there, and a week before they got read, and a week before we got the pictures back.”

But now through digital technology, the process is blazing fast.

“The computer marks the pictures for Dr. Becker, places that might be of interest for him to look at,” Textor said. “After Dr. Becker reads the pictures, if he wants a second look, we can put them on Kalispell’s database and he can look at them along with the doctors in Kalispell and get comments at the same time.”

The mammography test may not seem like that much of a difference to a patient. An x-ray is still generating images of the breast and compression is necessary for purposes of quality.

The big difference comes down to the equipment’s special detectors that capture and convert x-ray energy into an image that can be displayed on a computer. So, the old method of using film to capture an image is out.

Another advantage revolves around storage. Lost films are a thing of the past with digital images now stored electronically.

The digital mammography equipment has been in place for about a month.

The other notable addition is the DEXA bone density equipment. Through this scanning procedure, a patient’s bone loss can be measured through an enhanced form of x-ray technology. DEXA is the industry standard for measuring bone mineral density.

“Worldwide, DEXA is the rave; it’s what the doctors are asking for,” said Dave Broderick, imaging manager. “It’s the quickest, most accurate way to measure bone density. What that’s all about, of course, is determining whether a person is at risk for osteoporosis. That’s a debilitating disease that affects over 90 percent of our ladies so to catch that early and quickly and being able to treat that, it is a big deal.”

The DEXA has been serving the hospital for about four months and Broderick said he’s already seeing positive results.

“In that time, we’ve seen a tremendous increase of patients coming in for bone density scans,” he said. “I think the doctors have a tremendous comfort level with this exam. And for the patients, it’s wonderful. It’s a little relaxed time, very quick, very painless and very accurate.”

Since DEXA is now available in Libby, it eliminates long drives back and forth to Kalispell, something especially important for older drivers who may have to drive on winter roads.

The St. John’s Lutheran Hospital Foundation raised money to help make the equipment upgrades possible.