New mammography services here…

Amy from Peace Health had this announcement on Friday:

Digital Mammography to be Offered on San Juan Island

A newly renovated mammogram imaging facility, retrofitted to provide San Juan Island’s first digital mammography, was unveiled at a ribbon-cutting today at the Inter Island Medical Center (IIMC) in Friday Harbor.

The mammography facilities at IIMC were upgraded and will be operated by Mount Baker Imaging (MBI), a joint venture of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Hospital and Northwest Radiologists (NWR), both of Bellingham.  The facility is scheduled to begin providing digital imaging on Monday, Aug. 24 at the IIMC at 550 Spring St.
This imaging upgrade and PeaceHealth partnership is intended to help provide safe, evidence-based compassionate care for San Juan Island residents.

The addition of digital mammography makes the IIMC’s mammography facility one of the most advanced in the region.  Digital mammograms provide greater detail than traditional film-based mammography. In addition, each mammogram is independently reviewed by two highly trained radiologists using computer-aided detection technology.

The American Cancer Society recommends annual mammograms for all women, starting at age 40. Yearly mammograms, combined with routine physical examinations, offer the best chance of detecting breast cancer at an early and treatable stage. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women, and is the second leading cause of cancer death in women.

Lenore Bayuk, San Juan County Public Hospital District #1 commissioner; Peter Buetow, MD, president of NWR; Valerie Behrndt, MD, medical director for the MBI Women’s’ Diagnostic Center; and Nancy Steiger, CEO and Chief Mission Officer for the PeaceHealth Medical Group and St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, shared ribbon-cutting duties with Jim Barnhart, CEO/CMO for  Peace Harbor Hospital in Florence, Ore.  Barnhart is leading the implementation phase of the new critical access hospital and Integrated Medical Center that PeaceHealth will build and operate on San Juan Island.  The hospital is scheduled to open during the summer of 2012.

Mount Baker Imaging, based in Whatcom County, works to provide the highest quality, most comfortable imaging services available. The MBI group of sub-specialized radiologists has been serving Northwest Washington physicians and patients for more than 50 years.

PeaceHealth is a Bellevue, WA-based not-for-profit healthcare system serving multiple rural and urban communities in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, PeaceHealth has provided exceptional medicine and compassionate care to Northwest communities for more than a century. PeaceHealth annually receives national recognition for innovations in patient-centered care, patient safety and healthcare technology. Research published in the June 2008 edition of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety ranked PeaceHealth as one of the top five quality of care healthcare systems in the country, and the leading system in the West. For more information, visit www.peacehealth.org.

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