RDI Moving to The Spring in July
Relocation includes adding $5 million in new technology
By Keith Lawrence
Messenger-Inquirer
Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging will be moving in July to a new 25,000-square-foot “state-of-the-future” facility in The Springs Health Centre on East Parrish Avenue.
And traffic on that section of Parrish Avenue should see an increase.
Dr. Terry Tyler, who founded the practice in 1983, said RDI saw more than 34,000 patients in its 15,000-square-foot offices in the Cigar Factory Complex last year. That’s more than a third of the 93,000 patients RDI has seen in the past 22 years. Shanda Bland, RDI’s chief operating officer, says the move — and an aging population — should encourage even more tests over the next few years.
The RDI offices are now on the second floor toward the back of the historic Cigar Factory Complex at 1100 Walnut St. It’s not the easiest place to find.
The new single-story building in The Springs will have a canopied area for patient drop-off and staff will be watching to help those who need assistance, Tyler said.
Windows are being added in patient areas to make them more cheerful and relaxing, he said.
The move will also bring some $5 million worth of advanced technology to the practice, which offers X-rays, mammography, nuclear medicine, ultrasound, MRIs, CAT scans and screening services.
The bulk of that — $3.5 million — is for a new magnetic resonance imaging system that will be twice as powerful as the one RDI now uses. And it was state-of-the-art just a few years ago.
“We’ll be able to do significantly better imaging or to cut the time,” Tyler said.
Two things you won’t find in the new facility, Bland said, are a dark room for developing X-rays and a big storage room for patient records.
RDI began using all-digital X-ray equipment as well as digital mammography three years ago and is converting all of its 93,000 patient records to computer files.
The new equipment, Tyler said, gives better images and saves patients’ time in getting the results of the tests. Some tests have been cut from 30 minutes to 5 by the new technology, he said.
The field is changing so fast that equipment can become obsolete in five years, Tyler said. Because of that, the new building is being designed with windows that will allow cranes to remove MRIs and Computerized Axial Tomography machines when they become outdated — and lift in new machines.
Some of the magnets used in the machines weigh 30,000 pounds or more. And they don’t move easily, Bland said.
Today’s technology was science fiction in 1983 when Tyler started the practice.
But he said patients often expected machines to do even more than they can.
We’re not at ‘Star Trek’ yet,” he said, “Hopefully, we will be one day, but we’re not now.”
The key, he said, is still humans.
“If you don’t have radiologists who understand the equipment and the disease process, the equipment is useless.” Tyler said.
His practice now includes Dr. John Mulligan, Dr. Patrick Padgett and Dr. Kent Filbeck.
The 45-member staff also includes 17 technologists. No additional staff will be needed at the new location, Bland said.
Technology, Mulligan said, is moving toward using nuclear medicine to not only detect cancer before it develops a mass, but to kill it as well.
That, he said, is “in the not too distant future.”
RDI’s new building is the fifth of eight planned by Malcolm Bryant, the developer who began working on the 20-acre $20 million medical center in March 1999.
Bryant will use 5,000 square feet of the building for a high-tech conference center that will seat 150 to 200.
The conference center has a kitchen and dining area, so those using it won’t have to leave for lunch.
“There’s nothing like it around here,” Bryant said.
The complex is only three or four minutes from Owensboro Medical Health System, Tyler said. And it’s easy for patients to find.
Bland said RDI will begin installing equipment in the new building in early May.
“We’re planning a July 5 opening,” she said.
