Gamma Camera Site Preparation: Room, Access, Power and Cooling

By Vvon Engineering Team | Published 2026-05-28 | Updated 2026-10-05

Prepare a gamma-camera room using the selected system’s site-planning documents: delivery access, structural checks, power, cooling, cable routes and readiness records.

Nuclear medicine RFQ checklist (TXT)

Prepare the room and delivery route against the selected manufacturer's site-planning documents. Crate dimensions, floor and lift capacity, turning space, utilities and environmental conditions need confirmation with the qualified project team. This guide covers site readiness; the installation timeline shows how readiness fits into procurement and handover.

The site planning document is the specification

Every manufacturer issues a site planning pack for the specific configuration you bought. Get it at contract signature, before the room is chosen, and issue it to the civil contractor as a contract document rather than as background reading. If the contractor has not priced against it, the contractor will not build to it.

• Room dimensions, including the clearances needed for gantry rotation and couch travel at their extremes, not the average.
• Floor loading figures: total mass and, separately, the point load under each mounting foot.
• Floor flatness and level tolerance across the equipment footprint.
• Electrical supply requirements, earthing requirements and the acceptable variation on the supply.
• Heat output, which sets the cooling load, and the acceptable temperature and humidity range.
• Cable route sizes, duct positions and the separation required between power and signal runs.
• Service access clearance, which is the dimension most often lost when somebody decides to build a store cupboard into a corner of the room.

Read the service access clearance twice. A camera installed hard against a wall works perfectly until the first detector service, when the engineer cannot open the cover and the hospital pays to move the wall.

Floor loading and structure

The structural assessment must consider total mass, concentrated loads, load distribution, dynamic effects where relevant, shielding and the delivery route. A mass or point-load figure alone does not determine a particular slab failure mode.

Have a structural engineer check the actual slab against the site planning figures, with the reinforcement drawings if they exist. In a conversion where the drawings are missing that means a physical investigation, and it takes time. Start it early.

Assess temporary transport loads and lifting arrangements as well as the final equipment position. Wheel or support loads depend on the selected handling equipment and are not automatically greater than every installed gantry load.

Two further structural points. If the room is on an upper floor, the shielding walls add dead load on top of the equipment load and the two are assessed together. And where the site plan states a floor flatness tolerance, treat it as a real constraint: a gantry that cannot be levelled within its adjustment range means re-screeding a floor after the epoxy has been laid.

Getting the crate in

1. Survey the route from the truck standing position to the room, measuring every door width and height, every corner, every ramp and every threshold, and record it with photographs.
2. Check the lift against crate mass and crate internal dimensions, and check the lobby turning circle at both ends. A lift that takes the mass but not the length is a common finding.
3. Confirm the truck can physically reach the unloading point at the time of day the delivery is scheduled. A narrow lane, a market that sets up in the morning and an overhead cable at the gate are all real constraints in Dhaka and none of them appear on the hospital drawing.
4. Agree in writing who removes and refits door leaves and frames, and who makes good afterwards.
5. If the route fails, plan a temporary wall opening and get it into the civil scope early, with the reinstatement priced at the same time.
6. Agree a crate storage location on site in case the room is not ready: dry, secure, guarded, at ground level, and not under anything that carries water.

That last point is where projects lose equipment. A crate left in a corridor beneath a leaking air conditioning condensate drain through a monsoon week becomes a warranty argument that nobody wins, and the hospital is the party with the least bargaining power.

Power quality, earthing and the UPS

Confirm the actual voltage, phases, frequency, available capacity and quality against manufacturer requirements. Qualified electrical staff should assess voltage variation, interruption, transients and protective arrangements; a nominal supply label alone does not demonstrate suitability.

Obtain an engineered supply and protection plan compatible with the manufacturer and applicable electrical requirements. Define distribution, isolation, protective earthing and equipotential bonding, surge protection, backup power and changeover. Do not prescribe a separate unbonded earth pit, universal stabiliser or arbitrary resistance target. Agree testing, records and periodic verification with qualified electrical staff. A changeover does not necessarily produce a damaging surge, and backup scope must be established for the whole supported configuration.

Investigate electrical reliability from measurements, fault records and manufacturer requirements rather than assuming one national failure mechanism.

