Picker grows multivendor service business

Picker International of Cleveland will highlight its progressin developing a multivendor service program. Picker launched theeffort in April when it bought the service business of Linc EquipmentServices (SCAN 4/26/95).

Picker will stress the flexibility of the program as well asits asset management offering, according to Bob Trebar, managerof business development. Picker now has 250 sites involved insome form of multivendor service, Trebar said.

New Picker MRI developments at the RSNA meeting include rapidimaging techniques for the 0.5-tesla Asset and the 1-tesla Vista.Picker will show multishot echo-planar imaging, gradient and spinecho and 3-D fast spin echo. In high-field news, Picker's single-shotEPI protocol, EPI II, will be available on the Vista and 1.5-teslaEdge.

In nuclear medicine, Picker will display the SIM-400 cardiacgamma camera it acquired with its purchase of Scinticor earlierthis year (SCAN 9/27/95). Works-in-progress developments include3-D image viewing with special 3-D glasses on the Odyssey VP workstation,as well as a demonstration of the workstation's telemedicine capabilities.

In CT, Picker is planning to introduce a new upper mid-tier scannerdesigned for facilities that want spiral scanning without theexpense of a premium platform. The product will be a one-secondscanner that incorporates Picker's existing Q-series CT technologyin a package priced at about $600,000 to $700,000.

Picker will show a new family of clinical applications -- dubbedepi-Q -- for the vendor's Q-series of CT scanners. Epi-View isa rendering mode for displaying 4-D CT angiography images on astatic film, while epi-Volume is specialized software that allowsclinicians to conduct virtual colonoscopy exams.

Picker is also ramping up its involvement in scanner connectivity.The company will unveil a new systems integration service to helpcustomers set up PACS networks based on the ACR-NEMA's DICOM 3.0standard.