New partnership means faster, highly accurate radiology reports for patients at Hilton Head Hospital

Aug. 31, 2010 - PRLog -- Hilton Head Island, SC –  A new partnership between Hilton Head Regional Hospital and Radisphere National Radiology Group means faster turnaround times and greater access to specialized radiologists for patients in Hilton Head/Bluffton and the surrounding Lowcountry area.

“Hilton Head Hospital is committed to providing superior quality and extraordinary care in a safe and compassionate environment, said Mark T. O’Neil, president and CEO. “By partnering with Radisphere, we are now able to offer our patients and physicians access to the profession’s leading radiologists, many of whom hold fellowships and are nationally recognized experts in their given subspecialties.”

Radisphere is an Ohio-based company which, according to Clay Larsen, Sr. VP of Client and Network Development, has the largest network of specialized radiologists in the United States.  “The network provides a level of clinical service that before now had been fiscally and logistically out of reach for a majority of hospitals, especially those not located in metropolitan areas,” he said.

“Most importantly, our local patients will benefit greatly from this new arrangement,” said O’Neal, “because each patient’s imaging study, whether it’s a digital mammogram, MRI, or X-ray will be interpreted by a radiologist with the expertise and training best suited to interpret that study and with the utmost care and attention to detail.”
According to Radisphere, each of their radiologists must have three to five years of experience including academic experience and/or fellowship prior to joining their staff. Larsen said all have read at least 10,000 studies within their subspecialty, are motivated to focus exclusively on their subspecialty area, many of which have published.

As part of the arrangement, the Hilton Head Hospital has also negotiated guaranteed turnaround times, ensuring that patients will no longer have to wait weeks for their results, a factor that is immensely important when diagnosing rapidly advancing conditions like many cancers. “Because imaging services are near the starting point of the healthcare continuum, better quality and timely reports naturally translate to higher quality healthcare,” said O’Neil.  “Our on-going objective is to improve our overall service levels and better serve this community.”
   
Dr. Frank Seidelmann, a co-founder of Radisphere, says his firm’s aim is to provide a higher level of service to community hospitals, which have traditionally faced obstacles when it comes to hiring and retaining radiology staff.  He points out that the issues hospitals care about today are the accuracy of results and how fast they are obtained.

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For more information, contact: Kelly Presnell at Hilton Head Hospital, 843-689-8245
Website for Hilton Head Hospital is: http://www.HiltonHeadRegional.com
Website for Radisphere is: http://www.Radisphere.net