Optimal Readings
History

Company History

Optimal Readings was founded by a team of healthcare professionals including CEO Craig Parker and prominent radiologist Neal Templeton, a former president and chairman of the American College of Radiology. Optimal’s founding team, with more than 100 years of experience in healthcare and technology, saw clearly the needs of smaller hospitals with no full-time radiologist living in the community. These hospitals are often at a disadvantage in terms of providing care to local residents. This problem is projected to get worse as the use of medical imaging grows. The Radiological Society of North America predicts that imaging volume will grow three times faster than the available pool of radiologists over the next five to ten years.

Couple this trend with the increasing movement toward specialization, and the supply of radiologists seems to grow even more limited. The new increasing sophistication of imaging techniques, including for CT and MRI scans, is making it increasingly difficult for radiologists to stay expert in all modalities. Optimal’s management team has developed a business model that effectively leverages technology to help elevate the standard of care in underserved communities and in larger hospitals that want to optimize and extend their existing radiology capacity without adding staff and infrastructure.

Optimal’s management team has partnered with a select group of healthcare investors to help grow Optimal and expand its customer footprint. Optimal’s institutional investors include Health Enterprise Partners (HEP), a prominent NY venture fund whose principals include some of the best healthcare investors in the country. HEP has relationships with leading academic and community healthcare centers, healthcare payers, medical device and equipment companies, information technology companies and providers of outsourcing solutions to the healthcare industry. Other institutional investors include Harbert Venture Partners, Eastside Partners, Jemison Investment Company and Sante Ventures.