AfriRad Medical Imaging(ARMI) turned 8 this December

In the past year, significant upgrades to our department have been made.

In June 2022, installation of the latest state-of-the-art fully automated xray machine with integrated artificial intelligence (AI) was installed making it the first for the province and only the second in the entire country.

This new machine from United Health Imaging, allows faster acquisition and processing times, reducing patient waiting time and more importantly decreasing radiation dose whilst optimising imaging quality.

In the past year, a further digitization of our department was made by virtue of the introduction of the scannable QR code to access images and reports via our secure online webserver. This has made it significantly easier, for referring doctors and patients, to view diagnostic grade images from the comfort of your smartphone or tablet. It also makes it easy to share with medical doctors being consulted outside the province. No more clunky old CDs…

Our website, www.afrirad.com, in conjunction with the introduction of our webserver, was also launched this year allowing patients and doctors to gain insightful information of procedures and services being carried out by our practice and also allowing doctors and patients to refer and make bookings electronically.

So what’s next for AfriRad Medical Imaging?

ARMI spreads its wings to neighbouring town of Louis Trichardt, Zoutpansberg Hospital, where a full radiology service will be offered from August 2023.

A cardiac imaging service will be rendered in Tzaneen, from 2023, including cardiac echo/ultrasound (first quarter) as well as the introduction of a massive upgrade of our CT scanner from a 16 slice CT to a 128 slice CT scanner allowing cardiac imaging, including non-invasive coronary artery imaging and CT Colonography.

Most medical aids will cover CT coronary angiography over a formal angiogram due to the cost savings and non-invasive nature of the modality. The bigger CT will be faster with greater image quality and best of all extremely low radiation dose similar to that of a simple x-ray. Watch this space!

Further upgrades, to the latest technology, of our ultrasound as well as our mammography and bone density machines will also be made during the course of the year.

Body composition scanning, using the bone density machine, will be a new service being rendered enabling monitoring of body fat and muscle mass in a non invasive objective manner.

We hope to expand on our oncology/cancer imaging service as well, specifically MRI Prostate, now the gold standard for prostate cancer staging. The provision of MRI-Ultrasound fusion guided biopsies optimises biopsy yield and minimises fall negatives. Exciting times ahead!

We embrace the power of technology to fulfil our motto of “ We see your problem through”

We look forward to assisting you in your healthcare imaging needs and wish you the best of health