Samaritan to purchase new MRI equipment

MOSES LAKE — Samaritan Healthcare commissioners approved spending about $2.1 million to purchase new MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) equipment, and build a place to house it. Construction is projected to be completed by May.

Commissioners approved a $898,843 bid from L&M Construction at their December meeting.

The new MRI has been looking for a home for about seven months. Hospital officials selected a location inside Samaritan Hospital, but the site was rejected by the Washington Department of Health. A new site was selected outside Samaritan’s emergency room.

The total project cost includes the MRI and preparing the building’s interior.

“It still makes sense to move the MRI to that location, even though, looking long term, we may not be at this location?” asked commissioner Alan White.

Joe Kunkel, the consultant working with hospital officials, said the MRI can be moved, so if the hospital moves, the MRI can go too.

Hospital officials are studying the idea of building a new hospital in a different location, and are in negotiations to buy land on Yonezawa Boulevard.

Currently patients use a mobile MRI at Samaritan Clinic. Chief financial officer Alex Town said the permanent MRI will allow the hospital to provide more services. “That capability of providing the procedures here will expand. Right now we’re very limited with the (equipment) we have now at the clinic.”

“We have the opportunity for increasing the revenue by increasing the services we offer,” said chief executive officer Teresa Sullivan. “And also, decreasing expense because we lease (the current MRI) and we are paying transport back and forth to the clinic. Not to mention improving patient experience.” Director of nursing Becky DeMers said the hospital sometimes has trouble finding an ambulance to make the transport from the hospital to the clinic.

The new site will be adjacent to the existing cardiac rehabilitation unit, and will cut into the sidewalk. But it will not obstruct the roadway around the emergency room.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.