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Show Hospital Radiology Gets New Equipment The Garfield Memorial Health Care Foundation, using monies contributed this past season, recently purchased two specialized pieces of equipment for use in the radiology department of Garfield Memorial Hospital. The "digital densitometer" and the "control sensitometer" enable the hospital's radiologic technologist, Dennis Moser, to further quality control efforts while Cutting the cost of operating the department Patients simultaneously derive benefits as these machines reduce the incidence of having to retake x-rays. Moser, four year member of the Garfield Memorial Hospital staff and clinical instructor to Weber State College emphasized the , tremendous need for quality control' within the radiology m department, stating that GMH is one of only a few small hospitals to be accredited by the American College of Radiology, Moser went on to explain the function of the newly purchased equipment saying that "the making of a good x-ray picture, or as properly titled, a radiograph is in many ways similar to common photography. The x-ray machine being the camera, the film is light sensitive and is developed in a machine which is much the same as that used in photography." Moser explained that the machine which develops x-ray film is called a processor. If the technologist knows for a certainty that the processor is performing properly, he is able to diagnose other equipment problem possibilities. The primary purpose of the sensitometer and densitometer, explained Moser is that of quality control of the film processor. The use of the sensitometer and densitometer in quality control Is called sensttometry which provides a useful tool for analysis and control of film processing. The sensitometer exposes a film to an exact series of exposures. The film la then developed and those exposures are read very accurately by the densitometer. More Important than the diagnosis of a processor problem in the early detection .of a malfunction that will compound if not quickly detected and corrected. The processor must be at the correct temperature, run at the proper speed and utilize a complex chemical pumping system which maintains the chemistry at a proper chemical balance. Should any of these factors begin to go wrong, the use of the equipment purchased by the foundation will show exactly what problem is taking place so that it can be corrected before the processor gets so out of balance that money Is wasted or before a patient has to be reexposed to the highly ionizing radiation of the x-ray machine. ; ! Lee Smith, left, member of the Garfield Memorial Health Care Foundation and Dennis Moser, radiologic technologist for Garfieid Memorial Hospital display new I x-ray equipment donated recently by the foundation. Two very specialized pieces of x-ray equipment will aid hospital, |