Inland Imaging Associates PS, of Spokane, says it has won a five-year contract, beginning July 1, to provide radiology services to Polyclinic, an 85-physician, multispecialty health-care practice in Seattle.


The contract is the Spokane companys first foray into the Puget Sound market. It says it was competing with four Seattle radiology practices for the contract, the terms of which werent disclosed.


Inland Imaging says it will use one on-site radiologist and its 40 Spokane-based, subspecialized radiologists to interpret diagnostic imaging done at Polyclinic. Some of the patient studies will be sent electronically to the Spokane-based radiologists who will do the interpretations, it says, and those interpretations then will be made available online to Polyclinics doctors.


Polyclinic, which was founded in 1917 and operates three facilities in Seattle, performed more than 40,000 diagnostic imaging studies on patients last year.


Anita Geving, Polyclinics chief operating officer, says, Our needs in medical imaging capability have grown and become more diverse We either had to make tremendous investments or consider an arrangement with a diagnostic imaging services provider which includes subspecialty expertise, and the ability for our physicians to view images and reports online, on demand.


She says Inland Imaging tailored a solution to fit those needs.Under the arrangement, digital images from Polyclinics magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI), computed-tomography (CT), and other diagnostic-imaging equipment will be sent over high-speed connections to Inland Imagings image-storage facilities here.


Using Inland Imaging technology, Polyclinic physicians will be able to gain access to those images, using their personal computers and Web browsers.


Steve Duvoisin, Inland Imagings CEO, says physicians these days want their diagnostic reports and images available faster than ever before. Inland Imagings online services give it the ability to meet that demand, he asserts.