Radiology Partners has acquired Southwest Diagnostic Imaging in a move that will allow RP to extend its services to Arizona while providing SDI with national scale capabilities to support patients in other regions.

“SDI represents about a 25 percent increase in our scale,” Rich Whitney, the CEO of RP, told HCB News. “Garnering more scale allows us more resources, opportunities to make bigger investments and opportunities to continue to innovate from a clinical standpoint. The injection of their ideas and talent into our group is only going to serve to advance our efforts on a number of fronts.”

The partnership is indicative of a larger consolidation trend among health care organizations, but also a consensus among radiologists that new clinical programs and innovations bring value to patients, referring physicians, and the health care system overall, according to the two companies.
As part of RP, SDI will have access to leadership training and development programs for radiologists, as well as innovative clinical programs, such as its best practices program for developing, measuring and managing agreed-upon approaches for care processes. It also will offer new technology such as natural language processing software and artificial intelligence capabilities.

SDI will help expand RP's clientele to account for more than 525 radiologists, at more than 400 sites, in 10 states, while providing IT capabilities, research, and engineering processes for internal operations of large physician groups.

Dr. Rod Owen, co-executive vice president of SDI, says the partnership will allow SDI to work with a practice that has the potential to help meet the needs of the radiology industry on a national level.

“Ultimately, it’s absolutely going to benefit patients long-term,” he told HCB News. “I think one of the key initiatives that Radiology Partners focuses on is actualizing best clinical practices to bring the best value to patients and health care systems through deep interactive understanding of what’s best for patients with a given disease state or finding. Radiology Partners has a great set of programs for institutionalizing it, measuring it and following up with our customers on making sure that that’s what we’re offering to the people that we serve, mainly the patients.”

Integration of the partnership is currently underway.

The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. SDI will retain its name and remain a separate entity under RP's ownership.

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