Mountain Heart, located in Flagstaff, Arizona is the largest locally-owned and operated, cardiovascular care center and accredited sleep facility in Northern Arizona. This multi-specialty practice offers world-class diagnostic services and a comprehensive, collaborative care model to ~250,000 residents north of Phoenix and surrounding states including Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and California.

“The whole process of purchasing, installation, training, and now maintenance has been wonderful. We really enjoy working with Universal and can’t imagine what we would have done without them.”

Justin Pepperling, Director of Operations, Mountain Heart

It is Mountain Heart’s mission to reduce the morbidity, mortality, and disability of cardiovascular disease and sleep disorders through comprehensive patient care. The center offers cardiovascular diagnostic testing and has a sleep testing facility on the premises. Mountain Heart is accredited through the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) for Nuclear Medicine/PET (ICANL), the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) for Echocardiography (IAEL) and the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) for Vascular testing (ICAVL).

World-Class Heart Care Close to Home

Mountain Heart is the region’s resource for comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular care, offering nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, vascular and sleep disorder services. To maintain continuity of care for its patients it’s essential Mountain Heart offers advanced diagnostic imaging applications and the latest innovative treatments at an affordable cost. In 2014, Mountain Heart began the search to replace their capital intensive Spectrum Dynamic D-SPECT camera. They sought a cost effective SPECT system with a full complement of clinical software for general nuclear medicine & nuclear cardiology which was capable of satisfactory throughput times and the delivery of lower patient doses.

Mountain Heart realized they needed an expert to help them find the right camera meeting their requirements. The practice enlisted the help of Universal Medical (Universal). Together, they assessed both their clinical requirements and financial needs and ultimately decided on a reconditioned Siemens c.cam matched with a cardiac processing workstation and an UltraSPECT Xpress3 Cardiac package for quarter time or half time and half dose applications. This SPECT camera configuration delivered the required clinical performance and reduced their annual cost of operating this service by half. Although everything looked good on paper, Mountain Heart’s management needed to make certain they were making the right clinical and financial decision. Universal offered the practice a short-term rental allowing Mountain Heart to evaluate the configuration before purchasing. Universal’s expert team performed the installation and on-site application training for the practice. Once satisfied they’d made the right decision for their practice, the System was purchased and is being maintained by Universal’s expert field service engineers.

As Northern Arizona’s premiere cardiac care provider since 2008, Mountain Heart prides itself on offering cost effective, high quality comprehensive diagnostic services to the residents in the communities they serve. With a reconditioned Siemens c.cam combined with the cardiac workstation and UltraSPECT reconstruction software delivered by Universal, Mountain Heart can continue to offer accessible, streamlined care, and continue giving their patients every advantage in the fight against heart disease.