Area’s Supply of CT, MRI Machines Swells

By Emily Berry, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

Mar. 4–Two new magnetic resonance imaging machines will be on their way to Southeast Tennessee if state officials approve their installation, adding to an already crowded imaging market.

According to state records and area hospitals, Hamilton and bordering counties have nearly 30 MRI scanners already in service, along with 34 computed tomography, or CT, scanners.

“There are probably more MRI scanners in Chattanooga than there are in Canada, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Bill Taylor, a Chattanooga health care consultant.

Across Tennessee, 307 CT scanners and 259 MRI scanners are in use, according to state records.

Another handful of scanners is set to come online soon in Southeast Tennessee, pending state approval.

Memorial Hospital last month issued notice of its plans to ask for state permission to add a dedicated breast MRI machine to its MaryEllen Locher Breast Center. A breast MRI scanner is constructed differently from an MRI used for other body parts so that it produces better images, said Dr. Lanett Varnell, co-medical director at the breast center.

Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Karen Sloan said state officials will consider the hospital’s request at the May meeting of the Health Services and Development Agency board.

Cleveland Imaging LLC, a company based in Kingston Springs, Tenn., filed a similar notice. The company wants permission to put an MRI scanner at a new facility at the intersection of Ocoee Street and Ocoee Crossing in Cleveland, Tenn.

Company officials could not be reached for comment.

Applicants for a certificate of need from the state’s Health Services and Development Agency must show that existing machines at the same facility or a nearby one are used a certain number of times before the state will give permission for another.

“The question is, are all the scans medically necessary?” Mr. Taylor said.

He said insurance companies are beginning to require certain certifications and accreditations before they reimburse physicians for scans done outside hospitals, a move to discourage physicians from using MRIs and CT scans when they are unnecessary, and to push that work back to hospitals.

Hospital officials said they are driven to upgrade their imaging equipment more by a concern for patient care than by competition with outpatient facilities.

Blaine Morris, senior vice president for clinical services at Erlanger hospital, acknowledged the market for imaging services is “very competitive,” but that striving to have the best imaging equipment improves patient care.

“I just know that the physicians have become very dependent on having the information the CTs and MRIs provide,” he said.

Hospitals would have to stay current with imaging technology regardless of what outpatient centers might be doing, Dr. Varnell said.

“We’re held to a higher standard of care,” she said.

Or, as her co-director Dr. Maurice Rawlings put it, “I don’t really care what some outpatient place is doing… there’s always new technology. The question is, what technology is beneficial to the patient?”

At Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Oglethorpe, the hospital not only has advanced imaging equipment at its main hospital, but also at Hutcheson on the Parkway, where it has a joint operation with Battlefield Imaging, something hospital CEO Charles Stewart attributed to the hospital’s devotion to patient care.

“The cutting-edge technology Hutcheson and Battlefield Imaging offer in imaging services is second to none in this region,” he said in a written statement. “We are continually driven to offer the best in patient care and highest level of technology available in health care.”

E-mail Emily Berry at eberry@timesfreepress.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

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