Shared Imaging: Visual Cooperation
Visual Imaging
Written by Eric Slack   
Tuesday, 01 September 2009
Shared Imaging: Visual Cooperation
This diagnostic imaging systems provider’s advanced technology portfolio and focus on relationships has helped it become one of the top independent providers in the US.

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The importance of medical imaging systems to the quality of care and financial health of hospitals and health systems grows year after year. Since 1994, Shared Imaging has been in a state of consistent growth of its own by providing solutions to providers that would otherwise be left without these critical systems.

“Our slogan is ‘caring for today, preparing for tomorrow,’ so we are always trying to get to the next level in terms of what we provide to the market,” said Ray Stachowiak, president and CEO.

Shared Imaging: Visual Cooperation
Ray Stachowiak, president and CEO
During the last 15 years, the company went from a small operation with only 28 CT systems to 145 CTs, 70 MRIs, and 2 PET/CTs. Shared Imaging provides service in 43 states and has 150 employees.

Top of the line
Stachowiak said there are two ways to distinguish the company in the marketplace. The first is through the system modalities it offers to customers. Shared Imaging only operates in the capital intensive diagnostic imaging areas of MRI, CT, and PET/CT. It has consciously avoided systems like ultrasound and nuclear medicine while seeking to outdo the competition with the modalities it focuses on.

Shared Imaging is the largest independent provider of CT systems in the country outside of the manufacturers themselves. On the MRI side, it has built a young fleet, having purchased all its MRI equipment in the last eight years and spending roughly $25 million on equipment every year for the last six years. As for PET/CT, Stachowiak said the company is just now venturing in that direction.

“We’re a little late to that game, but we should be able to extend our model to PET/CT like we did with MRI,” he said. “We were late to enter that market 10 years ago, and now we have 70 MRI systems.”

The other way the company sets itself apart is the delivery of solutions. It offers full-time, permanent systems, mobile systems, and interim systems. Full-time systems are exactly like they sound, provided on a full-time basis at the hospital based on fee-per-procedure or monthly-rate payment options. Mobile systems are brought in periodically to its customers, and Shared Imaging’s own technologists operate the equipment and perform scans. Interim systems are brought in on a full-time basis but for short periods of time instead of permanent arrangements. The company has salespeople across the country responsible for mobile and full-time sales, but Shared Imaging’s home office manages interim solutions because of the fast reaction time involved with short-term rentals and keeping on top of what equipment is available when.

Common goals
However, Shared Imaging’s success truly stems from its ability to craft lasting relationships with customers and manufacturers. Community hospitals make up the bulk of Shared Imaging’s customers, and by providing excellent service to one account, administrators at one hospital are likely to pass on a good referral to decisionmakers they have relationships with at other hospitals. With mobile solutions, this not only means service in the sales process but in the delivery of care.

“Our technologists are like small business managers. They manage their routes and get to be a little more independent than in a hospital setting,” said Stachowiak, noting that the company tries to hire experienced salespeople who already have relationships in the market.

Not all of Shared Imaging’s customers are rural community hospitals. The company has also bolstered its reputation by serving some of the largest hospitals in healthcare. For instance, when a major medical center located on the East Coast needed an interim MRI system, it went to Shared Imaging.

“It had 10 MRI systems on campus that were all being used 15 to 20 hours a day,” Stachowiak said. “It needed an additional MRI for about 18 months while the team put an RFP together to make a volume purchase of MRIs it was putting out to bid with the OEMs. The MRI system we provided
was two to three years old, and the technology was perfectly acceptable. That is an indication of the advanced technology we carry in our portfolio.”

With the manufacturers, Shared Imaging isn’t beholden to one manufacturer and has relationships with all major manufacturers, including GE, Siemens, and Philips. An independent entity, the company isn’t a dealer or a distributor. It purchases new equipment directly from the manufacturer for its own use.

“With respect to the mobile operations we have, we are a market development arm of the manufacturer,” said Stachowiak. “A hospital could start out as a two-day-per-week mobile client, move to a full-time system that might be three to five years old, and eventually evolve into purchasing a new system from the manufacturer.”

Shared Imaging’s goal is to reach $100 million in sales by 2013. Unlike other companies in its niche, Shared Imaging is growing through both acquisition and internal organic growth. Other companies it competes with are growing purely by acquisition. Stachowiak said the company is actively trying to grow its PET/CT product line, and while other companies are simply maintaining their MRI fleet, Shared Imaging is trying to expand there as well. Those will be the primary modalities the company’s growth strategy will focus on.

“With PET/CT, we’re focused on the Northeast,” Stachowiak said. “We’ve acquired two companies in the last two years. Each had one mobile PET/CT route operating, one in Southern New York and the other in Central New Jersey.”

Managing growth shouldn’t be too difficult for Shared Imaging going forward. In March 2008, Stachowiak sold a 50% interest in the company to Lubar & Co., a private investment firm in Milwaukee. Stachowiak was happy not to have to go public to get access to capital, which he thinks will help the company as it tries to maintain a managed growth plan in the face of national economic challenges and the questions marks around healthcare reform.

“To a large extent, we’ve been doing the same thing for the last 15 years, and I expect we will continue to do the same thing for the next 15 years,” he said. “We have to manage change and growth in a smart way, and our experienced leadership is well-suited to do that.”
 
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