Medical device company Compumedics has won a contract to fit out the neurology department at the new $1.2 billion Perth Children’s Hospital.
Medical device company Compumedics has won a contract to fit out the neurology department at the new $1.2 billion Perth Children’s Hospital.
In a deal worth $600,000, Victoria-based Compumedics, which develops diagnostics technology for sleep, brain and ultrasonic blood-flow monitoring applications, will install its technology at the new hospital, which is currently under construction at the QEII Medical Centre in Nedlands.
“Compumedics has spent more than a decade building an innovative and comprehensive range of neurological diagnostic and monitoring products to enable the company to expand into the premier market,” chief executive David Burton said.
“With this order we continue to build credibility and market acceptance of our product capability, which can be used to push into new geographic markets around the world.
“Compumedics is pleased that the new contract builds strongly on a long and very successful history as market leaders in Australia for both neurology and sleep diagnostic and monitoring solutions.”
When completed, the new hospital will replace Princess Margaret Hospital as the state’s dedicated children’s hospital.
It is due to be completed later this year, with doors opening in the first half of 2016.
Shares in Compumedics were 11.9 per cent higher to 23.5 cents at midday.
Meanwhile, the state government announced today that a $3.5 million intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging machine, the first of its kind in Western Australia, had been installed at the new Perth Children’s Hospital.
The MRI machine will be co-located with operating theatres so patients can be scanned within a sterile environment mid-surgery, to allow surgeons to quickly check that tumours have been completely removed.
The machine will be used particularly for children suffering conditions such as brain tumours.
Health Minister Kim Hames said the use of the machine was proven to decrease the need for more surgery, improve recovery rates, help surgical accuracy and decrease infection rates.
"Traditional MRI machines are located separately from operating theatres, requiring neurosurgeons to complete the operation and schedule an MRI for the patient at a later date or transfer a child mid-operation which carried its own risks," Dr Hames said.
"The intraoperative MRI means scans can be conducted within or near the operating environment for a faster and more responsive outcome.
"The use of an intraoperative MRI is globally recognised as the way forward for neurosurgery and it's exciting that Perth Children's Hospital is embracing and accommodating advancements like this in modern medical technology.
"This unit is also designed to be flexible in its application, able to incorporate new and emerging practices for those under general anaesthetic and for non-surgical patients," he said.
The machine has an in-built visual projection system especially created to distract and entertain young patients if they go through the sometimes daunting scan without anaesthetic.
