SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dignity Health hospitals and Alliance HealthCare Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:AIQ) announced today an innovative new partnership to establish a new CyberKnife oncology therapy center to serve patients in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Alliance Oncology, a division of Alliance HealthCare Services, is opening the San Francisco CyberKnife Center on the Saint Francis Memorial Hospital campus, in the Radiation Oncology department. This will be the only CyberKnife program in a community hospital setting in the Bay Area. The center will serve all three hospitals: Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco, and Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. The new CyberKnife Center is expected to treat its first patient during the first quarter of 2014.
“We are very pleased to be partnering with Alliance in the Bay Area, which will enable us to expand our network strategy in oncology and further improve the health of the communities we serve,” said Glenna Vaskelis, Senior Vice President of Operations, Bay Area, Dignity Health. “Alliance brings state of the art technology, which combined with our highly skilled physicians and nurses, will provide a winning combination for our patients.”
“This collaborative partnership is a great example of how Alliance continues to combine our strengths with those of major hospital networks like Dignity Health to deliver world class treatment options,” said Larry C. Buckelew, Chairman of the Board and interim Chief Executive Officer of Alliance HealthCare Services. “Alliance is committed to successfully becoming a partner of choice for hospitals in a broad array of imaging and oncology services. We look forward to delivering on that commitment with the Dignity Health team.”
CyberKnife is a robotic technology used by radiation oncologists and surgeons to treat patients through stereotactic radiosurgery and is offered through US Radiosurgery. As a division of Alliance Oncology, US Radiosurgery’s network encompasses facilities throughout the United States that collectively have treated thousands of patients with stereotactic radiosurgery technology. It is a noninvasive method of treating tumors and other medical conditions with surgical accuracy, using high-dose radiation delivered in five or fewer outpatient treatments.
About Dignity Health
Dignity Health, one of the nation’s five largest health care systems, is an 18-state network of nearly 11,000 physicians, 56,000 employees, and more than 300 care centers, including hospitals, urgent and occupational care, imaging centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered in San Francisco, Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality and affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor and underserved. In 2012, Dignity Health provided $1.6 billion in charitable care and services. For more information, please visit our website at www.dignityhealth.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
About Alliance HealthCare Services
Alliance HealthCare Services is a leading national provider of advanced outpatient diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy services based upon annual revenue and number of systems deployed. Alliance focuses on MRI, PET/CT and CT through its Imaging division and radiation therapy through its Oncology division. With approximately 1,800 team members committed to providing exceptional patient care and exceeding customer expectations, Alliance provides quality clinical services for over 1,000 hospitals and other healthcare partners in 44 states. Alliance operates 487 diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy systems. The Company is the nation’s largest provider of advanced diagnostic mobile imaging services and one of the leading operators of fixed-site imaging centers, with 129 locations across the country. Alliance also operates 28 radiation therapy centers, including 17 dedicated stereotactic radiosurgery facilities, many of which are operated in conjunction with local community hospital partners, providing treatment and care for cancer patients. With 17 stereotactic radiosurgery facilities in operation, Alliance is among the leading providers of stereotactic radiosurgery nationwide. For more information, please visit http://alliancehealthcareservices-us.com/.
Alliance HealthCare Services Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to future events, including statements related to the establishment of a new CyberKnife oncology therapy center. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from Alliance’s expectations. Such uncertainties and risks include, among other things, the effect of intense levels of competition in Alliance’s industry; changes in the methods of third party reimbursements for diagnostic imaging and radiation oncology services; fluctuations or unpredictability of Alliance’s revenues, including as a result of seasonality; changes in the healthcare regulatory environment or other governmental laws and regulations affecting Alliance’s operations; Alliance’s ability to keep pace with technological developments within its industry; the growth or lack thereof in the market for imaging, radiation oncology and other services; the disruptive effect of hurricanes and other natural disasters; adverse changes in general domestic and worldwide economic conditions and instability and disruption of credit markets; difficulties Alliance may face in connection with recent, pending or future acquisitions, including unexpected costs or liabilities resulting from the acquisitions, diversion of management’s attention from the operation of Alliance’s business, and risks associated with integration of the acquisitions; and other risks and uncertainties identified in the Risk Factors section of the Company’s Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), as may be modified or supplemented by our subsequent filings with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Alliance does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements except as required under the federal securities laws.