Tag: atyourservice

AT YOUR SERVICE – Back then and today

– We are at your service. During the current Coronavirus pandemic, our technicians and application specialists are working on the front line alongside healthcare professionals to make sure patients can be diagnosed and treated. Today, Fujifilm looks back at decades of research and development to make this – today’s support – possible. –

Fujifilm has the possibility to support healthcare workers, doctors and patients during the current coronavirus crisis. Our colleagues have adapted to the new situation quickly to enable service and support for those who need it most during the pandemic. This approach might seem new to a few of our readers, but is actually more than 80 years old to us as the Fujifilm family. 

Fujifilm was founded in 1934, back then named Fuji Photo Film Co. Lt., and only two years later, we already launched our first x-ray films. They have been our start in a long history of caring for people’s health. Have a look at this video for a few Fujifilm milestones in the healthcare field: 

Due to the novel coronavirus emergency and the character of the COVID-19 disease, affecting the human lung especially heavily, x-ray is in focus in 2020. – Sadly, not primarily for the 125 year anniversary of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s discovery of x-rays, but due to a critical new disease putting the world into crisis mode and people’s health at great risk. 

Our decades of research, development, and pursuing strategic cooperations, have now put us in a position to offer support to the healthcare sector across the entire spectrum of patient care, ranging from prevention to diagnostics and therapy solutions. 

Now, digitisation is driving us to create value from innovation; growing alongside the needs of the hospitals and doctors caring for you, we have been working in the field of medical IT and medical AI. We are grateful this approach has made it possible lately to support European hospitals, like the ASST Vimercate Hospital in Italy, to efficiently set up a system to assist healthcare professionals to manage the large number of COVID patients. 

Please visit our TAKE AWAY LIBRARY and check out Number 17 REiLI USER’S VOICE or read our latest article on ASST Vimercate Hospital to learn more about how REiLI can support hospitals in times of COVID-19.

We have always learned and evolved, enabling our technology and our colleagues to be at your service. Growing, to serve the health of society – back then, today and in the future.

AT YOUR SERVICE – Francesco Galvani

Francesco Galvani, Medical Equipments Application Engineer, servicing hospitals in north Italy, tells his experience and feelings during the pandemic.

– We are at your service. During the current healthcare crisis our technicians are working on the front lines alongside healthcare professionals to make sure patients can be diagnosed and treated. These are their stories. This series will be updated weekly. –

We are in the field every day, in contact with operators and often with patients. We are completely aware of being at risk of infection, something we think about every time we go to a hospital to carry out our tasks. Sometimes, though it is rare, we hear of a possible case of Meningitis or THX, or another disease.

Today’s risk is COVID-19. Right now, COVID-19 is the biggest threat to us all, and we face the possibility of being infected, even if not by direct contact, daily.

Of course, we follow relevant safety procedures, such as wearing masks, gloves and gowns, but only now have these “normal” procedures become fundamental. We are more careful when following these procedures in order to protect ourselves and our safety.

In some situations, such as in Alessandria where the hospital has been entirely dedicated to the Coronavirus emergency, it is easier to implement safety and security measures. The main entrance is closed; the hospital is accessible only through a secondary door. There, they asked me to identify myself. I was on the approved entry list, yet they continued to test my temperature and, as an additional measure, there was someone waiting to “escort” me to a room they had ready and prepared, ensuring that I could educate the operators safely.

When visiting a larger hospital, like Policlinico or San Raffaele, unfortunately you cannot control access across all visitors in the same way. It is not possible to have a designated escort for everyone who enters and leaves the hospital. In these larger hospitals, there are not only patients infected with COVID-19 – there are other patients there, too, with an already weakened immune system. They are the first ones we must protect; they are in the hospital to receive lifesaving treatment, not to become more unwell.

When talking with others, such as operators, doctors and health management, anxiety can begin to overwhelm you. You see the tiredness of those working 10-12 hour shifts each day, and you feel their tension; tension that stays with you even when you are home where your family is waiting for you. They are the first ones you, personally, need to protect, and this worry and way of thinking will not simply disappear on July 30 when the national emergency ends. We must protect them every day, all year round, because the risk of COVID-19 will remain, even though it will be less prominent than it is today.

On February 22, I read a headline that made the virus very real for me: “First case in Milan: 78-year-old hospitalised at San Raffaele”. I had been at that hospital just a few days before, and I had been in several departments. Of course, I could very well not have come into contact with this specific patient, but the 50/50 possibility that I could have was what I thought about the most.

As a first step, I immediately tried to understand what I needed to do. I tried to contact the emergency services at 112, who were in total chaos. In the end, I managed to speak with my family doctor. Nobody knew what to do, nobody knew anything, we were unprepared… and it was only the beginning.

AT YOUR SERVICE – Johann CORDIER

“The testimony of Johann CORDIER, Application Engineer at Fujifilm Medical France.”

— We are at your service. During the current healthcare crisis our technicians are working on the front lines alongside healthcare professionals to make sure patients can be diagnosed and treated. These are their stories. This series will be updated weekly. —

We live in a very troubled and difficult time. Difficult for everyone, but especially for all the actors who fight every day, or for people with a loved one reached by the virus!


For my part, a lot of questions. Being the father of four children, I asked myself the question: “what should I do?” I am in a risky zone, people in the neighbourhood are affected. And then one answer comes to me: my role is to help people, so I take all the usual precautions and I will help the heroes of the front, because, yes, it is a war that we are living…


My latest user training at the Nouvel Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg and Hautepierre hospital left a strong impression on me.


