Cardiovascular Business - October/November 2007 - (Page 29) the benefits of PET/CT MPI,” Korn says. “We found this to be very effective in building the practice.” Even with a strong reputation among cardiologists, Scottsdale Medical Imaging did not see a rush of patients when it first offered PET/CT MPI. “In the beginning, we were seeing about one patient per week,” Korn says. “Now we’re seeing about five a day for PET/CT MPI. We absolutely could be doing more, but because we only have one PET/CT system it needs to be used for oncology as well. So we have to balance myocardial perfusion imaging with oncology.” Korn says that Scottsdale Medical Imaging has one of the busiest PET/CT oncology practices in the Southwest. As the demand for MPI on the system has grown, the practice is considering adding more time on the PET/CT system to handle the demand. “What we hope is that if we can get up to eight PET/CT MPI patients a day, we can open another bay of myocardial perfusion imaging,” he says. “What we’re doing is baby steps; as the volume grows we’ll be able to open up more and more slots.” more flexibility as to when you can schedule these exams. “I would spend a lot of time educating cardiologists about the service and emphasizing that it will be complementary to their practice and not in competition with them. “Lastly, I would make sure to use as near to state-of-the-art equipment as possible, where you’re able to do things like cardiac gating to measure ejection fraction; which is an essential part of our interpretation of these scans.” Lessons learned The Scottsdale Medical Imaging PET/CT MPI service line has been in development and practice for about the past two years. Given the opportunity to open the service in a new area, there are a few things that Korn would do differently. “I would be absolutely certain that the contracts we have with private payors include the use of rubidium for myocardial perfusion imaging,” he says. “That is essential because the radiotracer used to conduct this study is very expensive. If you don’t get paid for it, it really hurts your bottom line. “Secondly, I would be a little more aggressive in getting together a dedicated PET/CT MPI team. That includes the radiologists, technologists, a nurse to administer pharmaceuticals, scheduling, and billing personnel. “The PET/CT technologists are well educated about oncologic imaging, but cardiac imaging on the system has its own set of protocols and requirements that they need to master. In addition, the radiologists should be advanced cardiac life support certified so that a cardiologist does not need to be present to perform the stress testing, which will give you a lot CardiovascularBusiness.com Cardiovascular Business 29 http://www.emageon.com http://www.CardiovascularBusiness.com
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