Imaging demand keeps climbing, while fixed-site expansion remains slow, expensive, and disruptive. Mobile imaging helps, but traditional trailers introduce their own risks and workflow restrictions. Akumin dropped a new solution at RSNA25 that improves the patient experience, safety, and efficiency for radiology teams.
Ground-Level Access Changes the First Step of Care
At RSNA25, Akumin introduced its mobile drop trailer, a design change that addresses one of the most basic but persistent challenges in mobile imaging: getting patients in the door.
Henry Howe, CEO at Akumin, described the intent clearly: “It drops to the ground to improve the patient experience so they don’t have to use stairs or lifts.”
Removing lifts reduces transfer time, lowers the risk of delays, and simplifies patient movement for individuals with mobility limitations. It also reduces staff intervention during entry and exit, which can compound inefficiencies across a high-volume day.
Greg Sitkiewicz, Chief Commercial Officer at Akumin, positioned their new drop trailer as a mobile unit that gets closer in feel to a permanent installation: “We’re describing it as the experience of a fixed site location in a mobile trailer that we can put on a route and move to various locations.”
Setup Speed and Throughput Affect Capacity, Not Just Convenience
Mobile solutions often fail not because of care quality, but because they disrupt schedules. Akumin focused heavily on deployment speed. The drop mechanism itself completes in under two minutes, with the unit fully operational shortly after.
“It drops in 90 seconds,” Sitkiewicz noted, adding that systems are up and running quickly with minimal operational overhead.
That speed supports more than convenience. It enables imaging programs to respond to backlog without waiting months for construction. “It is expensive to build new capacity,” Howe stated. “These units make a lot of sense.”
Sitkiewicz explained that traditional mobile trailers often average one patient per hour. With higher-volume configurations, the drop trailer supports two to three patients per hour, shifting mobile imaging from stopgap coverage to a viable capacity strategy.
Mobile imaging has existed for decades. Bringing it to ground level removes a persistent source of friction that has limited how effectively mobile capacity can scale, especially in northern climates.
Learn more about Akumin at https://akumin.com/
Listen and subscribe to the Healthcare IT Today Interviews Podcast to hear all the latest insights from experts in healthcare IT.
And for an exclusive look at our top stories, subscribe to our newsletter and YouTube.
Tell us what you think. Contact us here or on Twitter at @hcitoday. And if you’re interested in advertising with us, check out our various advertising packages and request our Media Kit.
No comments:
Post a Comment