RIYADH, 10 June 2004 — King Fahd Medical City (KFMC) plans to use the world’s first fully digitized classrooms to teach radiology to Saudi doctors.
“I strongly believe that this is how medicine will be practiced in the future. With this technological transformation, we shall secure our position as a nation at the center of medical excellence in the Middle East and in the world,” Dr. Ali Sulaiman Al-Anazi of the Ministry of Health announced at a seminar held at KFMC recently.
The occasion was the launch of a novel product, Vitrea 2, for medical imaging that saves time and money for clinicians. Vitrea 2 workstations provide a gallery of automated three dimensional plus real-time reconstructions of scanner data for specific clinical applications. One of the major advantages is that with a simple “mouse” click, it transforms ordinary black and white images into extremely accurate and detailed color ones. It is fast, easy to use and cost-effective, making it very attractive for multiple hospital departments. This system allows radiologists to read and study wherever and whenever it is needed (via e-mail and Internet access).
Dr. Ali explained how the administration had taken various measures to ensure that breakthroughs in medical science and technology were transferred to hospitals in the most cost-effective ways. “Today, as never before, we face a tremendous potential for new medicines and technological innovations to diagnose and cure many diseases,” he said.
The advantages are manifold. Besides safeguarding against loss of medical records stored on paper and films, the storage capacity is limited, unless it is upgraded periodically to cope with evolving needs. At KFMC, the goal of digitized record systems is to collect the data and make it more dynamic.
“The administration of King Fahd Medical City is fully committed to moving this process forward in order to place Saudi Arabia firmly at the cutting edge of medical technology, in the interest of providing better health care facilities,” said Saad Al-Gorman, chief biomedical engineer at KFMC.
Referring to the growing use of CT and MRI scanning technology as diagnostic tools worldwide, he said there are more than 30,000 CT scanners and 15,000 MRI scanners currently in use.
