RadNet, Inc., a provider of diagnostic imaging services, announced today that it has signed agreements to offer a wide variety of radiology services to Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District and related parties in the Imperial Valley region for cancer diagnosis and treatment to the 160,000 residents of the area east of San Diego both on-site and over the internet, according to a press release from RadNet.
Radnet will offer these services through a network of 206 owned and operated outpatient imaging centers. In one of the agreements, RadNet and Pioneers will work together in a joint venture to operate a 12,000-square-foot outpatient imaging center where several radiological technologies will be used, according to the press release. RadNet's Imaging On Call and eRAD subsidiaries will also provide in-patient and outpatient teleradiology (the transmission of radiological patient images to remote locations) and information technology services to both Pioneers Memorial Hospital and to the newly created joint venture outpatient center.
In another move, RadNet and Pioneers announced they are developing a Breast Disease Management center to include RadNet's BreastLink oncologic services. These services, established in 2008 in southern California, provide breast cancer patients with care from diagnosis to treatment, including medical oncology, breast surgery and breast reconstruction.
Under the joint venture, RadNet and Pioneers’s outpatient imaging center, projected to be completed in 2012, will provide state-of-the-art medical imaging services to the residents of the southern Imperial Valley regions of Brawley, El Centro and surrounding communities. The joint venture facility will offer MRI, PET/CT, CT, Ultrasound, X-ray and digital mammography for cancer screening, according to the press release.
RadNet will be responsible for the daily operations of the outpatient joint venture, including staffing, equipment provision, equipment service, sales and marketing, human resources, contracting, transcription, medical coding, billing and collecting, among other functions, the press release says. Imperial Valley Radiology Medical Group, an existing radiology group used by Pioneers, will provide professional radiology services to the new imaging center.
“Given our experience with building and operating free-standing, multi-modality imaging centers, our reputation for providing quality medical services and our excellent relationships with insurance payers, we believe local physicians and their patients will make this new center their preferred destination for medical imaging needs,” said Norman Hames, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Western Operations for RadNet.
Also under the agreements, Imaging On Call, a subsidiary of RadNet acquired in January 2011, will provide offsite readings of radiology images and after-hours teleradiology support to Pioneers Memorial Hospital and to Imperial Valley Radiology Medical Group, according to the press release, allowing Pioneers and the newly created outpatient imaging center to have access to around-the-clock sub-specialty (a narrow field within a specialty) radiology services, and facilitating the routing of images to radiologist sub-specialists who are best equipped to interpret those exams, regardless of where they reside. Sub-specialists could be experts in reading chest, genitourinary, breast and gastro-intestinal x-rays.
In addition, a subsidiary of RadNet acquired in late 2010 will install and support a state-of-the-art Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) and a Radiology Information System (RIS) in Pioneers Memorial Hospital and in the newly created joint venture outpatient center, including voice recognition software to improve report response time and reduce the cost of medical transcription, according to the press release. This will enable local and remote radiology sub-specialists to view and interpret images via the internet, and will permit referring physicians to access reports and images electronically.
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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
