Alexian Misericordia

Trust pays off

Alexianer Misericordia GmbH operates two central hospitals in Münster, the Clemenshospital and the Raphaelsklinik. Together, the two somatic hospitals have 680 beds and treat around 30,000 inpatients and 45,000 outpatients every year.

In contrast to the third Misericordia site in Anholt, both hospitals each have a radiology department, which are combined in a center for radiology, neuroradiology and nuclear medicine. Until 2012, the radiologists used monitors from different manufacturers. “But then we started to standardize the solutions and opted for Totoku, now JVC,” reports Dietmar Morsell, Head of Medical Technology at Alexianer Misericordia GmbH. “We are not yet completely sorted, but we are working on it.” At the time, it was a conscious decision to rely on just one provider. This means that there is only one contact person, the operating philosophy of all monitors is the same and there is financial leeway. “Nevertheless, JVC is not the automatic choice for new purchases, we always obtain offers from competitors,” emphasizes Morsell.

New acquisitions are constantly being made as the radiology department grows and the structure and requirements have changed. “In the last five years in particular, the change has been immense,” says the division manager, “we have acquired many new modalities and hired additional radiologists.” Clemens Hospital operates two magnetic resonance and two computer tomographs, two Bucky workstations, a cardiac catheterization laboratory, a two-level angiography unit for neuroradiology, a fluoroscopy unit and two mobile X-ray units. The Raphaelsklinik has an MR, a CT, a Bucky workstation, a mobile X-ray machine, a fluoroscopy and an angiography unit. “Due to the increased demands from radiologists, we have replaced most monochrome displays with color monitors,” says Morsell, identifying key signs of change in the hospitals.

Home workstations connected

At both locations, the doctors work almost exclusively with monitor systems from JVC. Around 60 diagnostic and viewing monitors are in use, including the MS53i2 for mammography. The displays are mainly used in radiology, but also occasionally in other departments for radiological observation.

“In 2017, we also started equipping home workstations for the radiology background service with Totoku monitors. To date, we have twelve installations,” adds Morsell. In contrast to the solutions in the clinics, these are individual monitors. The radiologists themselves are responsible for ensuring that the environmental conditions are complied with during the diagnostic procedure. Medical technology employees were on site during delivery and checked this.

Quality assurance at the highest level

Quality assurance is an important element of daily work at the Alexianer Misericordia facilities. To facilitate this, the company is switching to JVC’s QA Medivisor Agent. “The existing software from another provider cannot map the new standard, so we have to switch. However, this also means that in future we will have all results prepared in a standardized way and only have to maintain one software,” explains Morsell. The software is currently only used for teleradiology.

With the new solution, the facilities can safely carry out the acceptance and constancy test in accordance with DIN 6868-157. This also applies to the calibration of all JVC diagnostic monitors and the predecessor displays from Totoku.

Online access to QA data

Morsell mentions switching to the network solution – PM Medivisor – as an option. “But this must bring us significant added value,” says Morsell. Further time savings would be such an advantage for us, data security and constant availability would be additional points. “I am the only central medical technician and am supported by four colleagues in the hospitals. We take care of the maintenance, servicing and documentation of all the monitors. Any electronic solution that works as automatically as possible helps us a lot,” he says, underlining the importance of the software.

However, a detailed description still needs to be drawn up before this can happen. Home workstations in particular are still causing Morsell headaches, as their checks also have to be presented in compliance with data protection regulations. “After all, we are exchanging data with an external device here.”

The PM Medivisor serves the quality manager or administrator as a central cockpit for all aspects of quality assurance. The software continuously collects and analyzes all data on the status of the monitors connected throughout the facility, processes it and sends status messages to defined persons. They then always have an overview of the calibration history or operating hours, for example. The administrator is informed immediately by e-mail about changes to the brightness, configuration or resolution. Like all documents, the test reports can also be stored in the control center as soon as they have been implemented.

High satisfaction among all

The displays have become an indispensable tool for in-house radiology. It is therefore important that they are stable, reliable and highly available. “All of this applies to the JVC solution,” emphasizes the medical technician. To keep it that way, daily checks by the doctors are so important. “If a user gets in touch because they have the feeling that something is wrong during the visual inspection, I immediately send a colleague to check it out. However, this is hardly ever necessary because it hardly ever happens,” says Morsell. “The semi-annual constancy test in accordance with the new standard is carried out by colleagues at the sites.”

At the Clemens Hospital and the Raphael Clinic, there is a high level of satisfaction with the display solutions from JVC everywhere. Dietmar Morsell is not the only one who thinks highly of it; radiologists also praise it – above all because of its consistent and high image quality. According to the Head of the Medical Technology division, Rein Medical, formerly a sales partner and now a subsidiary of JVC, is also convincing: “The company has become a real partner for us. The employees are very pleasant to work with, they are courteous and respond quickly to questions or problems. It’s also good to know that the warranty gives us peace of mind for at least five years – but usually much longer.”