About us
Mobile Imaging
Mobile Imaging is bringing comprehensive care closer to home by providing advanced diagnostics through a mobile PET-CT service for New Zealand. Our mobile solution is the first in Australasia focused on delivering PET-CT services to patients in their local communities.
Mobile Health Group and Mercy Radiology have partnered to form Mobile Imaging. Together, we are uniquely placed to provide a mobile PET-CT service for New Zealand. The service provides mobile PET-CT imaging to people living outside major metropolitan cities. PET-CT scans are used for cancer diagnosis and staging, which involves determining the extent and location of cancer in a person’s body. While PET-CT imaging is becoming increasingly available in large urban locations, it is unlikely that a permanent fixed installation will be viable outside urban areas, so our service is designed to bridge this gap.
Accessibility now within reach
There is a geographical barrier to accessing a PET-CT facility. Regional New Zealanders are often expected to travel significant distances between their homes and the closest PET-CT facility. What region you reside in should not matter when accessing your PET-CT scan.
There has been a call to provide a mobile PET-CT service for several years to address the inequity of access to scans. Mobile Imaging is about providing patients with accessibility and removing barriers such as travel expenses or the inability to travel due to ill health.
The mobile unit which was constructed in Holland is of exceptional quality. We pride ourselves on providing a safe and reliable service wherever in the country we need to operate – There is no question patients will receive the very best service from us.
Equitable access for regional New Zealand
When travel demands become overwhelming, particularly for vulnerable or sick patients, they may opt out of accessing healthcare services. This often leads to poorer health outcomes. Our mobile PET-CT services will make healthcare more accessible, providing direct benefits to individuals. The quicker a diagnosis can be made and treatment can be monitored, the more cost-effective the treatment will become.
About our mobile facility
The mobile imaging unit is a modern, fully equipped diagnostic unit designed and built to be used for CT and PET-CT scans.
The PET-CT unit has been designed and built in Europe to strict regulations, which ensure it is safe for patients and staff onboard the unit, and the facility where the unit is hosted. Lead shielding is strategically used throughout the unit to ensure no radiation is emitted outside the unit. As a primary precautionary measure, a five-metre exclusion zone of all four sides of the unit is preferred. This distance may be reduced on a case-by-case basis, depending on the onsite assessment.
The approximate distance a patient in Gisborne currently has to travel to receive a PET-CT scan
The number of patients treated on our specialised mobile health vehicles over the last 30 years.
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Digital PET-CT scanners have a 40% improved image quality compared to older analog PET-CT units
About our partners
Mobile Health Group
Mobile Health Group operates a fleet of vehicles providing specialised health services throughout New Zealand. The services include a mobile operating theatre that provides low-risk elective day surgery to rural areas, and a mobile lithotripsy service that provides non-invasive kidney stone treatment at many of the larger public and private hospitals in New Zealand.
Mobile Health Group partners with health providers to deliver equitable access to high-quality, specialised healthcare services – ensuring patients are treated where they live and work. Over the last 28 years, the organisation has treated more than 50,000 patients, demonstrating that mobile facilities provide a safe and efficient means of delivering healthcare services.
Mobile Surgical Unit has been operational in New Zealand for 28 years
Mercy Radiology
Mercy Radiology is an industry-leading provider of diagnostic imaging services with locations throughout New Zealand. Mercy Radiology has pioneered many significant advancements in radiology, including being the first practice to install an MRI scanner, offer 3T bore imaging, and offer private mammography services. Mercy has also led the way in Molecular Imaging with a dedicated PET-CT facility at the Epsom site in Auckland as well as in Milford on Auckland’s Northshore.
With more than 12 registered Nuclear Medicine Technologists and 10 PET-CT certified Radiologists and Nuclear Medicine Physicians, Mercy Radiology has the largest Molecular Imaging Department in the country. Mercy Radiology has pioneered Gallium-based PET-CT imaging in New Zealand and is still the only practice to offer Ga68 PSMA (prostate cancer) and Ga68 DOTA (neuroendocrine cancer) PET-CT imaging.
Their entire fleet of PET-CT scanners is digital, including the mobile imaging unit – ensuring patients have access to the most advanced technology for better lesion detectability, improved sensitivity, specificity, and patient comfort.
At Mercy Radiology we take our role seriously as a diagnostic and treatment partner in the delivery of care.
Healthcare Holdings Limited (HHL)
Mercy Radiology and Mobile Health are part of the wider HHL group of companies. HHL is an integrated, outcome-based healthcare group comprising hospitals, diagnostic imaging, cancer care, mobile health services, outpatient clinics, and employer health offerings.
Managing conflicts of interest
Your referring clinician may have a financial interest in Mobile Imaging Limited. While this investment has enabled our service to be developed, it does create a potential conflict of interest. Referring clinicians should at all times make the best clinical judgement, and where relevant they should disclose any conflict either perceived, potential, or actual.
Feel free to discuss this with your clinician.
