STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTO BY JOY PRUDEK

St. Luke’s Wood River has two new state-of-the-art ultrasound machines.

St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation recently awarded the hospital $246,000 to purchase the machines with community donations.

The machines, which will augment older ultrasound technology, will be used by the medical imaging department and the emergency room for breast ultrasounds, ultrasound guided biopsies, echo-vascular ultrasounds and vascular ultrasounds.

“Technology assists with rapid diagnosis, which is a key to effective emergency care in time-sensitive situations, such as trauma, heart attack and stroke,” said Megan Tanous St. Luke’s Wood River foundation chief development officer.

The imaging technology will also rapidly evaluate patients for such conditions as complications of early pregnancy, severe abdominal trauma, blood clots, heart function, aortic aneurysms and gallstones, said Angela Brady, SLWR Emergency Department manager.

It will be used in situations when conventional diagnostic methods would take too longer or introduce greater risk to a person.

The beside emergency room ultrasound, for instance, will decrease exposure of patients to CT scans. And it will allow physicians to see what they’re doing in real time, said Dr. Terry Ahern, SLWR emergency physician.