Rhode Island Med Device Company Develops Portable X-ray Systems for Imaging On-the-go

Bruce Becker MD is the kind of doctor who understands the strain on healthcare, especially in a crisis. As a practicing Emergency Medical Physician for 39 years and professor at Brown University, Dr Becker is now putting his experiences to work as Chief Medical Officer for Research Instruments Corporation, helping to advance x-ray imaging solutions at the Providence, Rhode Island-based medical device company. 

Dr Becker contends, “We’re in the midst of a seismic shift in healthcare, accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic which has forced us to make a leap from the bedside to delivering patient care at the curbside. The COVID19 pandemic has introduced fear and danger into the accessing of safe, acute care services and instantly changed Point Of Care Testing from an efficiency and a convenience to an urgent necessity.”

He points out that other technologies and types of testing can help in the response to the coronavirus pandemic, such as X-ray imaging and Computed Tomography (CT) scans that provide a “window” into a patient’s lungs to aid physicians to diagnose and triage patients. “While testing patients for the coronavirus itself has been in the spotlight, diagnostic imaging is another assessment tool”, he said, adding, “clinicians are the first line of defense, X-ray or CT images to make diagnostic and treatment decisions, helping to save lives.”

Dr Becker highlighted Research Instruments Corporation's own Portable X-ray Device or PXD, currently in development, a suitcase-sized X-ray imager, light enough to be carried like a power tool designed to be deployed anywhere to diagnose fractures and foreign bodies in wounds, and, even internal organs - like lungs - anywhere the battery powered PXD is set up, highlighting that “Our PXD imager emphasizes flexibility and performance and is an example of a next-generation healthcare innovation that will be essential for the practice of Medicine in the age of the coronavirus.” 

Dr Becker emphasized, “While CT scanners can be effective in diagnosing diseases like COVID-19, enhanced x-ray images of patients’ lungs can provide important diagnostic information in a rapid-response situation.” Becker continued, “Hospitals are abandoning traditional models of patient triage and disposition for safer more efficient approaches to diagnosing and caring for patients. Given that patients with COVID19 represent a significant risk of infection to hospital staff and other patients, transporting patients from an Emergency Department, outpatient clinic room, or even an inpatient bed, through the corridors of a hospital to a radiology suite and back creates hazards. Providing imaging at the Point of Care, even if that point is outside the hospital in a makeshift structure or tent is a safer choice.” 

Describing Research Instruments Corporation PXD device in development, Dr Becker explained, “Imagine portable X-ray imaging systems that can be setup in minutes almost anywhere producing a chest x-ray image immediately and safely helping doctors to determine which COVID19 patients are sickest requiring ventilators and hospital admission. The PXD can be paired with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning bringing the experience of radiologists to the patient and making screening and the delivery of care even more accessible and rapid.”

Dr Becker continued, “We have achieved outstanding resolution and feature recognition applying our proprietary X-ray imaging techniques working with animal lungs. Recently, we used the same techniques to successfully image small glass particles in experimental wounds. The PXD dramatically outperformed bedside ultrasound which is currently the standard of care in detecting these foreign bodies. The PXD will allow clinicians to rapidly assess extremity injuries keeping these patients safely out of Emergency Departments beds and radiology suites. Now, we’re working quickly to expand our portable x-ray device to address the threat to our patients and providers posed by COVID19.” 

As a doctor on the “front lines”, including stints in remote hospitals, refugee camps, and disaster sites, Dr Becker believes, “Our new reality demands that we innovate every aspect of care delivery: how and where patients access the system, how and where triage is carried out, how our patients can receive proper diagnosis and treatment, and how and where our colleagues can work safely and effectively. We need to apply to this pandemic the lessons learned and the creative knowhow that helped in disaster relief and refugee crises so we can better manage the COVID-19 hospital surges that have and will continue to overwhelm our institutions and communities.”  

He concluded, “COVID19 spurs us to work even harder to develop new and powerful portable X-ray imaging solutions, to help us to diagnose and treat patients who are infected and to keep out other patients who still need our care, safe. The current crisis heightens the need for technologies such as portable X-ray as imaging tools reinforcing the life saving role point-of-care diagnostic imaging can play.”  

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ABOUT RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION

Research Instruments Corporation develops advanced x-ray imaging technologies and intellectual property to innovate diagnostics and detection in healthcare, industrial and research markets. In addition to advancing portable x-ray technologies in the medical device arena, the company also developed the world’s brightest compact laser-driven X-ray source that can outperform conventional X-ray tubes and deliver extremely high-resolution images that reveal smaller features details than typical imaging systems. http://www.resinstcorp.com

KEYWORDS: Coronavirus, COVID19, COVID-19, X-ray, CT, Computed Tomography, Medical Device, Urgent Care, Research, X-ray detection, X-ray diagnostics, X-ray imaging, pneumonia