After eight months in operation, demand for the mobile screening was so great that DEXA Diagnostics purchased a Discovery SL(supine lateral) for a second van. In addition to whole body capabilities and scanning features, the Discovery SL has the Hologic exclusive rotating C-arm. This feature allows the patient to remain supine for a more precise and comfortable lateral instant vertebral deformity assessment (IVA) of the thoracic and lumbar spine while the machine rotates into position. Ordinarily the patient is rotated into a decubitus position which may cause discomfort or lack a true 90 degree position thereby which affecting scan quality and reproducibility.

“Right now we’re operating two units in Denver and both of them are operating at their maximum level,” Kip said. The quickness of the SL has added to patient throughput.

Hologic’s service organization is “absolutely the best of the best. I can’t imagine anybody being any better.”

The DEXA Diagnostic mobile units currently serve 237 different practices within a 45-minute radius from metro Denver. “Our target markets are the practices that are too small and cannot justify purchasing their own machine. So we fit into that niche of people that send out patients to remote locations for screening yet don’t have enough volume to justify purchasing a machine of their own. At the average practice we test 10 to 13 patients in a half a day, which is a lot.”

An investment in training helps DEXA Diagnostics insure consistently reproducible test results. “Technologists come and go,” Kip pointed out. “A new technologist comes in and positions the patients slightly differently, and you’re going to get a slightly different bone mineral density result. We make sure that all of our technologists position the patients exactly the same way, same placement on the table, start the scan at exactly the same position.”

DXA Diagnostics’ technologists also drive the mobile BMD unit which may seem daunting to some. For radiology technologist Jennifer Pratt, RT, who operates the mobile unit serving Colorado Springs however, driving the van and examining patients is what it’s all about. “I love it. I enjoy working with patients. I like operating the Discovery system. And I like being on the road.”

Kip believes that patients often neglect preventative health measures like bone density tests because they are perceived as non-life threatening, and that inconvenience can keep patients from getting the tests their doctors order. It’s a sad fact that more women die of bone density problems each year than die from breast, uterine and ovarian cancer combined.