We at GE HealthCare are proud of the innovations we have made over the past 40 years, and the meaningful contributions to clinical care our SIGNA™ MR portfolio has enabled since the first SIGNA MR was launched in 1983.
Today, while we continue to celebrate achievements from the past and those who made them happen, we also set out to conquer the next milestone in our SIGNA journey—today we see the future, and we challenge ourselves to change the outcome. As a community of scientists, engineers and clinicians, our journey has been nothing short of exciting, and a remarkable example of the wonderful things that can happen when determined people come together with a common mission: create a better experience for patients and clinicians alike.
In a world where worldwide access to MR is four times below the OECD average1 and the demand for MR procedures continues to grow at an accelerated pace, increasing access to MR while balancing staff shortages and tackling clinician burnout is paramount. This, combined with the economic burden brought by some of the most debilitating diseases—such as cancer and neurological disorders—drives our community to create a world where healthcare has no limits.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) deliver industry-leading tools that shorten scan times and improve image quality (see the articles on pages 8 and 66). Through our SIGNA™ Continuum™ program, we’ve activated 30+ upgrade paths for you to benefit from the latest technology while simultaneously reducing carbon footprint, helium dependency and financial constraints, making MR imaging more accessible to those who need it.
Our community has made significant strides, but there is more to be accomplished. By continuing to use AI as a force multiplier to the medical advancements we know today, we’re committed to changing the outcome for the benefit of entire populations.
We envision a future, not far from now, where we can train our AI and DL models in a fraction of the time than we do today, with trillions of data-points to aggregate, correlate and translate into accurate outcome predictions. A future where the promise of Effortless Imaging becomes a standard practice that alleviates patient and clinician stress, standardizes the examination process from scheduling to reporting, and allows for fully remote scanning.
We also see the opportunity to increase patient access to MR, enabled by lightweight and compact scanners that can be quickly deployed anywhere. It is a future where MR imaging can be more easily and efficiently performed regardless of location and user’s level of experience.
A key to making these ambitions actionable will be the ingredient that blends it all together: strong partnerships and a sharp collective focus on innovation, fueled by our shared determination to enable groundbreaking discoveries that will help us move the needle from good to best and from care to cure.
I am excited to join you for the first time as the GE HealthCare MR leader at this year’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting in Chicago. I also hope you will enjoy this issue of SIGNA Pulse of MR, where several collaborators and colleagues have shared their excitement, research and progress as a meaningful way to create a world where healthcare has no limits.
Happy reading.
1 OECD data (2022 or latest available) | https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri-units.htm
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