Digitizer Repairs

I am going to Mangum, OK tomorrow to repair a 14 year old Kodak LS-75 digitizer that finally bit the dust. The great thing about these Kodak digitizers is they last a LONG time. With proper and periodic maintenance I have seen a large number of units still in the field running today. However, the challenge with older units is not with the digitizer itself, but the computer that runs the digitizer.

Older LS-75 digitizers require a special card that goes inside the computer that runs the digitizer. It looks like a SCSI card, but is not SCSI. Instead it is a proprietary Kodak (formerly Lumisys) card that require an ISA bus to operate. Bad news. ISA bus computers are almost impossible to find anymore, and even if you can get them custom made, they often take 3-4 weeks to build and ship. Digitizers produced since about 1995 use a true SCSI interface, but older digitizers require an older computer to operate.

So Josh Pendegraft, Radiology Director at Mangum Community Hospital called last week and said their digitizer computer crashed and they were unable to get it running. I sent a quote to their corporate HQ in Austin to replace the computer, but their IT department had a zillion questions, wanted to compared what I was proposing vs a computer they could buy, etc. All the while Mangum was having to courier their film to Lawton. Finally Josh called today and said "I can't wait any longer, can you come fix this?" Luckily I was able to find a nice used ISA bus computer locally and will head down tomorrow to install and get them back up and running.

It is important to note for all Kodak digitizer users that Kodak and the American College of Radiology highly recommend that you calibrate your digitizer at least once per year (twice per year if it is used heavily). The analog components (laser, laser power supply and PMT tube) slowly drift out of calibration over time. The electronics in the digitizer adjust for this drift, but only up to a certain point. After several months the electronics can no longer automatically compensate for this drift and the unit loses calibration - slowly. So after a year the image quality will start to degrade, but it happens so slowly that the radiologist and tech does not notice the drop in quality until well after the system is out of calibration. This can seriously impact patient care. I have personally talked to more than one hospital and radiologist that was caught in a lawsuit because they missed diagnosed something on a scanned film and the digitizer was not kept in calibration.

Calibration is much more than just cleaning the system. It requires special test films, a laser meter to measure the power output of the laser, test probes and a volt meter to measure voltages on the circuit board of the digitizer, and sometimes on oscilloscope to adjust the digitizer laser. In addition the technician must be factory trained to perform the necessary calibration. InTelemed is the only company in Oklahoma, Kansas, north Texas and Arkansas that is factory trained to perform these digitizer calibrations and repairs. We have heard of other companies claiming to do these calibrations, but when customers call us later we find out the customer was not to "merry" with the work performed and the image quality of the system.

If you have a Kodak LS-75 or LS-50 digitizer, be sure and call InTelemed to perform regular preventative maintenance on the system and you can keep this valuable and expensive piece of equipment running for many, many years in the future.