To better assist the women in its community, Mercy Health Urbana Hospital in Ohio has created a Women’s Radiology Center.

"Rural healthcare has challenges often not experienced in urban settings. For example, the rates for women’s health when it comes to screenings for breast cancer and bone density are lower in less populated areas. Therefore, we decided to make the Women’s Center the centerpiece of our renovation," Terry Ceyler, imagining supervisor at Mercy Health Urbana Hospital, told HCB News.

Located in the City of Urbana, the hospital will establish the Women’s Radiology Center in two phases, with the first already complete, according to local news outlet, the Urbana Daily Citizen. This involved the installation of new DEXA machines, mammography systems and upgraded ultrasound units, as well as upgraded CT, nuclear medicine and X-ray suites. The center offers all services necessary for a range of procedures, such as comprehensive breast screening, so that women no longer have to go to different sites for each step, as they did previously.

The second phase will focus on privacy and include the set up of a new entry and exit point for emergency patients and inpatients when they come in for testing. This way, they can consult with the registration desk in private, away from outpatients in the waiting room.

"Women’s needs can be different from those of men and we feel we’ve created a seamless process that begins with screening and ends, when necessary, with additional imaging and invasive procedures," said Ceyler.

Mercy Health Urbana Hospital is the only local hospital for patients in Urbana and Champaign County, according to its website. Its parent organization, Mercy Health, is Catholic-based and operates healthcare facilities in Ohio and Kentucky. It merged in 2018 with Bon Secours Health System to become Bon Secours Mercy Health, according to Modern Healthcare, with the combined system made up of 43 hospitals.

It then partnered with Premier in 2019, giving it access to the company’s performance services, including the PremierConnect Enterprise data warehouse and analytics platform and self-service and clinical decision support analytics ministry-wide. This provided operational and quality improvement, service line, labor benchmarking, and supply chain analytics services to Bon Secours Mercy Health throughout the enterprise.

The Mercy Memorial Hospital Association partially funded the first phase of the center’s establishment with a $600,000 contribution. It plans to fully fund the second phase.

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