OUTPATIENT IMAGING AFFILATES AND BJC HEALTHCARE FORM OUTPATIENT DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING JOINT VENTURE
Franklin, TN – (August 20, 2025) – Outpatient Imaging Affiliates (“OIA”), a Nashville-based leader in outpatient imaging partnerships, has formed a joint venture with BJC HealthCare, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit integrated academic health care systems. The new entity, BJC Outpatient Imaging, LLC, will expand access to convenient, high-quality outpatient diagnostic imaging services across the greater St. Louis region and southern Illinois.
BJC selected OIA as a strategic partner to advance its ambulatory growth strategy and expand retail-oriented imaging services that better meet patient and physician needs. A certificate of need has already been filed for the development of the joint venture’s first center in West County, St. Louis with additional sites already under evaluation.
“The St. Louis market is highly competitive, and patients have learned to look for convenient, retail-style access to imaging services,” said Chris Watts, Chief Strategy Officer at BJC HealthCare. “Through this joint venture with OIA, we are positioning BJC to expand strategically, enhance our outpatient imaging network, and compete effectively while staying true to our mission of exceptional patient care.”
OIA is the leading outpatient imaging partner to hospitals, health systems and academic medical centers.
“While many imaging operators have joint venture relationships, OIA is the only one whose primary business model is the joint venture model,” Creighton Cook, Vice President of Business Development explains. “With forty-three outpatient imaging center locations partnered with seventeen hospitals across thirteen states, our experience working with hospitals is unmatched.”
OIA takes a minority position in all its joint ventures, ensuring that its hospital partner will maintain operational and strategic control over the venture. All OIA’s joint ventured centers carry its partner’s brand, provide services to its partner’s patients and receive professional services provided by its partner’s affiliated radiology group.
“By all accounts, these centers are our hospital partner’s centers,” Cook continues. “But OIA has an entrepreneurial mindset that pairs our experience with our partners brand and reputation to enhance their outpatient radiology service line and better serve patients across their market.”
While the joint venture will own the centers and OIA will manage the centers on behalf of the joint venture, the professional services will be provided by the radiologists at Washington University School of Medicine.
About OIA
Outpatient Imaging Affiliates is a national owner and operator of outpatient imaging center locations, dedicated to delivering exceptional patient care and innovative solutions, and developed and managed in joint ventures with hospitals, health systems and academic medical centers. Taking a minority position in all our ventures, OIA takes full responsibility for the development, operations, marketing and revenue cycle functions of each center. OIA’s strength is in its dedication to excellence in serving the needs of patients, referring physicians, employees, and venture partners.
For more information about OIA and its joint venture partnerships, please visit www.oiarad.com or email bd@oiarad.com.