Air conditioning and humidity

Size environmental control from equipment heat loads, occupancy, building conditions and specified operating and storage limits. Assess redundancy and continuity needs; two identical full-capacity units are one possible design, not a universal requirement.

Maintain manufacturer conditions during use and shutdown, including permitted rates of temperature change and humidity. Whether continuous active cooling is required depends on the room and equipment; compare continuity and lifecycle costs without inventing a universal annual electricity-versus-crystal price ratio.

Assess condensation risk, ventilation, control of humid air and recovery after a cooling failure. Coordinate these with the approved facility ventilation and electrical design. An environmental log supports investigation but cannot by itself prove or exclude every cause of a fault.

• Install a temperature and humidity logger in the room and keep the record with the QA file, so that an environmental cause can be proved or ruled out when a fault occurs.
• Route condensate drains away from the gantry, the console and any cable duct. Never above the equipment.
• Seal duct penetrations through shielded walls properly, both for shielding integrity and to stop humid air tracking in.

Cable routes and the console position

• Routes and fixtures: provide manufacturer-approved ducts and mounts before finishes. External CT positioning lasers such as MAXX-1100 apply only where the imaging or simulation workflow requires them; they are not a standard accessory for every gamma camera.
• A pull cord left in every duct, so that the next cable does not become a civil works job.
• Separation maintained between power and signal runs along the whole route, not only where it is convenient.
• Console and observation: provide safe patient observation and communication, with window shielding and access defined by the room design. Leaded glass is not automatically required at every console.
• Network drops for the acquisition workstation and the PACS link, plus at least one spare, terminated and tested before delivery.

The commissioning sequence

1. Civil and shielding works complete, with walls inspected and photographed before they were closed.
2. Power, earthing and air conditioning energised and running stably for a period before delivery, with voltage, earth resistance, temperature and humidity readings recorded over that period.
3. Radiation survey of the room and regulatory submission progressed as far as the licence route requires.
4. Delivery, unpacking and mechanical installation, with the crate condition photographed on arrival.
5. Vendor calibration, detector tuning and system configuration.
6. Acceptance testing against the purchase specification, witnessed by the hospital's medical physicist, with raw data retained by the hospital.
7. Baseline QA measurements recorded and filed as the reference set for the life of the system.
8. Staff training on the hospital's own protocols using the department's own phantoms, such as the Gamma Flood, with attendance recorded.
9. Handover pack: manuals, as-built site plan, electrical and earthing test records, acceptance data, spare parts list and service escalation path.

Agree acceptance methods and responsibilities before installation. Manufacturer tests and independent physics assessment should document compliance with the purchase specification and suitability for clinical use. Handover does not extinguish the supplier's warranty or other contractual obligations.

A readiness checklist to hand to the contractor

Item	Ready means	Signed off by
Room dimensions and clearances	Measured on site against the site plan, including door swing and service access	Project engineer
Floor	Load checked against point and distributed figures, level within tolerance, finish laid and cured	Structural engineer
Shielding	Installed, inspected before closing, photographed at every seam and penetration	Medical physicist
Power	Manufacturer-compatible supply, protection, backup and changeover verified under the electrical design	Electrical engineer
Earthing	Protective earthing and equipotential bonding tested and recorded by qualified electrical staff	Electrical engineer
Air conditioning	Specified temperature and humidity demonstrated with agreed continuity arrangements	Facilities
Ducts and cable routes	Installed, clear, pull cords in place, network drops terminated and tested	Project engineer
Delivery route	Surveyed end to end, obstructions removed or scheduled, lift capacity confirmed	Project engineer
Regulatory	Licence application filed, shielding design and survey reports submitted	Radiation safety officer

Review readiness against the real project schedule and dependencies. Assign each outstanding item an owner, due date and evidence of completion; a fixed fortnightly meeting or eight-week threshold does not suit every installation.

Send Vvon the room drawing, access route and intended system configuration for a site-planning enquiry. Confirm manufacturer planning documents, survey scope, installation responsibilities and qualified design work in the proposal. Contact +8801805987890 or info@vvon.com.bd.

Technical references

• IAEA: radiation protection and safety in medical uses
• IAEA: SPECT/CT atlas of quality control and image artefacts
• Cemar: MAXX-1100 CT room laser system

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