We delivered a radiology mobile and a Flex system, including a Nano, which is now reserved for screening patients with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19 and signs (dyspnea, desaturation …) necessiting hospital charge.


When I arrived on site, I was struck by the new organisation set up by the NHC in Strasbourg. The centre has been transformed. The hospital is now sectorised, with an area entirely dedicated to the care of the Covid-19 which currently includes two hundred reanimation beds.


Personally, I did not enter this sector because training on new devices is carried out outside the Covid-19 area, in a standardised space.


After the training, the Nano we worked on left for 100% use in the Covid area. The radio manipulators (technicians) who use it only access this area after following a strict procedure, in an outfit worthy of an operating room: cleaning of the hands with soap and water, then protection with a mask, over-blouses and a protective apron, over-shoes, a charlotte and gloves. Measures which take time, but which are essential for their protection and that of those around them.


The Grand-Est region, my region, was heavily impacted by Covid-19. Beyond the number of people affected by the virus, the human impact, we see that private-public relations have gone from competition to mutual aid. Some private groups have made equipment available to public hospitals, something that has never been seen before.


For my part, I am happy to participate in this fight thanks to my training for users of our equipment, the Nano mobile or the FDR Go and associated systems.


I have a strong thought for these heroes who, despite their fatigue and the risk, remain united and combative, with the sole idea of participating in mutual assistance in order to stem this horror.


I still remain worried about the teams that I leave ready to go to the front once the training is over. I think of them all the time and wish to express them all my admiration and support.

Fujifilm Healthcare Support in times of Corona

Although the current situation requires us to maintain physical distance, we at Fujifilm Healthcare are figuratively (!) moving closer together right now.

Although the current situation requires us to maintain physical distance, we at Fujifilm Healthcare are figuratively (!) moving closer together right now. Turbulent times require extraordinary measures. The Fujifilm Healthcare team continues to work at full capacity, so you can continue to care for your patients with ease. Especially during these challenging times, we are proud to be at your side as a competent partner.

AT YOUR SERVICE – Marco Costa

“Marco Costa, Medical Equipments Application Supervisor, servicing hospitals in Milan, Italy, tells his story of facing the current healthcare crisis head-on.”

“Marco Costa, Medical Equipments Application Supervisor, servicing hospitals in Milan, Italy, tells his story of facing the current healthcare crisis head-on.”

— We are at your service. During the current healthcare crisis our technicians are working on the front lines alongside healthcare professionals to make sure patients can be diagnosed and treated. These are their stories. This series will be updated weekly. —

First there was the focus on an area other than our core. From mammograms, attention has drastically turned to mobile x-ray systems for examinations on bedridden patients: an important product category, but so far not predominant.

Within a few days, we had to put the mammography equipment into the background, to which we devote great energy and planning every day, to devote all our efforts to an area that has become very topical, namely chest exams. I never imagined that I would have to put the chest exam back in the first place … This is because chest exam is currently the only exam that patients with COVID 19 have to undergo in order to have an assessment of the progress of related diseases, such as pneumonia.

After the first moment of surprise, a great sense of concern crept into me. I started thinking about my team of application specialists, i.e. those who have the fundamental and critical task of carrying out all the testing activities of the equipment installed at customers. For example, instruction to radiology technicians and assessment of the quality of the radiographic image.

Never as at this time, has it become of primary importance to know the procedures for accessing hospital facilities, it is essential to know in which environment you will have to operate, which PPE to wear ….

Yes… the PPE …. not that I previously underestimated them indeed, there are well-tested internal procedures but, the awareness of accessing a high-risk environment has led me to reconsider the importance of personal protective equipment. “the PPE I will wear is saving my life” This is a slightly different thought. It is a thought that on one hand reassures; on the other, it puts some tension.

I do not think to extremes, I assure you that when you enter a hospital today and later in a radiology, compulsorily following a pre-established path to try to minimize potential contagion, the tension is felt.

We then run to prepare all the possible and imaginable PPE (with the poor colleague Luca who, for his part, does his utmost to meet all needs), we become experts in the certification of the masks, we prepare all the material and pack boxes on boxes to be sent to application specialists who live far away. And of course, the collection of the material is arranged for those who will be able to pass in person.

It is a feverish activity, which we now carry out with our eyes closed. I now spend a lot of my working time contacting clients to find out how they should behave once they arrive at the hospital, which PPE they recommend to wear, which safety procedures must be followed. Then … then finally the real work begins.

Once in the hospital, we begin to educate the staff, very few people at a time, in a protected environment. Everyone wears a mask and gloves and the atmosphere becomes surreal. It is at that moment that you realize that you are carrying out an activity useful to others, to those who work on the front lines. To those who are struggling without ever giving up.

In these critical moments, also happened to me to intervene in an installation since the whole team was fully engaged in the field. It was my first experience linked to this pandemic.

I wore an FFP3 mask for 3 hours and I assure you that at the end of the surgery I was a rag, certainly also thanks to the great tension accumulated, I was having difficulty breathing. Since then I have never stopped thinking about the sanitary workers who must wear it during these gruelling work shifts these days. I was the first to experience touching this new reality with my own hands, and often during the day I asked myself if I had done everything I could to protect my colleagues.

Then when you prepare to return home in the evening, the thought goes to loved ones, my wife, my daughter and then you would like to stay in your car, in the parking lot under the house to avoid any contagion but, then take courage and try to take all necessary precautions and go ahead, continuing to give your support.”