Photo | Courtesy of Shields Health
Shields Health President Peter Ferrari with Shields Health and GE team members.
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UMass Memorial, Shields working on $12M upgrade to Worcester outpatient center
Photo | Courtesy of Shields Health
Crews worked to move a 13,000-pound MRI magnet into the Shields MRI at UMass Memorial building at 214 Shrewsbury St early Thursday morning.
Quincy-based Shields Health and Worcester’s UMass Memorial Health are working to upgrade their outpatient center on Worcester’s Shrewsbury Street, a 24-hour facility where more than 25,000 patients a year receive scans, which are critical in diagnosing cancer and other diseases.
Crews were working Thursday morning to move a 13,000-pound, three-tesla GE 3T SIGNATM Hero MRI into the Shields MRI at UMass Memorial building at 214 Shrewsbury St., part of a $12-million overhaul of a relatively small facility playing an oversized role in the Central Massachusetts health landscape, according to Shields Health President Peter Ferrari.
“It is the busiest imaging center in all of Central Massachusetts,” Ferrari said. “This facility is great; patients know it. It's right on Shrewsbury Street, so it’s highly accessible. But we also recognized we needed and wanted to make some investments. So that brings us to today, which is a full revamp of the center. It will be great in terms of patient experience.”
The new MRI machine will expand capacity and enhance imaging quality, according to a Wednesday press release from the two firms. The upgrades will reduce scan times by 17% for breast MRI and up to 50% for prostate MRI.
AI-driven software will enable up to 20% more patients to be scanned, easing backlogs while allowing patients to avoid a trip to facilities in Boston. The new machine uses 67% less helium, reducing environmental impact. The machine’s feet-first imaging abilities will add to patient comfort by reducing claustrophobia and allow for more precise scans.
The two firms are working to add a Positron Emission Tomography CT scanner to the facility. Previously, patients at the center had to utilize a mobile PET CT scanner, which would visit the site. This machine is key in helping determine whether patients are eligible for newly-discovered drugs to help treat Alzheimer's disease, according to Ferrari.
The new 3-tesla MRI system is expected to come online in October, with the PET CT scanner expected to be operational by December. A new 1.5-tesla MRI system will be installed in the spring of 2026. A tesla is a unit of measurement of a magnet’s strength.
Combined, all the upgrades will lead to higher-quality images. New equipment will make it easier to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases and cardiac issues, expanding the capabilities of the site, according to the organizations.
Photo | Courtesy of UMass Memorial Health
Dr. Max Paul Rosen, UMass Memorial chair in radiology
“The size of the project and the technology that we're putting into the Shrewsbury Street facility underscores the long-term commitment of both UMass Memorial and Shields to the area, in making sure that patients have access to not only the state of the art technology, but also subspecialty radiologists to interpret the images,” said Dr. Max Paul Rosen, UMass Memorial chair in radiology.
The partnership between UMass Memorial and Shields is important amid broader difficulties facing hospitals and healthcare centers from federal cuts, Rosen said.
“The Shields organization is very good at efficiently running these centers so that we can see as many patients as possible, " he said. “Through the partnership, we've been able to invest in the state-of-the-art technology, even in the face of all of the financial constraints that academic medicine and academic health centers are facing right now.”
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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