Billings Clinic Broadwater and Logan Health’s Decade Spanning Mobile Mammography Collaboration
Author: Joseph Salyer, Billings Clinic
Billings Clinic Broadwater and Logan Health’s Decade Spanning Mobile Mammography Collaboration
Joseph Salyer
Billings Clinic
Stronger Together: Billings Clinic Broadwater and Logan Health’s Decade Spanning Mobile Mammography Collaboration
In 2023, Logan Health and Billings Clinic united to create a not-for-profit, Montana-based, independent healthcare system dedicated to keeping care close to home and connecting care in communities across the region. While this unification is recent, Billings Clinic and Logan Health have collaborated in one crucial area for nearly a decade.
Since 2014, Logan Health’s Winkley Women’s Center Mobile Mammography Unit has regularly stopped at Billings Clinic Broadwater in Townsend, MT, offering mammograms and other vital screenings to local residents.
“We are incredibly grateful for this longstanding partnership with Logan Health,” said Billings Clinic Broadwater CEO Justin Tiffany. “Being able to provide mammography services right here in Townsend helps reach women who might otherwise face barriers to regular screenings.”
The process is seamless. Providers at Billings Clinic Broadwater can order mammograms and refer patients directly to the mobile unit. Outside providers can also place orders, and patients themselves have the option to call and schedule appointments. Billings Clinic Broadwater staff coordinate scheduling and registration, while Logan Health’s team takes over from there.
Townsend is just one of 11 stops the mobile unit makes across a 20-county service area covering nearly 50,000 square miles. This broad-scale effort by Logan Health ensures that Montana women have access to life-saving screenings. From 2022 through October of this year, the Winkley Women’s Center Mobile Mammography Unit screened 333 patients at Billings Clinic Broadwater alone.
The mobile unit’s inception was made possible by the late Kalispell philanthropist Jane Winkley, a breast cancer survivor who was inspired to improve access to quality imaging after experiencing the limitations of analog mammography herself. Her generous $1 million gift to the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation turned her vision into reality.
“The ability to bring breast imaging to 11 different sites across northern and western Montana, instead of requiring women to drive to us, makes all the difference in ensuring timely screenings,” said Melissa Kaptanian, MD, Logan Health Breast Surgical Oncologist. “Each year, 2,200 women receive their screening mammogram on the Winkley Women’s Center Mobile Mammography Unit. Screening mammography should be available to every woman who wants one. That was Jane Winkley’s vision—that no woman should have to wait. We are proud to continue living out her dream at Logan Health.”
“Early detection is absolutely crucial,” added Justin Tiffany. “After all, it’s our mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters we care for day in and day out.”
Article Images
Click on Image Thumbnail(s) to view fullsize image
PhotoCredit: Billings Clinic
Image 1 Caption: Logo
