Clovis expansion aided by gift from CMI Radiology Group

Glen Hirata, a radiology technician at Clovis Community, comforts a patient in the region's first 128-slice CT scanner.

Amid ongoing expansion efforts, Clovis Community Medical Center received a boost to its radiology department.

The boost came in the form of a $300,000 gift to the hospital from CMI Radiology Group. The funds from CMI will help provide the hospital with additional and updated medical imaging space. With more than 35 radiologists, CMI Radiology is the largest radiology group in central California.

Dr. Mariela Resendes, managing partner for CMI Radiology Group, said radiology plays a key role in helping doctors, and therefore, patients. “Patient care pivots around radiology,” she said. “With all the wonderful instruments we have, we are able to guide doctors toward diagnosis and better patient care.”

CMI is the physician group that provides medical imaging services to all three of Community’s acute-care hospitals – Community Regional Medical Center, Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital and Clovis Community. In conjunction with Community, CMI also owns and operates two of Fresno’s largest outpatient imaging facilities – Advanced Medical Imaging and California Imaging Institute. CMI consists of 20 radiologist partners with specialties and fellowships that encompass areas such as body imaging, musculoskeletal imaging, women’s imaging (ultrasound & mammography), vascular and interventional radiology, nuclear medicine (positron emission tomography, or PET), neuroradiology and pediatric imaging.

“We are so grateful for CMI Radiology Group’s leadership and outstanding promise to make this transformational gift,” said Craig Castro, chief executive officer of Clovis Community. “It is a strong statement of how much physicians care about Clovis, the hospital in which they work, and the quality of care they deliver. It will certainly make a difference and impact the lives of many for years to come.”

This gift will help Clovis Community – already home to the region’s first 128-slice CT scanner – continue to provide leading-edge technology to help diagnose and treat its patients.

“This gift will help allow Clovis Community Medical Center to remain at the forefront of medical imaging, which is vital to diagnosing, treating and caring for our patients.” Castro said.

In a continued effort to serve the area’s growing population, Clovis Community began construction on the $20 million first phase of its expansion in October 2008 – the largest expansion project in the hospital’s history. The first phase features a two-story, 22,500-square-foot addition to the outpatient care center.

Plans call for expansion of the Radin Breast Care Center, a dedicated four-room endoscopy (a method of looking inside the body using a flexible tube with a small camera on the end) suite with associated operating rooms and the Valley’s highest and only Level 3 in vitro fertilization center between Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Private support from corporate donors, individuals, physicians, employees and others is being sought by Community Medical Foundation to help fund the Clovis Community expansion.

“We are very excited about the expansion vision that has been proposed, and we want to do our part to be sure it happens,” Dr. Resendes said. “It’s a very serious commitment to Clovis Community.”

This story was reported by Jennifer Avila-Allen. She can be reached at javila@communitymedical.org.