It's Here! Lockport Memorial Ramps up Siemens MR System for Local...( 'Win an MRI' contest winner provi...),Health

'Win an MRI' contest winner provides in-house MR exams with the MAGNETOM ESSENZA

LOCKPORT, N.Y., Oct. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- After much anticipation and an outpouring of community support during last year's "Win an MRI" contest, an excited crowd of friends, employees and patrons of Lockport Memorial Hospital in Lockport, N.Y., gathered in the hospital lobby to hear those words they have been waiting to hear: "It's here!" At today's official ribbon-cutting ceremony, Lockport announced that its brand new MAGNETOM(R) ESSENZA 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system is now available to its patients and the community.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070904/SIEMENSLOGO )

Lockport Memorial Hospital won the MRI, worth approximately $800,000, through a first-of-its-kind online video competition hosted on http://www.WinAnMri.com. Siemens sponsored the "Win an MRI" contest to drive awareness for the lack of critical diagnostic tools, such as MRI, in rural and community hospitals. The contest invited healthcare facilities that met certain criteria to submit an online video and to showcase why their institution most deserved a free MRI system. After 1.4 million public votes were cast, Lockport Memorial Hospital was declared the winner with their video entitled "Is it here yet?"

MRI is one of the fastest growing imaging procedures on the market today, with the number growing by 10 percent from 2003 to 2006. Yet, more that 1,500 hospitals in the United States do not offer this valuable service.

"Previously, when a doctor at Lockport would prescribe an MRI to a patient, they would have to travel to an off-site facility to have the exam done," said Clare Haar, chief executive officer of Lockport Memorial Hospital, a 134-bed facility located in upstate New York. "But now, our new MR scanner is av
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