How Southern Mississippi Heart Center’s Partnerships Assure the Best Means of Diagnosis and Treatment for the Gulf Coast
Southern Mississippi Heart Center (SMHC) is one of the Gulf Coast’s premiere groups of cardiologists, offering the highest level of comprehensive cardiac care available. Providing excellent diagnostic imaging services to its community is something that the group takes great pride in. SMHC, which was established in 1995, has grown to include a total of five cardiologists that not only treat heart disease, but help to prevent it by educating the community.
For the past 20 years SMHC has been providing patient-centric cardiac care to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, encompassing a mix of geographic locations from cities to rural areas. There are four total clinics in the group which are located in Ocean Springs, Pascagoula, Biloxi, and Hurley. The majority of the patient population resides in Jackson County, which has a population of more than 140,000 – 13.8% of that over the age of 65.
The group offers a comprehensive cardiovascular health program with specialized medical professionals trained in nuclear cardiology, electrophysiology, prevention services, Holter Monitoring, as well as interventional cardiovascular procedures.
SMHC cardiologists work hard to promote prevention, helping patients stay on track with leading a healthy lifestyle, while ensuring that they have regular follow-up care. Like many patient populations around the country, southern Mississippi has an aging community and an increasing number of individuals with poor health who require urgent care at SMHC facilities and their affiliated hospitals.
“At some point, all nuclear medical systems need to be serviced. Our patients cannot wait, which is why we do not like to lean on expensive and time consuming OEMs. Working with Universal minimizes our downtime and costs – giving us a value that is second-to-none.”
Billy Biglane, Southern Mississippi Heart Center
Patients Shouldn’t Have to Wait
As a major resource for patients in the area, it’s imperative to SMHC that its nuclear imaging cameras are available for diagnostic testing around the clock. With affordability being a major challenge in the healthcare industry and serving a community dependent upon Medicare/Medicaid, SMHC needs to have a partner with the ability to provide a high quality parts, service, and support to keep their nuclear imaging systems running according to original equipment specifications.
When the time comes for preventive maintenance or a repair, whether it is minor or not, patients simply cannot wait, nor should they have to. By making the smart choice of partnering with Universal Medical Resources for their equipment maintenance services, SMHC is not only able to continue their practice without interrupting patient care; they also realize significant savings by not having to replace cameras every few years. With help from Universal, the group has confidence that it is receiving the best possible customer service at the same high level it pledges to provide to its patients.
Southern Mississippi Heart Center has made a significant commitment to bring quality medical services to the people of southern Mississippi. By offering community-level care with a high-level of nuclear imaging technology, SMHC has shown that facilities serving small and rural communities can provide the same level of care as virtually any institution in the country.