Technicare

Technicare, formerly known as Ohio Nuclear, was a maker of CT, DR and MRI scanners and other medical imaging equipment. Its headquarters was in Solon, Ohio. Originally an independent company, it was later purchased by Johnson & Johnson. At the time, Invacare was also owned by Technicare. The company did not do well under Johnson & Johnson and in 1986, under economic pressure following unrelated losses from two Tylenol product tampering cases, J&J folded the company, selling the intellectual property and profitable service business to General Electric, a competitor.

Ohio Nuclear's (ON) first products were nuclear medicine (NM) scanners. They made a rectilinear gamma scanner and a gamma camera in the 70s. This was followed by a variety of NM products. The company had bought also an ultrasound product line (formerly UNIRAD).

In CT, they developed sold the DeltaScan line of products. This began with the head only Delta 25 which competed with the EMI Mark-I, the world's first CT scanner. This followed by the body scanner, Delta 50 one of the first devices to scan the whole body. Both the Delta 25 and 50 scanned the patient in 1-2 minutes which was about twice as fast as EMI products. This was followed by the DeltaScan 50FS, the Delta 100, the Delta 2000 series of products and the HPS 1440. The DeltaScan FS reduced scan time to 18 seconds. A later modification to both units allowed the speed of the units to be reduced to 1/4 of normal speed which was used for detailed head scanning. This also increased the scan time but gave the added benefit of increased resolution for cases that warranted it. The Delta 100 scanner, introduced in 1978, was a inexpensive dedicated head scanner priced to get around the certificate of need restrictions in place at the time. The Delta 2000 series, introduced in 1977, included Delta 2005, Delta 2010, Delta 2020, Delta 2060 and Delta 2060 Quantum. These scanners could scan the body in 2-5 seconds, thereby eliminating motion artifacts due to breathing. The HPS 1440 scanner was introduced in 1985 as an ultra high resolution CT scanner.

Also in the product line were DeltaMat, a multiformat camera and DeltaPlan, a radiation therapy planning system using CT cross sectional images to plan radiation therapy treatments. These products were marketed in the 1977 to 1985 timeframe.

The DR 960 was introduced in 1982 as a digital subtraction angiography device. Rather than injecting contrast material into an artery, contrast was injected into the corresponding vein. A digital image was acquired with out contrast and one with, and the images subtracted from each other leaving the arterial branch highlighted with contrast.

The company also marketed an MRI unit, the Teslacon, beginning in 1984. Teslacon products ranged in magnetic field strength from 0.15 to 1.5 tesla.

J&J continued supporting the continued development of the HPS 1440 and Teslacon II MRI systems until the end of 1987.