Another RSNA has come and gone and most exhibitors and attendees are back at work, returning to their daily lives. Though the show has concluded, the lasting affects will be felt as we head into 2016. It would take forever to discuss all the happenings of the
Walking throughout the north and south halls, there was something that was bluntly obvious; flat panel detector C-Arms is the future. You saw the Philips Veradius at the Philips booth, the Siemens Cios at the Siemens booth and the Ziehm Vision RFD at the Ziehm booth. While these systems are infrequently available on the refurbished market, their availability will become more and more frequent as time progresses so it was great to see these systems in person. There was, however, one very big omission from the RSNA. There were no OEC C-Arms at the GE booth. In fact, OEC wasn't represented at all in the GE booth. GE OEC has yet to release a flat panel detector C-Arm which could have contributed to the reason for their absence. OEC has been considered by many to be the standard in C-Arms for most of the past 20 years, not to be represented at the RSNA was definitely jarring.
Sprinkled throughout the two halls were C-Arms of other manufacturers. The most notable to me, were the Korean C-Arm manufacturers GEMSS and Genoray. While they have been popping up at facilities here in the United States for close to 10 years, their reputation and thus brand recognition has dramatically increased over the past few years. I was able to observe this in person as I visited the booths to examine both the GEMSS and Genoray C-Arms first hand.
While all of the new C-Arms being manufactured come equipped with flat screen monitors, the market is flush with C-Arms that still have the old-fashioned CRT monitors. A solution to this problem was ever-present at the RSNA. Upgrading the monitors of older C-Arms, specifically on the OEC 9800, has become more and more common. On display throughout the RSNA were solutions to upgrade the monitors to stationary flat screen monitors, to those that rotate left-to-right and up-and-down, to monitors that even have an articulating arm. There appeared to be differing benefits to all three solutions and the fact that they are all FDA approved proves that you can make modern upgrades to older models as a way to side step the costly purchase of a new C-Arm.
Having the time to absorb everything that I learned at the RSNA, definitely makes me excited about where the C-Arm market is headed. Feel free to contact me if you would like to learn more about this years RSNA, the C-Arm market as we head into 2016, or if you would just like to discuss your current C-Arm situation. I can be reached at (212) 366 9100 x 190 or via email at alex@atlantisworldwide.com.
Meet the author: Alex Silbergleit