Deos, a company based in Somerset, has developed a cost-effective, rapid mobile service for radiography. This development will be able to speed up medical screening for many diseases, including breast cancer.
A part of successful cancer treatment is early diagnosis, which often includes a medical screening test with a lengthy turnaround time.
The average turnaround for breast cancer screening results is currently 14 days – a number that hasn’t changed since 1988, the day the national breast screening service started in the UK.
What does mobile medical screening entail?
Medical screening often involves the patient traveling to a facility where images such as x-rays or scans can be obtained, where they are then sent off for process and diagnosis.
The mobile medical screening process collects the digital images and transports them to a centre, where they are then viewed and processed.
But Deos Consultancy and its partner WH Bence Coachworks from Bristol has now teamed up to create a new mobile screening service which makes use of digital communication. This could increase the speed of the screening process for breast cancer and other diseases.
Images sent to hospital in three minutes
As quick diagnosis is often crucial in successful treatment of many diseases, time is of the essence. Waiting for screening results can also induce anxiety, as a patient waits for a potentially devastating result.
With the new mobile service, it will be possible to get the images to hospital in three minutes, according to Viv Barrett, the director of Deos.
Barrett states that it will not only improve the turnaround time, but also improve the security of the information as there will be a decrease in people processing the information.
“It speeds up the results and frees up time for staff to do more screening. Patients can get their results quicker. If it’s bad news, they get their treatment quicker. It also reduces the period of anxiety between a test and a result. You could have somebody sitting at the end of the line reporting the results live before the patient has left the van,” Barrett says in the press release.
Safe, secure service based on affordable technology
Barrett has been working as a radiographer, where she ran Nuffield Health’s nationwide mobile screening programme. She then teamed up with WH Bence, who is a builder of specialist medical vehicles, to develop mobile communication for breast screening services.
WH Bence produced a trailer with added satellite technology. This ensures that the results can be sent to the hospital quickly via digital technology.
The collaboration between Deos and WH Bence produced a safe, secure, reliable screening service which sends the images back to hospital, where this can integrate with hospital communication and patient system.
The technology works on affordable 3G and 4G, which means that the satellite communication can be applied to any screening service.
According to Barrett, the goal is to roll out more screening services which can be used to diagnose a variety of diagnosis – they are looking at CT scanning units for lung cancer, retinal screening and also MRI scanning.
Article Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/deos-delivering-faster-and-better-mobile-medical-screening
Marelize has 10 years’ experience in both print and digital media working closely with the healthcare sector. She is a journalist here at Health Tech Digital and manages our editorial calendar.
