Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center offering digital mammography, bone density scans
One of the most important preventive health measures for women – screening mammograms – will soon be available at Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center, where women can access a wider and more technologically advanced scope of diagnostic tools than ever.
Bristol Regional Medical Center recently completed installation of digital mammography equipment at Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center, and patients can receive screening mammograms at this state-of-the-art, outpatient facility beginning May 4. Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center will also begin offering bone density scanning, a non-invasive, X-ray procedure used to measure bone loss.
The equipment used for those diagnostic services has been relocated from Bristol Regional’s location at Professional Park Plaza on Blountville Highway. Patients who previously went to the Blountville Highway location for those diagnostic services can now visit Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center, located at 1230 Volunteer Parkway, for those services and more.
“It’s the same service at a different location,” said Greg Neal, chief operating officer at Bristol Regional Medical Center. “Consolidating services at Volunteer Parkway will offer maximum convenience to patients because of the location, the ample parking and the wide range of services that will be available in one location. Since this is an outpatient facility where we can focus all of our energies on outpatients, it’s easier to get in quickly and get out quickly as well.
“With the busy lives that most of us lead, our ability to offer convenience and superior service are important facets of the overall experience, and we will deliver the highest level of healthcare service at VPIC.”
The centerpiece of the new screening diagnostics at Volunteer Parkway is digital mammography, which transmits scans of the breast to a computer where the images can be enhanced and magnified, offering more precision imaging than traditional analog mammograms.
Patients can rely on bone density scans to reveal conditions that rob them of bone mass, such as osteoporosis. Bone densitometry is also effective in tracking the effects of osteoporosis, as well as improvements through various treatment options. Volunteer Parkway also offers such diagnostic tools as computed tomography, or CT, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound and traditional X-ray.
Bristol Regional continues to offer digital mammography in the hospital, but Neal said for convenience, patients are encouraged to schedule their regular screening mammogram at Volunteer Parkway Imaging Center.
A screening mammogram is a non-invasive, preventive health procedure used to detect breast tissue changes in women who have no signs or symptoms of breast cancer, and the American Cancer Society recommends that women 40 and older have a screening mammogram every year. Women who have increased risk factors, such as a family history of breast cancer, are advised to have a yearly screening mammogram starting at age 30.
Should a diagnostic mammogram be needed to follow up on a screening mammogram, Neal said the more intensive mammography services offered at the hospital will work in a complementary fashion to provide the comprehensive range of services every woman needs.
“Hopefully a woman’s screening mammogram done at Volunteer Parkway will come back normal,” Neal said, “but if there’s any question at all we’ve got the whole range of comprehensive services available at the hospital to get a definitive diagnosis.”
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