Appropriate care and maintenance of x-ray equipment is an essential part of the services facilities offer their patients. Healthcare facilities need to take a proactive approach when it comes to maintaining their imaging equipment to ensure proper working order.
Part of that maintenance involves having your Portable X-ray and Stationary X-ray machine calibrated. The importance of regular calibration cannot be overstated. Many problems can be detected early and easily fixed when the machine is on a regular calibration schedule. Regular calibration also will help to ensure accurate output and safe dose to the patients.
Diagnostic Imaging Systems recommends calibrating your portable and stationary x-ray machine every 2 years for veterinary clinics and every year for chiropractic and medical clinics. This process is necessary to make your machine last as long as possible.
In this process, our highly trained and expert technicians check to make sure that your MA, KVP and Time are outputting to manufacturer specifications and if not we adjust them back to factory specifications. We also make sure the X-ray beam matches the light field output of your collimator and adjust back to correct factory alignment.
The calibration process doesn’t take long for portable x-ray. Turn-around time is usually 1-2 business days once received. This process also makes sure that you are not over exposing your patients. The calibration will also lessen the chance of second x-rays due to over-exposed or under-exposed images. It will also make sure that you are focusing and exposing the area of interest. The calibration process also helps to lengthen the life of your x-ray generator.
So while you may think that the time and cost it takes to get your machine calibrated is too expensive, in the long run it will turn out to be more costly if not done. The proper care and maintenance of your machine will enhance your practice with good quality images the first time saving you time and money. Calibrations are very affordable when you consider the cost of a replacement HV tank or power board or even a new machine.
