Media release from Atrium Health Floyd:
Atrium Health Floyd is celebrating the success of its second mobile mammography coach, which has already had a positive impact in its first six months of service, providing more than 1,700 screening mammograms to women in mostly rural areas of north Georgia and northeastern Alabama.
A gathering was held on Monday at the free-standing Atrium Health Floyd Medical Center Chattooga Emergency Department, where the mobile unit is based. Atrium Health Floyd operates the only mobile mammography units in the region.
“Our goal in the first year was to do 1,500,” Aimee Griffin, vice president of Professional Services at Atrium Health Floyd. “We have crossed 1,700 screening mammograms on the new unit and nine cancers have been diagnosed. Five of those cancers have come from this geographic area.”
Atrium Health Floyd’s first coach, which has been in service since 2008, is based at the Harbin Clinic Dr. Tony E. Warren M.D. Cancer Center, home to The Breast Center at Atrium Health Floyd.
Since that time, the coaches have traveled a total of 111,000 miles, performed 35,000 screenings and detected 129 cancers.
The Breast Center and mammography coaches are the only facilities in the region that offer the Know in 24 promise, pledging to notify women of their screening results within a day.
Grant money for the new coach was provided with the help of U.S. Sen. John Ossoff, D-Ga., who has worked to expand health care in rural areas of the state.
“We are very appreciative that Sen. Ossoff has helped us get this funding,” said Kurt Stuenkel, Atrium Health Floyd president. “Rural communities often face barriers to health care, such as transportation, time constraints and lack of nearby facilities. This mobile unit removes those barriers by bringing care directly to where women live and work.”
Stuenkel said the number of those who sought mammograms on the new unit is impactful because without mobile mammography those cancer cases would have gone undiagnosed.
“Nine cancer cases may not sound tremendous, but it is to those families,” he added.
Inside the rolling mammography coaches, specially trained technologists perform mammograms with the same clinical quality and attention to detail that a patient receives from The Breast Center. The vehicles include a small, comfortable waiting area and state-of-the-art digital mammography equipment.
The units also offer 3D mammography, which provides better images in dense breast tissue.
To schedule a mammogram, call The Breast Center at 706-509-6840 or schedule an appointment through MyAtriumHealth.